Book Review On: The Isreal Lobby and US Foreign policy By John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt

 

The Israel Lobby and US Foreign policy By:

John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt

 

About Author:-

•  John J. Mearsheimer was born in America. He is the political scientist and International Relation scholar serve in University of Chicago as professor. The Mearsheimer is the follower of “Realist school of thought” inspired by   Kenneth Walt and Hens Morgenthau. He is best known for his work in developing offensive Realism
• Stephen M. Walt is the companion of Mearsheimer in writing this book. He is the professor for International Affairs at Harvard University. He is best known for his work in defensive Realism.

Publishing Date:-

This book was published in year 2006 under the penguin group of company.

Summary:-

This book is about the American support  and  interest groups, that are creating destruction in Middle East and also damage both Israel and United States and their future. In this book, authors have argued that, how the pro-Israeli lobby is shaping the policy of United States that is not in the favor of Americans rather, it supporting to Israel and helping it to get more destructive. In this book author rejected any kind of anti-Semitism rather they talked about the Israel lobby and it’s cost and benefit analysis. The author said, American support for Israel is unconditional and beyond compare. Israel is the largest recipient of Economic and military aid that 500$ per Israeli person and even though Israel is 29^th in the world by per capita income and it’s not a poor country for the aid. And Israel also gets the support of America even when US opposes like settlements on occupied territories. The Israel get consistent in diplomatic packing from the United States always takes the side of Israel in regional disputes. Israel is actually rarely criticized by any of the president in US history. Usually people says it’s because the Israel is the vital strategic assets and share the same values that US does. But, author says, if we look into the history and see the two rationales, we can’t explain why US give him so much aid and why US giving it so unconditionally?. Author says, Israel may have strategic partnership during cold war and cold war is over now and US give aid to Israel because of terrorism problems and it’s makes harder to address lots of other problems in middle east. Support for Israel is not the only source of anti-Americanism or elsewhere or the problems in middle east would not disappear. According to author, US can add up more normal relationship with Israel but giving it nearly unconditional backing is not making America more popular or safer. On balance that aid become “strategic liability”.

The other argument that author give is about is that “Israel shares democracy and American values”. He says, it is completely true. Israel is having vibrant democracy with many admiral qualities but there are lots of other states shares equally admirable qualities and democracies but none of get the level of support that Israel does plus the Israel’s Treatment with it’s Arab population sand it’s treatment with Palestinians in particular is shortly doesn’t match with Americans values. Nor, of Israeli behavior is significantly better than out of the Palestinians. So, it doesn’t explain any exemplary reason behind an unconditional economic aid.

Now, author answers, why actually US give the aid to Israel and the reason is the “lobby” working behind. Authors defines lobby as a:

“loose coalition of an individual group that influence American policy to work in pro-Israeli direction”

This  lobby includes Organizations like, APEC, conference of presidents, Christian Zionists groups, American enterprises, think tanks, media and institutions. He further says, Israel lobby is not synonymous with Jewish Americans. The lobby is defined by political agenda not by ethnicity or religion. In the US small groups with focused agendas often bear disproportionate influence because they care a lot about single issue and politicians can get their support without losing anything else by caring about their preferences

like other interest groups, the Israel lobby works in two ways: It operates inside the beltway in American elections to get sympathetic people elected the office and pointed the key position and then giving politicians a key incentives to embrace the favors like APEC does by supporting politicians on the policies the like. The APEC secures the annual budget of 50 billion$ and is very active on capital hill in drafting policy and they have influence over politicians too. Like the president of APEC Steve Rosette once grabbed a napkin and put in front of senators and said by the evening we could have signature of 77 senators on this napkin, this shows the influence of APEC over politicians. APEC is also no No2 in capital hills (According to Forbs). Bill Clinton said about APEC: “APEC has fought better than any of the else lobbying in the town”.

The second ways author defined about the influence of lobby is: Trying to shape public discourse om perception so that the Israel could use favor by the people. This mainly includes the mainstream media through which people get influence and made sympathetic statements regarding Israel and gate any critique made against him. The example of this is, Americans don’t like Kevin Elder, Maria Harris for their critique against Israel. The other example is when Jimmy Carter published his book “Palestine peace not a apartheid “the ADI camera took add  and  public on media with the phone numbers of publishers and invited the leaders to call on and protest.

So, the authors have urged that, so much unconditional support and the active lobby is shutting the common people’s mouth in speaking up against any critique against Isreal and it also marginalising the people with policies made by leaders not even that, it promoting the power remake in Middle East. This lobby is not only risking the security dilemma of Middle East but also alarming for other countries like Britain. And, it’s damaging both United States and Israel.