Conducted by Christopher Gombeski

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, where he has taught since 1982. Professor Mearsheimer has written extensively about security issues and international politics more generally. His recent books include The Tragedy of Great Power Politics and The Israel Lobby, co-authored by Stephen Walt.

Your latest book The Israel Lobby delves into a very controversial subject: the United States’ relationship with Israel. You wrote in the book that your purpose in writing it was “to foster a more clear-eyed and candid discussion of this subject.” Do you think that has happened since its publication?

No. For sure, there has been more critical discussion of the U.S.-Israeli relationship and the Israel Lobby’s role in the formulation of U.S. Middle East policy since the article was published. But I don’t think there has been a substantial increase in quality of the discussion. Much of it has been highly emotional and not terribly useful. What is necessary is for more Americans to be able to argue—without being personally attacked—that U.S. policy toward Israel is flawed and that it’s not in the American national interest nor Israel’s interest. Once that happens, then we can say that we are having an open and serious debate.

Steve Walt and I wrote the book because we thought as more people became aware of the U.S.-Israeli relationship and its consequences, they would put pressure on policymakers and elected politicians to change that policy and make it smarter and more in the American national interest. In other words, our hope was that if we could just get people talking critically about Israeli policy, the U.S.-Israeli relationship, and the role of the Lobby, it would become apparent that one of the principal reasons the United States is in so much trouble in the Middle East is because of the power of the Lobby. Of course, that is why the Lobby has gone to such lengths to marginalize us and discourage people from reading our book.

How would you characterize the “special relationship” between the United States and Israel?

The “special relationship” has two aspects. First of all, the United States gives Israel a huge amount of economic and military aid, defends it diplomatically in the United Nations, and comes to its aid during crises and wars. Second, we give that aid unconditionally. No matter what Israel does, it continues to get American aid and diplomatic support. In other words, even if Israel does things that are against American policy, like building settlements in the occupied territories, the aid continues to flow largely unabated. Consider that it’s been official U.S. policy since 1967 to oppose settlement-building in the occupied territories. Yet no president has been able to cut American aid to Israel in any meaningful way, even though Israel has built settlements over that 40-year time span.

Why has Israel now become, as you term it, a “strategic liability” for the United States?

You can make the argument that Israel was a strategic asset during the Cold War because it played a role in defeating Soviet client states like Egypt and Syria. But with the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of the Soviet threat, it’s very difficult to argue that Israel is a strategic asset. Indeed, it appears that Israel is now a strategic liability, in large part because its policies in the occupied territories are helping fuel America’s terrorism problem. It is clear from the work of the 9/11 Commission that one of the main reasons—but not the only reason—Osama bin Laden attacked the United States was because of America’s support of Israel’s brutal policies against the Palestinians. It is also worth noting that the 9/11 Commission reported that Khalid Sheik Muhammed, who it describes as the principal architect of the attacks, was motivated by his “violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel.”

What precisely is the “Israel Lobby,” and who forms a part of it?

The Israel Lobby is a loose coalition of individuals and groups that works actively and openly to push U.S. Middle East policy in a pro-Israel direction. We go to great lengths to emphasize that it is not a cabal or a conspiracy. The Lobby is an interest group, like other interest groups in the United States such as the National Rifle Association (NRA), the farm lobby, the Cuban lobby, and the American Association of Retired People (AARP), just to name a few. The Israel Lobby is an interest group that is operating in a rich American tradition. We also emphasize that it is wrong to call it the Jewish Lobby, because not all Jews are part of the lobby, and there are non-Jews in it. Let me unpack this a bit more. It is quite clear from surveys of the American Jewish community that about one-third of American Jews do not feel any meaningful attachment to Israel, and thus could hardly be considered a part of the lobby. Furthermore, non-Jewish groups like the Christian Zionists belong to the lobby. And, although we consider the neoconservatives to be part of the lobby, a number of them are not Jewish. John Bolton and James Woolsey are two prominent examples.

Journalist Michael Massing argued in an article for the American Prospect that though lobbying groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Presidents Conference “have kept the United States from taking steps that many believe are essential if peace is ever to come to the region,” he nevertheless believes that even without the Lobby’s influence, American support of Israel would continue unimpeded because of clear ideological and moral reasons. What is your assessment of this quote?

