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Posted By Stephen M. Walt
Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - 11:41 AM
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Last week the Washington Institute of Near East Policy released a brief report entitled "Israel: A Strategic Asset for the United States." Such an event is not exactly headline news, insofar as the report is precisely the sort of analysis that you'd expect a "pro-Israel" think tank like WINEP to promote. What is slightly more interesting are the study's authors: Robert Blackwill and Walter Slocombe. Blackwill was formerly U.S. Ambassador to India (and a former colleague of mine here at the Kennedy School); Slocombe is a long-time Washington insider perhaps best known for helping mismanage the occupation of Iraq.
Their report checks in at a modest 17 pages of large type, and it offers few arguments that experienced Middle East mavens haven't heard before. It's tempting to disregard it, except that it illustrates many of the misconceptions that still permeate discussion of the U.S.-Israel relationship and U.S. Mideast policy. I will take the bait, therefore, and offer a brief critique.
Blackwill and Slocombe (hereafter B&S) begin by rehearsing the familiar claim that the United States and Israel are bound together by shared values, and by America's "moral responsibility" to defend the Jewish state. But they argue that there is a third justification, which they maintain is "too often ignored." That justification is the idea that Israel and the United States have common strategic interests and that Israel is a major asset for helping the United States achieve them. They offer the usual list of benefits (e.g., intelligence sharing, military technology, counter-terrorism expertise, counter-proliferation activities, etc.), in order to show what a valuable asset Israel really is. They then argue that the costs of U.S. support are not very significant, mostly because support for Israel does not preclude close cooperation with Arab states such as Saudi Arabia. They conclude by calling for increased collaboration with Israel, as a means of advancing U.S. national interests.
So what's wrong with this picture?
For starters, Blackwill and Slocombe do not consider whether the alleged benefits of U.S.-Israeli cooperation require the unprecedented "special relationship" that now exists between the two countries. The real debate is not whether the United States should cooperate with Israel or support Israel's existence: even prominent critics of U.S. policy (including myself and John Mearsheimer) agree that the United States should support Israel's existence (within the pre-1967 borders) and should come to its aid if its survival were ever in jeopardy. Rather, the real debate is whether the United States should have a special relationship with Israel, in which the United States gives Israel generous economic, military, and diplomatic support no matter what it does, and where U.S. politicians cannot offer the mildest criticism of Israel's conduct without facing a torrent of abuse and political pressure from the Israel lobby.
Today, Israel is the only country in the world that mainstream U.S. politicians (and most members of the foreign-policy establishment) cannot openly criticize. It is the only country in the world that U.S. presidents cannot pressure in any meaningful way. The United States does not have this sort of relationship with any other country in the world -- not with Great Britain, or Japan, or South Korea, or Canada, or France, or Denmark. But it does with Israel, which is a key reason why Israel's settlements have been expanding for more than forty years, even though every president since Lyndon Johnson has formally opposed such actions. The "special relationship" is also a major reason why the Oslo process failed, and why Barack Obama's efforts to achieve a viable "two-state solution" have foundered. (B/S wrongly state that the United States and Israel share a common desire for a two-state solution; Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party is formally opposed to a Palestinian state, and Israel's current government has made it clear that the only "Palestinian state" that it would countenance would be a set of disconnected, unviable Bantustans under permanent Israeli control.)
So the real question is not whether the United States derives certain benefits from cooperating with Israel, just as it derives benefits from cooperating with other allies. Rather, it is whether the current "special relationship" of unconditional U.S. support is in America's national interest.
The answer is no. For one thing, B&S overstate some so-called benefits -- such as military technology developed in Israel -- by failing to mention that U.S. military aid paid for lots of it instead of being given to U.S. firms. But more importantly, many of the strategic benefits that B&S describe would still be available if the United States had a normal relationship with Israel. After all, if our interests are as closely aligned as B&S maintain, it would still be in both countries' interest to share some types of military technology, to share some intelligence information, and to coordinate responses to common problems like WMD proliferation or counter-terrorism. But if we had a normal relationship, then U.S. leaders would also be free to criticize Israeli policies that don't make sense and that are not in the U.S. interest, like the continued expansion of settlements and the denial of Palestinian rights. And in a normal relationship (i.e., akin to those we have with other democracies), U.S. leaders would be free to use U.S. leverage to try to get Israel to change policies with which we disagreed.
Second, B & S understate the costs of the special relationship by a wide margin. They do this in part by ignoring or downplaying issues such as Israel's sale of advanced U.S. technology to adversaries such as China, and by its extensive espionage efforts inside the United States. But their main error is to dismiss the impact of the special relationship on our terrorism problem. They devote a single sentence to this crucial issue, saying that "U.S. support for Israel is not the primary-and probably not even the dominant-reason Islamist terrorists target the United States." This line of argument has been a familiar lobby talking point since 9/11, but it is at odds with the enormous body of evidence suggesting that U.S. support for Israel was a key cause (though not the only one) of our terrorism problem.
For example, the architect of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, Ramzi Yousef, mailed letters to several newspapers taking credit for the deed and demanding that the United States terminate aid to Israel. According to Steve Coll's prizewinning book Ghost Wars, Yousef also told the U.S. agents who flew him to the United States after his arrest in Pakistan that his reservations about killing innocent civilians were "overridden by the strength of his desire to stop the killing of Arabs by Israeli troops." According to Coll, Yousef "mentioned no other motivation during the flight and no other issue in American foreign policy that concerned him."
Similarly, an abundance of evidence confirms that the issue of Palestine was important to the late Osama bin Laden, and from very early in his political career. Family members have testified that he was troubled by this issue as a young man, and it is a prominent theme in his earliest political statements. As Max Rodenbeck of the Economist wrote in a review of two books on bin Laden's writings: "the notion of payback for injustices suffered by the Palestinians is perhaps the most powerfully recurrent in bin Laden's speeches."
