Serious. Cold. Stunning. Walt and Mearsheimer Arrive in Hard Covers
By Philip Weiss
Some time in the next few days the website israellobbybook.com will be activated–right now it’s a blank–and The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, will be published by FSG. This is a historic book. The authors’ London Review of Books paper last year created an intellectual sensation I’ve never witnessed, and notwithstanding the desire of the lobby that the book disappear, I imagine the splash this time will be mainstream. Walt and Mearsheimer will be on television. That likelihood is increased by David Remnick’s flat assertion, in an advance piece on the book that generally threw water on the scholars, that they are right to say that the lobby bears responsibility for the Iraq war.
I’ve been reading the book this August and have three preliminary impressions: Serious, cold and stunning. The seriousness of the book is conveyed on every page. The arguments are calm and earnest, stripped of metaphor and coyness. These are mature men engaged in every sinew with a giant squid of an issue; and their 106 pages of endnotes are overwhelming, and give the lie to anyone who accuses these scholars of “shoddy scholarship.”
Cold. The authors are conservative realists at heart. They see states as amoral and a little vicious, and they don’t overheat their arguments. There is no joy in the book, and the fervor is hidden beneath mountains of cold logic. They are reserved, and tactical. They refuse to really take on the dual-loyalty problem (just as Tony Judt refused in his speech at NYU last year) but you sense that they believe it’s a problem (as I do). They generally say that the lobby has every right to do what it does, but their underlying zeal comes out–I think, admirably–when they state that the suppression of free speech on this issue is inappropriate and undemocratic. David Remnick’s anger at the authors–he accuses them of wanting Israel to disappear– seems to me a response to that zeal, and though he misdescribes it, the reader can feel the great molten energy underneath the icy words. (….Full Article)
Hear some powerful vintage David Duke MP3s on this topic!:
More Fallout from Walt and Mearsheimer MP3 (5/19/06)
Duke Responds to Walt and Mearsheimer! MP3 (10/10/06)
Mearsheimer and Free Speech Issues MP3(10/11/06)
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