Not so sure. Reading the piece you’ve posted makes me think they didn’t leave any room for the possibility that the “Lobby’s” belief is that whatever is good for Israel, as they judge it, must be good for the United States. They could not have proof of what is in the hearts of the various individuals who are active in “the Lobby”, so this is polemical. This same carelessness does creep into their work in parts- notably through “slippage” from discussion of “the Lobby” as varying to homogenous- and is not flattering of it (in this example the carelessness does not imply what they say is wrong, but that it is gratuitous and relatedly, has the potential to be wrong).

As to the authors’ position, it is counterproductive but I have to say, I am somewhat sympathetic. Sympathetic because I have grown tired of the epidemic of cognitive dissonance in this country that has people believing whatever is in their best interest is in everyone’s no matter how little basis there is to believe that. Tax cuts that blow up the deficit and go mostly to the top quintile of the top 1%? Good for everyone! I have grown tired of the Skillings and Lays of this world masquerading their perfunctory prosthetic legitimations. And I believe that the Israeli lobby’s prosthetic legitimations are as perfunctory as any’s.

Having considered the locus of the problem however, I realize that this paper’s emphasis is misleading. It really wasn’t until after I had thought about it for a while that I realized that nearly all the critiques of Mearsheimer and Walt pick up on this issue of emphasis. In particular, it would appear in reading their work that the “Lobby” is solely responsible for the policies that they consider so reprehensible. But wait a second here- do our elected officials have no responsibility to act in the good of the country- to maintain fidelity to the Constitution? Yes, I’m certain I’ve read that somewhere. And what about our citizenry? Isn’t it their responsibility to hold the elected officials to account- to concern themselves with American actions abroad and to take an interest- to inform themselves? Sounds somewhat reasonable to me. And given that both of these rather important groups seem to have taken a flier on their responsibilities to God, country or whatever values they purport to have, is it really sensible to single out the special interest groups for blame? Especially in light of the epidemic of cognitive dissonance that’s going around? I would have to agree that it is not. That this particular item is the most damning short cut in a body of work that incorporates a number of short cuts.

The problem is not just the influence of the Israeli lobby. The problem is special interest influence which has gotten totally out of control. I missed it at first, (apropos), but this paper is missing the forest for the trees.

This is nothing more than assertion on your part, and I have to say that you and Dan both have been pretty vague about your specific objections to M&W’s actual policy-related arguments.

You, for example, have not troubled to directly address yourself to any of the specific actual points they make about instances of the Lobby’s pressure helping to foreclose specific windows of opportunity in the Israeli-Palestinian relationship—seeking instead to divert discussion to other policies which they don’t discuss or make any claims about.

Dan similarly has been content to allege that M&W’s points are “weakly-argued” but has spent most of his time flailing against discussion of “motive” (a point with at least a certain amount of point-of-order merit, though at times his claims on M&W’s behalf have been inaccurate and his attempts to counter-claim the supposedly superior rhetorical virtues of Israel’s supporters laughable), and “method” (which is apparently supposed to be equally verboten, for reasons he hasn’t made clear, at least to me).

Of course, I don’t expect either of you to go point-by-point through the fairly long article in a comments thread. But it would have been nice to see someone tackle at least a couple of their actual, substantive claims about policy straight ahead, instead of being content with sweeping claims about their claims or quibbling with this or that instance of wording in the hopes of indicting the article more generally.

My point should have read:
If it is anti-semitic to ever observe that wealthy Jews support Israeli interests over those of the US, THen you are stating that it is anti-semitic to make a potentially truthful statement. Which I think is a very dangerous path to go down.

For chrisake, the congress advocates moving the US embassy to Jerusalem because (in part), the congress says, it was the capital of the ancient Hebrew state for 3000 years. Wtf? Have they all lost their minds? Are they going to legislate an independent Cherokee State in South Carolina next?

When a group of people starts acting seemingly irrational and hysterical, you look for an explanation. What’s your explanation?

The problem is that their argument about political tactics draws its conclusions in a circle.

It boils down to American policy in the Middle East ought to be ‘X’. They don’t define ‘X’ very well and even less do they justify why the policy ought to be ‘X’. They then assume that just because it ought to be ‘X’ (unproven but whatever) that the democratic process would naturally lead to ‘X’ if there weren’t meddling. That should be rather controversial in itself. Everyone who knows anything about politics knows that even if you correctly identify a better state, getting to it from the present state can be tricky.