As for 9/11 itself, the 9/11 Commission noted that Khalid Sheikh Muhammed -- whom it described as the "principal architect of the 9/11 attacks" -- was primarily motivated by the Palestinian issue. In the commission's words: "By his own account, KSM's animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel." The commission also reported that bin Laden intervened several times in the planning process for the 9/11, in an attempt to link the attacks more closely to U.S. support for Israel.
To be sure, terrorists like bin Laden and KSM had other grievances as well -- such as U.S. support for Saudi Arabia and for the Mubarak regime in Egypt -- but these issues are not unrelated to the "special relationship" with Israel. As both Trita Parsi and Ken Pollack have shown, the Clinton administration's strategy of "dual containment" (itself the brainchild of WINEP co-founder Martin Indyk), was adopted in good part to reassure Israel. Dual containment led the United States to keep large numbers of troops in Saudi Arabia during the 1990s, and their presence there is one of the key reasons that bin Laden turned his attention to attacking the United States.
Thus, the special relationship contributes significantly to our terrorism problem-and to all the costs associated with the war on terror-by two separate pathways. And it is one reason why former president Bill Clinton told one audience that solving the Israel-Palestine conflict would "take about half the impetus in the whole world -- not just the region, the whole world -- for terror away ... It would have more impact by far than anything else that could be done."
Third, B/S also overlook the fact that some of the problems for which Israel's help is useful are also problems that Israel helped create or exacerbate. Israel has been a useful asset for some counter-proliferation activities -- such as the bombing of a Syrian reactor site and the development of the STUXNET virus that infected Iran's enrichment facilities -- but Israel's own nuclear arsenal (which it developed in defiance of U.S. pressure) is one reason why countries such as Syria or Iran are interested in WMD in the first place. And instead of putting pressure on Israel to join the NPT or get rid of its own nuclear arsenal, the United States has consistently blocked efforts to raise this issue within the International Atomic Energy Agency, even as it has been moving heaven and earth to isolate and sanction states such as North Korea or Iran. Unfortunately, the obvious double-standard displayed on this issue has made that diplomatic effort significantly more difficult.
Fourth, B&S are silent about the other burdens that the special relationship imposes, burdens that would be substantially lighter if the U.S. had a normal relationship with Israel. Just think of the amount of time and effort that U.S. presidents and their advisors have spent on this issue over the past several decades, not to mention that vast amount of attention expended on the fruitless post-Oslo "peace process." As UN Ambassador Susan Rice admitted earlier this year, dealing with Israel-related issues at the United Nations is "a significant part of my job. It's not the majority of my time ... [b]ut it is never the smallest piece. It is always there ... It's a lot." Needless to say, her ability to advance other items on the U.S. foreign policy agenda would be enhanced were she not spending so much effort to putting out fires on Israel's behalf.
Furthermore, a normal relationship would not require the United States to veto literally dozens of U.N. Security Council resolutions that were critical of Israel's occupation, including resolutions that are in fact consistent with stated U.S. policy. Nor would it require the United States to expend political capital pressing other states to oppose initiatives such as the recent resolution permitting the Palestinians to join UNESCO. And in a classic case of cutting one's nose to spite one's face, that decision triggered an lobby-inspired law requiring Congress to cut off funds to any UN agency that recognized the Palestinians. Here's what U.S. Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) had to say about that issue (my emphasis):
"This could be catastrophic for the U.S.-U.N. relationship. This could be the tipping point. . . There's a lot of bipartisan support for cutting off funding to any political U.N. organization that would do this . . . .What you are going to do is eventually lose congressional support for our participation in the United Nations. That's what's at risk here. That would be a great loss. I don't think that's in our near-term or long-term interest, but that's what's going to happen, that's where this thing is headed."
What Graham is saying, in short, is that the "special relationship" leads to decisions that are not in America's interest. But you wouldn't know that reading B&S.
Fifth, B&S's claim that unconditional support for Israel does not preclude close ties with Arab states is misleading, as well as increasingly out of date. Countless surveys of Arab opinion confirm that U.S. policy is deeply unpopular throughout the Arab world, and President Obama's steady retreat from his original Cairo speech commitment to "two states for two peoples" has driven the U.S. image in the region to a level even lower than it was under George W. Bush in 2008. This situation does not prevent some Arab states from working with Washington, but it makes it politically costly for them to be openly associated with the United States.
Why does this matter? In the past, the United States was able to ignore Arab opinion because its primary strategic relationships in the Arab world have been with authoritarian regimes whose policies did not reflect the opinions of their citizens. The Arab awakening in 2011 has rendered this aspect of U.S. policy untenable. The final outcome of these upheavals is unknown, but most Arab states are likely to become significantly more responsive to public sentiment than heretofore. This is obviously true in the case of any new Arab democracies, but even surviving autocrats are likely to govern with a greater fear of mass upheavals and with greater responsiveness to the views of their citizens. If the United States wants the policies of Arab states to be congenial to its core interests, therefore, it will have to make its own policies more congenial to Arab peoples, and not just a handful of potentates.
Although the recent demonstrations in the Arab world were inspired primarily by local concerns and not by anti-Israel or anti-American sentiment, U.S. support for Israel and its tolerance of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians remains a powerful source of popular Arab animus. Nor should we forget that leaders such as Hosni Mubarak of Egypt were despised in part because they were seen as subservient to Washington and complicit in Israel's blockade of Gaza. As Turkey's behavior under the AKP government illustrates, governments that become more sensitive to public opinion are likely to favor policies more at odds with traditional U.S. policies. In particular, we can expect these states to be less willing to accept the status quo in the West Bank and Gaza and to be less deferential to Washington's preferences. And that means that the cost of the "special relationship" is going to go up, not down, and B&S's call for ever-closer cooperation with an increasingly isolated Israel is a recipe for the progressive erosion of U.S. influence.
