In view of Israel’s impact on America’s place in the world, it is astonishing how little discussion its role has generated.

Milton Viorst on ‘The Israel Lobby’ | Posted on Oct 4, 2007 | By Milton Viorst

About 30 or so years ago, when I first began to write of my concern that Israel was embarked on a course that would lead only to recurring wars, or perhaps worse, I received a letter from Abraham H. Foxman, then as now the voice of the Anti-Defamation League, admonishing me as a Jew not to wash our people’s dirty linen in public. I still have it in my files. His point, of course, was not whether the washing should be public or private; he did not offer an alternative laundry. His objective was—and remains—to squelch anyone who is critical of Israel’s policies.

In the ensuing years, Foxman and a legion of like-minded leaders, most but not all of them Jewish, have been remarkably successful in suppressing an open and frank debate on Israel’s course. In view of Israel’s impact on America’s place in the world, it is astonishing how little discussion its role has generated. As a practical matter, the subject has been taboo. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, professors of political science at the University of Chicago and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, respectively, have challenged this taboo in their new book, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.” Foxman, in an effort to discredit them, has written a rejoinder in his book “The Deadliest Lies: The Jewish Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control.” ...
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Foxman does not quite accuse Mearsheimer and Walt—though other disapproving critics do—of being anti-Semitic. But he uses intimidating language nonetheless, pointing to a “level of quiet, subtle bigotry—an attitude that may not run to the actual hatred of Jews but that assumes that Jews are somehow different, less respectable, less honorable, more treacherous, more devious than other people. ... [I]t’s only natural that people who exhibit this kind of bias against Jews should look a little askance at the special relationship that exists between American Jews and the nation of Israel.”
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Yet, even taking money and organization into account, there remains something of a mystery about the influence that AIPAC and its allies wield. In contrast to AIPAC, the gun lobby is routinely called upon to defend itself. But AIPAC’s task, it seems, is easier, because non-Jews, no less than Jews, unquestioningly accept its marching orders. Why, when it comes to AIPAC, do so many Americans abandon the skepticism they apply to other interests within the political spectrum? Europe is much less accommodating to Israel. AIPAC, naturally, blames the difference on Europe’s anti-Semitism, though—apart from Europe’s Muslims, who start with political grievances against Israel—there is little evidence to support its theory. Mearsheimer and Walt credit AIPAC’s skillful manipulation of the system, but the search for an answer needs more.

Perhaps the answer has something to do with America’s being the most religious, the most Christian, the most church-going society in the Western world. Once upon a time, deeply held Christian faith could be taken as a measure of hostility to Jews; that certainly is the case no longer. If anything, American Christianity—led by but not exclusive to evangelicals—seems to take the biblical promise of a homeland for the Jews as a test of its beliefs and a commitment of its own. This commitment goes beyond guaranteeing Israel’s existence. It provides a body of sympathy for Israel’s hard line, and for the economic aid and weaponry that the United States dispatches to support it.

Unfortunately, the pro-peace segment of the American Jewish community does not have a parallel lobby. It has a few organizations, with dedicated adherents. Its members try to persuade the American Jewish community that reaching out to the Arab world, and particularly to the Palestinians, is better for Israel than perpetual war. AIPAC does its best to de-legitimize them, but they hang in stubbornly, though they are barely a whisper in the debate over Israel’s course. Despite the polls suggesting that many Jews agree with them, the influence of the peace groups is no threat to AIPAC’s pre-eminence. ...