| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Aug 24, 2007 9:33 pm Post subject: '60 Minutes' refusing to cover Mearsheimer/Walt book |
| Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2007 15:21:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: "James Morris"
Subject: Re: '60 Minutes' refusing to do a segment on the soon to be released Mearsheimer/Walt book
To: patcohen@nytimes.com
CC: "Kuzmarov, Sara" <KuzmarovS@cbsnews.com>, mbouton@thechicagocouncil.org, crose@bloomberg.net, yvega@bloomberg.net, charles.gibson@abc.com, brian.williams@nbc.com, mike_kirk@wgbh.org, newshour@pbs.org, jlehrer@newshour.org, jwoodruff@newshour.org, rsuarez@newshour.org, gifill@newshour.org, nightly@nbc.com, mfugo@thechicagocouncil.org, tbowman@npr.org, jnortham@npr.org, vohara@npr.org, seelyek@yahoo.com, mkelly@npr.org
Dear Ms. Cohen,
Thank you for your article which appeared in the New York Times today. You might be interested in the recent email exchange (included after your article below) that I had with Sara Kuzmarov (an associate producer in the office of Jeff Fager who is the executive producer for '60 Minutes') as '60 Minutes' is also refusing to cover the Mearsheimer/Walt book after it is released next month.
With kindest regards,
James Morris
August 16, 2007
Backlash Over Book on Policy for Israel
By PATRICIA COHEN
http://www.nytimes.com
“The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” is not even in bookstores, but already anxieties have surfaced about the backlash it is stirring, with several institutions backing away from holding events with the authors.
John J. Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, were not totally surprised by the reaction to their work. An article last spring in the London Review of Books outlining their argument — that a powerful pro-Israel lobby has a pernicious influence on American policy — set off a firestorm as charges of anti-Semitism, shoddy scholarship and censorship ricocheted among prominent academics, writers, policymakers and advocates. In the book, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and embargoed until Sept. 4, they elaborate on and update their case.
“Now that the cold war is over, Israel has become a strategic liability for the United States,” they write. “Yet no aspiring politician is going to say so in public or even raise the possibility” because the pro-Israel lobby is so powerful. They credit the lobby with shutting down talks with Syria and with moderates in Iran, preventing the United States from condemning Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon and with not pushing the Israelis hard enough to come to an agreement with the Palestinians. They also discuss Christian Zionists and the issue of dual loyalty.
Opponents are prepared. Also being released on Sept. 4 is “The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control” (Palgrave Macmillan) by Abraham H. Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League. The notion that pro-Israel groups “have anything like a uniform agenda, and that U.S. policy on Israel and the Middle East is the result of their influence, is simply wrong,” George P. Shultz, a former secretary of state, says in the foreword. “This is a conspiracy theory pure and simple, and scholars at great universities should be ashamed to promulgate it.”
The subject will certainly prompt furious debate, though not at the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a Jewish cultural center in Washington and three organizations in Chicago. They have all turned down or canceled events with the authors, mentioning unease with the controversy or the format.
The authors were particularly disturbed by the Chicago council’s decision, since plans for that event were complete and both authors have frequently spoken there before. The two sent a four-page letter to 94 members of the council’s board detailing what happened. “On July 24, Council President Marshall Bouton phoned one of us (Mearsheimer) and informed him that he was canceling the event,” and that his decision “was based on the need ‘to protect the institution.’ He said that he had a serious ‘political problem,’ because there were individuals who would be angry if he gave us a venue to speak, and that this would have serious negative consequences for the council. ‘This one is so hot,’ Marshall maintained.”
Mr. Mearsheimer later said of Mr. Bouton, “I had the sense that this phone call pained him deeply.”
Mr. Bouton was out of town, but Rachel Bronson, vice president for programs and studies at the council, said, “Whenever we have topics that are particularly controversial or sensitive, we try to make sure someone from another point of view is there.” In this case, she said, there was not sufficient time to set up that sort of panel before the council calendar went out. There are no plans to have the authors speak at a later date, however.
“One of the points we make in the book is that this is a subject that’s very hard to talk about,” Mr. Walt said in an interview from his office in Cambridge. “Organizations, no matter how strong their commitment to free speech, don’t want to schedule something that’s likely to cause controversy.”
