Censorship breakthrough: Israel Lobby discussed on PBS

Authors Debate Influence of Israeli Lobby on the PBS News Hour

Abraham Foxman, Director of the Anti-Defamation League and author of the book “The Deadliest Lies” and John Mearsheimer, a professor at the University of Chicago and co-author of the book “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” discussed Israel’s influence on US foreign policy on the PBS News Hour tonight, October 9. 2007. This presentation is about as close to discussing this topic in the major US broadcast media as we have so far come.   

CBS 60 Minutes recently refused to carry the story.
The PBS website described the programmed encounter as follows:

A year ago, two American political scientists created a firestorm of controversy when they wrote an article asserting that Israel has too much influence over American policy. Today, two new books reignite the debate.

“The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” is co-authored by John Mearsheimer, a professor at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, a professor at Harvard. Mearsheimer and Walt write that the support the United States gives Israel, a result of influence from the Israel lobby, creates a “strategic liability” for U.S. interests in the world.

“The Deadliest Lies: The Israeli Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control” is the work of Abraham Foxman, the Director of the Anti-Defamation League. Foxman claims that the Mearsheimer-Walt book is based on “half-truths, distortions and falsehoods.”

LINK

In this brief 10 minute debate, Mearsheimer attempted to discharge the notion that the Israel Lobby was more influential than any other major lobby, but stressed that its effect on America’s recent foreign policy in the Middle East has been critical. Foxman, by contrast, attempted to conflate the Israel Lobby with the entire Jewish community (rather than a right wing minority) to suggest that Mearsheimer and Walt’s book defamed Jews and perpetuating old “control” myths about the Jewish people that encouraged anti-Semitism. Yet, both agreed that the majority of American Jews were against the Iraq war and the invasion of Iran.

Here is a Mearsheimer bit on YouTube regarding Israel’s drumbeat for an Iran invasion called,

John Mearsheimer At Yearly Kos 2007