“The Lobby Falters,” an article in the London Review of Books by John Mearsheimer (of “Israel Lobby” fame/infamy) was brought to my attention by Arieh Lebowitz. Arieh mentioned its “tendentious” quality.
“Tendentious” – meaning to argue a cause or point of view rather than to fairly discuss the facts – is absolutely the right word. And it’s interesting that you have to read most of the way down to get to a point where he can say that “the Lobby faltered” (re Jimmy Carter), justifying the title. And he never examines the reasons provided by serious and liberal-minded thinkers like Jeffrey Goldberg and Jonathan Chait for opposing Charles Freeman; he just slurs them as “pro-Israel.”
The Lobby Falters by John Mearsheimer:
Many people in Washington were surprised when the Obama administration tapped Charles Freeman to chair the National Intelligence Council, the body that oversees the production of National Intelligence Estimates: Freeman had a distinguished 30-year career as a diplomat and Defense Department official, but he has publicly criticised Israeli policy and America’s special relationship with Israel, saying, for example, in a speech in 2005, that ‘as long as the United States continues unconditionally to provide the subsidies and political protection that make the Israeli occupation and the high-handed and self-defeating policies it engenders possible, there is little, if any, reason to hope that anything resembling the former peace process can be resurrected.’ Words like these are rarely spoken in public in Washington….
Predictably alarmed, the Israel lobby launched a smear campaign against Freeman, hoping that he would either quit or be fired by Obama. You can read the rest at the LRB Web site.
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