After the cancellation Roberta Rubin, owner of the Book Stall, a store in Winnetka, Ill., offered to help find a site for the authors. She said she tried a Jewish community center and two large downtown clubs but they all told her “they can’t afford to bring in somebody ‘too controversial.’ ” She added that even she was concerned about inviting authors who might offend customers.
Some of the planned sites, like the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, a cultural center in Washington, would have been host of an event if Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt appeared with opponents, said Esther Foer, the executive director.
Mr. Walt said, “Part of the game is to portray us as so extreme that we have to be balanced by someone from the ‘other side.’ ” Besides, he added, when you’re promoting a book, you want to present your ideas without appearing with someone who is trying to discredit you.
As for City University, Aoibheann Sweeney, director of the Center for the Humanities, said, “I looked at the introduction, and I didn’t feel that the book was saying things differently enough” from the original article. Ms. Sweeney, who said she had consulted with others at City University, acknowledged that they had begun planning for an event in September moderated by J. J. Goldberg, the editor of The Forward, a leading American Jewish weekly, but once he chose not to participate, she decided to pass. Mr. Goldberg, who was traveling in Israel, said in a telephone interview that “there should be more of an open debate.” But appearing alone with the authors would have given the impression that The Forward was presenting the event and thereby endorsing the book, he said, and he did not want to do that. A discussion with other speakers of differing views would have been different, he added.
“I don’t think the book is very good,” said Mr. Goldberg, who said he read a copy of the manuscript about six weeks ago. “They haven’t really done original research. They haven’t talked to the people who are being lobbied or those doing the lobbying.”
Overall Mr. Mearsheimer said he thinks the response to their views will be “less ferocious than last time, because it’s becoming increasingly difficult to make the argument in a convincing way that anyone who criticizes the lobby or Israel is an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew.” Both Mr. Mearsheimer and Mr. Walt pointed to the growing dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, criticism of Israel’s war in Lebanon and the publication of former President Jimmy Carter’s book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” as making it somewhat easier to criticize Israel openly.
“This isn’t a cabal; this isn’t anything secretive,” Mr. Walt said.
American Jews who lobby on Israel’s behalf are not all that different from the National Rifle Association, the anti-tax movement, AARP or the American Petroleum Institute, he said, “They just happen to be really good at it.”
“It’s the way American politics work,” he continued. “Sometimes powerful interest groups get what they want, and it’s not good for the country as a whole. I would say that about the farm lobby and about the Cuba lobby.”
To the authors, dual loyalty is as American as Presidents’ Day sales and “Law & Order” reruns. As Mr. Mearsheimer explained: “People are allowed to have multiple loyalties. They have religious loyalties, loyalty to family, to an organization and you can have loyalty to other countries. Someone who is Irish can have a loyalty to Ireland.”
“The problem,” he said “is when you raise the subject of dual loyalty, many people tend to think of it in the context of the old anti-Semitic canard and making the argument that Jews are disloyal to the U.S.”
In print and in interviews both authors have stressed that they hold no animus towards Israel or Jews. “We think Israeli policy is fundamentally flawed,” Mr. Mearsheimer said, “just as we think American policy is fundamentally flawed.”
James Morris wrote:
Dear. Ms.Kuzmarov,
Thank you for your reply. Mr. Fager's decision was a predictable one. Especially with the pro-Israel bias in the 'American' press/media for the most part. There is no valid reason for '60 Minutes' not to cover such (other than putting the interests of Israel ahead of America's).
Sincerely,
James Morris
"Kuzmarov, Sara" <KuzmarovS@cbsnews.com> wrote:
Dear Mr. Morris,
Thank you for your interest in "60 Minutes".
We have considered your segment idea, but have decided not to pursue it at this time.
Sincerely,
Sara Kuzmarov
Sara Kuzmarov | Associate Producer | 60 Minutes | 212-975-8018 | cell 917-509-3037 | kuzmarovs@cbsnews.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: James Morris
Sent: Tuesday, August 14, 2007 4:27 PM
To: Kuzmarov, Sara
Subject: Re: Please forward to Jeff Fager
Dear Ms. Kuzmarov,
Thank you for letting me know on the telephone yesterday that you had received my email (included below as well) on behalf of Mr. Fager. Could you let me know (at your convenience) if he has received it yet?