Skipping over all that, they say that whatever ‘X’ is The Lobby absolutely definitely isn’t for anything like ‘X’. Therefore (smoke and hand-waving) the fact that the US policy is not ‘X’ must be because The Lobby is so powerful.

They fail to adequately explain what ‘X’ is, and they further fail to prove that:

‘X’ would be the ideal (or extremely good) policy.

‘X’ is the natural policy of the United States.

The United states doesn’t select ‘X’ because of some wrong-headed interest group.

The Lobby is that interest group.

Speaking of lame arguments: comparing the general content of AIPAC’s website to the contents of a paper specifically about political tactics as if it proves something? Come on, now. You’re better than that.

AIPAC and other supporters of Israel “hardly dwells on such accusations”? Ummm, yeah. I’d be hard-pressed to count the number of accusations of anti-Semitism I’ve seen issue forth—often on no sounder basis than the occurrence of criticism of Israel in one or another context—from AIPAC and other organizations, including concentrated efforts to promote highly dubious memes like “the rising anti-Semitism of the left.” You’re reaching, dude.

To deduce, no—to argue for that deduction, of course.

This smacks of hairsplitting to me, but I’m too tired to keep arguing the point.

Mearsheimer and Walt should have concentrated on the real issue—America’s optimal policy towards the Middle East.

While carefully avoiding discussion of how that policy is crafted? Even given that your “motive” critique of them was on-point (and I’m not convinced), this would be a thoroughly absurd delineation of “the real issue.”

I certainly don’t know that AIPAC has never wielded an ad hominem argument, and in case I haven’t made it clear already, I don’t see any justification for accusing Walt and Mearsheimer of anti-Semitism. But AIPAC and other supporters of Israel hardly dwell on such accusations against their opponents (have a look at their website if you don’t believe me). Rather, they focus on arguing the issues. In contrast, Mearsheimer and Walt spend, by my estimation, only about a quarter of their paper actually discussing the issue of American policy towards Israel. The rest is devoted to criticizing the methods—and worse, the motives—of those who disagree with them.

Are you saying that strictly speaking, it is always ad hominem to deduce someone’s level of commitment to a cause, or to open debate, from their actions?

To deduce, no—to argue for that deduction, of course. If I explain my motives for my actions, you are free to criticize either my actions or my professed motives. But if you can’t make the case against either of these without imputing some speculative alternative set of motives to me, then you have no case.

If I started denouncing you as an anti-Arab racist on this thread for trying to argue against Mearsheimer and Walt, would it be ad hominem for you to conclude that I don’t want an open debate?

I can conclude whatever I like about you, but “you don’t want an open debate” is an incredibly lame argument against—well, against pretty much anything. My inferences regarding your desires for open or closed debate would be entirely irrelevant to both my complaints about Mearsheimer and Walt and your charge against me. Invoking them would effectively be a plea for sympathy from onlookers—”trust my intuition about his feelings, not his explanation of them!”.

Obviously the authors allude to events and actions they don’t have space to go into in detail; you seem over-eager to try to read hints of anti-Semitism into this.

On the contrary—I have absolutely no idea why Mearsheimer and Walt are obsessed with the alleged motivations of those who advocate American support for Israel. I might be tempted to believe that they’re motivated by lack of a solid non-ad hominem case for their position. But in truth, if I had to guess, I’d guess that they actually believe that their position is rock-solid.

But it really doesn’t matter what motivates them. Likewise, their rantings about the methods and (especially) the motives of “the Lobby” are simply beside the point. Mearsheimer and Walt should have concentrated on the real issue—America’s optimal policy towards the Middle East. Of course, had they done so, their paper would have been much shorter and less controversial—although, I believe, just as transparently weak and ill-argued. The inflammatory accusations against “the Lobby” merely add sensationalism and bad-faith ad hominem argument to the list of the paper’s flaws.

Are you saying that strictly speaking, it is always ad hominem to deduce someone’s level of commitment to a cause, or to open debate, from their actions? If I started denouncing you as an anti-Arab racist on this thread for trying to argue against Mearsheimer and Walt, would it be ad hominem for you to conclude that I don’t want an open debate?

At this point, you seem to mostly be damning the paper for not being a dissertation. Obviously the authors allude to events and actions they don’t have space to go into in detail; you seem over-eager to try to read hints of anti-Semitism into this. Which, given your understandable passion on the question of ad hominem, seems silly.

