{"id":178,"date":"2008-02-19T01:04:04","date_gmt":"2008-02-19T05:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/mesh\/2008\/02\/israel_lobby_and_american_interest\/"},"modified":"2008-03-07T12:03:55","modified_gmt":"2008-03-07T16:03:55","slug":"israel_lobby_and_american_interest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/2008\/02\/israel_lobby_and_american_interest\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Israel Lobby’ and the American interest"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Adam Garfinkle<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the latest issue<\/a> of The American Interest<\/em>, March\/April 2008, Itamar Rabinovich<\/a>, 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\u2019s Kennedy School, and a member of the The American Interest<\/em> editorial board, takes on<\/a> 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\u2019 reactions to reviews a three-dimensional intellectual object, then what Rabinovich has done aspires to be truly Einsteinian in nature.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cworking paper,\u201d Rabinovich\u2019s is the only one to have taken the book\u2019s 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\u2019t, so it hasn\u2019t. And it won\u2019t. Point, set and match, thank you very much.<\/p>\n

There is plenty to admire in Rabinovich\u2019s essay, although, as its editor, I confess to a natural bias in thinking so. But the \u201ctest\u201d he has devised for the book\u2019s claims, relying on the book\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

MESH invites its members to comment on Rabinovich’s concluding paragraphs:<\/em><\/p>\n

[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\u2019s 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\u2014the Soviet Union and its radical Arab allies\u2014with 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….<\/p>\n

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\u201348, 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s Kennedy School, and a member of the The American Interest editorial board, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1620,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2268,2354,2362,2451,2361,2239,2393],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-garfinkle","category-alan-dowty","category-charles-hill","category-chuck-freilich","category-harvey-sicherman","category-israel","category-robert-satloff"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1620"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/mesh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}