Steve Walt and I believe that the United States should be committed for moral reasons to the survival of Israel and should come to its aid if its survival is threatened. We believe that commitment would exist in the absence of the lobby, so that is not a terribly controversial issue. The key question is whether the special relationship would exist in the absence of the lobby. In other words, is there a powerful moral imperative for existing U.S. policy toward Israel that enjoys overwhelming support among the American people? We argue that there is not and that there is also no strategic rationale that can explain U.S. policy. The influence of the lobby explains in large part why the United States has a special relationship with Israel.

You noted that America had a sound, strategic rationale to support Israel in the past, especially during the Cold War when America provided Israel with economic, diplomatic, and military aid in order to contain Soviet expansion in the Middle East. Since then, you argue that America has continued to treat Israel as a nation of strategic importance when it is in actuality no longer so important to America’s strategic interests. How could the Israel lobby have become powerful enough to influence America’s foreign policy in this way?

Interest group politics has been at the heart of the American political system since this country’s founding, and there have always been powerful interest groups that punch above their weight. It is clear that lobbies or interest groups that are well-organized, well-funded, dedicated to a particular policy, and work feverishly to promote that policy can influence the American policy-making process in profound ways. Just look at the NRA. If you were to query the American public, you would find much support for having serious gun control legislation. But we do little to control guns in this country, in large part because of the power of the NRA, which is a relatively small interest group. Steve Walt and I think that the policies the NRA promotes are not in the American national interest, and that it would be good for the country if we had stronger gun-control laws. None of this is to say that the NRA is acting in illegitimate ways, because it is not.

The Israel Lobby is a similar case. As with the NRA, a relatively small number of individuals and groups acting in legitimate ways are able to influence policy in ways that we believe are not in the American national interest. All of this points out that in the American political system small interest groups can have a profound influence on the policy-making process. There is nothing illegitimate or unlawful with such behavior; it is simply how American politics works. In essence, the Israel Lobby is a good, old-fashioned interest group operating in a rich American tradition. There is, however, one form of behavior that some groups in the lobby engage in that is antithetical to the way we are supposed to do business in the United States and that is the frequently used tactics of smearing critics of the U.S.-Israel relationship and trying to prevent them from voicing their views.

Let me say a few more words about why I think that the policies the Lobby promotes are neither in America’s nor Israel’s national interest. As I noted, Israel’s building of settlements in the occupied territories since 1967 has not been good for the United States, because it helps fuel our terrorism problem. But colonizing the West Bank is not in Israel’s long-term interest either. By continuing to build settlements, Israel is rapidly reaching the point where it will be impossible to create a viable Palestinian state. Instead, there is going to be a “Greater Israel,” which means that Israel will end up controlling the West Bank and Gaza and the millions of Palestinians who live there. They will be confined to a few isolated enclaves and treated harshly by Israel. “Greater Israel” will effectively be an apartheid state, which is certainly not in Israel’s interest. Israel would be much better off today if the United States had long ago put pressure on it to stop building settlements and allowed for the creation of a real Palestinian state. But that did not happen because the Lobby has long made it impossible for any U.S. president to put meaningful pressure on Israel to stop colonizing the occupied territories.

Leslie Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations wrote in the New York Times in September that “the two most critical issues to Israel and the lobby—arms sales to Arab states and the question of a Palestinian state—[are] matters on which the American position has consistently run counter” to the preferred policies of the Israel lobby. Are these areas where the Lobby has consistently failed to get its way?

For starters, we do not argue that the Lobby is all-powerful. We acknowledge that the Lobby occasionally loses a fight in Washington, but not often and less and less over time. Nevertheless, Gelb is wrong in both cases. With regard to a Palestinian state, there are groups and individuals in the Lobby who favor a two-state solution, but there are also groups opposed. The key point, however, is that Israel is unwilling to give the Palestinians a viable state, and the differences within the Lobby on this issue notwithstanding, it backs Israel. In contrast to the position of Israel and the Lobby, both the Clinton and the Bush administrations have been committed to creating a viable Palestinian state. In practice, however, neither administration has been able to put pressure on Israel to achieve that goal, mainly because of the Lobby. In essence, America’s preferred policy on a Palestinian state has been trumped by the Lobby’s preferred policy.

