Jews threaten U.S. university over "Walt-Mearsheimer Study"
Arash
March 24, 2006
Harvard distances itself from criticism of Israel lobby
By Shmuel Rosner
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Washington -- Harvard University has decided to remove its logo from a study that
denounces the Israeli lobby's impact on American foreign policy, in order to distance
itself from the study's conclusions.
The university also appended a more strongly worded disclaimer to the study, stating
that it reflects the views of its authors only. The former disclaimer said merely
that the study "does not necessarily" reflect the university's views.
The study, published this week, was authored by Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard's
Kennedy School of Government (http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~swalt/) and Professor John
Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago
(http://political-science.uchicago.edu/faculty/mearsheimer.html). It charged that
American foreign policy has been subordinated to Israeli interests and accused the
Israeli lobby of responsibility for America's invasion of Iraq.
According to the study, the Israeli lobby is an octopus whose tentacles affect
congressional legislation, administration policies, the press and other agencies. The
paper focuses on the main Israeli lobby, AIPAC, but also discusses other
organizations, such as the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and devotes
considerable attention to pro-Israel government officials - many of them Jewish -
such as former deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz in the Bush administration
and former assistant secretary of state Martin Indyk in the Clinton administration.
The study also accused the Israeli lobby of monitoring academics to ensure that they
do not diverge from the pro-Israel line. They will undoubtedly see proof of this
contention in Harvard's decision to distance itself from the study due to pressure
applied by pro-Israel donors. According to the New York Sun, Robert Belfer - who gave
the Kennedy School $7.5 million in 1997 in order, among other things, to endow the
chair that Walt now occupies - called the university and asked that Walt be forbidden
to use his title in publicity for the study.
Israeli officials have been concerned over the study, saying it is liable to be used
to delegitimize Israel among the American intelligentsia.
In addition to reiterating the well-worn charge that Jewish neoconservatives in the
Bush administration were responsible for America's invasion of Iraq, the study
accuses the pro-Israel lobby of inciting the American government and people against
the Palestinian Authority, tilting American policy against Syria and other Arab
states, and trying to push the United States into aggressive action against Iran's
nuclear program.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/698102.html
The Lobby
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8730
The Israel Lobby
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011/$File/rwp_06_011_walt.pdf
[PDF -1.4MB]