Today I was in a bookstore and I came across a book who’s title really caught my eye, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.” I made a note of its authors and when I returned home I did some “googling.” I was able to find more about their book but equally important I was able to find and watch an interesting interview that was conducted at Berkeley in California.
I first heard this topic broached by Scott Ritter a couple of years ago and it made sense then. I had intuited as much on my own watching the news and watching the agreement or consensus that all U.S. politicians regardless of how disparate their views might be on other subjects. I’m hoping that I’m serving the public interest by suggesting that this is a must see interview and I hope that a more serious debate ensues throughout our country as a whole.
Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Professors John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Steve Walt of Harvard University for a discussion of how domestic politics influences the making of U.S. policy on the Middle East.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSXZNm2jGVE]
Thanks for this post, Don. It’s an issue that has bothered me at times, especially as I try to think and pray about how we relate to the Middle East. As these writers say, it’s odd just to think about the silence on all sides.
People do need to ask some hard questions. Why is it that the Israelis can have nuclear weapons but the Iranians can’t? Or why do we put the human rights abuses of Saddam Hussein all over the news but those of Israel are unreported? And the list goes on.
It’s an important issue, thanks.
It’s a tough issue. Certainly Israel has a right to exist but so do the Palestinians. My sister accompanied a group of nuns to the Holy Land several times in the past several years. She says that the Palestinians are treated “like dogs.” As my mother used to say, “two wrongs don’t make a right.” I think Mom’s wisdom applies here.