Books

Adam Kirsch CliffsNotes: Red Wine And The Israel Lobby

By Jason Diamond / January 18, 2012
Jewcy loves trees! Please don't print!

I read John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt’s The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy because I wanted to see what the hubbub was all about, and I was also reading all the responses in the wake of the book’s release. This week, several years after the book came out, Adam Kirsch in his Tablet column doesn’t try to break down the book or decry it like many critics and other intellectuals did upon the book’s release; instead, he tries to understand the book’s legacy.  And it made me think back to that special moment when the librarian handed it over to me and remarked, “It’s a lot of Jewish guys checking this one out.  You’re the youngest one by at least 30 years.”  It also made me revisit the thing I thought after reading it.  Mainly:

1. This book is bad news for American Jews.  It’s going to perpetuate stereotypes, and possibly make people distrust and dislike Jews even more.

2.  Lobbies suck. There are lobbies for about a hundred things from fatty foods to tobacco.  Reading the book made me realize that I hate those things, and as much as I disagree with a lot of the policies and actions of Israel, I still care about its well being.  And getting non-Jewish support for anything Jewish isn’t the easiest sell. [ I found myself in the awkward position of defending what I saw as the good of a pro-Israel lobby.  This abandonment of many of my own ideals caused me to drink more wine.  In all, I read the book over 2 evenings, and drank four bottles.]

Here’s the thing:  I didn’t read The Israel Lobby to learn anything I didn’t already know, and I wasn’t sold on any crazy ideas.  I read the book because my spot came up at the library, and because I wanted to hear two highly respected academics explain why I knew the things I knew.  I also got too drunk to really form any new opinions on the matter, so I guess my entire experience shouldn’t count much.  At least Kirsch’s revisiting the book’s lasting impression is interesting, poignant, and (obviously) smartly written.

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  • By Morganfrost 1/19/12 at 10:19 a.m. UTC

    “I also got too drunk to really form any new opinions on the matter, so I guess my entire experience shouldn’t count much.”

    From the substance of this article, one might get the impression that sobriety would not markedly improve the substance of the author’s opinions.

  • By Zeevico 1/19/12 at 4:28 a.m. UTC

    Two points:
    1. Lobbies are groups of people who advocate on behalf of their political viewpoint. In a democracy, lobbying and advocacy is not merely an essential aspect of the right to express one’s political views. I would go further and state that it is the moral duty of every citizen to express their views and thereby “lobby” for change, whether that be as individuals or as a group. If lobbies are evil, how else will citizens congregate to achieve political goals? What is a political party if not a “lobby” with a peculiar hierarchical structure and a habit of supporting candidates for political office?
    2. The influence of lobbies in democratic politics is directly proportional to the extent to which the public agrees with their views and is willing to hold politicians to account for departing from (or agreeing with) those views. AIPAC, the NRA, the Brady Campaign, or NARAL, to name a few, hold sway only to the extent that sections of the public agree with their views (or persuaded by them).

    Jason Diamond also writes:
    “This book is bad news for American Jews. It’s going to perpetuate stereotypes, and possibly make people distrust and dislike Jews even more.”

    The ideas expressed in Walt and Mearsheimer’s book are dangerous for democracy. The plain fact is that lobbies are merely groups of people advocating for their views in public fora. It doesn’t matter if those groups are composed of millionaires or paupers, Jews or Blacks, Christians or Atheists. All of them have a right to express their views. A condemnation of a specific lobby makes the implicit case that lobbies themselves are evil in that they are an abuse (rather than an expression of) democratic politics: an implication Diamond appears to accept when he writes that “Lobbies suck.” The right to advocate for one’s views is essential to a democratic society; the case against lobbying per se amounts to a case against organised political representation per se. An end to organised political representation is an end to democracy.

    Put another way: this book condemns Jewish lobbies. After we are done with the Jew(ish lobby), which group, which “lobby,” shall we target next?

    Incidentally, Walt and Mearsheimer’s academic work is basically devoid of merit. Realist foreign policy doctrine supposes that nations have “interests” irrespective of their domestic politics which they pursue or ought to pursue. As any number of examples in world history demonstrate, that’s sheer fantasy. Materialism, the premise on which realism is founded, is not a universally embraced political or philosophical position. That affects how nations act. As Ayatollah Khomeini famously put it: “This revolution was not about the price of watermelons.”

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