The notion that these ‘shared values’ might actually create a safer world, especially a safer America, draws the wrath of John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, two well-credentialled academics. Their controversial book has grown out of an equally controversial article commissioned but then rejected by the Atlantic Monthly and eventually published by the London Review of Books (23 March 2006). The article and the book argue that successive administrations have bowed to individuals and groups in the United States who put their version of Israel’s interests ahead of anything else. American support of Israel, they write, cannot be fully explained by strategic or moral considerations but is

largely due to the political power of the Israel lobby, a loose coalition of individuals and groups that seek to influence American foreign policy in ways that will benefit Israel … groups and individuals in the lobby played key roles in shaping American policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the ill-fated invasion of Iraq, and the ongoing confrontations with Syria and Iran.

Mearsheimer and Walt set out three key American interests in the Middle East: keeping Persian Gulf oil flowing to world markets; discouraging the spread of weapons of mass destruction; and reducing anti-American terrorism originating in the region. They accuse the lobby of promoting policies which often have ‘left the United States worse off’. Blind allegiance to Israel has

fuelled anti-Americanism throughout the Arab and Islamic world and undermined the US image in many other countries as well. The lobby has made it difficult for US leaders to pressure Israel, thereby prolonging the Israel-Palestinian conflict … Turning a blind eye to Israel’s nuclear programs and human rights abuses has made the United States look hypocritical when it criticises other countries on these grounds, and it has undermined American efforts to encourage political reforms throughout the Arab and Islamic world.

The comment that the United States should support Israel’s existence but that ‘Israel’s security is ultimately not of critical strategic importance to the United States’ is a red rag to the book’s critics. Yet there is an entirely reasonable question here. Israel may once have been an American ‘aircraft carrier’ in a sea of pro-Soviet influence, but the Soviet Union no longer exists. Leading Arab states, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia, with a keen eye on Iran, are anxious to keep the United States involved in the region – especially after the débâcle in Iraq.

Predictably, the book’s detractors trot out the ‘poor little Israel’ cliché. Buffeted by undying Arab hostility, the noble little democracy struggles on in its little sliver of God-given land. There are, however, a couple of major problems with such an argument. The first is the long-standing reality that Israel is the only Middle Eastern state with nuclear weapons. The second (new) reality is that in 2007 Israel became the world’s fourth largest arms exporter, after the United States, Russia, and France. Israel also enjoys a military relationship with the United States that is the envy of all others, including the other significant Middle East recipient of American succour, Egypt. Between 2002–07, US aid to Middle Eastern states (excluding Iraq) totalled $36 billion. Israel received just under $17 billion and Egypt $11 billion. Almost eighty per cent of the total aid package was in the form of military equipment or training. American assistance to Egypt is carefully doled out, dependent on Egyptian good behaviour and ‘reform’ efforts. Israel has extraordinary freedom of action, receiving its total payment upfront and spending a percentage of American funds on military purchases in Israel itself.

There is good reason to debate the nature of American – Israeli ties, whether they serve the best interests of both countries and indeed the broader world. There is much that should be criticised about Israeli behaviour, and about America’s approach to the Middle East. Mearsheimer and Walt’s analysis is important, precisely because it is provocative. It is a poor reflection on the state of the debate that they feel the need to emphasise that they are not challenging ‘Israel’s right to exist or questioning the legitimacy of the Jewish state’. Too often, Israel’s friends demand that it be treated normally then set out to silence or to smear those who see normalcy as inviting debate and criticism.

Mearsheimer and Walt rightly place the American Israel Public Affairs Committee at the heart of the lobby, noting its formidable capacity to influence campaign contributions, reward legislators and congressional candidates who support its agenda, and punish those who do not. They concede, however, that the pro-Israel lobby is not a single, unified movement with a central leadership. It is ‘certainly not a cabal or a conspiracy’ controlling American foreign policy. This muddles the authors’ otherwise single-minded view of the lobby. The latter’s achievements may be due to good organisation, money, and the disarray of the Arab community in the United States. They might appear as a distasteful perversion of the democratic process and a recipe for policy distortion. But who really is at fault? The lobby, for doing what lobbyists are supposed to do – push a cause; its opponents for being badly organised; or weak-kneed American legislators? Commenting in 2004 on American supporters of Israel, the Egyptian former United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali observed that thanks ‘to their energy, their activity, their intelligence, to the passivity of the Arab world, they have made Israel tantamount to the fifty-first state of the Union’. That says perhaps as much about the failings of those outside the lobby as it does about those inside it.

The book has triggered a war of words, with its supporters and detractors hurling accusations, quotes, and misquotes at each other. The conservative Commentary magazine accused Mearsheimer and Walt of ‘throwing a mantle of academic legitimacy over some of the most disreputable ideas to infect political discourse’. On occasion, the authors are capable of the same glib statements and distortions that litter discussion about Middle Eastern issues. They argue, correctly, that Israel is far more secure now than when it first occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. They continue, however, that ending the occupation and helping to create a viable Palestinian state will deprive Iran of local sympathisers and ‘help to turn groups like Hamas or Islamic Jihad from heroic defenders of a national cause into outdated obstacles to progress and prosperity’. That seems hopeful and naïve. It may be true that more pragmatic elements within Hamas might be prepared to do a deal with Israel, but the comment ignores Iran’s imperial ambitions (Ahmadinejad or no Ahmadinejad) and the existential threat that these could pose for Israel. It is questionable also whether Islamic jihad is driven by nationalist sentiment or merely the blunt intent of killing Jews.

Similarly, the observation that Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties with Israel, and that ‘Saudi Arabia has offered to do so as well’, ignores the studied conditionality of the Saudi proposal of ‘full Arab normalisation with Israel in exchange for full Israeli withdrawal from all occupied territories’. It was a (welcome) invitation to parley, intended to make life difficult for Israel and to make Saudi Arabia look good after the embarrassment of the preponderance of Saudi nationals among the 9/11 terrorists.

Take also the question of Iraq. Mearsheimer and Walt write that pressure ‘from Israel and from the lobby was not the only factor behind the Bush administration’s decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was a critical element’. The latter is a dubious assertion. Israel, though hardly relaxed and comfortable about Iraq under Saddam, was confident that he had been sufficiently defanged as not to represent a major threat. Israel may have been in the American vehicle heading towards Iraq, but it was mostly hiding under the backseat fretting more about Iran. American administrations do not necessarily need ‘outside’ influences to act stupidly. In invading Iraq, the Bush administration put ideology ahead of good sense. In pointing the finger at Israel and its friends, Mearsheimer and Walt allowed their own fixations to run ahead of reasoned argument.

In the final chapter of the book, the authors write that a new strategy is required to reverse the damage of recent American policies and to address the power of the lobby. The United States does not need to control the Middle East, merely to ensure that no other country does. They argue for a strategy of ‘offshore balancing’, whereby the United States would deploy military power abroad only when its vital interests were directly threatened and local actors unable to handle the threats. This would give ‘states like Syria and Iran less reason to worry about American attack and thus less reason to acquire WMD’. Israel should be treated like a normal state, which means no longer pretending ‘that Israel’s and America’s interests are identical, or acting as if Israel deserves steadfast US support no matter what it does’. As for the lobby, Mearsheimer and Walt suggest that the ‘obvious way’ to reduce its influence is through meaningful campaign finance reform. The prospects for this, they concede, are so dim they are left to urge ‘civilised discussion’ about the United States, Israel, and the Middle East. If the reaction to their book is any guide, such a proposal is an oxymoron.