We're all anti-Semites

Uri Avnery lays it down that if Walt and Mearsheimer are anti-Semites, then so is the rest of the peace movement that advocates a Two-State Solution:

"The political views of the two professors, which are briefly stated at the end of the book, are identical with the stand of the Israeli peace forces: the Two-State Solution, ending the occupation, borders based on the Green Line, and international support for the peace settlement.

If this is anti-Semitism, then we here are all anti-Semites. And only the Christian Zionists--those who openly demand the return of the Jews to this country but secretly prophesy the annihilation of the unconverted Jews at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ--are the true Lovers of Zion."

He also feels that the release of the book is perfectly timed, and that it could have a deepening impact that might afflict total change on how the US (and the West to a lesser extent) views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy might have been the push that breaks through the barrier of progress.

"Most of the American public now opposes the Iraq war and considers it a disaster. This majority still does not connect the war with the actions of the pro-Israel lobby. No newspaper and no politician dares to hint at such a connection--yet. But if this taboo is broken, the result may be very dangerous for the Jews and for Israel.

Beneath the surface, a lot of anger directed against the Lobby is accumulating. The presidential candidates, who are compelled to grovel at the feet of AIPAC, the senators and congressmen, who have become slaves of the Lobby, the media people, who are forbidden to write what they really think-- all these secretly detest the Lobby. If this anger explodes, it may hurt us, too."

The tide may be turning, albeit slowly, and from the reaction we are getting from Israel's hardline supporters, Walt and Mearsheimer just may have burst the Lobby bubble for Americans.

After all, becoming a critic of Israel means you join the likes of an Archbishop, as Desmond Tutu was "banned from speaking at St. Thomas University at Minneapolis." It's a real shame when a true victim of a regime that segregated whites from blacks and exploited the latter for the good of the white economy gets a treatment worthy of a neo-Nazi or a Holocaust denier. Carefully left out is the history of Tutu and the black liberation movement that saw them allied with none other than dissident South African Jews but facts need not matter when it comes to defamation of the Israeli kind.

As far as I can tell, the trio of Tutu, Walt and Mearsheimer all seem to share the desire to see Israel have legitimate security and not the faux peace that sees Israel maintain total control over the movement, electricity, agriculture, holy shrines and the economy of the Palestinians. And Tutu could foresee that apartheid was going to be the undoing of South Africa, and the only way to save the morality of the state was to abolish the white supremacy. He maintains that Israel is facing the same dilemma:

"We should put out a clarion call to the government of the people of Israel, to the Palestinian people and say: peace is possible, peace based on justice is possible."

Now the strategy of character assassination of Walt and Mearsheimer is the necessary diversion from the topic at hand: the Israel Lobby. Contrary to all evidence, and as well as to the boasts of plenty of the Lobby's most notable members, Israel's supporters are still in denial that such a Lobby exists, and even if one does, it is far from an almighty entity. (And in Plaut's case, much tinier than the Arab Lobby.) That just does not hold water, and it is suggested that you pick up a copy of the book and check out all the footnotes, about 106 pages of them and the majority of them are Israeli sources. Avnery says it best:

"This wall cannot be torn down by reasoned argument. Nobody has tried, and nobody is going to. Instead, the authors are being smeared and accused of sinister motives. If the book could be ignored altogether, this would have been done--as has happened to other books which have been buried alive."

Because the book is airtight, we are inundated with the traditional smears. Carter got the treatment last year but without his book (and the causality of his lynching), the enlightenment that is slowly coming may not have been possible. And when more and more realists and pragmatists come around, or gain the courage to stand up and fight back against the Lobby, we can expect the usual. If so, who will be left out of the list of anti-Semites? Crying wolf will only work so many times.