It is going to be interesting to see whether '60 Minutes' does a segment (to include an interview with Dr. Mearsheimer and Dr. Walt) about the soon to be released Mearsheimer/Walt book. Professors Mearsheimer and Walt had a scheduled upcoming appearance about their book cancelled because of the pressure put forth by the same pro-Israel lobby that they address in their paper and in their soon to be released book (see the following URLs for additional info related to such):
Speechless in Chicago:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/08/07/speechless-in-chicago/
Scroll down to the August 10th, 2007 blog entry at the following URL if interested further:
Walt and Mearsheimer Banned in Chicago:
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/
With kindest regards,
James Morris
James Morris wrote:
Dear Ms. Kuzmarov,
Thank you for your time on the telephone this now.
Please forward to Jeff Fager:
Email to Jeff Fager (executive producer of CBS '60 Minutes'):
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 03:04:08 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: For Jeff Fager
Dear Mr. Fager,
I would like to know if '60 Minutes' has a segment in the works to interview respected political science professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt about their soon to be released book (it will be available on September 4th, 2007) which was expanded from their paper ( http://tinyurl.com/obe2j ) on the pro-Israel lobby and how it pushed US to attack Iraq and is doing similar to get US to attack Iran. If '60 Minutes' does not plan to do a segment about the Mearsheimer/Walt book, I would like to know why (I have a pretty good idea already though). The following currently can be found at www.amazon.com after doing an author search there for 'Mearsheimer':
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
The Israel Lobby,” by John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, was one of the most controversial articles in recent memory. Originally published in the London Review of Books in March 2006, it provoked both howls of outrage and cheers of gratitude for challenging what had been a taboo issue in America: the impact of the Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy.
Now in a work of major importance, Mearsheimer and Walt deepen and expand their argument and confront recent developments in Lebanon and Iran. They describe the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel and argues that this support cannot be fully explained on either strategic or moral grounds. This exceptional relationship is due largely to the political influence of a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively work to shape U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. Mearsheimer and Walt provocatively contend that the lobby has a far-reaching impact on America’s posture throughout the Middle East—in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—and the policies it has encouraged are in neither America’s national interest nor Israel’s long-term interest. The lobby’s influence also affects America’s relationship with important allies and increases dangers that all states face from global jihadist terror.
Writing in The New York Review of Books, Michael Massing declared, “Not since Foreign Affairs magazine published Samuel Huntington’s ‘The Clash of Civilizations?’ in 1993 has an academic essay detonated with such force.” The publication of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy is certain to widen the debate and to be one of the most talked-about books of the year.
About the Author
John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago. He has published several books, including The Tragedy of Great Power Politics.
Stephen M. Walt is the Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and was academic dean of the Kennedy School from 2002 to 2006. He is the author of Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy, among other books.
