Among the (many) things that John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt get wrong in their controversial book, “The Israel Lobby,” is their characterization of the American Jewish community. According to their understanding, there’s a substantial contrast between the policies “the lobby” espouses and the more dovish views of the community at large. For the most part, as they see it, the lobby opposes a two-state solution to the chronic conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, while most American Jews very much favor such a solution. To make that case, they examine and contrast the statements of leading elements of the lobby and the results of many public opinion surveys of American Jews.
It’s worth noting that their definition of the lobby shifts during the course of their analysis. Mostly, they mean the lobby to refer to those activists who argue for unconditional American support for Israel. But now and then, when their polemic requires it, they mean only those within the lobby who oppose a two-state solution (which they themselves, by the way, endorse). That definitional muddle is made necessary by their insistence that such organizations as Americans for Peace Now, which they include as part of the lobby — even Americans for Peace Now — have always favored a two-state solution but have at the same time opposed linkage of American support to Israeli policy.
What Mearsheimer and Walt miss entirely — and who can blame them? — is the very substantial psychic dissonance with which very many Jews live. On the one hand, the bulk of America’s Jews do indeed hold relatively dovish views. They are uncomfortable with the expansion of Jewish settlement in the West Bank, they favor a two-state solution and they are now and then troubled by some of the specific ways (e.g., targeted assassination) that Israel employs in its effort to enhance its security. At the same time, they cling tightly to any plausible rationalization put forward by the Israeli government or “the lobby” that can explain away Israel’s mistakes, excesses, blunders. And most of all they do not want their private doubts mirrored in the halls of Congress, the conference rooms of the State Department, and the Oval Office itself. So they gleefully accept that Israel “has no partner for peace,” or that “Jerusalem is the eternal and undivided capital of the Jewish state,” or that the death of Palestinians or Lebanese innocents during wartime is the fault of those who do not hesitate to use civilians as “human shields” to protect their fighters.
Once, years ago, I was the third of three keynote speakers at a Jewish meeting. Those who attended the meeting were treated, on the first day, to an eloquent presentation by Abba Eban, among Israel’s most durable and persistent doves. On the second day, the principal speaker was Bibi Netanyahu, ever the hawk. My own talk was not until the third day, and when I arrived it was natural for me to ask the organizers of the event with whom the audience had seemed to agree, Eban or Netanyahu. The reply? Ninety percent of the audience agreed 100% with both.
That curious endorsement of opposites is less a consequence of a muddled understanding than it is of a fervent — and sometimes even desperate — wish to think well, very well, of Israel. So much hope and prayer and blood, too, have gone into the rebirth of the Jewish home that American Jews want to protect Israel not only in the public square but also inside their own heads and hearts. And most surely, when their hearts ache or their heads hurt from all the turmoil, and in particular from the dispiriting recognition that Israel is imperfect, they will both try to find ways to restore their own confidence in the Jewish state, in its wisdom, in its fundamentally pacific intentions, in its exceptionalism — and will assault anyone “out there” who dares to voice the very same criticisms they themselves secretly nurture.
Needless to say, doing conventional survey research on Jewish attitudes is therefore a hazardous undertaking. The assumed linkage between attitude and behavior, the correspondence between private perspective and political preference, is simply absent.
That is why Jews who may wish Israel would behave differently in one regard or another are perfectly satisfied that organizations such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee seek to punish any government official whose sin is not in what he or she thinks of Israel’s behavior, but in what he or she says out loud. Even when what gets said out loud is no different from what Jews have felt, what they have even perhaps whispered to one another, there’s no room for it. Pillow talk is one thing; public criticism is seen as giving aid and comfort to Israel’s enemies.
And that is why, with varying degrees of discomfort, many Jews welcome the fervent endorsement of Israel’s most right-wing elements by some members of Congress (Dick Armey, Sam Brownback) and by Christian Zionists.
All this inevitably inhibits American policy. Yeats was both right and wrong: As he wrote, “things fall apart, the center cannot hold.” But then he added, “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
Our best do not by any means lack conviction. But their readiness to give voice to their conviction is tempered by their fear. The worst know no such inhibition. And so their voice becomes the voice that’s heard.
It is a mistake to assert that as a people, we suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Our stress disorder is by no means after the trauma. For us, yesterday’s trauma still overwhelms and tomorrow’s trauma is imminent. And whoever does not take all that into account is bound to get it wrong — as Mearsheimer and Walt have.
