‘The Israel Lobby’ and the American interest
Feb 19th, 2008 by MESH
From Adam Garfinkle
In the latest issue of The American Interest, March/April 2008, Itamar Rabinovich, the former Israeli ambassador to the United States, former president of Tel Aviv University, former head of the Dayan Center, current visiting professor of public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School, and a member of the The American Interest editorial board, takes on the Mearsheimer/Walt phenomenon. That is to say, he is not reviewing the book so much as the various reviews of the book, the reaction of the authors to the reviews, and so on. So if a book is a one-dimensional intellectual object, and a review is a two-dimensional intellectual object, and authors’ reactions to reviews a three-dimensional intellectual object, then what Rabinovich has done aspires to be truly Einsteinian in nature.
I will not take time here to relate or summarize his narrative. I want only to note that, of all the many reviews and discussions about this book and its precursor essay and “working paper,” Rabinovich’s is the only one to have taken the book’s argument to its logical apex, to wit: If, as Mearsheimer and Walt argue, the real variance in U.S. Middle East policy is explained by U.S. domestic politics, then a book like theirs should have a significant impact on that policy. But it isn’t, so it hasn’t. And it won’t. Point, set and match, thank you very much.
There is plenty to admire in Rabinovich’s essay, although, as its editor, I confess to a natural bias in thinking so. But the “test” he has devised for the book’s claims, relying on the book’s very own thesis, is, I think, noteworthy. Ecclesiastes tells us (more than once) that there is nothing new under the sun. At times like this, however, I’m not so sure.
MESH invites its members to comment on Rabinovich’s concluding paragraphs:
[I]t is harder to make a realist case for the U.S.-Israeli relationship today than it was during the Cold War. At that time, Israel’s role as a strategic asset was clear, if not to off-shore balancers like Mearsheimer and Walt, then to every American President since John F. Kennedy. Israel and the United States had the same enemies—the Soviet Union and its radical Arab allies—with the conservative Arab regimes stuck awkwardly in the middle. Today things are altogether more muddled, so a more plausible case can be made that Israel is a drag on U.S. security interests and that radical Muslims only hate and attack America because of its support for Israel….
Clearly, the end of the Cold War and the rise of new challenges require fresh thinking about the strategic dimension of the U.S.-Israeli relationship. By defending every aspect of the special relationship when the rationales for them no longer exist, the Israel lobby risks overloading what political realities can bear. There will always be those like Mearsheimer and Walt, as there have been since 1947–48, when the State of Israel came into being, who will argue that U.S. support for Israel and its policies harms U.S. national interests. Israel’s response must focus not only on refuting this charge but on formulating policies that will render Israel, in deed as well as in rhetoric, a valuable partner of the United States.
An opportunity to do precisely that is in the offing, for the next U.S. administration will no doubt formulate a revised comprehensive policy toward the Middle East. An Israel engaged in a peace process orchestrated by the United States and working together with Washington and its other Middle Eastern allies against radical foes will be an important strategic asset in the post-Cold War Middle East. The specific challenge for Israel and its American friends will be their ability to demonstrate how Israel can serve as a strategic asset in the Iranian and Syrian context as it once did against the Soviet Union and its radical allies in the region. The wider strategic canvas, not the vicissitudes of U.S. domestic politics, will as always make the difference.
Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.
5 Responses to “‘The Israel Lobby’ and the American interest”
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The answer to Ambassador Rabinovich’s call for “fresh thinking about the strategic dimension of the U.S.-Israel relationship” is clear and simple. The Cold War threat to world order has been superseded by an ideologically radical Islamist movement which aims to disrupt, destroy and replace the international state system in the Middle East with Islamic rule—even as it seeks to gain footholds in Europe, Southeast Asia and elsewhere for further phases of its universalist cause, which may be traced at least as far back as the 1924 fall of the Ottoman Caliphate. This movement is not a centrally-directed monolith, but its parts are nonetheless related in important ways, most notably in rejection of the basic elements of the international system: the state as the fundamental unit of world order, international law and organization, universal human rights, the requirement to field a professional military, etc. Today’s overriding strategic necessity for the United States is to defend, shore up, and extend the international state system all across the Middle East. Israel, as a free, well-governed and good international state citizen is the linchpin of this strategy.
