US professors accused of being liars and bigots over essay on pro-Israeli lobby

Guardian

An article by two prominent American professors arguing that the pro-Israel lobby exerts a dominant and damaging influence on US foreign policy has triggered a furious row, pitting allegations of anti-semitism against claims of intellectual intimidation.

Stephen Walt, the academic dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, and John Mearsheimer, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, published two versions of the essay, the Israel Lobby, in the London Review of Books and on a Harvard website.

Professor Walt's fellow Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz - criticised in the article as an "apologist" for Israel - denounced the authors as "liars" and "bigots" in the university newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, and compared their arguments to neo-Nazi literature.

"Accusations of powerful Jews behind the scenes are part of the most dangerous traditions of modern anti-semitism," wrote two fellow academics, Jeffrey Herf and Andrei Markovits, in a letter to the London Review of Books. Critics also pointed out that the article had been praised by David Duke, a notorious American white supremacist.

The article argues that the US has "been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies" to advance Israeli interests, largely as a result of pressure from Jewish American groups such as the American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) allied to pro-Zionist Christian evangelists and influential Jewish neo-conservatives such as former Pentagon officials Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and Richard Perle.

"Huge numbers of people know this story to be true but are afraid to say it because they would punished by pro-Israeli forces."

Well it is pretty much Clear that Pro-Isreali Lobbies basicly Run the foreign policies of the US in the Middle East. But the moment that somebody points that out, he/she is beeing blamed of anti-semitism, denoucing them as being Liars and Bigots and comparing them to Neo-Nazis.

Basicly all they are doing is Avoiding to comment the topic of the Critism and are quickly labelling and attacking the Authors of it.

The power therefore remains in the hands of pro-Isreali lobbies and their immense ifluence over the only remaining Superpower in the World and its foreign policies in the Middle East.

If you want Muslim lobby groups to have influence. Then give money to the politicians.

It isn't too hard to figure out. Too say Jewish groups control the government is kind of a stretch. The oil companies and the Christian Right would be pissed at your statement.

I have influence too. I vote in elections. If you want to influence my vote, send me some money!

[edit on 4-4-2006 by sbob]

already covered here and here

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[edit on 4-4-2006 by Riwka]