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Demonising Policy Disagreement

Never one to miss an opportunity to embarrass himself, Michael Gerson successfully rebuts a claim that Mearsheimer and Walt never made: In fact, Israeli officials have been consistently skeptical about the main policy innovation of the Bush era: the democracy agenda. Of course, Mearsheimer and Walt do not claim in their original essay that Israeli officials […]

Never one to miss an opportunity to embarrass himself, Michael Gerson successfully rebuts a claim that Mearsheimer and Walt never made:

In fact, Israeli officials have been consistently skeptical about the main policy innovation of the Bush era: the democracy agenda.

Of course, Mearsheimer and Walt do not claim in their original essay that Israeli officials encouraged the “democracy agenda.”  Their focus in any case is primarily on the domestic lobbying and political efforts of pro-Israel activist groups, not all of which are in agreement with Israeli government positions.  Gerson ignores all of this, and thus evades the substance of the matter.   Some pro-Israel activists in this country and U.S. officials did and still do endorse the “democracy agenda” and were adamant about its importance.  Some pro-Israel former members of the administration are also ideological democratists (e.g., Paul Wolfowitz), which explains the difference between these American pro-Israel figures and the Israeli government view.  The difference between them can best be understood by the distances involved: the Israelis have to live with the disastrous consequences of democratisation, while pro-Israel democratists can pat themselves on the back and feel morally superior for having supported political reform without running any risk themselves.   

Gerson spent all those years in the White House and doesn’t seem to remember what the major policy innovation of the administration was.  Actually, the “main policy innovation of the Bush era,” a.k.a., the Bush Doctrine, is the idea that the United States should target terrorism-sponsoring regimes for elimination and use preventive warfare against those states that appear to pose a long-term threat of developing and/or distributing “weapons of mass destruction.”  That is the radical, new thing that Mr. Bush introduced, and for the most part it has been a failure in practice.  That is the part that some Israeli officials had no problem with at all, even if some would have preferred more attention be paid to Iran. 

The U.S. government has been formally promoting democracy as the “solution” to the ills of “developing” nations, including nations in the Near East, at least since the Carter Administration.  In its foolishness and misguided idealism, Mr. Bush’s “Freedom Agenda” is every bit as counterproductive to U.S. (and Israeli) interests as Mr. Carter’s Shah-undermining democracy promotion was 30 years ago and has had more or less the same results.

The rest of Gerson’s article is rubbish (maybe it’s even “dangerous rubbish”), since he does not even attempt to address what Mearsheimer and Walt actually say.  He ignores the militantly pro-Israel policy views of many conservative evangelicals and the political pressure they bring to bear on Republican candidates by saying that Mr. Bush does not accept premillennial dispensationalist theology, as if Mearsheimer and Walt said anything of the kind (they did not).  Indeed, the two authors made a point of referring to pro-Israel Christians by way of anticipating the charge that they are discussing a “Jewish lobby,” when they clearly are not.  They are talking about a collection of American interest groups that support, in their view, a misguided and dangerous foreign policy.  Since that foreign policy is misguided and dangerous, and inimical to American security interests, critics of the essay never have anything to say on the substance of the matter, but must constantly talk of anti-Semitism and conspiracies.  References to “grassy knoll” and “the DaVinci Code” have no place in a serious response to the argument the authors make, but then there has hardly ever been a serious response made by anyone.  Lacking in anything to say, Gerson resorts to the standard method of vilification followed by arrogant dismissal.

The appeal to the opinions of the mob people, which is what pro-Israel pundits are always reduced to, is not very compelling, and I’ll tell you why.  Large parts of the public have long been very fond of Britain, they have many sentimental and cultural attachments to Britain, many of them are of English, Scotch, Welsh or Irish descent and feel a strong affinity for the people of Britain, and they see the origins of their own political principles in the British constitution.  That doesn’t mean that there were not very specific and powerful interests lobbying for U.S. entry into wars that had no connection to U.S. national interests.  Those interests wanted U.S. entry into WWI to protect Britain (some of this concerned large loans that had been made to Britain), and they managed to use their considerable influence to bring political pressure on the government to go to war against Germany.  An overwhelming majority of the public, despite having many reasons to sympathise with Britain and despite knowing about German provocations that helped build support for war, did not want to go to war in 1917.  Over two-thirds of the people did not want to fight in a European war.  Interested parties lobbying the government for war and a President already inclined to intervene brought us into that war.  If Gerson had been alive then, he would assure us that there were no Anglophile Eastern business and financial interests involved in the drive to intervene in WWI because they did not endorse Wilson’s Fourteen Points.  He thinks that an example of a different bad policy that the interest groups did not push proves that they do not wield the kind of influence attributed to them regarding an entirely distinct policy.  In other words, he cannot reason properly.