Hmm…perhaps you didn’t get to the part of the paper where they labeled AIPAC “a de facto agent for a foreign government”, and WINEP’s supporters and leaders as “individuals deeply committed to advancing Israel’s agenda”. Or the bits about various neo-conservatives being “deeply committed to Israel”, or referring to their “devotion to Israel”. Or where they claimed that “the Lobby doesn’t want an open debate”, and that its “goal is to prevent critical comments from getting a fair hearing in the political arena.”

Or how about this paragraph:

It is not surprising that Israel and its American supporters want the US to deal with any and all threats to Israel’s security. If their efforts to shape US policy succeed, Israel’s enemies will be weakened or overthrown, Israel will get a free hand with the Palestinians, and the US will do most of the fighting, dying, rebuilding and paying. But even if the US fails to transform the Middle East and finds itself in conflict with an increasingly radicalised Arab and Islamic world, Israel will end up protected by the world’s only superpower. This is not a perfect outcome from the Lobby’s point of view, but it is obviously preferable to Washington distancing itself, or using its leverage to force Israel to make peace with the Palestinians.

Do you still wish to claim that Mearsheimer and Walt don’t impugn the “Lobby’s” motives?

And speaking of ad hominem:

140: Yes, if you’re not sure of his point, it must necessarily follow that he thinks Israel alone of all nations lacks the right to defend itself. Bravo!

Not sure of your point here, but is it not true that Hussein attacked Israel with rockets?

Does nothing short of an invasion by ground troops count as an attack? Does Israel alone, among all nations, lack the right to retaliate against attackers?

To be on a sounder footing, the point would have to be worded “if some people—knowingly or not—place a higher priority on Israeli interests than is arguably consonant with the strategic interests or moral values of the US, and it is anti-semitic to point this out, then it is anti-semitic to make a truthful statement.” I’d be perfectly comfortable with this, and moreover it’s “motive” in this sense that I understand M&W to be talking about on a more thorough reading of them. I should have been clear about that.

(As for the context of the specific quotes, any sloppiness in attribution and/or implication about context is mine, not M&W’s.)

Except that, as I said, skepticism about the veracity of the claim doesn’t require the belief in its being disingenuous. The example of the AARP rather clearly illustrates what I mean- did you read it?

“This is, to be blunt, a stupid argument. If it had any validity, then we could infer that Mearsheimer and Walt’s thesis was completely incorrect, merely from the fact that they felt the need to publish a paper about it. Why on earth, after all, would they need to argue on behalf of a point that they consider obviously correct?”

Then you have a different view of Mearsheimer and Walt’s thesis than I have. My view of their thesis was that 1) the Israel lobby exerts definitive influence over US policy where Israel is concerned and 2) that the influence leads to policies that are not helpful to the US and hence that these policies are not in the strategic interest of the country. They also say that it is their belief that the policies advocated by various Israeli lobby organizations in the US are not helpful to Israel, (of which a good case could be made), but that is a tangential point (of which there are many- some more credible than others).

In any case, if I’m right than you may have to actually consider points 1 and 2 rather than accusing them of saying things that they haven’t.

Be as skeptical as you like….to yourself. Once you openly “accuse them of being disingenuous”—as Mearsheimer and Walt do—you’re simply arguing ad hominem.

This is the nature of special interests….Otherwise, as the authors point out, there would be no need for them.

This is, to be blunt, a stupid argument. If it had any validity, then we could infer that Mearsheimer and Walt’s thesis was completely incorrect, merely from the fact that they felt the need to publish a paper about it. Why on earth, after all, would they need to argue on behalf of a point that they consider obviously correct? It must be fatally flawed, or they would feel no need to attempt to persuade anyone of it.

AIPAC and Mearsheimer and Walt sharply disagree about what’s good for America. The difference is that AIPAC sticks to to making its arguments, whereas Mearsheimer and Walt stoop to ad hominem imputations of malignant motives.

So no, the authors have not come close to, “impugning without any evidence the loyalty of thousands of Americans”

In fact, that’s precisely what they’ve done.

a claim surely to be followed closely with allegations of anti-Semitism.

Not by me, certainly. I have no clue why Mearsheimer and Walt embrace the thesis they do, and frankly I don’t much care. I think it’s ludicrous, but I’m content to argue on behalf of my opinion, and against theirs, without impugning their motives.

I only wish they—and their supporters here—were willing to offer their opponents the same basic courtesy.