refusenik watch
The original Refusenik banner we carried listed only the number of signers on the Courage To Refuse / Combatants Letter. This new one counts signers on all three refusenik pledges, as well as refuseniks who were imprisoned for following their conscience and are not signed on one of the lists.
P.O.Box 46081, London W9 2ZF jfjfp@jfjfp.org
Page last updated
March 12, 2007
Understanding the conflict
The 'Israel lobby': US aid to and support for Israel
All previous discusions of US-Israel relations were overshadowed by the publication of a controversial article by John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt 'The Israel Lobby', in the London Review of Books, vol 28, no 6, 23rd March 2006. It provoked a deluge of responses, some of which are listed below. The author have come back twice with letters in the London Review of Books, 4th May (vol 28, no 9) and 25 May 2006 (Vol. 28 No. 10).
Robert Fine The Lobby: Mearsheimer & Walt's conspiracy theory
Shalom Lappin; Jeffrey Herf & Andrei S. Markovits (both postings on Normblog on 22nd March)
Adam Shatz, Dialogue of the deaf
Joseph Massad, Blaming the lobby
Stephen Zunes, The U.S. Invasion of Iraq: Not the Fault of Israel and Its Supporters, (this one published on 4 January, but nonetheless effectively a reply)
Noam Chomsky The Israel Lobby?
Christopher Hitchens, Overstating Jewish Power
As'ad's A Note of Dissent on the Angry Arab News Service
various critical letters in the 6 April issue of the London Review of Books
Tony Judt A Lobby, Not a Conspiracy New York Times Op-Ed, April 19, 2006
Ed Lasky, NYT op-ed supports Walt/Mearsheimer The American Thinker, 20th April 2006
Ned Lazarus The Irony of Great Power Politics Ha’aretz, 11th April 2006
Philip Weiss Ferment Over 'The Israel Lobby' the Nation, 27th April (15th May cover date)
Michelle Goldberg Is the "Israel lobby" distorting America's Mideast policies? Salon, 18 April 2006
Alan Dershowitz, Debunking the Newest – and Oldest – Jewish Conspiracy: A Reply to the Mearsheimer-Walt “Working Paper” (submitted 5 April 2006)
Juan Cole Breaking the silence Salon, 18th April 2006 and response by Jeff Weintraub
Gabriel Ash Why Oppose the Israel Lobby? DissidentVoice (18th April 2006)
Dershowitz Redux: Alan Dershowtiz's The Lobby, Jews, and Anti-Semites (12 April) and Norman Finkelstein's Comments (15 April)
Benny Morris, "And Now For Some Facts" New Republic May 8, 2006 (posted April 28, 2006)
Josef Joffe Walt and Mearsheimer: Anti-American TNR Online | Post date 04.06.06
Norman Finkelstein It’s Not Either/Or Counterpunch May 1, 2006
Michael Massing The Storm over the Israel Lobby New York Review of Books, 8 June 2006
Lenni Brenner The Lobby and the Great Protestant Crusader The NYT Confronts Mearsheimer and Walt--Not Quite Head On 17 May 2006
John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt Letter of reply to their critics LRB Vol. 28 No. 10, 25 May 2006
Stephen Zunes The Israel Lobby: How Powerful is it Really? Global Politician, 24 May 2006A fairly substantial listing of critical articles on the topic has been drawn up Jeff Weintraub. At the latest count (28th May 2006) it was running at about 50-60 items (with much overlap with those listed here; but also other stuff I have no time to disentagle and add in here.) One day, if life is long enough, I'll annotate the list above.
On 28 September 2006 the LRB held a debate in New York in the Great Hall of the Cooper Union entitled 'The Israel lobby: does it have too much influence on American foreign policy?' . The panellists were Shlomo Ben-Ami, Martin Indyk, Tony Judt, Rashid Khalidi, John Mearsheimer and Dennis Ross, and the moderator was Anne-Marie Slaughter. Click here to view the debate.
Previously listed articles:
Bob Simon CBS News, 8 June 2003 c. 1,800 words
The news that Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would start to dismantle some illegal Jewish settlements on the West Bank as part of an agreement with the new Palestinian Prime Minister has already alarmed those Jewish settlers -- and ultra-Zionist Israelis who believe that the Jewish State should control all of the Biblical Jewish homeland.
But they're not the only group that feels that way. So do Fundamentalist Christian Evangelicals who make up the largest single religious grouping in the United States. Correspondent Bob Simon first reported this story on October 6, 2002.
6. Evolution of US policy towards the settlements, 1967-2004
Akiva Eldar, talk to the FFIPP conference in E. Jerusalem, January 2005,supplying key US administration quotations from Lyndon B Johnson's administration to that of George W Bush.
5. U.S. Declares Open Season on UN Workers
Stephen Zunes
Friday, January 10, 2003, CommonDreams.org
c.1,200 words
"Over the past three decades, the United States has used its veto power on forty occasions to protect Israel from criticism by the UN Security Council. This is more than all vetoes cast by all other members of the Security Council on all other issues during this same period combined."
Click here for the US-based campaign to stop US military aid to Israel.
4. Economist tallies swelling cost of Israel to US
David R. Francis
The Christian Science Monitor, 9 December 2002
'Since 1973, Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion. If divided by today's population, that is more than $5,700 per person. This is an estimate by Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington. For decades, his analyses of the Middle East scene have...'
For full article by Stauffer, see Costs of US Middle East Policy: An economic overview, a Conference paper delivered in October 2002, about 9,400 words long. It will be revised for publication is due course.
3. Why the U.S. Supports Israel
FPIF Policy Report, May 2002
by Stephen Zunes, Middle East editor
c. 3,000 words
2. Sharonism and the "Special Relationship"
by Vijay Prashad
ZNet Commentary, April 23, 2002
1.Controversy of US Aid to Israel, Mifta
c.4,600words
'Israel, which is not economically self sufficient and relies on foreign assistance and borrowing to maintain its economy, has been the single highest annual recipient of US aid since 1976, and is the largest cumulative recipient of foreign assistance since WWII.'
Miftah is a Palestinian, Jerusalem-based, independent institution committed to fostering the principles of democracy and effective dialogue. Hanan Ashrawi is its Secretary General.
Miftah also published an earlier analysis US foreign aid to Israel, May 20, 2002
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