I received the following letter from a supporter today. Let me share it with you.
Dear Mr. Duke,
Last month I purchased a copy of Mearsheimer and Walt’s book. I found it to be a welcome entry in the public discourse, yet simultaneously disappointing in terms of facts and evidence. I have taken the time to write a review which you may find of interest.
A Review of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by Bill Mathews
Mearsheimer and Walt’s The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy is a groundbreaking work that has opened the public debate on Israel’s influence in America.
The book’s thesis is simple: The United States supports Israel not because it is a strategic asset or even because it has a strong moral case. In fact, say the authors, our unconditional support of Israel is due to the existence of the powerful Israel lobby.
Perhaps the greatest credit to their thesis are the personal attacks and difficulties the authors faced. The Atlantic Monthly commissioned the original paper and then rejected it despite its compliance with all the publisher’s requests. Once published in London Review of Books the authors were called “slanderous,” “obsessive and irrational” and “conspiracy theorists.”
The arguments in the Israel Lobby were recently published in an expanded book version. While Mearsheimer and Walt put Israel lobby into the spotlight, their argument is in fact quite limited. They rightly declare the lobby to be unique in its ability to influence policy. Simultaneously they restrict themselves to examining the lobby itself and not the influential group behind it, i.e. Jews.
Mearsheimer and Walt categorically reject the “canard” of Jews “controlling banks, the media, and other key institutions.”
Because of this, their thesis becomes incredibly simplistic. Mearsheimer and Walt describe a lobby with the power to ruin politicians and foment wars abroad. This lobby is the same as any other. But what gives the lobby it’s power?
Clearly, not economic or cultural power, because that would be an “anti-semitic canard!” But, let us examine this “canard.” Ben Stein, a well-known Jew involved in Hollywood, wrote an article on E! Online that estimated at least 60% of Hollywood was under direct Jewish control.
What about the sphere of banking? A Jew has been Chairman of our Federal Reserve banking system for the past twenty years. The World Bank’s previous two Presidents were both Jews, the latter, Wolfowitz, was a key policy planner for the invasion of Iraq.
In government? Jewish males held 28% of the Cabinet positions in Clinton’s presidency, despite being 1% of the population. The head of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, is a radical Jew. In the Supreme Court Jews hold 22% of the positions, yet are only 2% of the population. Our newly appointed Attorney General Michael Mukasey is also an extremist Jew.
Mearsheimer and Walt believe these facts to be “anti-semitic canards.” At the end of the book the best solution the authors can find is to “foster a more open discourse” that will undermine the excesses of the Israel lobby.
I ask these gentlemen, how will you do that? How will you open the public debate when the media is in the hands of Jews? How will our government take a stand against Israel when its key positions are all held by Jews?
The flaw of Mearsheimer and Walt’s The Israel Lobby is not any “slanderous” or “conspiratorial” accusation at Jews. Their flaw is addressing the issue of the Israel Lobby while totally overlooking the power of those behind it, extremist Jews in powerful positions in government, and finance who support Israel and the Jewish agenda.