Every major problem in the region can be understood in this context. The strategy must assist Pakistan to preserve itself from the Islamist challenge; continue to work with Afghanistan to consolidate its recently regained statehood; finish the duty of helping Iraq regain the legitimate statehood which it lost under Saddam Hussein; and act internationally to restore Lebanon to its rightful territorial integrity and independence as a state. Iran, an Islamic republic that benefits from its membership in the international system even as it acts to defy, undermine, and endanger world order through its drive for nuclear weapons, presents a signal challenge to American strategy. Elsewhere, the United States has to press Arab regimes to reform and fulfill their responsibilities as states and to abandon their subsidies, propaganda, and support for Islamists in ways that harm the international system and, ultimately, will bring an end to their own existence.
For Israel and the Palestinians, the achievement of a two-state solution which would produce greater security and recognition for the State of Israel and bring a new State of Palestine into existence would be a major setback for the Islamist ideological cause.
In this context, Israel’s strategic importance to the United States is greater than it was during the Cold War. Israel’s economy is a model for the region; its democracy, while probably not attainable any time soon by others in the region, is nonetheless an example of good governance, political transparency, and open intellectual exchange. And Israel’s military capacities, faced as it is with non-state, anti-state Islamist terrorist polities to its north and south, requires America’s utmost understanding and support.
Charles Hill is a member of MESH.
I believe that Itamar Rabinovich and others greatly overstate the importance of the strategic dimension in the U.S.-Israeli relationship in general and specifically during the Cold War. Yes, Israel had and has strategic importance for the United States, and it is the one country in the Middle East which can always be counted upon to be firmly pro-American in all circumstances—a “land-based aircraft carrier” whose military and diplomatic support is assured. For Pentagon planners, this is a valued source of stability in a region ridden with uncertainty and danger. I believe, however, that Israel’s strategic importance is secondary to the vitality of the relationship, and that it is the normative dimension which is its essence.
During the Cold War Israel was a strategic burden for the United States, no less than an asset. A possible focal point for a Soviet invasion, certainly of Soviet allies in the region, Israel’s primary strategic role at the time was as an embattled ally to be defended. U.S. problems with the Arab world then, as now, did not stem from its support for Israel, but that support did exacerbate them, and became a growing problem in the post-1973 oil-embargo world. Moreover, the sole case in history in which the United States ever declared a nuclear alert, was in support of Israel, in the face of a Soviet threat to invade during the October 1973 Yom Kippur War—not the Cuban Missile Crisis, even though the latter was, admittedly, an infinitely more dangerous situation.
9/11 and the entire confrontation between the United States and Muslim world have nothing to do with Israel. Indeed, if Israel disappeared tomorrow this would have virtually no bearing on the situation at all. This is not to say, however, that U.S. support for Israel does not further inflame already existing Arab hatred of the United States. It does. As for strategic importance, it should be noted that the one country in the region whose active support the United States did not want in both Gulf Wars, was precisely its foremost “strategic ally,” Israel, for the simple reason that Israel’s involvement would have led to the collapse of the Arab coalitions the United States sought to build, successfully in 1991, unsuccessfully in 2003. Whereas Egyptian, Saudi, and even Syrian forces fought by the side of the United States in 1991, the United States did everything in its power to keep Israel out of both wars and ensure that it did not even respond to the 39 missiles fired by Saddam.
All of this is not to deny Israel’s strategic importance to the United States, as its one totally reliable ally in the region, especially in what may prove to be particularly difficult circumstances. Having a major deposit in a savings account, for a rainy day, is very important, even if one cannot make a withdrawal against the account on an ongoing basis. I believe, however, that it is the normative element, not the the strategic dimension, that truly accounts for the incredibly close “special relationship,” the ongoing perception of a large majority of Americans of Israel as a “mini-America” in the heart of the Middle East, an embattled democratic bastion whose national roots and struggle are similar to their own. Both countries fought for their independence, both carried a democratic beacon, where only the darkness of religious and political oppression existed. The shared Judeo-Christian heritage and view of modern Israel as the realization of biblical prophecy, further buttressed the picture.
This is why some 60 percent of Americans have continually supported Israel over the decades. (The overwhelming majority of the rest simply have no opinion; support for the Arabs or Palestinians is miniscule.) The view of Israel as a reliable strategic ally is important, but the normative level is vital. So a reformulation of the rationale for the relationship is not needed. What is essential, however, is for Israel to maintain this public image in the United States and to conduct its policies in various areas, including the Palestinian one, accordingly. Common policies on Iran, Syria and other issues are of great importance as well. But interests come and go; a full convergence of interests does not and cannot always exist. Relations based on common values and beliefs are far more durable.