Finally, B&S never ask where this whole situation is headed, and whether the "special relationship" is good for Israel itself. The window of opportunity created by the Oslo Accords in 1993 has closed, and it is now abundantly clear that the United States cannot be an effective steward of the peace process while maintaining a "special relationship" with one side. So there isn't going to be a two-state solution, and once this reality becomes unmistakable, the United States will have to figure out which of the available alternatives it is going to support. Should the United States bind itself ever-more-tightly and unconditionally to an increasingly hardline Israel, even if that state continues to treat its Arab minority as second-class citizens and denies its Palestinian subjects on the West Bank all political rights? Should Washington instead press Israel to adopt the principle of "one person, one vote" throughout the territory it controls, thereby hastening the end of a "Jewish state?" Or should it continue to turn a blind eye to the steady expansion of settlements and the continued evictions, home demolitions, and coercion that this policy requires?
It is hard to see how unconditional U.S. support for this approaching train wreck is in Israel's interest, let alone America's. A better approach would be to treat Israel like a normal country and have a normal relationship with it. In other words, make U.S. support conditional on Israel's conduct and limited to those areas where our interests are genuinely aligned. In other words, deal with Israel the same way we deal with other democracies around the world. Unfortunately, organizations like WINEP were created to keep the special relationship alive and to prevent U.S. leaders from pursuing a more sensible course, even when our current approach is increasingly harmful to the United States and Israel alike.
MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images
EXPLORE:OBAMA AND THE ISRAEL LOBBY, MIDDLE EAST, DIPLOMACY, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, ISRAEL/PALESTINE, SAUDI ARABIA, TERRORISM, U.S. FOREIGN POLICY 
Why has WINEP chosen this moment to come out with this report?
To keep Americans on their toes
To keep our government on it toes! Better support israel or else............. Go figure.
I think that article doesn't say enough about the Christian right in this country and their beliefs regarding the bible's prediction that Israel will be the site of Jesus return during the end time. They are worried that if something happens to Israel Jesus might not return. The powerful Israel lobby has co opted the Christian right into a coalition powerful enough that all politicians are scared to death of them.
You've never served in the US military in your life have you?
Mroe idiocy from the fake marine
>> Walt - you are not a middle east scholar.
Neither are you,
>> You are a hack and a one-trick pony.
Says the hack and a one-trick pony.
>> btw., it's great to hear armchair activists like yourself comment on Israel and foreign policy without ever having served in the military or sacrificed anything of yourself for this country.
Who in the AEI, AIPAC, Fox News, teh weekly Standard or the Emergency Committee for Israel has ever served in the military or sacrificed themselves for their country?
>> speaking of unbridled US support for bad countries, how about Egypt?
What about it? The only reason the US supports Egypt is for the sake of Israel anyway. The aid given to Egypt is just an additional cost of supporting Israel.
>> ...remember the recent massacre of coptic christians by the egyptians
When was the last time the US minded Christians being killed? They didn't mind when Israel began bombing Christian suburbs in Lebanon either.
What a lame propagandist you are fake marine!
"The powerful Israel lobby has co opted the Christian right into a coalition powerful enough that all politicians are scared to death of them."
I have to disagree with you, Genome. The influence of organized Christianity is on the wane in general, so I doubt that a faction that loses on every other issue from abortion to prayer in schools somehow comes up a winner on foreign policy. The Christian Right is more likely to inspire jokes than fear. It's wishful thinking to believe that blame will stick to them.
Dude, I have the solution for your problems! To open your medication bottle, you need to push the top DOWN, then twist! There, that should do it.
WINEP fears any awakening of American public
Aipac and Winep have easier time manipulating their numerous stooges in the US Congress if the ignorant American people continue to labor under the delusion Israel helps US defend the national security. When Israel in fact is happy enough to undermine US national security, when doing so profits Israel.
According to the State Department, U.S. military aid to Egypt totals over $1.3 billion annually in a stream of funding known as Foreign Military Financing. By FY2012, we will be sending Israel $3.09 billion a year (or an average of $8.5 million a day) and will continue to provide military aid at that level through 2018. This last number does not include military aid. A November 2008 Washington Report article “A Conservative Estimate of Total Direct U.S. Aid to Israel: $114 Billion,” by Shirl McArthur, puts the cumulative total even higher. According to McArthur, “[T]he indirect or consequential costs to the American taxpayer as a result of Washington’s blind support for Israel exceed by many times the amount of direct U.S. aid to Israel. Some of these ‘indirect or consequential’ costs would include the costs to U.S. manufacturers of the Arab boycott, the costs to U.S. companies and consumers of the Arab oil embargo and consequent soaring oil prices as a result of U.S. support for Israel in the 1973 war, and the costs of U.S. unilateral economic sanctions on Iran, Iraq, Libya and Syria. (For a discussion of these larger costs, see ‘The Costs to American Taxpayers of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: $3 Trillion,’ by the late Thomas R. Stauffer, June 2003 Washington Report, p. 20.)”
Dear Steve,
Man, what a clear understanding you have of the problem. It hurts me so, that Americans can’t see it this way. Many, many of my fellow Christians (whom I love deeply) have it so wrong. In the back of their minds they think.. ‘to disagree with Israel, is to disagree with God.’ And therefore what ever Israel wants (AIPAC) is what God wants. Its maddening! You’d think there’s a huge gas leak underground and it comes up from the Pulpit on Sundays.
I go to your site often and don’t miss any of your posting.