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Product Details
Hardcover
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (September 4, 2007)
Language: English
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THE HIGH COST OF SUBSERVIENCE TO ISRAEL (by Paul Findley):
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/07/18/the-high-cost-of-subservience-to-israel-by-paul-findley.php
See the following URL for more about the 'A Clean Break' as discussed by Bamford on pages 261-269/318-321 of 'A Pretext for War' (the paperback version of 'A Pretext for War' includes an additional chapter about the AIPAC espionage case which the pro-Israel biased US media is not covering either for the most part - neither is the BBC!):
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/11/a-clean-break-from-james-bamford-s-a-pretext-for-war.php
Bamford also had the following 'Iran: The Next War' article for Rolling Stone magazine which mentions the AIPAC espionage case as well:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/10962352/iran_the_next_war
Brit MP and Father of Commons Tam Dalyell exposed the 'JINSA crowd' initially in 'Vanity Fair' and via the articles linked at the bottom of the following URL:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/05/13/179248
Even Colin Powell conveyed for Washington Post editor Karen DeYoung's new bio book about him that the 'JINSA crowd' was in control of the Pentagon - one can look up 'Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs'/JINSA in the index:
A War for Israel? Colin Powell seems to think so:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/10/08/a-war-for-israel-colin-powell-seems-to-think-so.php
Prominent Mideast analyst associated with AIPAC espionage case:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/08/31/prominent-mideast-analyst-associated-with-aipac-espionage.php
BBC: The War Party (if only Americans could see such a program!)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4667039539703585825&q=%22The+War+Party%22
PS: Please take a look at the exchange with 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton via the 'What Motivated the 9/11 Hijackers?' link at the upper left of the following URL which includes a transcript of the exchange with Hamilton:
The Gorilla in the Room is US Support for Israel:
http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2005/08/gorilla-in-room-is-us-support-for.html
SCANDAL: 9/11 Commissioners Bowed to Pressure to Suppress Main Motive for the 9/11 Attacks:
http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2006/09/reviews-of-without-precedent-inside.html
You might also be interested in viewing the following youtube video short which has the moderator of the terrorism 'expert' panel trying to cut off the 'Q & A' at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA this past April before the main motivation for 9/11 was conveyed:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7EB1FxENxQ
Additional at the following URL:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/08/05/the-gorilla-in-the-room-is-us-support-for-israel.php
Israeli Interrogators in Iraq:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3863235.stm
Impeachment: The Conversation Continues (be sure to scroll through all the comments at the bottom of the following URL):
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/08/impeachment_the_conversation_c_1.html
Here is a tinyURL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/yo6u63
With kindest regards,
James Morris | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:59 am Post subject: |
| CBS tried to suppress the report on Bush's National Guard Service and the Abu Ghraib abuses:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/09/27/dan_rather_suit/
Rather Disturbing News: CBS News hid Abu Ghraib crimes:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_gustav_w_070930_rather_disturbing_ne.htm
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR):
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1965
http://www.fair.org
Action Alert
60 Minutes: Shelving a Story to Boost Bush?
CBS puts Niger expose on hold as boss endorses Republicans
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http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1188197167860&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
Hard-hitting critique or deadly lies?
, THE JERUSALEM POST Aug. 27, 2007
Bad for the US, bad for Israel
On the eve of its publication on Monday, the book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt appeared set for strong sales, already featuring at No. 1 in Amazon.com's Israel History ranking and No. 10 in the US History ranking.
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, the book is an expansion of themes that first appeared in an article entitled "The Israel Lobby," written by Mearsheimer (of the University of Chicago) and Walt (of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government) in the London Review of Books last year.
In essence, the authors argue in the book that a loose coalition of individuals and organizations shape US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction and that this lobby has pushed policies that are neither in America's national interest nor Israel's long-term interest. No other "ethnic lobby," the authors claim, has so diverted US policy away from the American national interest.
"The Israel lobby is the antithesis of a cabal or conspiracy," they state. "What sets it apart, in short, is its extraordinary effectiveness."
The authors stress that supporters of Israel "have every right to advocate their positions, and it is wrong to question their loyalty when they do. Yet it is equally legitimate for critics to point out that organizations like AIPAC are not neutral, or that the individuals ... are motivated by an attachment to Israel that is bound to shape their thinking about many foreign policy issues."
They allege that groups within the lobby "try to marginalize anyone who criticizes Israeli policy or challenges the 'special relationship'" between the US and Israel, and that they attempt to deprive such critics of getting "a fair hearing." At times, the authors claim, "heavy-handed tactics" are employed to silence critics, including the leveling of accusations that such critics are anti-Israel or anti-Semitic.
"Smearing critics of Israel or the lobby with the charge of anti-Semitism works to marginalize them in the public arena," the book states, asserting that the charge of anti-Semitism is "a widely used weapon."
Although the authors state that the US should support the existence of Israel, they add that Israel's security is "ultimately not of critical strategic importance to the United States."
The book claims that broader US policies in the Middle East - on Iran, Iraq and the Palestinians, for instance - reflect Israel's preferences.
Israel and the lobby have pushed US policy in a "strategically unwise" direction over Iran for the past 15 years, they state, thwarting the possibility of detente. Only because of this pressure is there contemplation of the notion of a military strike against Iran. And if this "dangerous policy" were followed and such a strike were to take place, the US would be attacking "in part on Israel's behalf."
