New York Sun, NY –
June 9 2007
What if They’re Wrong?
By SETH GITELL
June 9, 2007 updated 9:34 am EDT
BOSTON – Bright morning sun shone through the 38th floor windows of
the Harvard Club of Boston onto some 33 breakfasters, among them
Stephen Walt, the academic dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of
Government and the co-author of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign
Policy."
As Harvard Club’s "Business/Public Policy Book Discussion Group"
partook a repast of French toast with fresh raspberries, Mr. Walt
commenced his talk on the subject of his 2005 tome "Taming American
Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy." The gathering was merely
the appetizer to a day-long event to be held at the Harvard Club’s
counterpart in the Back Bay, seven and a half hours of face time with
President and Mrs. Carter, he of the 2006 book "Palestine: Peace not
Apartheid." who spoke of the influence of the "Jewish lobby" on
National Broadcasting Company’s "Meet the Press" last fall. Said he:
"I think there’s a reticence, even in public fora, to describe both
sides of the issues in the West Bank".
The convergence of two such events on the same day wasn’t quite a
return to the days of Father Feeney, the excommunicated Catholic
priest who, according to a 1951 Harvard Crimson story preached to an
audience of university students and others: "People have been calling
me a Hitler. That’s a typical Jew trick. The Jews in Boston are
trying to take our religion away." But the events for two speakers,
Messrs. Walt and Carter, on the same day does show how far one can go
in talking about Israel and its supporters in polite circles these
days.
Polite is how Mr. Walt, who wore an electric-blue shirt, red tie, and
tightly trimmed beard, came across. Whether he was quoting Osama Bin
Laden or Vladimir Putin to demonstrate the gap in public opinion
between how Americans view America’s actions and how those in other
countries see them, he evinced an aire of academic detachment. "I’m
not saying which view is right or wrong. I’m suggesting there is a
difference on how we tend to see it and how they do." He said, "it’s
perfectly okay for American citizens to have attachments to foreign
countries and to manifest that attachment in politics." He enumerated
instances of American exercises of power abroad, such as bombing "a
pharmaceutical factory in Sudan" or attacking "what we think are al
Qaeda bases in Pakistan and kill[ing] 18 civilians."
The professor was the epitome of even handedness. In Mr. Walt’s
calculus of realism and moral relativism, little difference exists
between, say, the tyranny of Iran and the democracy of America. To
illustrate anger over American policies, Mr. Walt presented a Zogby
International poll of public opinion in such countries as Saudi
Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon. The question missing from Mr. Walt’s
analysis is what if public opinion in those countries is wrong.
This standoffish at making moral judgments included one major
exception — Israel, with Armenia and India thrown as examples of
country’s with strong constituencies in America. Mr. Walt
characterized this menacingly on his Power Point as "Penetration:
manipulate U.S. political system in order to influence U.S. foreign
policy."
At question time, the first query was about the favorable reception
his report has received from David Duke, the Muslim Brotherhood, and
the Palestine Liberation Organization. "I don’t feel good about it,"
he said. "Getting the endorsement from David Duke is not something
anybody really relishes."
Another questioner asked Mr. Walt about errors in the "Israel Lobby"
paper and his motivations in penning it. The critical tone of the
questioner seemed to frustrate a green- jacketed fellow present who
hollered, "which question are you going to answer?" Mr. Walt, who
said his paper created dialogue on a little discussed subject, gave
his response: "Everyone should be aware of what’s going on here,
which is fairly classic. We pointed out in our original paper that
anybody who criticizes Israeli policies or anybody who criticizes the
Israel lobby immediately gets attacked for being anti-Semitic. This
is the standard operating procedure." Mr. Walt added that he and
co-author John Mearsheimer had prepared a "30,000 word rebuttal" to
their critics, including Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, which
he said they would post to the web later this summer.