Cody's and Tikkun present John J Mearsheimer and Stephen M Walt on THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND US FOREIGN POLICY. What is the impact of the Israel lobby on our foreign policy? Is it in our national interest? John Mersheimer, of the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, deepen and expand their argument first broached in the London Review of Books in March 2006 and confront recent developments in Lebanon and Iran. They describe the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel and argues that this support cannot be fully explained on either strategic or moral grounds. This exceptional relationship is due largely to the political influence of a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively work to shape U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. Mearsheimer and Walt provocatively contend that the lobby has a far-reaching impact on America's posture throughout the Middle East -- in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- and the policies it has encouraged are in neither America's national interest nor Israel's long-term interest. The lobby's influence also affects America's relationship with important allies and increases dangers that all states face from global jihadist terror.
Writing in The New York Review of Books, Michael Massing declared, "Not since Foreign Affairs magazine published Samuel Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations? in 1993 has an academic essay detonated with such force." John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago. He has published several books, including The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. Stephen M. Walt is the Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and was academic dean of the Kennedy School from 2002 to 2006. He is the author of Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy, among other books. Rabbi Michael Lerner introduces and moderates the discussion this evening. Donations are requested to help defray FCCB's costs.
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