John J. Mearsheimer - The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

In all affairs its a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

Bertrand Russell

In the fall of 2002, the Atlantic Monthly invited us to write a feature article on the Israel lobby and its effects on U.S. foreign policy. We accepted the commission with some reservations, because we knew this was a controversial subject and that any article that scrutinized the lobby, U.S. support for Israel, or Israeli policy itself was likely to provoke a harsh reaction. Nonetheless, we felt this was an issue that could no longer be ignored, especially in light of the September 11 terrorist attacks and the looming war with Iraq. If U.S. support for Israel was a significant source of anti-Americanism in the Middle East and a source of tension with key strategic allies, and if pro-Israel groups and individuals were a major influence on U.S. foreign policy in this vital region, then it was important to raise the issue openly and encourage public discussion of the lobbys actions and impact.

We worked on the article off and on over the next two years, in close collaboration with the Atlantics editors, and we sent them a manuscript conforming to our prior agreements and incorporating virtually all of their suggestions in January 2005. A few weeks later, to our surprise, the editor informed us that the Atlantic had decided not to run the piece and that he was not interested in our attempting to revise it.

We considered submitting the article to several other journals but concluded that they would be unlikely to run the piece, either due to its content or its length. We also considered the possibility of turning the article into a book, but responses to our initial inquiries were not sufficiently enthusiastic to convince us to commit additional time and effort to it. So we put the manuscript aside and turned to other projects, although an abbreviated version of some of this material was included in Stephen M. Walts Taming American Power, which was published by W. W. Norton in September 2005.

Then, in October 2005, a distinguished American academic contacted us and suggested that we consider publishing the article in the London Review of Books. Someone at the Atlantic had given him a copy of the rejected essay, and he told us he thought the editor of the LRB, Mary-Kay Wilmers, would be interested. We sent her the manuscript and she quickly expressed her desire to publish it. After another round of updating and revision, the articlenow titled The Israel Lobbywas published in the March 23, 2006, issue. At the suggestion of one of the scholars who had read and commented on an earlier draft, we simultaneously posted a fully documented version of the article on the Faculty Working Papers website of Harvards John F. Kennedy School of Government. We did this because the LRBs format does not allow for extensive references or footnotes, and we wanted readers to see that our argument rested on a wide array of credible sources.

The case advanced in the article was straightforward. After describing the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel, we argued that this support could not be fully explained on either strategic or moral grounds. Instead, it was due largely to the political power of the Israel lobby, a loose coalition of individuals and groups that seeks to influence American foreign policy in ways that will benefit Israel. In addition to encouraging the United States to back Israel more or less unconditionally, groups and individuals in the lobby played key roles in shaping American policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the ill-fated invasion of Iraq, and the ongoing confrontations with Syria and Iran. We suggested that these policies were not in the U.S. national interest and were in fact harmful to Israels long-term interests as well.

The response to the essay was breathtaking. By July 2006, the Kennedy Schools website had recorded more than 275,000 downloads of the working paper and we had received numerous requests to translate or reprint the LRB article. As expected, the essay initially generated a firestorm of criticism from prominent groups or individuals in the lobby, and we were denounced as anti-Semites by the Anti-Defamation League and by op-ed writers in the Jerusalem Post, New York Sun, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. The New Republic devoted four separate articles to attacking our article, and a number of critics accused userroneouslyof having made numerous historical or factual mistakes. A few critics even predicted that the article (and its authors) would soon fade into what they thought would be a richly deserved obscurity.