The American debate on Israel

US support for Tel Aviv isn’t a surprise. But this support is qualified. And that shift reflects a churn within America and the world

- Prashant Jha

In March 2006, two of America’s foremost realist scholars, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, wrote an essay in the London Review of Books. Titled ‘The Israel Lobby’, the essay put forth a straightforward hypothesis. The United States (US) had offered more assistance to Israel than to any other country after the Second World War. This often ran against America’s own strategic interests and moral compass. So why did Washington DC do it?

Mearsheimer and Walt argued, “The explanation is the unmatched power of the Israel Lobby.” They noted the lobby’s influence both with the executive and on Capitol Hill, its narrative dominance in the public sphere including think tanks and media, and its accusations of anti-Semitism against those critical of Israel to shut down debate.

The essay sparked a furious debate. Critics slammed it for ignoring Palestinian violence and overestimating the power of this lobby, with some even suggesting it smacked of anti-Semitism. A recent book, The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel and Fate of the Jewish People, written by another realist scholar, Walter Russell Mead, counters the thesis, aiming to dispel “bad theories — like the idea that a cabal of American Jews controls America’s Israel policy”.