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I went to hear Walt and Merarsheimer in Westwood Califoria a few weeks ago. The only thing Missing from the event was Wagner playing and the salute to their leader. It was depressing, and so smooth, that a fool could fall for their rhetoric.
One of the most worrisome aspects of the situation that Mr. Fein depicts (very accurately in my view) is the manner in which "many Jews welcome the fervent endorsement of Israel’s most right-wing elements by ... Christian Zionists." The embarrassing consequences that ultimately flow from such an attitude are illustrated in the vicious debate that has broken out over the involvement of Evangelical Christians in setting the agenda of a six-million-dollar exhibit of the Dead Sea Scrolls taking place in a "Natural History Museum" in San Diego -- see http://www.nowpublic.com/node/662653.
<p>Too bad for the Palestinian children they're not just getting hit with talking pillows. I'm sure Germans once had their pillow talk too about their government's policies. So what's the average USA taxpayer or soldier suppose to make of this article? Especially since, while saying there's no suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, it goes on to describe just such a thing. Perhaps our Congress too should go see a shrink?</p>
The true "psychic dissonance" that so many miss (or are too polite to talk about) is that most American Jews would run a mile, towards the Pacific, rather than make aliyah. They'll give Israel a little money and vote for the Liebermans and Giulianis, but, like, LIVE there? Send our kids there? Just pray that those weird settler relatives you hoped you'd seen the last of don't have to come scuttling back to the USA and billet themselves on you! The central purpose of Israel, an ingathering of the Diaspora, has failed. Almost two thirds iof the world's Jews would rather stay away, for all the moral blackmail and monetary bribes. They've decided, finito, fahrtig. Therefore Israel is a failing state, and all the blather in the world about democracy, technology, blossoming deserts, lights to lighten the gentiles etc won't cut it. Jews can get that plenty of places elsewhere. For younger ones outside the Judenstaat it is becoming an irrelevance and an embarrassment, if they give it a thought- and given its behavior since 1967, they generally prefer not to. The shrillings of the Lobby are best understood as efforts to drown out such doubts, to terrorise Jews into thinking of Israel as a continuing option- a bolthole when those indefinitely deferred pogroms resume. But Jews keep getting charitable solicitations telling them that many Jewish Israeli kids and elders are growing up in poverty while the nuclear arsenal and Arab birth rate pile up. Avigdor Lieberman talks of ethnic cleansing and Orthodox rabbis uphold what looks all too much like the racism we are taught to shun in America. The financial and sexual scandals proliferate. Foxman, Dershowitz & Co become ever more of a mortification. For all the GDP stats, the Zionist project begins to seem decadent and futile, looking 15-30 years ahead. Modern Jewish identity is no longer bound up with the quasi-colony a handful of late nineteeth century bourgeois agnostics and atheists plotted to carve out of Palestine, laughing up their sleeves as they assured the religious that they were carrying out G-d's orders. Founded in bad faith, Israel is slowly toppling over in the backlash that among Jews takes its most corrosive and intractable form: apathy. All the noise the Lobby can generate won't put that chimera together again. Should have listened to NK, guys.
I would suggest that the response Leonard Fein describes, quite accurately in my opinion, is due in no small part to the way that the non-Jewish world continues to react toward the behavior of Jews and Israel. The language used to describe the worst of Israel's sins invokes the same existential fears that have long been a hallmark of our people. For when the United States or Russia act poorly, they are seen as being led off in the wrong direction by bad government. When Israel acts poorly, it is a reflection on the actual idea of a Jewish democratic state. No one questions whether the existence of the United States is legitimate or if the concepts that our founding was based on were racist or not (even if the most critical reading of our history would almost certainly come to that conclusion). And yet, even today, Zionism is held up for ridicule, derision or worse, even while Palestinian nationalism is trumpetted. So, there is a disconnect between what American Jews believe and feel and how they react to criticisms of Israel mainly because those who do the "criticizing" tend to allow their inner Jew haters out when they talk of Israel. No, not all critics of Israeli policy are anti-semites; most aren't. However, when the term Zionist gets thrown around and associated with the worst of humanity, when people speak of "disproportionate Jewish power" in the US government and when former US presidents use the rhetoric of the typical hotheaded agitator, it's hard not to become defensive and react. Those seeking rational responses from American Jews should equally look to those who seek change and see if they are being rational themselves. I'd argue that they are most certainly not in many cases.
