The Israel Lobby Debate, or As They Say in the U.S., Controversy

The March 23rd issue of the London Review of Books’ cover was devoted to a long piece by John Mearsheimer, political science professor at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Not surprisingly, the piece has provoked an angry reaction in the United States but a much more interesting, because more open-minded, reaction in Israel. It’s not quite a Muhammad cartoon-like controversy. Flags aren’t being burned and heads aren’t rolling. But the story isn’t without its shameless tempers: Harvard went so far as removing its seal from the study, and the row over the study in academia and the media, at least in the United States, borrows more from the methods of dogmatists than scholars, or journalists. Below will be your one-stop shopping mart for the controversy as it is likely to keep evolving: the original piece in the London Review, a couple of notable reactions, plus ongoing news items and additional reactions. Read more…