Scholars Land Book Deal for Attack on ‘Israel Lobby’

[Poll_Blind]

From The Jewish Daily Forward

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, the authors of a controversial paper criticizing the role of the “Israel Lobby” in American foreign policy, are at work on a book-length version of their findings to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

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The paper — which argues that America’s “unwavering support for Israel… has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world” — has sparked a wide range of responses among scholars, pundits and former diplomats. Some have called it the stuff of conspiracy theory and antisemitism, while others have praised it as a welcome foray into a subject often thought to be taboo. The debate played out again on September 28, when the London Review of Books staged a lively debate in Manhattan featuring Mearsheimer, Tony Judt of New York Univeristy, Columbia University’s Rashid Khalidi, onetime Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami and Clinton administration Middle East specialists Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk (READ RELATED STORY).

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With figures like Duke in mind, Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, worried that Mearsheimer and Walt’s scholarly credentials could serve to further embolden fringe groups. “We shouldn’t underestimate the damage — and the potential damage — of this paper and the legitimacy it gives to the haters,” he said.

Some were especially troubled by the fact that it was Farrar, Straus and Giroux that had decided to acquire the book. The publishers of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Bernard Malamud — and a host of contemporary Jewish writers — FSG is commonly regarded as one of the country’s most distinguished publishing houses.

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The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy Professors John Mearsheimer (University of Chicago) and Stephen Walt (Harvard)
Mearsheimer and Walt's Anti-Jewish Screed: A Relentless Assault in Scholarly Guise (Anti-Defamation League)
London Review of Books Debate (streaming)

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