On Iraq, the book says that pressure from Israel and the lobby was "not the only factor behind the decision" to invade, "but it was a critical element." The war stemmed in large part from "a desire to make Israel more secure," and were it not for Israel and the lobby, "America would not be in Iraq today."
The writers claim that "many policies" that the US follows on Israel's behalf "now jeopardize US national security." Moreover, it charges, the lobby's influence "has not helped Israel either."
The lobby, it contends, makes it "difficult to impossible for the US government to criticize Israel's conduct and press it to change some of its counterproductive policies," and in so doing, "may even be jeopardizing" Israel's long-term future.
"The United States has enormous potential leverage at its disposal for dealing with Israel and the Palestinians," the book states. "It could threaten to cut off all economic and diplomatic support for Israel. If that were not enough, it would have little difficulty lining up international support to isolate Israel."
Absurd, laughable and an attempt to delegitimize
Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham H. Foxman seeks in his new book, The Deadliest Lies, to refute the Walt-Mearsheimer thesis.
The self-proclaimed goal of Foxman's book is to "demolish the claims of an all-powerful Israeli lobby and a global Jewish conspiracy, revealing their historic roots in the most virulent forms of bigotry."
Here are some excerpts from the ADL head's book, which is published by Palgrave Macmillan:
Of course, the fact that there is a lobby (lower-case L) made up of Americans who believe that US interests are best served by a strong alliance with Israel is obvious and non-controversial. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) bills itself as "America's Pro-Israel Lobby."
It is registered as a domestic lobby, is supported by donations from over l00,000 individual members, and receives no financial backing from Israel or any other foreign entity. There is nothing unusual about this. Spend ten minutes on Google and you can easily find similar advocacy groups that represent the interests of Irish Americans, Mexican Americans, Indian Americans, Italian Americans and practically every other imaginable ethnic and national group in the United States. Only the American lobby for Israel seems to be subject to such intense critical scrutiny and even demonization by people like Mearsheimer and Walt.
The authors recognize that they are on shaky ground here. They acknowledge that, in a democratic America, pro-Israel activists have every right to lobby their government. They are also careful to state that they are not suggesting any conspiracy by Jews aimed at world domination, like that depicted by the notorious anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Mearsheimer and Walt clearly regard themselves not as bigoted, but as serious scholars attempting to make a responsible argument.
But their claims of even-handedness and objectivity, in the end, are merely lip service, because of the nonstop one-sidedness of their presentation, their gross exaggeration of the power of the lobby, their disregard for the consistently broad-based American public support for Israel, their omission of the very many interests that the US has in a strong and safe Israel, and their overriding theme that policy-makers are controlled by the lobby. No matter how the authors protest, all of this adds up to an effort to delegitimize the work of pro-Israel activists.
Unfortunately for the authors, the idea that colleges and universities in the United States are dominated by pro-Israeli voices is absurdly laughable, even more so than their claims that the Lobby controls Congress, the State Department and the White House. Thus, Mearsheimer and Walt are forced to do a lot of hedging and filling in their discussion of the Lobby and academia. They admit that "the Lobby has had the most difficulty stifling debate about Israel on college campuses," and in mild desperation they list many instances in which pro-Israel advocates merely criticized or disagreed with specific faculty members or university programs. For example, the fact that writings by the late Palestinian scholar Edward Said provoked "hundreds of e-mails, letters, and journalistic accounts that call on [Columbia University] to denounce Said and to either sanction or fire him" is cited as evidence of the power of the Lobby on campus. The fact that Said never was denounced, sanctioned or fired is apparently irrelevant.
The truth is that American college campuses are enormously diverse from almost every point of view - and that includes ideologically. In fact, many campuses have become hotbeds of anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian, and, in a few cases, outright anti-Semitic activism. Jewish organizations are working hard to try to hold their own, but their voices are often being drowned out by those of militant anti-Israel groups.
Last edited by Alpha on Mon Oct 01, 2007 10:08 am; edited 4 times in total | | | | Alpha | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