Russia has rejected as "unacceptable" EU calls for further sanctions against Iran in the wake of a UN report that Tehran had experimented with nuclear weapon designs, in effect guaranteeing that the international response would be muted.
Moscow's reaction to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report was delivered by the deputy foreign minister Gennady Gatilov, who spoke on Wednesdayduring a visit to Moscow by a senior Iranian official, Ali Baqeri.
"Any additional sanctions against Iran will be seen in the international community as an instrument for regime change in Tehran," the Interfax news agency quoted Gatilov as saying. "That approach is unacceptable to us, and the Russian side does not intend to consider such proposals."
Earlier in the day, France had called for a security council meeting on Iran and its foreign minister Alain Juppé said sanctions against Tehran should be raised to an "unprecedented scale" if Iran fails to cooperate with the investigations into past work on developing a nuclear warhead. In a report issued on Tuesday, the UN agency said it had found credible evidence that Iran had been carrying out experiments aimed at designing a bomb on a substantial scale until late 2003, and may have continued work on a lower level after that time.
Responding to the report for the first time on Wednesday, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attacked the credibility of the IAEA. "Why are you ruining the prestige of the agency for absurd US claims?" he asked, in a speech to a crowd of several thousand people in the city of Shahr-e-Kord in central Iran.
Iran has always rejected allegations it had a nuclear weapons programme, insisting that its aims behind its uranium enrichment efforts and extensive atomic research work have been entirely peaceful, and within Iran's rights.
"This nation won't retreat one iota from the path it is going," Ahmadinejad said.
In a statement to the House of Commons, William Hague said: "The assertions of recent years by Iran that their nuclear programme is wholly for peaceful purposes are completely discredited by this report."
The foreign secretary said that if Iran failed to enter serious negotiations on its programme: "We must continue to increase the pressure and we are considering with our partners a range of additional measures to that effect."
Hague, however, did not go as far as his French counterpart in calling for a security council session, but noted that the IAEA member states would meet in a board session next week. The board could opt, by majority vote, to refer Iran once more to the security council, but UK diplomats believe such a referral would be pointless in the face of the continued threat of Russian and Chinese vetoes.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, criticised Iran and the IAEA, calling on Tehran to be "serious and flexible" and to cooperate with inspections and adding pointedly that the UN agency should be "objective".
In Israel it was reported that prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu had ordered his cabinet ministers not to speak publicly about the report, letting other world capitals take the lead. In the run up to its publication, however, Israeli officials had described it as the world's last chance for a peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis, while the Israeli military carried out high-profile missile tests and long-range aerial bombing drills.
Germany said it firmly rejected any military action, calling instead for "new, stronger sanctions". Its foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, said talks were underway between EU member states and international partners on new sanctions, which he called "unavoidable".
Diplomats and observers said that in view of Russian and Chinese opposition, any new punitive measures are likely to be incremental, possibly including a tightening of EU financial and travel sanctions to match US sanctions, and addition of more targets to the UN financial sanctions list.
Reports from Washington on Wednesday night said that new unilateral US sanctions were expected next week, enlarging the list of Iranian individuals and organisations subject to restrictive financial and travel measures. Anything stronger is likely to be vetoed by Russia and China, they said. The response of the Obama administration appears to have been muted for similar reasons, and Washington is close to exhausting its options for applying unilateral pressure.
The deep international divide over how to deal with Iran's nuclear programme is increasingly threatening to undermine the IAEA's standing as an independent arbiter, and politicise its work. Both Russia and China had taken the unusual step of asking the agency's director general, Yukiya Amano, not to publish the annex in Tuesday's report on the possible military dimensions to the nuclear programme. Mark Fitzpatrick, a nuclear proliferation expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said that IAEA Non-Aligned Movement states had also considered asking Amano not to include information received from western intelligence agencies, but the report was issued before they made a formal demand.
Fitzpatrick wrote that despite Ahmadinejad's defiant response: "At least some powerful figures in Iran realise that the Islamic Republic needs to do something to relieve the increasing pressure it is under over the nuclear file." He argued that it was still possible for international negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme to resume, possibly over a proposal raised by Ahmadinejad in September to stop making 20% enriched uranium in return for foreign-made fuel for a research reactor in Tehran. He said: "Those who want to stem the talk of war should encourage Tehran to pursue such confidence-building measures."
The IAEA erport has already been discredited.
First of all, the IAEA report does not even accuse Iran of producing nukes.
All the intel cited in the IAEA Report comes from the US and Israel. None of it has been vetted by the IAEA.
The alleged Russian scientist (Vyacheslav Danilenko) that the report claims Danilenko has been helping Iran, turned out to have no nuclear expertise whatsoever, but was a world expert in nano diamonds. The steel containment vessel the IAEA report claimed is related to nuclear weapons experiment was actually based on a design by Danilenko and has no nuclear weapons purpose whatsoever.
The claim about the modified nose cone of the Sahab 3 rocket was debunked by the fact that the Iranians decommissioned the Sahab 3 in the 90's and have been working on a Sahab 4.
Obviously those who forged those documents were unaware of this at the time.
I could go on.
None of the allegations stand up to scrutiny. It's Iraq all over again.
Other countries have dreams too....
The political autism is obvious: American policy makers fail to see why Russia has interest in this phony crisis. Russia will only benefit economically from an oil spike.....
Why should the Russians prevent us from committing economic suicide?
Russians quite right about more sanctions
Clearly the Russians have strong grounds for thinking any additional UNSC sanctions against Iran will be taken as clearing the way for military intervention.
Russia and China both do not want an Iran armed with nukes, but say that demonising Iran is counter-productive. Which of course is true.