Chuck Freilich, former Israeli deputy national security adviser, is a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
Itamar Rabinovich—and Adam Garfinkle—have hit the nail on the head. Domestic lobbies have seldom had a decisive impact on U.S. Middle East policy, especially when major strategic interests (see Charles Hill’s comment) or shared norms (Chuck Freilich) are at stake. My own detailed studies of U.S. crisis decision-making in 1958, 1970, and 1973 bore this out: when the heat was on, lobbies were shunted aside. Why isn’t this dirty little secret more widely recognized? In large part, because the lobbies themselves have every reason to perpetuate the myth of their own insidious power—leaving the way open for the Mearsheimers and Walts.
With the mythology demolished, can Israel establish—or re-establish—itself as a strategic asset in the post-Cold War context? The fight against Islamic extremism does provide a likely focus. But the role of Israel as a strategic asset was problematic in the Cold War period and is likely to become even more so in the multi-dimensional arena of religiously-inspired terror. Having common enemies does not always mean that joint action is possible or advisable. There were circumstances in the past when Israel was able to act positively and decisively as a strategic partner; for example, in acting to preserve King Hussein’s rule in Jordan in 1970. But there were also circumstances, as Chuck Freilich points out, in which Israel’s direct support would have been more of a burden than an asset.
The U.S. interest in the Middle East, during the Cold War and today, has a central focus: stability. Instability in the past created openings for Soviet influence, and instability today is the breeding ground for Islamic extremism. If there are circumstances in which Israel can furnish military and other assets in this struggle, they will undoubtedly be called into play. But given the nature of the struggle, these circumstances are likely to be limited. The major contribution that Israel can make to stability in the region is in its own struggle with the Palestinians: in working toward a two-state solution to the conflict that would improve the contours of the broader struggle—as both Rabinovitch and Hill point out. (This is not said in support of the fantasy that elimination of the Arab-Israel conflict would magically resolve all strife in the Middle East).
There is room and need for a common strategy. But it has more to do with the problems that occupy Israel already, than with broader regional vistas.
Alan Dowty is a member of MESH.
Charles Hill and Chuck Freilich offer the foreign policy version of the “tastes great/less filling” debate of beer commercials from my youth. When asked which factor can and should animate the vibrancy of U.S.-Israel partnership into the future, the former offers a strategic rationale (the common fight against Islamist extremism) while the latter offers a more cultural motivation (common values).
I venture to suggest that both are right. What makes Israel such a special case in the international system and for U.S. foreign policy is precisely the fact that it both plays a critical role in the greatest ideological and strategic challenge facing America in the world today (the fight against radical Islamist extremism and its spread throughout Muslim societies and beyond) and that it is an outpost of shared values in a region that appears so inhospitable to them. If Israel were only a cultural outpost—a “mini-America”—but played no role as ally in a common strategic campaign, or if Israel were only a strategic partner without any of the religious, historical, cultural or social connections that bind our nations, then the partnership would rest on much shakier ground.
The challenge for friends of Israel in the United States is to broaden popular and elite understanding of the profound strategic threats that both our countries face and the contributions each of us bring to the effort against our common foe, while at the same time deepen a sense of shared culture and values that has frayed in recent years. The health of the U.S.-Israel partnership depends on progress on both fronts.
Robert Satloff is a member of MESH.
I liked Itamar Rabinovich’s article not least because my own earlier article on the subject amused him. That said, the “reformulation of strategic rationales” for important U.S. relationships occurs every election cycle and tortures speechwriters in particular. So everyone counts on amnesia to carry the day as new labels are pasted onto old (very old) battles. The U.S.-Israeli strategic relationship will survive as a staple of U.S. foreign policy and even a bout of “fresh thinking.”
Professors will never bring it down but failure to achieve common goals can injure it. Today, the United States and Israel face common enemies in the region, so the strategic question is whether their collaboration on a strategic level can make a difference. This has diplomatic and military dimensions. A successful Israeli-Palestinian peace process cannot satisfy the Islamists, whether of Sunni or Shiite persuasion; can it ease the operations of a regional coalition to oppose Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and the rest? During the Cold War, Egypt’s defection from the pro-Soviet coalition added measurably to Israeli and American interests but it did not prevent other mishaps whether in Lebanon or the Gulf. So it was worth doing but had less ”bounce” on other conflicts (or even the Arab-Israeli one) than many hoped.
The military dimension may be more significant. As I noted in an earlier post on the Winograd Commission, both the United States and Israel must find a solution to the Hezbollah-style warfare whereby a well-trained force uses civilians as both targets and shields. Iran and its allies are counting on this to defeat Western military superiority, just as Tehran is counting on a nuclear deterrent to guarantee that it will remain a sanctuary, no matter its support for terrorism. On this issue, the strategic allies dare not fail.
Harvey Sicherman is a member of MESH.