I would suggest that the response Leonard Fein describes, quite accurately in my opinion, is due in no small part to the way that the non-Jewish world continues to react toward the behavior of Jews and Israel. The language used to describe the worst of Israel's sins invokes the same existential fears that have long been a hallmark of our people. For when the United States or Russia act poorly, they are seen as being led off in the wrong direction by bad government. When Israel acts poorly, it is a reflection on the actual idea of a Jewish democratic state. No one questions whether the existence of the United States is legitimate or if the concepts that our founding was based on were racist or not (even if the most critical reading of our history would almost certainly come to that conclusion). And yet, even today, Zionism is held up for ridicule, derision or worse, even while Palestinian nationalism is trumpetted. So, there is a disconnect between what American Jews believe and feel and how they react to criticisms of Israel mainly because those who do the "criticizing" tend to allow their inner Jew haters out when they talk of Israel. No, not all critics of Israeli policy are anti-semites; most aren't. However, when the term Zionist gets thrown around and associated with the worst of humanity, when people speak of "disproportionate Jewish power" in the US government and when former US presidents use the rhetoric of the typical hotheaded agitator, it's hard not to become defensive and react. Those seeking rational responses from American Jews should equally look to those who seek change and see if they are being rational themselves. I'd argue that they are most certainly not in many cases.
I would suggest that the response Leonard Fein describes, quite accurately in my opinion, is due in no small part to the way that the non-Jewish world continues to react toward the behavior of Jews and Israel. The language used to describe the worst of Israel's sins invokes the same existential fears that have long been a hallmark of our people. For when the United States or Russia act poorly, they are seen as being led off in the wrong direction by bad government. When Israel acts poorly, it is a reflection on the actual idea of a Jewish democratic state. No one questions whether the existence of the United States is legitimate or if the concepts that our founding was based on were racist or not (even if the most critical reading of our history would almost certainly come to that conclusion). And yet, even today, Zionism is held up for ridicule, derision or worse, even while Palestinian nationalism is trumpetted. So, there is a disconnect between what American Jews believe and feel and how they react to criticisms of Israel mainly because those who do the "criticizing" tend to allow their inner Jew haters out when they talk of Israel. No, not all critics of Israeli policy are anti-semites; most aren't. However, when the term Zionist gets thrown around and associated with the worst of humanity, when people speak of "disproportionate Jewish power" in the US government and when former US presidents use the rhetoric of the typical hotheaded agitator, it's hard not to become defensive and react. Those seeking rational responses from American Jews should equally look to those who seek change and see if they are being rational themselves. I'd argue that they are most certainly not in many cases.
Manasseh, peace and good will are ideals. In Israel's present circumstances, ideals don't work. Is it against the Jewish tradition of social justice to acknowledge this? No, it's not. Jews throughout history have stood up against injustice but have also stood up and defended themselves when necessary. The problem with the rhetoric used against Israel is that it generally assumes that Israel could simply flick a switch and turn off the wrong actions done by the Palestinians. That the entirety of the power is vested in Israel. This is as false as assuming Israel is a victim nation with no power. Neither is reality and neither attitude will allow for anything close to peace to emerge. Criticism of Israeli policy is absolutely necessary for those who seek a just solution to the Palestinians issue. However, the quality of said criticism and the level of expected restraint/ability on Israel's part to help bring about said solution must match reality. And in many cases, it doesn't.
Reading Mr. Fein´s article I couldn’t help but feel very angry. Again we try to justify what we know is wrong. Jews did not suffer for centuries to make their truly traumatic past to cause and justify the also traumatic present that the Palestinians and Lebanese are subjected to by a few Politically oriented Jews. We should once for all tell the ruling class in Israel and its Generals that the only truly grass root Jewish attitude, is peace and good will to all humanity no matter what the cost is. That is what HE has always taught us in all religions. To try to explain how right the Jews are in any way they act or feel does not justify cruelty the world knows has been going on in the last 40 years in Palestine. How will the future generations cope with this brutality. Can we explain it as vital for the security of Israel or that no partner for peace was found, or that Palestinians did not exist, or that Etc. the usual half truths the people we follow have built Israel’s legitimacy on?