Let's remember that foolish American politicians in effect forced Iran to enrich U to 20%.
Walt mentions:
"Needless to say, her [ambassador Rice's] ability to advance other items on the U.S. foreign policy agenda would be enhanced were she not spending so much effort to putting out fires on Israel's behalf."
You could also mention the inevitable horse trading that goes on conducting diplomacy -- how many favors have we spent on Israel's behalf that could have been used to further US interests?
BTW this was quite apt "Blackwill and Slocombe (hereafter BS)".
You know, reading this prof. essay, he yet again questions US special relationship with Israel. It is rather getting tiresome and outright crap.
Most of is his views are one sided and deliberate myopic of the realities on the ground.
Case in point:
He writes.
Quote "Today, Israel is the only country in the world that mainstream U.S. politicians (and most members of the foreign-policy establishment) cannot openly criticize. It is the only country in the world that U.S. presidents cannot pressure in any meaningful way."
He knows better then that, no other country in the world faces existential threat as Israel does, all through its modern history..
Don't listing to the Israelis - Listen to Arab leaders like Hamas, or the Mullahs in Iran, saying it in their own words
Quote: "The United States does not have this sort of relationship with any other country in the world -- not with Great Britain, or Japan, or South Korea, or Canada, or France, or Denmark."
Because none of these counries - not even S. Korea, face the same challenges as Israel does.
Finally I like to ask this professor. How much time has he spent in Israel?, spoke with Israeli academics, talked with the people there. Gage the feelings & aspirations of the man & woman in the streets.
Israel has nuclear weapons and one of the strongest militaries in the world. Their military edge over potential competitors and ability to defend population centers is better than that enjoyed by many other countries. S. Korea is probably the best example, but the same could be said of most countries in Russia's sphere of influence. Any potential 'threat' to Israel is totally over-hyped. Indeed, the greatest threat facing Israel is that continued settlement will result in its becoming an international pariah.
Like S. Africa, Israel is never going to risk invasion from a foreign power. It will however have the same chances to destroy itself.
"no other country in the world faces existential threat"
Maybe it does, and maybe it doesn't, but what you have just done is to argue why ISRAEL feels compelled to behave in the way that it does.
Explain to me again why your argument should also compel AMERICA to refrain from any criticism of that behaviour?
"Because none of these counries - not even S. Korea, face the same challenges as Israel does."
And maybe Israel does (or does not) face challenges the likes of which Other Countries do not face.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
But what *you* have just set out is the rationale to explain why ISRAEL behaves in the way that it does and, again, I fail to see why that should dictate to the USA how it should *respond* to that Israeli behaviour.
Israel faces n existential threat
>> He knows better then that, no other country in the world faces existential threat as Israel does, all through its modern history.
22 Arab states have signed a peace offer which Israel has rejected for 9 years.
>> Because none of these counries - not even S. Korea, face the same challenges as Israel does.
No, becasue none of these countries has a lobby that is so single minded and ruthless.
>> How much time has he spent in Israel?
How is that even relevant?
Why should we care if the Zionist Apartheid State feels threatened? I didn't care when Apartheid South Africa was threatened. Israel is "threatened" with being forced to change from a putative "Jewish State" to a "State of All It's Citizens."
Is that threat? Or is that justice?
It's funny how non-Jews feel they have a moral obligation to defend a moral horror.
Sababa03: Israel's chief problem is of own making
Israel faces no "existential threat" from Iran. Instead, Israel's chief threat is its own inability to advance Israel's true best interests by getting out of the West Bank and the Golan Heights, and making peace with its neighbors. While it can.
If you want to make the case to the American public why we should end the "special relationship" with Israel, you need to do it on the grounds that it is a moral imperative to do so. You need to take away the religious significance that people ascribe to Israel, and show them that in reality Israel is just a normal country here on earth, and that we should expect them to behave normally.
Israel has become a golden calf that the foolish bow down to, forgetting the central theme, the golden rule. They asked Jesus, "who is my neighbor?" Jesus challenged us to love even our enemies as ourselves. When we forget that, we cast his teachings to the swine.
1) he implies that because psychos like bin laden or yousef hate israel that the US should then kowtow to these terrorists regarding US foreign policy. Thats bunk.
2) the reason the peace process had failed is NOT because of the relationship between israel and the US, the reason is because the palestinians refuse to negotiate and wont recognize israel as a jewish state. Walt outright lies when he says bibi has done nothing. Bibi froze west bank, removed checkpoints, called for 2 states for 2 peoples, something abbas WONT do, eased the blockade on gaza and helped to improve the economy of the WB. So when walt shrugs off the concrete things bibi has done and ignores the things abbas has not done, then you know walt has a bias.
3) permisraels nukes, they have been beyond responsible with them for near 50 yrs and if walt was anything approaching honest about his wanting to safeguard israel, then he would have to intellectually agree that only nuclear IMBALANCE in the region preserves the wider peace.
Israel's "CONDUCT" as walt likes to speak of has in fact been exemplary in an otherwise very hostile region. America should never give in to extortion from jihadists who want to dictate what americas policies should be. If walt really believes that, I think he's a very misguided harvard professor...but thats nothing new eh? :-)
for walt to argue that people cannot say anything critical of israel is to ignore the news daily the world over...
the bottom line is, walt hates israel and probably doesn't love jews. Hiding behind hating israels policies has become the fashion for those who really just dont like jews. I think walts arguments throughout the article are without merit and only prove what an anti israel bias he seems to have.
"the reason the peace process had failed is NOT because of the relationship between israel and the US, the reason is because the palestinians refuse to negotiate and wont recognize israel as a jewish state. "
The assumption here is that the key to determining America's policy, is to discover who's to blame for the lack of peace between Israel and Palestine, and then support the "good guys." What we're saying instead is, that's irrelevant. As far as I'm concerned, Israel can do whatever they want. Oppress the Palestinians, free them, buy them all ice creams, whatever. That's their choice. But regardless of what Israel chooses to do, the US ought not support them unconditionally.
