Mearsheimer and Walt: Anti-American?
The problem with John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt,
writes Josef Joffe in The New Republic Online, is not that they're anti-Semitic, but that they're anti-American.
Joffe begins by saying that Mearsheimer and Walt's paper, The Israel Lobby, "puts
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to shame."
Curiously, Joffe then notes that he has worked with both men for "ages," and that neither of them "have it out for the Jews" so far as he can tell. Therefore, he suggests, "let's leave the Jew-baiting aside."
(Always a good idea, if you ask me, but somewhat curious given what Joffe's just written.)
"
The gravest indictment is that the screed is anti-American," Joffe argues. "For campaigning on behalf of this or that U.S. foreign policy is as American as apple pie. "
This strikes me as a simplistic argument (maybe that's why the piece is "online only!"), and Walt and Mearsheimer could probably rebut it without too much difficulty. If, that is, they deigned to engage with the debate that they have ignited.....
I understand that it's impossible for them to respond to each and every brickbat, but it'd be nice to know if they have something planned.
