Jeff Jacoby has the first of a two-part essay in the Globe today, America takes side of Israel. It's the latest in the volley of response to the Walt/Mearsheimer piece. The bright side of this whole thing is that it could all become a very valuable teaching moment.
...If the truth be told, it isn't hard to understand why America's ardent support for Israel might strike some people as odd, or even suspicious. In so much of the world -- Europe, the Middle East, the UN General Assembly -- Israel is despised. Even if Americans don't share the anti-Semitism that is rife in other lands, wouldn't it be more practical for them to stop taking Israel's side? After all, there are 500 million Arabs in the world, and they control one-third of the world's oil supply. Why should Americans alienate them by continuing to support Israel, a country with no oil and just 6 million people?
As a matter of plain economic common sense, the United States has every reason to turn against the Jewish state. What accounts for its refusal to do so? If it isn't an ''Israel Lobby" pulling hidden strings, what on earth can it be?
Something more powerful than economics: the kinship of common values.
Also, Dore Gold has a short piece at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs: The Basis of the U.S.-Israel Alliance - An Israeli Response to the Mearsheimer-Walt Assault
...What led Kennedy in 1962 to declare that the U.S.-Israel relationship was even comparable to America's alliance with the British? Since the early 1950s, the U.S. defense establishment has understood Israel's potential importance to the Western Alliance. Thus, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Omar Bradley, assessed in 1952 that only Britain, Turkey, and Israel could help the U.S. with their air forces in the event of a Soviet attack in the Middle East.3 But against whatever Israel could tangibly offer the U.S., there was always a need to politically juggle America's ties with Israel and its efforts to create strategic relations with the Arab states. The first limited U.S. arms supply to Israel preceded Kennedy. During the Eisenhower years, when Secretary of State John Foster Dulles' plans for a Baghdad Pact collapsed with the 1958 overthrow of the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq, the U.S. began to upgrade its defense ties with Israel. Kennedy started his presidency trying to build on a new relationship with Egypt's Nasser. But by 1962, Nasser intervened with large forces in Yemen, bombed Saudi border towns, and threatened to expand into the oil-producing areas of the Persian Gulf...
Israel has always been a reliable fellow-traveller with the US, due to stability and "civilizational" reasons, while the Arab dictator of the week has never been a reliable ally.
From the Dore Gold link:
" Given the ultimate destination of those petrodollars in recent years (the global propagation of Islamic extremism and terrorism), a serious investigation of those lobbying efforts appears to be far more appropriate than focusing on relations between the U.S. and Israel. "
Maybe the Mearsheimer-Walt paper is really an effort to aid the Saudis?
Another red herring that focuses attention on the Jews?
If one does investigate one will find who does control the media, PR firms, and hold the purse strings for many of America's influential deal makers and teachers.
I was amazed that nobody appeared outraged when the Saudi prince used his financial clout to change Fox News headlines and even bragged about it.
It certainly went through my mind. That's the trouble when you start accusing people who are expressing their point of view as being de facto agents of a foreign government isn't it? Everyone is suspect.
" It certainly went through my mind. "
Just ask the question: Why would two apparently bona fide academics resort to creating a 'The Harvard Protocols'?
Mearsheimer signed a document before the US attack on Saddam that the Israelis would use it as an excuse to 'cleanse' the territories of Palestinians, so we can see where he is coming from.
Maybe they should have signed their paper Moonscheimer und GeWalt?