"Israel's "CONDUCT" as walt likes to speak of has in fact been exemplary"
So what? Even if true, that doesn't explain why the US should give unconditional support to Israel. It doesn't matter whether Israel has played nice or mean. What matters is what benefits the alliance renders to America. Those benefits have been extremely paltry.
>> 1) he implies that because psychos like bin laden or yousef hate israel that the US should then kowtow to these terrorists regarding US foreign policy. Thats bunk.
No, it's called cause and effect. If the US doesn't want 9121 events to happen again, it needs to know why they happened to begin with.
>> 2) the reason the peace process had failed is NOT because of the relationship between israel and the US, the reason is because the palestinians refuse to negotiate and wont recognize israel as a jewish state.
False.
1. The Peace process is 20 years old and the first time that Israel demanded to be recognized as a Jewish state was in 2009, so that doesn't cut it.
2. The Israelis signed the Road Map in 2002 which promised to stop building settlements as a part of a mutli step process for peace. Under Phase 1, Israel agreed to stop building settlements before moving to negotiations.
If Israel wants to negotiate, ti needs to stop building settlements first - not just freeze them. The Palestinians would be fools to reward Israel for breaking agreements.
>> 3) permisraels nukes, they have been beyond responsible with them for near 50 yrs
False. In 1973, Israel threatened to use them unless the US sent them the biggest airlift of arms in history to save their butts in the 9173 war.
The bottom line is, that you propagandists can't bear to hear any one criticize Israel.
If Israel is such a fine steward of nukes, then she should declare them, and join the NPT as a nuclear armed member. Until that day, Israel is a rogue nuclear state.
national treasure, Prof. Walt. Someday, you will be remembered for your contributions to this country's welfare!
Indeed...a national treasure...
someone's got a crush ....
treasures are just bestowed so easliy these days....lol
Walt and Mearsheimer will be recognized as true patriots.
Are you assuming that the critic is even American?
The Ministry of Absorption spends a lot of time on the internet.
walt could not be more off target
What is it that walt doesn't quite understand?
Netanyahu, as disliked as the fashionable set likes to portray him, is democratically elected and quite popular in his country. Netanyahu froze the west bank for 10 months, during which abbas would not sit down to talks. Why? because obama allowed him to sit on his hands. Netanyahu called for 2 states for 2 peoples, something abbas wont do. Netanyahu removed checkpoints, he eased the blockade on gaza and he's worked with the PA on security issues and helped the PA create a more favourable economy. So dont tell me netanyahu has done nothing...the only one whose done nothing is abbas...
only nuclear imbalance in the region preserves the wider peace.
think about it...israel has had nukes for 50 yrs, and been exceedingly responsible in consideration of the circumstances they are in surrounded by seething jihadists...in fact, if israel had been governed with the mentality of their arab neighbours, they would have wiped the arabs off the map decades ago...but the israelis are not like the arabs...they are peaceful, they are responsible, they are democratic...
walt thinks its all about settlements, which is a total lie... why is it a lie? ask yourselfves this...FACT; the PLO(palestine LIBERATION rganization) was established in 1964! thats 3 yrs PRIOR to there being ANY so called occupation. So what were they established to liberate in 1964??????
no answer walty??????? thats what I thought. The lack of peace is NOT about settlements...its about arab rejection of any israel inside of any borders. How such a "brilliant" man like walt can't see this, is anybody's guess.
Freesing settlements meant hat Israle were in violation of the
2002 Road Map Agreement.
You see, Israel signed a ratified the Road Map in 2002, which stated that under Phase 1,. Israel were to STOP, NOT FREEZE settlement building completely.
So the fact that there was settlement building to freeze at all in 2010, meant Israel broke their own promise.
WALTSWRONGWITHTHISPICTURE could not be more off target
What is it that WALTSWRONGWITHTHISPICTURE doesn't quite understand?
>> Netanyahu, as disliked as the fashionable set likes to portray him, is democratically elected and quite popular in his country.
False. He has a coalition that is held together with bandaids and by him pandering to far right wing extremists.
>> Netanyahu froze the west bank for 10 months, during which abbas would not sit down to talks. Why?
Simply becasue Netanyahu was already violating the Road Map agreement and sitting down to talks was not supposed to take place until all settlements construction had stopped completely.
>> only nuclear imbalance in the region preserves the wider peace.
No, it fuels a nuclear arms race.
>> FACT; the PLO(palestine LIBERATION rganization) was established in 1964! thats 3 yrs PRIOR to there being ANY so called occupation.
And 16 years after Israel expelled 800,000 Palestinians, stole nearly 50% of Palestinians land and destroyed 500 villages.
>> The lack of peace is NOT about settlements...its about arab rejection of any israel inside of any borders.
What borders? Israel declared it's border in 1948 and yet even Israel refuses to accept them.
Who ever thought a "state" had anything to do with (a) land; (b) sovereignty; (c) control of your natual resources; or (d) free movement?
Apparently, it's all about sloganeering and praising another people. Thank you, Zionists.
Fortunately for the USA, George Washington adhered to the original definition of a state.
All coherent diplomatic relationships require flexibility, flexibility to be close or distanced as it suits evolving purposes. Any diplomatic philosophy that sacrifices flexibility loses control of its consequences. This is currently evident in the US relationships with both Israel and Iran.
Not many sensible people these days believe that Israel is anything other than a David bullying the United States of Goliath.
No matter who will be running the White House
the bond between U.S. and Israel is pronounced "unbreakable".
