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Mearsheimer, John J. & Stephen M. Walt. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007. 484 pages. Hardcover $26.00.
Reviewed by Farid Younos
"The Israel Lobby" as a subject is important in the 2008, US elections where candidates compete for attracting the Israel lobby to gain their favor and support. Within the span of almost twenty years this may be the second major book pubUshed on the Israel lobby in the United States. The first was Paul Findley's They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1989). Due to Lobby pressure and tactics it becomes a norm within the US political system that not only candidates somehow go along with the lobby wishes, but also compete for the wishes of the American Israel PubUc Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Ironically, Mr. Obama surpassed all other candidates before him in this election year and announced that "Jerusalem wiU remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided" (ABC News, 5 June 2008). Mr. Obama did not have any other choice but to go with the crowd. The Israel lobby "wants U.S. leaders to treat Israel as if it were the fifty-first state. Democrats and Republicans alike fear the lobby's clout. They all know that any politician who challenges its policies stands little chance of becoming president" (6).
There are a few important points that are worth mentioning about this research. First of all, the book reveals a political fact in American capitalist democracy in which lobbying within the American traditional political system is considered a political value not a defect of justice and moral principle. What this means is that it is legitimate to manipulate the government as well as the Congress for achieving a political, economical and social agenda. But the idea of lobby legitimacy and legality makes sense if it is for the sake of the American people. On the contrary, the Israel lobby serves the interest of a foreign government that has jeopardized world peace and security. The second point, which relates to...