| Publication |
2009.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's controversial book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy1 (hereafter, Israel Lobby), is one of the most important foreign policy works of our times. It can be understood, in effect, to be two different books: one on the U.S. foreign policy process concerning the Middle East in general and Israel in particular, the other on the substance of those policies. The book's central argument that the Israel lobby dominates the U.S. Middle East policy process has attracted almost all the attention of the critics, and while many of the criticisms are overstated or even vicious, the argument is indeed problematic in several ways. Unfortunately, the controversy over the Mearsheimer/Walt argument about the power of the Israel lobby has resulted in a general ignoring of their more important "second book," the far-ranging and mostly compelling critique of the substance of U.S. policies in the Middle East.
|