John J. Mearsheimer & Stephen M. Walt,: War of Words Over Paper on Israel
When “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” first appeared on the Web site of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government this month, the paper’s title page featured the globe and Harvard seal that make up the Kennedy School’s logo, and that routinely appear on papers posted there. If you download the paper now, however, you won’t find the logo on the PDF. The Kennedy school — with the authors’ permission — took the logo off, a sign of just how sensitive this paper has become.
Critics — led at Harvard by Alan Dershowitz and elsewhere by The New York Sun — are lobbing criticism after criticism at the paper, saying that it is bigoted, ignorant, stereotypical, uses material out of context, and borrows from hate-oriented Web sites. Defenders of the article, meanwhile, say that it is bringing attention to an important issue and that the reaction to the article demonstrates one of its key themes, which questions the logic of close ties between the United States and Israel and argues that a powerful pro-Israel lobby make its difficult to deviate from its views.
The article itself is certainly getting unusual attention for a scholarly work. (If you want to judge for yourself, but don’t have time for the full version, which is 82 pages counting footnotes, the authors have also published a shorter version in The London Review of Books.)
The authors of the controversial article are both well respected political scientists: Stephen M. Walt, who is academic dean and also holds an endowed chair in international relations at the Kennedy School, and John J. Mearsheimer, who holds a chair at the University of Chicago. Their article argues that the United States has hurt its own security by being too close to Israel, that Israel is not deserving of such support, and that pro-Israel lobbyists silence anyone who would question Israeli interests. The article uses “the Lobby” as a phrase to cover the activities of a number of groups that work to build support for Israel....
Read entire article at Scott Jaschik in Inside Higher Ed
Critics — led at Harvard by Alan Dershowitz and elsewhere by The New York Sun — are lobbing criticism after criticism at the paper, saying that it is bigoted, ignorant, stereotypical, uses material out of context, and borrows from hate-oriented Web sites. Defenders of the article, meanwhile, say that it is bringing attention to an important issue and that the reaction to the article demonstrates one of its key themes, which questions the logic of close ties between the United States and Israel and argues that a powerful pro-Israel lobby make its difficult to deviate from its views.
The article itself is certainly getting unusual attention for a scholarly work. (If you want to judge for yourself, but don’t have time for the full version, which is 82 pages counting footnotes, the authors have also published a shorter version in The London Review of Books.)
The authors of the controversial article are both well respected political scientists: Stephen M. Walt, who is academic dean and also holds an endowed chair in international relations at the Kennedy School, and John J. Mearsheimer, who holds a chair at the University of Chicago. Their article argues that the United States has hurt its own security by being too close to Israel, that Israel is not deserving of such support, and that pro-Israel lobbyists silence anyone who would question Israeli interests. The article uses “the Lobby” as a phrase to cover the activities of a number of groups that work to build support for Israel....