Center Field: Don't ban Mearsheimer and Walt - or blame Hebrew U for hosting them

During the 1890s, a German anti-Semitic preacher named Rector Ahlwardt visited New York. Leading New York Jews begged the police commissioner to block Ahlwardt's speeches or, at least deny this agitator police protection. "This, I told them, was impossible," the police commissioner recalled in his autobiography; "and if possible would have been undesirable because it would have made him a martyr." The commissioner realized that the best tactic was to make the bigot look "ridiculous." And so, the German preacher denounced the Jews protected by "some forty policemen, every one of them a Jew," thanks to Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt's mischievous sense of humor. Ahlwardt left New York a laughingstock. As president, Roosevelt would teach Americans to "speak softly and carry a big stick" in foreign policy; as police commissioner, Roosevelt taught to vanquish enemies with a chuckle not a hacksaw, and if forced to fight, to reach first for a stiletto not a shotgun.

Those outraged that Professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt are lecturing at Hebrew University should remember Commissioner Roosevelt's cleverness. Mearsheimer and Walt have become rich and famous by charging that "The Israel Lobby" - capital I, capital L - has hijacked American foreign policy. To quote their book, so they cannot don their usual martyrs' robes and claim misrepresentation: "Many policies pursued on Israel's behalf now jeopardize US national security... While other special interest groups ... have managed to skew US foreign policy in directions that they favored, no ethnic lobby has diverted that policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest."

Given the professors' popularity in anti-Zionist circles and their notoriety among the pro-Israel crowd, partisans have criticized Hebrew University for agreeing to host them. But the academics requested to speak there, boxing the university into a corner. Banning them would be doubly counterproductive. It would give them the kind of publicity they love, cavorting before the bash-Israel crowd as persecuted professors. It would also force the university to sacrifice academic freedom for two relatively marginal academics who are better mocked, TR-style, or refuted, than demonized and boycotted. Violating this core ideal particularly at this time would backfire, justifying the English fanatics trying to boycott Israeli academics.

Moreover, in fairness, Professors Mearsheimer and Walt are neither Rector Ahlwardt nor President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who should not have spoken at Columbia University in September 2007 because of his regime's criminal acts, not because of his offensive opinions. True, Mearsheimer and Walt have made loose, politicized claims based on sloppy, often derivative, research. And yes their demagogic distortion of the "Israel Lobby" into the modern bogeyman helps legitimize anti-Semitism. Still, both have avoided any anti-Semitic expressions, and their book endorses Israel's right to exist.

We need a war of sources not swords, we need to fight about their footnotes not their freedom. Their book should be subject to rigorous academic scrutiny. Their conclusions should be challenged thoughtfully and thoroughly. But there is no reason to ban them from Israel's campuses, although Bar Ilan University Professor Gerald Steinberg may have the right Rooseveltian response - ignore them, letting them address an empty room.

Academic freedom, like most liberties we cherish, rests on mutuality; it must be a two-way street, a neutral ideal. Academics cannot only champion freedom for the thoughts we love; it is freedom for the thoughts we hate that challenges us. When we boycott speakers, when we try to suppress criticism, we reflect a lack of faith that truth will triumph in the free marketplace of ideas. Censorship is an indulgence of the insecure, mocking the celebration of stability Israel's 60th anniversary triggered. Both Israel and the American Jewish community are strong enough to sustain criticism. There are enough nimble minds in both communities to refute academic critics.

By hosting Mearsheimer and Walt, Hebrew University can showcase one of Israel's great assets - its robust democracy. Every day Israel easily passes Natan Sharansky's test of a democracy, as critics shout down the government in public without being punished.

Hebrew University should turn whatever controversy the Thursday lecture generates into a "teachable moment." Israel's academic community should cherish academic freedom for all. Too many Israeli professors forget that academic freedom not only entails the freedom to criticize the government, but the freedom to criticize those who criticize the government too. Like their colleagues abroad, Israeli academics must ensure that all their students feel free to express a wide range of opinions, from right to left, and that one doctrine is not imposed within a particular department or classroom.

Too many academics these days impose their own orthodoxies, methodologically and politically. Such intolerance constitutes educational malpractice. If only one view is promulgated, if there is too much pressure on faculty members and students to toe one party line, the university suffers.

Partisan politics pollutes far too many academic discussions these days. When I lecture about American political history, I ask my students: can we learn to study politics, and even be passionate about studying politics, without always injecting partisan passions? Only then, if we put partisanship aside and open ourselves up to challenging our assumptions, can we start to learn.

In that spirit we should say, "Welcome Professors Walt and Mearsheimer to Israel. Note the wide range of opinions freely expressed here. And maybe, if, during your stay, you challenge yourselves and open yourselves up to the spirit of free scholarly inquiry that shields you, maybe you will rethink some of your conclusions. But whatever you learn or fail to learn in Israel, one thing should be clear: this is one Middle Eastern country where censorship does not flourish, where the free marketplace of ideas thrives for all."

Gil Troy is Professor of History at McGill University. He is the author of Why I Am a Zionist: Israel, Jewish Identity and the Challenges of Today. His next book Leading from the Center: Why Moderates Make the Best Presidents, has just been released  by Basic Books.