Mearsheimer and Walt Respond:FP

We are grateful to Zbigniew Brzezinski for his incisive defense of our article. But one point of clarification is necessary. Brzezinski says that we might be called “in some respects anti-Israel.” To be clear, although we are critical of some Israeli policies, we categorically support Israel's existence. But we believe the lobby's influence harms U.S. and Israeli interests.

Regrettably, Aaron Friedberg's comments demonstrate why it is difficult to have a candid discussion of America's intimate relationship with Israel. He accuses us of a “stunning display of intellectual arrogance,” then labels our arguments “inflammatory,” “distinctly uncivilized,” “irresponsible,” and “slanderous.” He even invokes the now-familiar charge of anti-Semitism, by hinting that our article contains “the most unsavory of historical echoes.” But he provides no evidence to support these charges. Friedberg does not challenge our claim that AIPAC and other pro-Israel organizations exert a marked influence on U.S. Middle East policy. Instead, he invents arguments that we do not make, claiming, for example, that we accuse Israel's supporters of “treason.” We make no such charge and never would. Friedberg and other supporters of Israel advocate policies that they think will benefit both the United States and Israel. That is neither improper nor illegitimate. But we believe the policies they advocate sometimes clash with U.S. national security interests, and that their feelings for Israel sometimes color their views of U.S. policy.

To their credit, Dennis Ross and Shlomo Ben-Ami focus on what we actually wrote. Both argue that the lobby does not significantly distort America's Middle East policy. Ross says that we see the lobby as “all powerful,” while Ben-Ami describes our portrayal of its influence as “grossly overblown,” referring to the lobby at one point as “mythological.” America's unconditional support for Israel reflects, in Ben-Ami's words, “shared interests” and, in Ross's view, common “values.” This argument is familiar but unconvincing. We never said the Israel lobby was “all powerful,” but anyone familiar with U.S. Middle East policy knows that the lobby wields great influence. Former President Bill Clinton, for instance, described AIPAC as “better than anyone else lobbying in this town.” Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called it “the most effective general interest group … across the entire planet.” And former Democratic Sen. Ernest Hollings noted upon leaving office, “You can't have an Israeli policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here.”

These comments aside, one way to gauge the lobby's impact is to consider what America's Middle East policy would look like if the lobby were weaker. To begin with, the United States would have used its leverage to keep Israel from building settlements in the occupied territories. Every American president since Lyndon Johnson has opposed building settlements, projects that many Israelis now acknowledge were a tragic mistake. But no U.S. president was willing to pay the political price required to stop them. Instead, as Brzezinski notes, the United States has subsidized a policy that directly undermines the prospects for peace. Opposing Israeli expansionism would also align U.S. policy with its expressed commitment to human rights and national self-determination. If the Palestinians had spent the past 40 years treating Israelis as they have been treated, American Jews would be outraged and would rightly demand that the United States use its power to stop it. Ross's claim that common “values” lie at the heart of the special relationship is convincing only if one endorses Israel's treatment of its Arab citizens and its Palestinian subjects.

Absent the lobby, the United States would have adopted a more independent approach toward the peace process, rather than acting as “Israel's lawyer,” to quote Ross's former deputy, Aaron Miller. American leaders would have offered their own plan for a final settlement and conditioned U.S. aid on Israel's willingness to accommodate U.S. policies. Ben-Ami understands this point, since he recently wrote that Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush “managed eventually to produce meaningful breakthroughs on the way to an Arab-Israeli peace” because they were “not especially sensitive or attentive to Jewish voices and lobbies” and were “ready to confront Israel head on and overlook the sensibilities of her friends in America.”

If the lobby had as little influence as our critics claim, the 2003 invasion of Iraq would have been much less likely. Ross thinks there is a contradiction between our twin claims that the lobby's influence was “critical” in the U.S. decision to invade Iraq and that September 11 was also a determining factor. There is no contradiction. Each was a necessary, but not in itself sufficient, condition for war. The neoconservatives' campaign for war is well documented by journalists such as James Bamford, George Packer, and James Risen. It was backed by AIPAC and other hard-line, pro-Israel organizations. September 11 was obviously important, but Saddam Hussein had no connection to it. Still, then Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and other neoconservatives were quick to link the two. They portrayed Saddam's overthrow as critical to winning the war on terror, when, in reality, September 11 was merely the pretext for a war they had long sought.

It is also worth noting that if the lobby were less powerful, the current U.S. policy toward Iran would be more flexible and effective. The United States would still worry about Iran's nuclear ambitions, but it would not be trying to overthrow the regime or contemplating preventive war, and it would be more likely to engage Tehran directly. The United States learned to live with a nuclear China, India, Pakistan, Russia, and even North Korea. Iran is treated differently not because it threatens America, but as President Bush has said, because it threatens Israel. Ironically, Iranian extremism might have been tempered if the lobby mattered less. Iran has sought better relations with Washington on several occasions, and it helped us go after al Qaeda following September 11. But these overtures were rejected, in part because AIPAC and the neoconservatives oppose any opening to Tehran. U.S. intransigence has merely strengthened Iran's hard-liners, making a difficult situation worse. In this case, as in others, the lobby's efforts have jeopardized both American and Israeli interests.

We agree with our critics that U.S. relations with several Arab states are a key source of anti-American extremism, but backing Israel at the expense of the Palestinians makes this problem much worse. Ben-Ami argues that anti-Americanism in the Middle East stems from support for “dysfunctional” Arab autocracies, and that Arafat alone is to blame for the failure of the peace process. In this reading, Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, and Washington's unflinching support for it, has nothing to do with America's deteriorating image in the region. But that is not what a number of objective studies of Arab public opinion have shown. As former Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman recently noted, “al Qaeda's strategic interests are advanced by the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In Arab and in other Muslim countries whose cooperation we need … judgments about American intentions are disproportionately a function of their people's views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

Ben-Ami claims that Arafat's supposed rejection of Clinton's peace plan “caused America's disengagement from the peace process.” Yet, in a recent discussion of the July 2000 Camp David summit, Ben-Ami admitted that “if I were a Palestinian, I would have rejected Camp David as well.” More important, the historical record shows that Arafat did not reject Clinton's December 2000 proposal. The White House announced on Jan. 3, 2001, that “both sides have now accepted the President's ideas with some reservations,” a fact Clinton confirmed in a speech to the Israel Policy Forum four days later. Negotiations continued until late January 2001, when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, not Arafat, broke off the talks. Barak's successor, Ariel Sharon, refused to resume the negotiations, and with the lobby's backing, he eventually persuaded President George W. Bush to support Israel's attempt to impose a unilateral solution that would keep large parts of the West Bank under Israeli control.

Arafat was a deeply flawed leader who made many mistakes. But Israeli and American policymakers are at least as responsible for the failure of the Oslo peace process. If Arafat was the chief obstacle to peace, why has the United States done so little to help Mahmoud Abbas, his democratically elected successor? Here, again, pressure from the lobby helped persuade Washington to pursue a counterproductive policy. Abbas has renounced terrorism, recognized Israel, and repeatedly sought to negotiate a final settlement. But his efforts have been spurned by Israel and the United States alike, thus undermining Abbas's authority and popularity. The result? An electoral victory for Hamas that has left everybody worse off.

The challenges facing U.S. Middle East policy defy easy solution, and we do not claim that a more balanced relationship with Israel is the key to resolving all of them. But these problems will not be properly addressed if the lobby continues to enjoy disproportionate political influence, and if Americans cannot debate these questions freely and dispassionately.

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