Alternative Insight

Media Demagogues
The conventional media and the working paper, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

Without realizing, the conventional media proved a significant claim in the working paper, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy , March 2006. The claim:

In addition to influencing government policy directly, the [Israel] Lobby strives to shape public perceptions about Israel and the Middle East. It does not want an open debate on issues involving Israel, because an open debate might cause Americans to question the level of support that they currently provide. Accordingly, pro-Israel organizations work hard to influence the media, think tanks, and academia, because these institutions are critical in shaping popular opinion.

By selecting mostly the opinions of Israel supporters in their coverage of the working paper, by mirroring demagogic attempts to link the authors with unacceptable groups and by claiming charges of shoddiness, a non-scholarly approach and anti-Semitism, the conventional media showed the public that "It does not want an open debate on issues involving Israel, because an open debate might cause Americans to question the level of support that they currently provide."

Demagogue linking of David Duke to the report was prevalent. (How low can news sources be?)

A paper recently co-authored by the academic dean of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government about the allegedly far-reaching influence of an "Israel lobby" is winning praise from white supremacist David Duke. The Palestine Liberation Organization mission to Washington is distributing the paper, which also is being hailed by a senior member of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist organization. David Duke Claims to Be Vindicated By a Harvard Dean, ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun, March 20, 2006,URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/29380

Other media followed the NY Sun lead.
The Washington Post, March 26, 2006, Page B05, Post Outlook titled an article: Of Israel, Harvard and David Duke and inserted the NY SUN comments in its article on the subject.

David Duke: "It is quite satisfying to see a body in the premier American university essentially come out and validate every major point I have been making since even before the war even started." (New York Sun) The Washington Post Outlook, Mar. 26, 2006

The Wall Street Journal Opinion also highlighted the David Duke theme in an article titled: Israel Lobby
by RUTH R. WISSE, March 22, 2006; Page A16

No wonder David Duke, white supremacist and former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, claimed that this article "validated every major point I have been making since even before the [Iraq] war started."

(Ms. Wisse is the Martin Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature and professor of comparative literature at Harvard.)

The anti-Semitic card was well played. From the LA Times:

The idea of a powerful "Jewish lobby" that has its gnarled fingers in the machinery of the government is an old and repugnant canard. Along with the Jews who supposedly own the media and those who reputedly control the banks, the cabal of sinister, third-column Hebrews who whisper into the ears of our leaders is a classic in the traditional checklist of anti-Semitic fulminations. Who's afraid of the 'Israel Lobby'?Nicholas Goldberg, LA Times, March 26, 2006.

The Anti-Defamation League echoed the charge in its analysis:

It makes for one of the most unprofessional works coming out of respectable quarters. Undoubtedly, the anti-Israel forces will be citing this study for a long time to come. Because of its extremism, however, we can hope that mainstream individuals and institutions will see it for what it is – a classical conspiratorial anti-Semitic analysis invoking the canards of Jewish power and Jewish control.
ADL Analysis, Mearsheimer and Walt's Anti-Israel Screed: A Relentless Assault in Scholarly Guise, March 24, 2006.

The Wall Street Journal Opinion also highlighted the anti-Semitism theme in an opinion piece titled Duke 1, Harvard 0.

Yet the assessment of Rep. Eliot Engel, a Democrat of New York who is Jewish, was that the paper "really deserves the contempt of the American people," and that it amounts to "the same old anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist drivel."

One such student is Julie Silverstein, the president of the Jewish Student Caucus at the Kennedy School. Ms. Silverstein described the paper yesterday in an e-mail as "political rhetoric with an academic imprimatur," adding: "I am very concerned that Walt's piece will inflame the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bias that often hovers below the surface in academia."

Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz's interview with the Harvard Crimson received wide coverage. From The WSJ Opinion:

Dershowitz, who is one of Israel’s most prominent defenders, vehemently disputed the article’s assertions, repeatedly calling it “one-sided” and its authors “liars” and “bigots.”

He criticized the piece on three grounds, alleging parallels with neo-Nazi literature, saying that Walt and Mearsheimer’s characterization that Israeli citizenship is based on “blood kinship” is a “categorical lie,” and taking issue with the representation of the lobby as all-encompassing.

Careful examination of these comments show them to be worse than McCarthyism. Senator McCarthy tried to connect his adversaries to "subversive" organizations. In the attacks on the working paper, media have tried to connect unacceptable persons (David Duke), organizations (neo-Nazis) and racist doctrines (anti-Semitism) to the working paper authors. Professors Walt and Mersheimer might combine their efforts to become America's new Edward R. Murrow and the crushing answer to the new American demagogues.

alternativeinsight
April, 2006

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