A Dangerous Exemption By Zbigniew Brzezinski :FP

June 27, 2006
A Dangerous Exemption
By: Zbigniew Brzezinski

Given that the Middle East is currently the central challenge facing America, Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have rendered a public service by initiating a much-needed public debate on the role of the “Israel lobby” in the shaping of U.S. foreign policy.

The participation of ethnic or foreign-supported lobbies in the American policy process is nothing new. In my public life, I have dealt with a number of them. I would rank the Israeli-American, Cuban-American, and Armenian-American lobbies as the most effective in their assertiveness.

The Greek- and Taiwanese-American lobbies also rank highly in my book. The Polish-American lobby was at one time influential (Franklin Roosevelt complained about it to Joseph Stalin), and I daresay that before long we will be hearing a lot from the Mexican-, Hindu-, and Chinese-American lobbies as well.

Mearsheimer and Walt are critical of the pro-Israel lobby and of Israel’s conduct in a number of historical instances. They are outspoken regarding Israel’s prolonged mistreatment of the Palestinians. They are, in brief, generally critical of Israel’s policy and, thus, could be labeled as being in some respects anti-Israel. But an anti-Israel bias is not the same as anti-Semitism.

To argue as much is to claim an altogether unique immunity for Israel, untouchable by the kind of criticism that is normally directed at the conduct of states.

Anyone who recalls World War II knows that anti-Semitism is the unbridled and irrational hatred of Jews. The case made by Mearsheimer and Walt did not warrant the hysterical charges of anti-Semitism leveled at them by several academics in self-demeaning attacks published in leading U.S. newspapers.

Sadly, some even stooped to McCarthyite accusations of guilt by association, triumphantly citing the endorsement of Mearsheimer and Walt’s views by vile, fanatical racists as somehow constituting proof of the authors’ anti-Semitism. In contrast, several of the Israeli reactions to the Mearsheimer and Walt article were quite measured and free of such mudslinging.

I do not feel qualified to judge the historical parts of their argument. But several of the current themes that emerge from their thinking strike me as quite pertinent. Mearsheimer and Walt adduce a great deal of factual evidence that over the years Israel has been the beneficiary of privileged—indeed, highly preferential—financial assistance, out of all proportion to what the United States extends to any other country.

The massive aid to Israel is in effect a huge entitlement that enriches the relatively prosperous Israelis at the cost of the American taxpayer. Money being fungible, that aid also pays for the very settlements that America opposes and that impede the peace process.

The foregoing is related to the shift, over the past quarter of a century, of U.S. policy in the Middle East from relative impartiality (which produced the Camp David agreement), to increasing partiality in favor of Israel, to essentially the adoption of the Israeli perspective on the Israeli-Arab conflict.

During the last decade, in fact, some U.S. officials recruited from AIPAC or from pro-Israel research institutions were influential in favoring the Israeli preference for vagueness regarding the final shape of any peace accord, thereby contributing to the protracted passivity of the United States regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In contrast, Arab Americans by and large have been excluded from serious participation in the U.S. policy process.

Finally, Mearsheimer and Walt also provide food for thought regarding the consequences of the growing role of lobbies in American foreign policy, given the increased inclination of the U.S. Congress to become engaged in legislating foreign policy.

With members of congress involved in continuous electoral fundraising, the effect has been an increase in the influence of lobbies and, particularly, those that take part in targeted political fundraising. It is probably not an accident that the most effective lobbies are also the ones that have been the most endowed.

Whether that produces the best definition of the American national interest in the Middle East or elsewhere is open to question, and worthy of serious debate.

Of course, stifling such debate is in the interest of those who have done well in the absence of it. Hence the outraged reaction from some to Mearsheimer and Walt. Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter, is professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and a counselor and trustee at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

http://harowo.com/2006/06/27/a-dangerous-exemption/
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3510