Unlike ILLUSIONAZ, I am most eager to see how the companionship Obama/Netanyahu will develop, if Obama is reelected in 2012. However, perhaps both guys will be out by then.
But probably the same show will go on like before, with new actors. (Provided the tables are not tumbled by a new, Iranian adventure.)
Walt is a neorealist, not an expert on diplomacy
Walt suggests that "A better approach would be to treat Israel like a normal country and have a normal relationship with it."
Neorealists such as Walt ideally focus on their parsimonious model of international relations, which prioritizes material factors, and excludes analysis of state level factors such as diplomacy.
This post implies that the author is an expert on foreign affairs whereas his specialty is really neorealism.
its like an SS rally in this forum!
iron dome works. its was just rolled out and is still being refined but it works. They already have a signed deal with raytheon(whose patriot misssiles DID NOT work).
As for allllll of the things israel has pioneered, developed etc...they are too many to list! Nothing was stolen as neoleft the anti semite claims...they were developed, from scratch, in israel ...medicines, new surgical techniques, cancer drugs, cameras in pills, then you have telecommunications, military technolgy, drones, physics, art, whatever...the list goes on and on...
the US has been the biggest beneficiary of israeli brains and technology of any nation. you ought to be grateful. but no, all you can do is want to give in to being extorted by jihadis...you want people like ramzi yousef to determine your foreign policy! now thats a real laugh! is that how weak and senseless america has become? your pathetic society is more interested in kim kardashian than iran building nuclear weapons! hahahaha....way to go america!!
like a true friend.
When the Zionist loses an argument, he rolls out the N-word or the A-S words.
Hey Matthew...regarding the N word and the A-S word
if the shoe fits...
you know what I mean bro?
...so you must acquit.
nono matthew, sadly it fits all too well.
Hey- by the way buddy, did you happen to read richard goldstone's latest on the falsehood of likening israel to apartheid? It was ...enlightening and maybe good reading for your group.
LOL
>> They already have a signed deal with raytheon(whose c DID NOT work).
And yet the Patriot Missile was also hailed as a success at the time, before that too was exposed as a hoax. They might have signed a deal with raytheon, but no one is going to buy it.
As Haaretz pointed out, the strike rate of the IronDome system is only 15%. In Israel, they are already complaining about it's failure.
>> Nothing was stolen...
The number of cases of patent infringement and industrial espionage against Israel are in the hundreds.
>> your pathetic society is more interested in kim kardashian than iran building nuclear weapons!
If American society is so pathetic, why does your society keep demanding the world's biggest welfare cheques from American society?
And if your society is so ingenious, why does it produce some bad and easily debunked phony intel on Iranian nukes hat don't exist?
the Zionists denigrate the Goyim. Then plead with us to be their friends. I say, "go be friends with the Chinese." We will survive.
Let's see what the Goyim achieved without the help of Zionism:
1. Ancient Greek Civilization.
2. The Roman Empire and Engineering.
3. The Renaissance.
4. Isaac Newton & Descartes
5. The Establishment of the USA ( Declaration of Independence, Constitution)
6. USA becomes the Superpower in 1945.
the pals left in 1948 under the call for them to do so from amin al husseini...then the grand mufti of jerusalem, who was hitlers close confidant and lived in berlin during the war. he told them to leave so that the invading arab armies could push the jews into the sea and then they could all come back. He was wrong. and by the way, only around 350,000 left. the others remained and STILL live in their homes. No one pushed them anywhere. get your facts straight.
per the freeze, in 2010, that is what was asked of them and they complied ....bibi froze all WB building for 10 months, during which obama did NOTHING to get abbas to reciprocate and sit down to negotiations. bibi removed checkpoints, he eased the blockade and he helped improve the economy in the WB. what did you man abbas do? NOTHING.
Nuclear IMBALANCE is the only thing preserving wider peace. Israel has proven itself beyond reproach with how responsible they have been with their nukes, Shoe on the other foot, if the arabs had them and israel didnt? well, you can draw your own conclusions.
lastly, israel was made a state, sovereign and recognized before the whole world in 1948 as the homeland for the jews ....so AGAIN....what was the PLO established to LIBERATE in 1964???? hmmmmmmmmm, I wonder.
by the way, I dont remember an intifada by the "palestinians" against egypt when it controlled gaza pre 67, nor was there a "palestinian" intifada against jordan when they controlled the west bank pre 67...hmmmmmm..I wonder why.
lastly, again while the haupsturmfuhrer neoleft and his cadre of anti semites hate bibi, he is DEMOCRATICALLY elected in the ONLY democracy in the region, by a MAJORITY of israelis who love and support him. YOU may not like him because he is a strong leader, BUT then again, your country has fallen in love with one of the weakest leaders in decades...
btw, hows that RESET BUTTON working out for y'all with russia? you know, the russia that got you to remove missiles from poland and czech repub in return for their sticking their finger out at you...yes, the russia whose scientist is helping iran build nukes....that russia...remember them? or did barry tell you he talked to them and its all good now...?? lol
Hrabrats roll out the old lies
>> the pals left in 1948 under the call for them to do so from amin al husseini
Israeli historians have all debunked this.
>> ...then the grand mufti of jerusalem, who was hitlers close confidant and lived in berlin during the war.
That was because he was in exile from 1937 and never returned.
