For years, British universities seemed sunk in political apathy. Nowhere did this apathy appear more entrenched than at the London School of Economics, a place of learning that stood at the epicenter of the student radicalism of the 1960s but which subsequently became steadily depoliticized, attracting students with a penchant not for revolution but for enriching themselves by pursuing careers in the business world.
Yet in the aftermath of the Iraq war there are distinct signs that students at the LSE and elsewhere are becoming repolitizised, particularly with regard to the Palestine-Israel conflict. When the American scholars Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer visited the college last week to discuss their controversial book The Israel Lobby, people began queuing for their talk more than an hour before it began. Indeed, the number of students, academics and others who turned out for the event was so great that many had to be turned away.
The pair arrived in London following a much-publicized, furiously contentious, six-week tour of the US during which they promoted their case that the American Israel lobby is a real and identifiable entity which has gravely distorted US foreign policy, causing the United States and Israel itself to behave in ways contrary to their own national interests. In the US, there has been a concerted attempt by Zionists to portray them both as anti-Semites, which is why they routinely preface their public appearances by strenuously insisting that they do not regard the Israel lobby as a Jewish cabal and accept that lobbying in itself is a perfectly legitimate activity, nothing less than a defining feature of US political culture. However, Zionist efforts to discredit them have not prevented Walt and Mearsheimer from securing a huge amount of public attention in the US. Indeed, in a modest way they have become American cult figures, with a small trade springing up in T-shirts and buttons adorned with the slogan: “Walt and Mearsheimer Rock: Fight the Israel Lobby”.
It might have been anticipated that there would be a sizable contingent of Zionist zealots awaiting them at the LSE bent on disrupting the proceedings and primed to ask the sort of prepared awkward questions recommended by Zionist websites. Naturally, there were Zionists in the audience who could not conceal their contempt for the speakers. One of the most strident was the London correspondent of Israel Radio who accused them of climbing aboard the fashionable anti-Israel bandwagon and being fundamentally motivated by a desire to “delegitimize” the Jewish state. By way of rejoinder, Walt and Mearsheimer reaffirmed that they have never questioned Israel’s right to exist and firmly believe that if its survival were threatened the United States would be honor-bound to come to its aid.
What rapidly became clear, however, from the loud applause that greeted many of their remarks, was that Walt and Mearsheimer were preaching in the main to the converted. Following their address, a member of the recently formed British body, Independent Jewish Voices, took the opportunity to congratulate them on having written a book which discussed the power and influence of the Israel lobby in such measured terms. There was no little mirth when the gentleman in question observed that their handling of the subject was so exemplary in its avoidance of emotive overstatement as to be almost dull. And certainly, there is an almost comical contrast between the sober tenor of their copiously footnoted book and the hysterical, sometimes menacing, reactions it has provoked.
It has to be said that neither of the two men is much inclined to admit to fallibility; in this respect indeed they have something in common with US President George W. Bush, whose self-righteous foreign policy they so much deplore. But then, for all the charges of shoddy scholarship and specious reasoning which have been leveled at them, the truth is that much of what Walt and Mearsheimer have to say amounts to no more than a recitation of well-documented facts. In a more rational world, one might feel, The Israel Lobby, far from being the stuff of acrimonious controversy, would be seen as a lengthy statement of the obvious. After all, its central claim — that the United States accords Israel a degree of preferential treatment that defies reason while also threatening international stability — can hardly be gainsaid, any more than can the details they provide about the susceptibility of the US Congress to Zionist manipulation. It is because in many ways they are simply pointing out inconvenient truths that their detractors are apt to place so much emphasis on putative flaws in their arguments. One critic has scoffed at them for proposing a definition of the Israel lobby so lax and imprecise that even they, as avowed defenders of Israel’s existence, could be said to belong to it. Virtually advertising its status as a diversionary tactic, such casuistry smacks of desperation.
Israel’s lobbyists have some reason to feel desperation since despite systematic efforts to undermine its credibility, Walt and Mearsheimer’s book reached No.5 in the US best-seller list (a feat, to be sure, that is unlikely to be duplicated in the UK, where best-selling books are apt to be written by television chefs). Though there is little reason to think that they have brought about a sea change in US public opinion on the Palestine-Israel conflict, what they have done is to get the subject openly debated as never before in the country where the need for such debate is most pressing. Not that it does not also need the widest possible airing in Europe.
In Germany, there is if anything even greater constraint on frank discussion of Israel’s behavior than in the US, and throughout Europe there remains a vast gulf between public opinion on the whole Palestine question and government policy.
Next year, Walt and Mearsheimer plan to take their case to Israel, where their public appearances are likely to test the Jewish state’s vaunted commitment to free speech to the hilt. Their hope is that their own country might yet become a candid friend to Israel, prepared to spell out the catastrophic consequences of its contemptuously unilateralist, land-grabbing posture. Even if the US proved capable of such candor, though, would Israel listen? It is hardly an encouraging sign that a Hebrew translation of The Israel Lobby has yet to be published there. Nevertheless, the book’s intrepid authors have made a contribution to the Palestine-Israel debate that cannot easily be ignored. It is not the least of Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer’s achievements that they have demonstrated how much intelligent writing still counts.
