[DEBATE] : (Fwd) Mearsheimer/Walt's ideological agenda

[Patrick Bond]

(Salim, Ran, others - is this a reasonable way to crit The Lobby?)

Foreign Policy In Focus

May 19, 2006
Media Advisory

For Immediate Release
Contact: Siri Khalsa | (505) 388-0208
media at irc-online.org
Stephen Zunes | (831) 325-0444 cell


For More Information
International Relations Center (IRC)
PO Box 2178
Silver City, NM 88062
(505) 388-0208 Phone
(505) 388-0619 Fax
http://www.irc-online.org/
Foreign Policy in Focus (online at:http://www.fpif.org/) is pleased to 
announce the publication of

The Israeli Lobby—How Powerful is it Really?

This FPIF Special Report by Stephen Zunes argues that the Israeli Lobby 
is most powerful when its interests parallel “the interests of those who 
really hold power in Washington.” Zunes, an internationally renowned 
expert on U.S. policy in the Middle East, argues that the analysis by 
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt of “The Israeli Lobby” is faulty and 
misleading.

In this major contribution to the debate about U.S. policy in the Middle 
East, Zunes contends that “this is primarily an issue of the Israel 
lobby working at the behest of U.S. foreign policymakers, not U.S. 
foreign policymakers working at the behest of the Israel lobby.”

According to Zunes, the authors’ essay in the London Review of Books in 
March “has been met by unreasonable criticism from a wide range of 
rightist apologists for U.S. support of the Israeli occupation” and “has 
garnered unreasonable praise from many in progressive circles.”

The FPIF Special Report makes the case that although “critiques in 
establishment circles of the bipartisan U.S. support for the Israeli 
occupation are unusual and welcome, progressive promoters of this 
article have largely failed to assess the ideological agenda of its 
authors and the validity of their specific arguments.” Zunes describes 
Mearsheimer and Walt as “prominent figures in the realist school of 
international relations, which discounts international law, human 
rights, and other legal and moral concerns in foreign policy.”

“Washington wants a Middle East where Israel can serve a proxy role in 
projecting U.S. military and economic interests,” writes Zunes, “This 
symbiosis requires suppressing challenges to American-Israeli hegemony 
within the region.”

See full FPIF report online at:
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3270

With printer-friendly pdf version at:
http://www.fpif.org/pdf/papers/0605lobby.pdf

Published by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a joint project of the 
International Relations Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org) and 
the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS, online at www.ips-dc.org). ©2006. 
All rights reserved.


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PO Box 2178, Silver City, NM 88062-2178 | irc at irc-online.org | 
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