Walter Russell Mead has written an interesting review of Walt & Mearsheimer’s book “The Israel Lobby” in the November/December issue of Foreign Affairs, entitled “Jerusalem Syndrome.”
Mead defends Walt & Mearsheimer against the charge of anti-Semitism. But the defense recalls the scene from “Some Like It Hot” in which the mob boss toasts “a certain party from Chicago, South Side Chapter” before killing him with gunners bursting out of the birthday cake:
Now, some people say he’s gotten a little too big for his spats. . . . But I say, he’s a man who’ll go far.
Some people say he’s gone too far. . . . But I say, you can’t keep a good man down.
Here is Mead’s defense of Walt & Mearsheimer from the charge of anti-Semitism:
Although Mearsheimer and Walt make an effort to distinguish their work from anti-Semitic tracts, the picture they paint calls up some of the ugliest stereotypes in anti-Semitic discourse. The Zionist octopus they conjure — stirring up the
Iraq war, manipulating both U.S. political parties, shaping the media, punishing the courageous minority of professors and politicians who dare to tell the truth — is depressingly familiar.
Some readers will be so overpowered by this familiar bugbear that they will conclude that the authors are deliberately invoking it. In fact, Mearsheimer and Walt have come honestly to a mistaken understanding of the relationship between pro-Israel political activity and
U.S. policy and strategic interests. It is no crime to be wrong, and being wrong about Jews does not necessarily make someone an anti-Semite. But rhetorical clumsiness and the occasional unfortunate phrase make their case harder to defend.
Some people say they’re using the ugliest stereotypes in anti-Semitic discourse to paint a depressingly familiar picture of a Zionist octopus. But I say it’s just a little rhetorical clumsiness and the occasional unfortunate phrase.
The authors also end up adopting a widely used tactic that has a special history in anti-Semitic literature. When anti-Semitic writers and politicians make vicious attacks, Jews are in a double bind: refrain from responding with outrage and the charge becomes accepted as a fact, express utter loathing at the charge and give anti-Semites the opportunity to pose as the victims of a slander campaign by venomous Jews.
Nazi propagandists honed this into an effective weapon. Anyone who lived through or has immersed himself in the history of the golden age of European anti-Semitism is keenly aware of this tactic, and when one sees it employed in writing about Israel or the Israel lobby, one naturally assumes the worst: that the use of a tactic long popular among anti-Semites is a sign that a contemporary writer shares their deplorable worldview.
The greatest living practitioner of this passive-aggressive form of provocation (and not just against Jews) is former President Jimmy Carter, whose recently published
Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid set off a firestorm by implying a parallel between the Israel of today and apartheid South Africa. Mearsheimer and Walt wag their fingers at those awful Jews who "smeared" the meek and innocent Lamb of Georgia. How dare the lobby be provoked by Carter’s provocation! To a certain audience, that chain of events signals a powerful and determined anti-Semitism at work. This is wrong, in both the case of Carter and the case of Mearsheimer and Walt. But paying a little more attention to the ways in which modern history has shaped the emotions and responses of participants in
Israel policy debates would have helped Mearsheimer and Walt make their case.
Some people say they’ve adopted a widely-used tactic that has a special history in anti-Semitic literature and has long been popular among anti-Semites. But I say they just need to pay a little more attention to the ways in which modern history shapes policy debates.
Some people are still a little touchy about the Holocaust, and even more so about the current threats to repeat it. But to those who are not, I say they might consider reading “Those Who Forget the Past” — particularly the essays by Cynthia Ozick (“Afterword”), Ruth Wisse (“On Ignoring Anti-Semitism”), Melanie Phillips (“The New Anti-Semitism”) and Todd Gitlin (“The Rough Beast Returns”).
It will help them understand the ways in which modern history shapes this debate.