Mearsheimer, Walt, and "cold feet"
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt appear at Princeton University tonight, to promote their book The Israel Lobby. I've held back while other critics have had their say, and many of them have done a splendid job. But I don't think anyone has understood the neat sleight of hand the authors performed in moving from article to book. The innovation in The Israel Lobby is their "cold feet" thesis about the Israeli genesis of the Iraq war.
But first, remember why pinning the Iraq war on the "Israel lobby" is so important to Mearsheimer and Walt. Their main argument isn't that the Palestinians are paying a terrible price for that support. In most quarters, that draws a simple shrug. Instead, the duo claim that Americans are paying the price for US support for Israel. They paid it on 9/11, and they're paying it now in Iraq. The killers of 9/11 set out on their mission because of their rage against unconditional US backing for Israel; and the pro-Israel lobby got America into the Iraq war because it served Israel's interests, not America's. America is bleeding so that Israel can avoid doing what it should have done years ago: give the Palestinians their state. And it's because Americans are dying that Israel shouldn't be indulged anymore.
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About this blog Inside the Middle East
Shalem Center's Adelson Institute for Strategic Studies' scholar of Islam and the Arab world Martin Kramer on this turbulent region.
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