The Israel Lobby and the US Foreign Policy

Posted without comment.

From August 13, 2012
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt - The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy



Philip Weiss
After article was rejected and publishers yawned, 
Walt and Mearsheimer dropped ‘The Israel Lobby’ in 2005
The authors of The Israel Lobby went on Chicago radio station WBEZ last week to reflect on their achievement after ten years. No, not 60 Minutes. Not The New York Times. Not MSNBC. But WBEZ radio.

It is a great interview by Jerome McDonnell about a stupendous achievement. As I wrote ten years ago, this book is up there with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed, as a bombshell that will help transform society.

Below are some choice bits from the interview.

Publication ruined both men’s chances to serve in government or in university administration. Mearsheimer:

    I had no interest whatsoever in a government position. But I did think that when we wrote the piece, that it would mean that we would never get a high level government position. Even medium level government position. It would also make it almost impossible for us to get any meaningful administrative job in the academic world.

Mearsheimer was then 59 years old and in Chicago. But Steve Walt was a sprightly 50 and on I-95, on the Harvard springboard to presidential elbows. The book forever changed his horizon:

    I was academic dean in the Kennedy School. I think it’s fair to say that both universities did stand by us in the sense that they didn’t put any formal censure on us. There were various ways of what you might call informal marginalization at least for a while, because the leaderships in both universities were very nervous about the fallout. Universities don’t really like controversy very much.

    I did understand that this was probably going to eliminate any possibility of government service in my case, which is  something I do regret, because it’s something I would have appreciated, had that opportunity presented itself at some point down the road.

Walt went on to say that they had to do it. “If we weren’t willing to do that, then hardly anybody else would be. We couldn’t lose our jobs. We didn’t necessarily need government employment to pay the mortgage.”.......