The intimate US connection with Israel is not, however, a struggle of ‘partners against terror,’ the authors write:
There is no convincing evidence linking Osama bin Laden and his inner circle to the various Palestinian terrorist groups (although he has always sympathised with the Palestinian diaspora) and most Palestinian terrorists (whom the authors condemn unequivocally) do not share al Qaeda’s desire to launch a global Islamic restoration or restore the caliphate.
Their basic point, then, is that ‘the United States has a terrorism problem in good part because it has so long been supportive of Israel’. The irony, they suggest, is that Washington supported Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran, which is now the next US target, as urged by the lobby, and that the US ‘was happy to accept Iran’s help when dealing with the Taliban and pleased to get intelligence about al Qaeda from Syria’, which the lobby also presses Washington to attack, although Mearsheimer and Walt insist that the Syrians, unlike Iran, are no threat to the US.
On the moral case for unwavering support for Israel the authors make both strong and weak points. It is true, as they say, that the Holocaust entitles Jews to special regard. It also entitled them to a safe homeland and protection from enemies. The authors are clear on this, as on Israel’s right to American military support against its adversaries, although as they point out it is immeasurably stronger than all of them. But this does not mean, the authors argue, that Israel is invariably right in its treatment of Palestinians — as many Israelis and most Americans agree it is not — nor did it justify the unbalanced response in Lebanon to Hezbollah’s kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers and some rocketing. Where their case is weak, I believe, is in their seeming equation between Israeli terrorism during the formation of the Israeli state in the Forties and Palestinian terror now. Despite their attempt to be balanced and fair I discern a kind of sympathy for the suicide bombers in Israeli streets and restaurants, who demand our understanding but not, I think, our sympathy.
Comments
graeme a
March 17th, 2009 12:41amJust a couple of points -
Mr Mirsky - your allegation of Israeli "war crimes" in Israel is based on nothing more empiric than Hizbollah propaganda. The cluster weapons were used against the Hizbollah fighters. Some civilians were hurt by them, but these are a quantity that is insignificant to the conflict. Your conclusion based on "numbers of Lebanese civilians killed" uses casualty figures published by the Hizbollah precisely for the consumption of the likes of you.
Israelis have no problem whatsoever with fair and balanced criticism. Israelis do have a problem with their rebuttal being lumped as "inability to accept criticism" and especially with most of this criticism being the mere deligitimization of the rights of Jews to national self determination (ie - anti-Zionism)
We are extremely tired of Jewish or ex Jewish persons in the diaspora using their Jewishness as a means to endow their statements with added validity and righteousness as they jump on the bandwagon of the hordes of trendy bleeding heart Israel bashers.
I say all this as a member of the IDF (reserve) serving for over 20 years with middle officer rank and intimately acquainted with how the IDF fights, its RoE and the efforts it makes to avoid civilian casualties.
I will add that when I have nothing but immense pride in Israel and the IDF in light of their achievements facing anything ranging from Islamic Jihad to the Western Left.
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israeli
September 30th, 2007 4:43pmI would just like to make the point that the reason why Israel (and Israelis) so often seems to reject any criticism is not because we are particularly thin skinned, but because we know that our enemies are looking for any and all ways to weaken us as a means to achieving their final goal of destroying us, and weakening any source of foreign support is one way of doing this. To outsiders it may seem that we are very strong, we feel very vulnerable and know at what price this strength is achieved and the eternal vigilance it demands.
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tihson
September 28th, 2007 5:23pmThe trouble with Jonathan Mirsky's thesis is that Ariel Sharon, person with unrivalled experience in the dynamics of Middle Eastern politics cautioned Bush privately prior to 1993 about the dangers of the US invading Iraq, for a number of reasons, including the unlikelihood of democracy taking root there and the danger of strengthening Iran. As to WMD, we shall probably never know the truth. They may have been transported to Syria before the invasion began in as stated in the admittedly hearsay testimony of the former Iraqi air force general, Georges Sada.
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tihson
September 28th, 2007 5:22pmThe trouble with Jonathan Mirsky's thesis is that Ariel Sharon, person with unrivalled experience in the dynamics of Middle Eastern politics cautioned Bush privately prior to 1993 about the dangers of the US invading Iraq, for a number of reasons, including the unlikelihood of democracy taking root there and the danger of strengthening Iran. As to WMD, we shall probably never know the truth. They may have been transported to Syria before the invasion began in as stated in the admittedly hearsay testimony of the former Iraqi air force general, Georges Sada.
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