Did ‘The Israel Lobby’ change anything?
Five years ago this week, John Mearsheimer and I published "The Israel Lobby" in the London Review of Books. Our goal in writing the article (and subsequent book) was to break the taboo on discussions of the lobby’s impact on U.S. foreign policy, and to transform it into a topic that people could talk about ...
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Five years ago this week, John Mearsheimer and I published "The Israel Lobby" in the London Review of Books. Our goal in writing the article (and subsequent book) was to break the taboo on discussions of the lobby’s impact on U.S. foreign policy, and to transform it into a topic that people could talk about openly and calmly. Because we believed the "special relationship" that the lobby had promoted was harmful to the United States and Israel (not to mention the Palestinians), we hoped that a more open discourse on this topic would move U.S. Middle East policy in a direction that would be better for almost everyone.
Did we succeed?
To read the full article, click here.
Stephen M. Walt is a columnist at Foreign Policy and the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University. Twitter: @stephenwalt
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