History
David or Goliath? The Israel lobby and its critics
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Although neither John Mearsheimer nor Stephen Walt speaks much Gaelic, they touched off the academic equivalent of an Irish bar brawl in March 2006 by publishing a hard-hitting critique of American relations with Israel in the London Review of Books. In The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, the book-length version of that earlier essay, the authors pull no punches in recounting what they regard as the increasingly baleful influence of "the Israel lobby" on recent U.S. foreign policy. Mearsheimer and Walt's bid for a knockout rests on two right uppercuts and a left hook that they summarize as follows: "the United States provides Israel with extraordinary diplomatic and military support, the lobby is the principal reason for that support, and this uncritical and unconditional relationship is not in the American national interest" (p. 14). Drawing on a broad range of memoirs, news papers, and on-line sources detailed in more than 100 pages of footnotes, the authors make a strong showing in this fifteen-round main event.
Publication Title
Political Science Quarterly
Publication Date
2008
Volume
123
Issue
1
First Page
151
Last Page
156
ISSN
0032-3195
DOI
10.1002/j.1538-165X.2008.tb00620.x
Keywords
Israel, United States, U.S. foreign policy
Repository Citation
Little, Douglas, "David or Goliath? The Israel lobby and its critics" (2008). History. 90.
https://commons.clarku.edu/historyfac/90