>> he told them to leave so that the invading arab armies could push the jews into the sea
False. Firs of all, the quote was never attributed to the mufti . Secondly, even Wikipedia casts doubt upon the authenticity of your quote:
"On that day, Azzam is said to have declared: "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades".[33][34] However, Joffe and Romirowsky report that this "cannot be confirmed from cited sources".[35] Benny Morris, who had previously quoted it in his books, refrained from using it in his book 1948 "after discovering that its pedigree is dubious".[36] Six days later, Azzam told reporters "We are fighting for an Arab Palestine. Whatever the outcome the Arabs will stick to their offer of equal citizenship for Jews in Arab Palestine and let them be as Jewish as they like. In areas where they predominate they will have complete autonomy."[37]
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rahman_Hassan_Azzam#Arab_League:_1945-1952
and then they could all come back. He was wrong. and by the way, only around 350,000 left. the others remained and STILL live in their homes. No one pushed them anywhere. get your facts straight.
>> bibi froze all WB building for 10 months
Israel had promised to stop building them altogether in 2002.
>> bibi removed checkpoints, he eased the blockade and he helped improve the economy in the WB.
These are all there to maintain the illegal occupation. Thieves don't get credit for returning some of the stuff they steal.
>> Israel has proven itself beyond reproach with how responsible they have been with their nukes
False. Israel threatened to use nukes when it though it as losing to Egypt.
>> israel was made a state, sovereign and recognized before the whole world in 1948 as the homeland for the jews
No one has ever recogonized Israel as the homeland for the Jews.
>> what was the PLO established to LIBERATE in 1964???? hmmmmmmmmm, I wonder.
The land that Israel stole in the 1948 war.
>> I dont remember an intifada by the "palestinians" against egypt when it controlled gaza pre 67, nor was there a "palestinian" intifada against jordan when they controlled the west bank pre 67...hmmmmmm..I wonder why.
Neither countries were building settlements or ethnically cleansing Palestinians.
>> lastly, again while the haupsturmfuhrer neoleft and his cadre of anti semites hate bibi,
The same reason everyone does. He's a lying, duplicitous, right wing extremist. And no, he did not win by a majority in the last election.
>> yes, the russia whose scientist is helping iran build nukes.
haha, you mean the Russian who's expertise has nothing to do with nuclear technology but nano diamonds?
4 Muslim vs. 129 Jewish Nobel Prizes?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000,
or 20% of the world population.
They have received the following Nobel Prizes:
Literature:
1988 - Najib Mahfooz
Peace:
1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1994 - Yaser Arafat
Chemistry:
1999 - Ahmed Zewa
TOTAL: FOUR
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000,
or about 0.02% of the world population.
They have received the following Nobel Prizes:
Literature:
1910 - Paul Heyse
1927 - Henri Bergson
1958 - Boris Pasternak
1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 - Nelly Sachs
1976 - Saul Bellow
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 - Elias Canetti
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1991 - Nadine Gordimer World
Peace:
1911 - Alfred Fried
1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 - Rene Cassin
1973 - Henry Kissinger
1978 - Menachem Begin
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1994 - Shimon Peres
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin
Physics:
1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 - Henri Moissan
1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
1910 - Otto Wallach
1915 - Richard Willstaetter
1918 - Fritz Haber
1921 - Albert Einstein
1922 - Niels Bohr
1925 - James Franck
1925 - Gustav Hertz
1943 - Gustav Stern
1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 - Felix Bloc h
1954 - Max Born
1958 - Igor Tamm
1959 - Emilio Segre
1960 - Donald A. Glaser
1961 - Robert Hofstadter
1961 - Melvin Calvin
1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz
1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman
1965 - Julian Schwinger
1969 - Murray Gell-Mann
1971 - Dennis Gabor
1972 - William Howard Stein
1973 - Brian David Josephson
1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
1976 - Burton Richter
1977 - Ilya Prigogine
1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
1978 - Peter L Kapitza
1979 - Stephen Weinberg
1979 - Sheldon Glashow
1979 - Herbert Charle s Brown
1980 - Paul Berg
1980 - Walter Gilbert
1981 - Roald Hoffmann
1982 - Aaron Klug
1985 - Albert A. Hauptman
1985 - Jerome Karle
1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 - Robert Huber
1988 - Leon Lederman
1988 - Melvin Schwartz
1988 - Jack Steinberger
1989 - Sidney Altman
1990 - Jerome Friedman
1992 - Rudolph Marcus
1995 - Martin Perl
2000 - Alan J. Heeger
Economics:
1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 - Simon Kuznets
1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 - Leonid Kantorovich
1976 - Milton Friedman
1978 - Herbert A. Simon
1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 - Franco Modigliani
1987 - Robert M. Solow
1990 - Harry Markowitz
1990 - Merton Miller
1992 - Gary Becker
1993 - Robert Fogel
Medicine:
1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
1908 - Paul Erlich
1914 - Robert Barany
1922 - Otto Meyerhof
1930 - Karl Landsteiner
1931 - Otto Warburg
1936 - Otto Loewi
1944 - Joseph Erlanger
1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser
1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
1952 - Selman Abra ham Waksman
1953 - Hans Krebs
1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 - Joshua Lederberg
1959 - Arthur Kornberg
1964 - Konrad Bloch
1965 - Francois Jaco b
1965 - Andre Lwoff
1967 - George Wald
1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 - Salvador Luria
1970 - Julius Axelrod
1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman
1975 - Howard Martin Temin
1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 - Daniel Nathans
1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
1984 - Cesar Milstein
1985 - Michael Stuart Brown
1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 - Gertrude Elion
1989 - Harold Varmus
1991 - Erwin Neher
1991 - Bert Sakmann
1993 - Richard J. Roberts
1993 - Phillip Sharp
1994 - Alfred Gilman
1995 - Edward B. Lewis
TOTAL: 129 ONE HUNDRED TWENTY NINE
Purposes:
The Jews are not promoting brain washing the children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims.
The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics.
The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.
Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.
Regardless:
Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel's part, the following two sentences really say it all:
If the Muslim Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence.
If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.
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