Le 51ème Etat De L'union ?

[ronan]

  Citation

THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

John J. Mearsheimer - Department of Political Science, University of Chicago

Stephen M. Walt - John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

U.S. foreign policy shapes events in every corner of the globe. Nowhere is this truer than in the Middle East, a region of recurring instability and enormous strategic importance. Most recently, the Bush Administration’s attempt to transform the region into a community of democracies has helped produce a resilient insurency in Iraq, a sharp rise in world oil prices, and terrorist bombings in Madrid, London, and Amman. With so much at stake for so many, all countries need to understand the forces that drive U.S. Middle East policy.

The U.S. national interest should be the primary object of American foreign policy. For the past several decades, however, and especially since the Six Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering U.S. support for Israel and the related effort to spread democracy throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and eopardized U.S. security.

This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the United States been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries is based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperativs. As we show below, however, neither of those explanations can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States povides to Israel.

Instead, the overall thrust of U.S. policy in the region is due almost entirely to U.S. domestic politics, and especially to the activities of the “Israel Lobby.” Other special interest groups have managed to skew U.S. foreign policy in directions they favored, but no lobby has managed to divert U.S. foreign policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. and Israeli interests are essentially identical.

In the pages that follow, we describe how the Lobby has accomplished this feat, and how its activities have shaped America’s actions in this critical region. Given the strategic importance of the Middle East and its potential impact on others, both Americans and non‐Americans need to understand and address the Lobby’s influence on U.S. policy.

Some readers will find this analysis disturbing, but the facts recounted here are not in serious dispute among scholars. Indeed, our account relies heavily on the work of Israeli scholars and journalists, who deserve great credit for shedding light on these issues. We also rely on evidence provided by respected Israeli and international human rights organizations. Similarly, our claims about the Lobby’s impact rely on testimony from the Lobby’s own members, as well as testimony from politicians who have worked with them. Readers may reject our conclusions, of course, but the evidence on which they rest is not controversial.

Version en ligne : http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html

Article complet (annoté) : http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpap…06_011_walt.pdf

[melodius]

  ronan a dit :

Version en ligne : http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html

Article complet (annoté) : http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpap…06_011_walt.pdf

Un état qui aurait autant de pouvoir que tous les autres ensemble alors.

Attention, point fondamental: il ne faut pas confondre "lobby juif" et "lobby pro-israélien", même si le premier est sans doute un sous-ensemble du second.

[Nick de Cusa]

J'ai lu tout l'article. Je le trouve très bon. Je pense que ça serait préférable si les US agissaient dans leur propre meilleur intérêt, et cet article documente exhaustivement que ça n'a pas été le cas jusqu'à présent.

Le ton est juste, diamétralement opposées aux théories du complot.

Le timing pourrait être bon aussi, puisque l'activité des lobbyistes (en général, pas seulement en politique étrangère) provoque pas mal de débat en ce moment aux USA

[Invité jabial]

  melodius a dit :

Un état qui aurait autant de pouvoir que tous les autres ensemble alors.

Attention, point fondamental: il ne faut pas confondre "lobby juif" et "lobby pro-israélien", même si le premier est sans doute un sous-ensemble du second.

No comment comme d'hab.

[ronan]

La réponse ne s'est pas faite attendre :

  Citation

Debunking the Newest – and Oldest – Jewish Conspiracy:

A Reply to the Mearsheimer-Walt “Working Paper”



Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law School

The working paper by Academic Dean and Professor Stephen Walt and Professor John Mearsheimer presents a conspiratorial view of history in which the Israel Lobby has a “stranglehold” on American foreign policy, the American media, think tanks and academia. In his response, Professor Alan Dershowitz demonstrates that the paper contains three types of major errors: quotations are wrenched out of context, important facts are misstated or omitted; and embarrassingly weak logic is employed. One of the authors of this paper has acknowledged that “none of the evidence represents original documentation or is derived from independent interviews.” In light of the paper’s errors, and its admitted lack of originality, Dershowitz asks why these professors would have chosen to publish a paper that does not meet their usual scholarly standards, especially given the risk – that should have been obvious to “realists” - that recycling these charges under their imprimatur of prominent authors would be featured, as they have been, on extremist websites. Dershowitz questions the authors claims that people who support Israel do not want “an open debate on issues involving Israel.” He renews his challenge to debate the issues.

source : http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/research/workin…tyresponses.htm

Dershowitz invoque la France dans son contre-argumentaire (p.15-16) parfaitement fallacieux au moins jusqu'à la page 16 (j'ai abandonné après). Au moins un des arguments de l'article qu'il réfute - une citation de Ben Gourion qui aurait été déformée en l'ôtant de son contexte - est exact, j'ai pu vérifier sur pièces (notes numérotées 25 et 26 dans la réponse de Dershovitz, notes n° 34 et 35 dans l'article initial).

Naturellement, l'article des universitaires américains est apparenté, mutatis mutandis, aux Protocoles des Sages de Sion et aux discours antisémites de Charles Lindbergh. Dans le plus pur style ad hominem , leur collègue prétend réfuter leur article en discréditant les motivations , bien entendu impures, de ses auteurs etc etc.

C'est plus faible que les réfutations du bouquin de Lomborg que j'ai pu analyser, mais cela participe de la même mauvaise foi ou du même aveuglement idéologique poussé jusqu'à la mauvaise foi.