The uses of Mearsheimer and Walt

Alleged Hamas member Abdelhaleem Ashqar was acquitted on terorirsm charges in federal district court in Chicago this past February, but convicted of obstruction of justice and criminal contempt. Now Josh Gerstein reports that he now seeks a lenient sentence with the help of The Israel Lobby by University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer and Harvard University Professor Stephen Walt:

“Every person in this court has been influenced by perception and mythology and kept ignorant through the hegemonical myth that Israel is the victim, defending itself against the barbaric Palestinians,” Ashqar’s attorney, William Moffitt, wrote before launching into a five-page synopsis of assertions in “The Israel Lobby” that American support for Israel is based on erroneous beliefs about the relationship between that nation and the Palestinians.
“There was no choice for Dr. Ashqar when subpoenaed in front of the grand jury. He could either join with his oppressors, reject his countrymen, forsake everything he believes, and never return to his beloved Palestine, or he could be labeled a terrorist. There is a special nobility in such a choice,” the lawyer wrote.

And so on. Moffitt is a piece of work. I took a look at the appalling brief he filed on behalf of CAIR in the Holy Land Foundation trial in “Coming clean about CAIR.” Is Moffitt becoming the Emmanuel Bloch of the friends of Hamas?

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