Harvard report: Israeli lobby harms United States interests
Regional-USA, Politics, 3/17/2006

A Harvard University report says that The United States Of America has been harmed by in essense being led around by the nose, by the Israeli lobby, and the friends of Israel in clear violation of the US national interest.

The reference to the report was noticed by us from a Haaretz.com report.

Two professors, John J. Mearsheimer, Department of Political Science, University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Their report says "US foreign policy shapes events in every corner of the globe. Nowhere is this truer than in the Middle East, a region of recurring instability and enormous strategic importance. Most recently, the Bush Administration's attempt to transform the region into a community of democracies has helped produce a resilient insurgency in Iraq, a sharp rise in world oil prices, and terrorist bombings in Madrid, London, and Amman. With so much at stake for so many, all countries need to understand the forces that drive US Middle East policy."


The report says "The US national interest should be the primary object of American foreign policy. For the past several decades, however, and especially since the Six Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of US Middle East policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering US support for Israel and the related effort to spread democracy throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized US security. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the United States been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries is based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives. As we show below, however, neither of those explanations can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel."


The report said "Instead, the overall thrust of US policy in the region is due almost entirely to US domestic politics, and especially to the activities of the 'Israel Lobby.' Other special interest groups have managed to skew US foreign policy in directions they favored, but no lobby has managed to divert US foreign policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US and Israeli interests are essentially identical."

The report describes how the Israeli lobby has "accomplished this feat, and how its activities have shaped America's actions in this critical region. Given the strategic importance of the Middle East and its potential impact on others, both Americans and non Americans need to understand and address the Lobby's influence on US policy."

Previous Stories:
  World Council of Churches call for end of illegal Israeli occupation   (3/10/2006)
  How low in its immorality can Israel go; never be surprised   (5/28/2005)
  The Gordian Knot of US-Middle East policy   (5/11/1998)

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