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   From: o@o.org   
      
         The Israel Lobby?   
      
         Noam Chomsky   
      
          March 28, 2006   
      
         I've received many requests to comment on the article by John   
   Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (henceforth M-W), published in the London   
   Review of Books, which has been circulating extensively on the internet and   
   has elicited a storm of controversy. A few thoughts on the matter follow.   
      
         It was, as noted, published in the London Review of Books, which is   
   far more open to discussion on these issues than US journals -- a matter of   
   relevance (to which I'll return) to the alleged influence of what M-W call   
   "the Lobby." An article in the Jewish journal Forward quotes M as saying   
   that the article was commissioned by a US journal, but rejected, and that   
   "the pro-Israel lobby is so powerful that he and co-author Stephen Walt   
   would never have been able to place their report in a American-based   
   scientific publication." But despite the fact that it appeared in England,   
   the M-W article aroused the anticipated hysterical reaction from the usual   
   supporters of state violence here, from the Wall St Journal to Alan   
   Dershowitz, sometimes in ways that would instantly expose the authors to   
   ridicule if they were not lining up (as usual) with power.   
      
         M-W deserve credit for taking a position that is sure to elicit   
   tantrums and fanatical lies and denunciations, but it's worth noting that   
   there is nothing unusual about that. Take any topic that has risen to the   
   level of Holy Writ among "the herd of independent minds" (to borrow Harold   
   Rosenberg's famous description of intellectuals): for example, anything   
   having to do with the Balkan wars, which played a huge role in the   
   extraordinary campaigns of self-adulation that disfigured intellectual   
   discourse towards the end of the millennium, going well beyond even   
   historical precedents, which are ugly enough. Naturally, it is of   
   extraordinary importance to the herd to protect that self-image, much of it   
   based on deceit and fabrication. Therefore, any attempt even to bring up   
   plain (undisputed, surely relevant) facts is either ignored (M-W can't be   
   ignored), or sets off most impressive tantrums, slanders, fabrications and   
   deceit, and the other standard reactions. Very easy to demonstrate, and by   
   no means limited to these cases. Those without experience in critical   
   analysis of conventional doctrine can be very seriously misled by the   
   particular case of the Middle East(ME).   
      
         But recognizing that M-W took a courageous stand, which merits praise,   
   we still have to ask how convincing their thesis is. Not very, in my   
   opinion. I've reviewed elsewhere what the record (historical and   
   documentary) seems to me to show about the main sources of US ME policy, in   
   books and articles for the past 40 years, and can't try to repeat here. M-W   
   make as good a case as one can, I suppose, for the power of the Lobby, but I   
   don't think it provides any reason to modify what has always seemed to me a   
   more plausible interpretation. Notice incidentally that what is at stake is   
   a rather subtle matter: weighing the impact of several factors which (all   
   agree) interact in determining state policy: in particular, (A)   
   strategic-economic interests of concentrations of domestic power in the   
   tight state-corporate linkage, and (B) the Lobby.   
      
         The M-W thesis is that (B) overwhelmingly predominates. To evaluate   
   the thesis, we have to distinguish between two quite different matters,   
   which they tend to conflate: (1) the alleged failures of US ME policy; (2)   
   the role of The Lobby in bringing about these consequences. Insofar as the   
   stands of the Lobby conform to (A), the two factors are very difficult to   
   disentagle. And there is plenty of conformity.   
      
         Let's look at (1), and ask the obvious question: for whom has policy   
   been a failure for the past 60 years? The energy corporations? Hardly. They   
   have made "profits beyond the dreams of avarice" (quoting John Blair, who   
   directed the most important government inquiries into the industry, in the   
   '70s), and still do, and the ME is their leading cash cow. Has it been a   
   failure for US grand strategy based on control of what the State Department   
   described 60 years ago as the "stupendous source of strategic power" of ME   
   oil and the immense wealth from this unparalleled "material prize"? Hardly.   
   The US has substantially maintained control -- and the significant reverses,   
   such as the overthrow of the Shah, were not the result of the initiatives of   
   the Lobby. And as noted, the energy corporations prospered. Furthermore,   
   those extraordinary successes had to overcome plenty of barriers: primarily,   
   as elsewhere in the world, what internal documents call "radical   
   nationalism," meaning independent nationalism. As elsewhere in the world,   
   it's been convenient to phrase these concerns in terms of "defense against   
   the USSR," but the pretext usually collapses quickly on inquiry, in the ME   
   as elsewhere. And in fact the claim was conceded to be false, officially,   
   shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Bush's National Security   
   Strategy (1990) called for maintaining the forces aimed at the ME, where the   
   serious "threats to our interests... could not be laid at the Kremlin's   
   door" -- now lost as a pretext for pursuing about the same policies as   
   before. And the same was true pretty much throughout the world.   
      
         That at once raises another question about the M-W thesis. What were   
   "the Lobbies" that led to pursuing very similar policies throughout the   
   world? Consider the year 1958, a very critical year in world affairs. In   
   1958, the Eisenhower administration identified the three leading challenges   
   to the US as the ME, North Africa, and Indonesia -- all oil producers, all   
   Islamic. North Africa was taken care of by Algerian (formal) independence.   
   Indonesia and the were taken care of by Suharto's murderous slaughter (1965)   
   and Israel's destruction of Arab secular nationalism (Nasser, 1967). In the   
   ME, that established the close US-Israeli alliance and confirmed the   
   judgment of US intelligence in 1958 that a "logical corollary" of opposition   
   to "radical nationalism" (meaning, secular independent nationalism) is   
   "support for Israel" as the one reliable US base in the region (along with   
   Turkey, which entered into close relations with Israel in the same year).   
   Suharto's coup aroused virtual euphoria, and he remained "our kind of guy"   
   (as the Clinton administration called him) until he could no longer keep   
   control in 1998, through a hideous record that compares well with Saddam   
   Hussein -- who was also "our kind of guy" until he disobeyed orders in 1990.   
   What was the Indonesia Lobby? The Saddam Lobby? And the question generalizes   
   around the world. Unless these questions are faced, the issue (1) cannot be   
   seriously addressed.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)