[Dean's World] Ron Coleman: Another voice on the Harvard "Israeli Lobby" paper

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Posted by Ron Coleman:
Another voice on the Harvard "Israeli Lobby" paper
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1143987426.shtml


   I wanted to introduce Jonathan Rosenblum to readers of Dean's World,
   and [1]this morning's column struck me as a good place to start. The
   column is about a topic I addressed last week -- the Walt-Mearsheimer
   "[DEL: Jewish :DEL] Zionist [DEL: Conspiracy :DEL] Lobby" paper
   published by Harvard. An excerpt:

     Walt and Mearsheimer accuse the Israel Lobby of seeking to suppress
     public debate, but it is they who seek to avoid discussion of the
     issues. They dismiss, for instance, Bernard Lewis, the preeminent
     Orientalist of our times, and Fouad Ajami, as members of the Lobby,
     without discussing a single argument that they advanced in favor of
     Operation Iraqi Freedom or their more general treatment of the
     sources of Islamic terrorism.

     They accuse the Israel Lobby of labeling all criticism of Israel
     "anti-Semitic." (If there were indeed a Lobby and that were its
     tactic, it has proven a notably ineffective one, as the publication
     on a Harvard website of the Walt/Mearsheimer paper, and a steady
     drumbeat of criticism of Israel in the elite press and on elite
     campuses demonstrates.)

   But Jonathan is not another Israel cheerleader. He [2]writes
   critically of Zionism, and the society it has created, or failed to
   create, among Jews in Israel:

     Yet Zionism has manifestly failed to provide young Israelis with
     any more raison d=E2etre for the continued existence of the Jewish
     people than that felt by their counterparts in the Diaspora =E2i.e.,
     nothing to replace the Torah=E2s vision of the eternal mission of the
     Jewish people. Survival is not itself a purpose.

   Jonathan is a friend, a U. of Chicago and Yale Law school graduate
   (and still a friend!) and the outstanding Anglo-Israeli commentator in
   Israel from the perspective you won't get in the American media: What
   the New York Times calls [3]"Ultra-orthodox" or "Haredi." He has a
   regular column in the Jerusalem Post and his website is [4]Jewish
   Media Resources, and if you're interested in a different point of view
   on an official Dean's World topic (the left sidebar tells me we're a
   "[5]Friend of Israel" blog here, after all) it's worth visiting
   regularly.

References

   1. ItishardtoknowhowtorespondtotheWaltandMearsheimerpaper.Thosewhopointo=
uttheirinnumerableerrorsoffactandinterpretationfacethetypicaltarbabyproblem=
: The harder they punch, the more they
   2. http://www.jewishmediaresources.org/article/942/
   3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-Orthodox
   4. http://www.jewishmediaresources.org/
   5. http://reborn-by-design.com/if-project.html