Soccer Dad

Base motive

Richard Cohen, who last year wrote that Israel was a mistake, is bothered that Professors Walt and Mearsheimer feel the same way. In Rationalizing Israel out of Existence he writes

The book, which almost instantly made Amazon's list of bestsellers (right below the Harry Potter paperback boxed set, when I last checked), has produced the sort of intellectual and emotional storm you don't have to be Jewish to understand -- but it sure helps. Mearsheimer and Walt have been called anti-Semitic by the New York Sun (among others), and they have been praised as gutsy truth-tellers by elements of the British press (among others), an irony we shall return to in a moment. My own reading of the book found no evidence of anti-Semitism but also no evidence that either man has an ounce of sympathy for Israel. They swear they support its existence, but if Israel were to disappear tomorrow, I doubt they would reach for the hankies.

I understand that Cohen is critical of Walt and Mearsheimer and I give him credit for that. He writes further

All these points are made by Mearsheimer and Walt -- and bully for them. Where Israel is wrong, they say so. But where Israel is right, they are somehow silent. By the time you finish the book, you almost have to wonder why anyone in his right mind could find any reason to admire or like Israel. It is always doing the most dastardly things and then looking to Uncle Sam either for money or muscle. It is, no doubt about it, a brat among nations.

Exactly right. This was the case with their paper and apparently it's the same with their book. Every interpretation of Israeli relations with the Arab world are interpreted negatively by Walt and Mearsheimer. There's no benefit of the doubt. But surely singling out Israel for this sort of "brat" treatment says something about their motivation. But Cohen doesn't go that far. But I would.

Noah Pollak also eschews the term "antisemitism" but he points out something important in Walt and Mearsheimer’s “Realism”

It is no exaggeration to say that France’s Middle East politics are exemplary of the kind of foreign policy Walt and Mearsheimer claim will best serve American interests. But what, after all, did France gain for all its legendary favoritism toward the Arab world? Absolutely nothing—except, I suppose, revenue from arms sales during the Iran-Iraq war (overtly to Saddam Hussein and covertly to Khomeini). France, as with so many Western countries, has found it difficult to convince Middle East thugs to return its affections.

(Even Europeans are starting to realize this.)

One could, perhaps, excuse Walt and Mearsheimer's portrayal of Israel, if one could show that there was a purpose. But for all their efforts to portray Israel in the worst possible light, it's uncertain if throwing Israel under the bus would really help the United States gain friends in the Arab world. That being the case there's no reason to be generous in judging Walt and Mearsheimer charitably. Their motive is hate not realism.