to Nilsson and others from Pat Boone: As you read these words, I'm in Israel. My wife, sister, brother and his wife, two of our granddaughters, a host of friends and their friends - all 38 of us have literally walked into the pages of the Bible. This is perhaps my 12th trip (I've lost count), but the impact, the emotional and spiritual shivers I always experience, have never lessened. It's one thing to read the whole Bible cover to cover, as I do every year, but actually to walk around on the very sites of the events described so accurately in that book is truly soul shaking. I've written here before about the innumerable contributions Israelis have made to the world, in virtually every category - literature, chemistry, medicine, physics, economics, every science and technology, Internet and communication, and efforts for world peace. The list of achievements and astounding contributions is endless. Every day, virtually every person in the civilized world benefits from these contributions, in areas relating to food, medicine, overall health, knowledge, security, great literature (including of course the Bible) and music - almost everything that we think of as "quality of life." And the pace has greatly quickened in the last several decades. Consider: Israel is the 100th-smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the world's population - but its $100 billion economy is larger than all of its immediate neighbors combined. It also has the fourth-largest air force in the world (after the US, Russia and China), with over 250 F-16s and very powerful weapons - to defend itself against the announced and very serious threats of some of those same neighbors. Out of its own necessity, but also to help all peaceful societies, Israel designed the airline industry's most impenetrable flight security. US officials now look to Israel for advice and technology in handling airborne security threats. Fly anywhere safely lately? Thank Israel. (My family and I do that every day, sometimes every hour, here in Israel.) Look further: Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to its population in the world; she produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin - 109 per 1,000 people - as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed. With more than 3,000 high tech companies and startups, Israel has the highest concentration of high-tech companies in the world - apart from the Silicon Valley. How does this matter to you and me, and every other citizen in the world of the 21st century? Most of Windows NT and XP operating systems were developed by Microsoft-Israel. The Pentium MMX chip technology was designed in Israel at Intel, and both the Pentium-4 microprocessor and the Centrino processor were entirely designed, developed, and produced in Israel. Voice-mail technology and AOL's Instant Messenger were developed by young Israelis. Medical technologies, diagnostics, pharmaceuticals and treatments that offer healing in almost every area of disease and disability are just too many to list here. But let's note that when Stephen Hawking, generally considered to be the most brilliant thinker on the planet, visited Israel recently, he shared his deep musings with scientists, students and even the prime minister. But the world's most renowned victim of ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease, also learned something: Due to the Israeli ALS Association's advanced work in both embryonic and adult stem cell research, as well as its proven track record with neuro-degenerative diseases, the Israeli research community is well on its way to finding a treatment for this fatal disease affecting 30,000 Americans and tens of thousands worldwide! Israel's Given-Imaging has developed the first ingestible video camera, so small it fits inside a pill; it's used to view the small intestine from the inside, to detect cancer and digestive disorders. And other Israeli researchers have developed a new device that directly helps the heart pump blood - an innovation with the potential to save lives among those with heart failure. There's also a revolutionary new acne treatment, the Clear Light device, that causes acne bacteria to self-destruct - without damaging surrounding skin or tissue. An Israeli company was the first to develop and install a large-scale, fully functional solar electricity generating plant, in southern California's Mojave Desert. What does that portend for an energy-guzzling, oil-stained world? Truly, the accomplishments - too numerous and complex to list here - are staggering; I've only scratched the surface, and I've already noted the pace is accelerating exponentially. Israel is just getting started. Proportionately, no other country in the world can match her creativity and her massive contributions to the world's standard of living - not even the United States. In this game we play on earth, called life, though many players have contributed great things, the MVP - the Most Valuable Player - has been clearly revealed. It is Israel.
Really appreciate & agree with the points both Leonard Fein and Michael Levy have made. What I wish more folks would point out, though, is that if anything, Israeli policy is controlled just as much by American demands, if not more so. I guess Walt & Mearsheimer never read the story that was widely publicized in this paper a year ago -- about the arms deal that almost went through between Israel and China, until the U.S. got wind of it and immediately put the kibosh on it. Which, it's worth noting, they were only able to do because Israel and the US ARE ALLIES. Do M&W seriously believe the Palestinians would benefit from the U.S. cuttting off ties with Israel? Please. Israel is a country like any other, and will do business with anyone to ensure its survival. If the U.S. were to withdraw its support, an equally opportunistic country like China would be more than happy to step in and fill the void. And as bad and immoral as the Occupation is now, imagine it with the endorsement of the Chinese government! I can just see it now: "What? You call this an occupation? Hahahaha! Come, let's visit Tibet -- we'll show you what a REAL occupation looks like... hey, what's that Jewish peace group doing protesting in Tianmen Square? Send in the tanks..."