Advocacy for certain policies is what political activists and interest groups do: they shape and influence policy by wielding political clout and threaten those who don’t play ball with strong opposition.  This is how petitioning and lobbying works.  As Mearsheimer and Walt have said repeatedly, this is a legitimate and proper part of our political system.  To listen to their critics, you would never know that they say this.  

Activists are by definiton more focused and intent on specific areas of policy than the political class or public generally.  The interest groups the activists and lobbyists represent are focused on how any given politician votes on their pet issues, and they make sure to broadcast those votes to their groups’ members and make sure to support the political rivals of those who vote the ‘wrong’ way.  Publicising the record of someone as an opponent of your group’s goals is a standard method of trying to wield influence, and better still if the group can spin that opposition as an expression of some hateful or vicious attitude.   

While there may be groups that offer opposing views and try to see them enshrined into policy, it is often the case that one side of any given debate is much more mobilised, energised and better prepared to get its view across.  That is certainly the case in American domestic politics when it comes to policy related to the Near East and to Israel in particular.  This means that policy will tend to be influenced by those groups that have the most passionate and often more extreme views about a subject than the general population (including the larger group that the activist and lobbyist claim to represent), but even more so by those that are well-connected to both parties and well-funded.  Because such interest groups are typically so passionately committed to the policies that they want to see enacted, it is usually prudent for politicians who don’t want trouble to yield to their entreaties on any particular vote, unless there are other, even more powerful, countervailing interests that take precedence.  With respect to pro-Israel groups, they are able to deploy a number of additional political threats, including ultimately using the threat of a charge of softness on terrorism or anti-Semitism to intimidate and cajole dissenters on a relevant vote.  There is usually no political benefit in angering such groups, and nothing to be gained and much to be lost by taking the opposing side.  This is not because the public is overflowing with ardent love of Israel (this is exaggerated considerably), but because these groups will target those who oppose their agenda.  Such groups can make the political lives of opponents much more difficult, and the fear of this discourages opposition in the first place. 

The most effective interest groups are those that are better organised, better funded and better able to communicate their message to politicians than their rivals.  By general agreement, AIPAC is considered the most effective single organisation; add to its significant clout all the other interest groups that have a stake in promoting what are perceived to be “pro-Israel” policies, and you have a formidable array of interests that nonetheless represent a fairly narrow sliver of the nation. 

However, just because an interest group is effective, organised, well-funded and able to communicate well obviously does not mean that it represents the broad public interest.  By definition, it represents a fairly narrow interest, but one which it claims is consistent and complementary with the public interest.  But any narrow interest group’s claims of this kind can be, and frequently are, exaggerated, if not entirely false.  The group or groups has/have every right to compete for its share of influence, but no group has some unquestionable right to that influence.  Its preferred policies are not beyond question, and the scope of its influence is not beyond scrutiny.  If the policies it proposes are damaging to the commonwealth and the national interest, any narrow interest must be challenged and questioned and its agenda opposed if necessary.  Attempts to wrap itself in popular opinion should be seen as the cynical ploys that they are.  When defenders of the interest group or groups begin resorting to ad hominem and invective, this should be taken as indirect proof that they cannot defend the substance of their preferred policies on the merits.

What Mearsheimer and Walt say is very straightforward and not in the least sinister.  They say that American pro-Israel groups and individuals, for which “the Lobby” was used as a catch-all shorthand term, wield great influence and shape U.S. policy in the Near East to a considerable extent.  Since no one can actually deny that this is true, they impugn the motives of the people saying it.  But if the present level and nature of support for Israel are so natural, so obviously right and so consistent with the American interest, as the defenders of the supposedly non-existent lobby say, why all the hysterical fits and foaming at the mouth?  Why the rampant talk of anti-Semitism?  Why is it not deemed a legitimate difference of opinion over U.S. national interests in the Near East?  Why can no one–literally no one–put forth a positive case for the current U.S.-Israel relationship in response to Mearsheimer/Walt? 

I would have to guess that it is because pro-Israel activists cannot justify the current U.S.-Israel relationship in terms of its advantages for the United States, because they are only too aware that there are not many tangible or discernible advantages for the U.S. coming from this relationship.  The costs are only too obvious.  In any remotely realistic calculation of costs and benefits, the pro-Israel side loses and loses badly.  That is why we must never peer too closely at the costs and benefits, or we might soon start adopting different policies.  I would guess that pro-Israel activists support the current shape of the U.S.-Israel relationship and the policies related to it in the conviction that they are the “right thing” to do for both countries.  There is just no tangible, measurable or visible evidence that this is so, and plenty that seems to point towards the opposite conclusion.

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