[3-22-06]

Two professors from Harvard University and the University of Chicago have just released an 81-page study on "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" that concludes that the "overall thrust of U.S. policy in the [Middle East] is due almost entirely to U.S. domestic politics, and especially to the activities of the 'Israel Lobby.'"

The study is currently available as a Harvard "working paper" with extensive footnotes or as a shorter version published in the  London Review of Books

The authors systematically examine the facts of the U.S.-Israel relationship, concluding that Israel is neither a strategic asset nor a "compelling moral case for sustained U.S. backing," and point a finger squarely at the Israel lobby for "[managing] to divert U.S. foreign policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. and Israeli interests are essentially identical."

The authors examine the entire scope of the Israel lobby's efforts, from its intimidation of the press, think tanks and academia into presenting a misleading image of Israel to its success at co-opting the Congress and the Executive Branch into implementing Israel's policy aims.

The paper is significant not just for its substance but also for the fact that it was published at all. The authors note in their section on the lobby's intimidation of the press: "Newspapers occasionally publish guest op-eds challenging Israeli policy, but the balance of opinion clearly favours the other side. It is hard to imagine any mainstream media outlet in the United States publishing a piece like this one."

Stephen Walt is Academic Dean and Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. His latest book is "Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy" (W. W. Norton & Co., 2005). According to his faculty website, he has previously worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and as a Guest Scholar at the Brookings Institution, in addition to consulting for the Institute of Defense Analyses, the Center for Naval Analyses, and the National Defense University. John Mearsheimer is a Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago, where he is an authority on security affairs and international politics. He graduated from West Point in 1970 and served five years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force.

Both authors previously wrote "An Unnecessary War," which argued against invading Iraq, in the January/February 2003 edition of Foreign Policy magazine.

The short version of the article, from the London Review of Books >>

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