The return of Walt and Mearsheimer
On September 4 the book version of Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer's pseudoscholarly "Israel Lobby" essay will be published. Last week the New York Times previewed their return. According to the article, "anxieties have surfaced about the backlash it is stirring." Whose anxieties have surfaced? The articles doesn't say, but it seems to be those of Walt and Mearsheimer. Those "anxieties," however, are part of Walt and Mearsheimer's marketing campaign. The "backlash" is of course the reaction of those perfidious Jews exposed in the book, who decline to host Walt and Mearsheimer promoting the book. The editorial in this week's (Jewish weekly) Forward explains:
As part of the advance marketing campaign, the scholars asked to appear before a variety of Jewish audiences, including synagogues and a Jewish community center. They were, predictably, turned down.The Times, as always, is willilng to make itself a useful tool for the likes of Walt and Mearsheimer. The Times's account of the incident involving the Forward appears in the Times article (I think), but in almost unrecognizable form.Then the Forward was approached. We were asked to sponsor a program at which the professors would present their views, unopposed. Noting that we hadn’t thought much of the paper when it came out, we were assured that the authors had now incorporated last year’s criticisms. We asked to see a copy of the book, but we found it as sloppy as the original paper and decided not to endorse it. All of which played right into their hands, enabling them to argue that the Lobby is still working to suppress their views — with the Forward as Exhibit A.
The Forward’s opinion of their work could not have come as a surprise to them. We published our critique last year in a front-page editorial, the longest editorial in the newspaper’s history.
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“The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” is not a good book, and it does no service to those who truly crave a more robust debate in this country. Still, if the Forward had been asked to participate in a debate with the professors, we would have done so happily. Helping them to market their book was a different story. But that’s the genius of the victimhood game: If you’ve been rejected, you’ve won in the court of public opinion.