However, Israel and the Lobby did oppose two previous arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The latter case, which involved the sale of Advanced Warning and Control Systems (AWACS) aircraft to the Saudis, is the more famous of the two. The deal went through Congress, despite huge opposition from the Lobby, which illustrates my point that the Lobby is not all-powerful. But there are two key points about this case, which we talk about in the book, that should be kept in mind. First, the Reagan administration made a Herculean effort and barely won. Second, no administration since then has tried to sell arms to Saudi Arabia in the face of Israeli opposition because they all understood that it would be almost impossible to get that agreement through Congress. The reason that President Bush is now able to sell arms to the Saudis is because Israel supports that decision, and, therefore, the Lobby will ultimately go along with the sale.

You and Professor Walt find no compelling moral or strategic reason for American’s “special relationship” with Israel to persist unaltered, and you attribute the fact that the relationship has remained unchanged to the influence of the Israel Lobby. Do officials within the administration and in Congress still find the arguments for Israel’s strategic importance to be persuasive?

To be clear, Steve Walt and I are not arguing that the United States should abandon Israel. Instead, we maintain that the United States should abandon its “special relationship” with Israel and treat it as a normal country. We should treat Israel the way we treat other democracies, like Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and India. That is to say, when Israel acts in ways that are consistent with the American national interest, Washington should support it. But when Israel pursues policies that are not consistent with US interests, we should distance ourselves from Israel and use our considerable leverage to get it to change its behavior, the way we would try to change the behavior of any country we thought was acting in ways that were harmful to our interests. Turning to your question, I am sure that there are a good number of people in Congress who believe there is a compelling moral or strategic basis for the “special relationship.” I am also sure that there are many people on Capitol Hill who do not believe that there is a sound rationale for the “special relationship,”
but support it because they fear the Lobby and the price that they would pay if they vote against aid to Israel. Steve Walt and I have discovered from our travels around the country and from our voluminous correspondence with individuals who have read our work on the Lobby—including many from inside the Beltway—that there is a great deal of support for our views across the country. However, very few people are willing to stand up in public and defend us or criticize the U.S.-Israel relationship, and that is especially true in Washington.

You wrote in your 2006 article in the London Review of Books that Israel and the Lobby have had some influence in shaping US policy toward Iran but also acknowledge that “the U.S. has its own reasons for keeping Iran from going nuclear.” What has been the result of the U.S.-Israeli relationship on U.S. policy toward Iran?

We argue that even if Israel did not exist, the United States would still be deeply concerned about Iran’s nuclear program, just as Washington was concerned when India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in May 1998. The United States is opposed to nuclear proliferation and has worked hard since 1945 to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Of course, that is a smart policy. So we don’t need Israel to explain why the United States is concerned about Iran’s nuclear program.

But Israel and the Lobby have had a significant effect on how the United States deals with Iran. The United States has had terrible relations with Iran since 1979, in part because of the infamous Hostage Crisis and events surrounding the Iranian Revolution. During the 1990s and early 2000s, however, Iran went to considerable lengths to try to improve its relationship with the United States. But Israel and its American supporters worked hard to stymie those efforts at rapprochement. Both Israel and the Lobby were deeply committed to making sure that Tehran and Washington remained bitter enemies, and they were successful. Furthermore, the principal reason that the United States is countenancing using military force against Iran to stop its nuclear program is pressure from Israel and the lobby. We argue that in the absence of pressure from Israel and the Lobby, there would be little interest in Washington in starting a war against Iran. If you look around the world, Israel is the only country pushing the Bush administration to use force against Iran. And, inside the United States, it is mainly individuals and groups inside the lobby who are pushing hard for striking Iran’s nuclear facilities. We believe that attacking Iran would be a huge strategic blunder.

You maintain that the Iraq War was “motivated at least in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure,” but you dismiss some of the arguments heard most often in the build-up to the war, most strikingly the promise of Iraqi oil reserves. Why do you believe oil played no part in policymakers’ decision to go to war?

There is hardly any evidence that oil was the reason that the United States went to war against Iraq in March 2003. The oil companies were certainly not pushing for war. Indeed, the oil companies wanted to cut deals with Saddam Hussein and help him exploit his oil resources so that they could make money. Furthermore, there is no evidence that the oil-producing states were pushing for war, with the exception of Kuwait, which Saddam invaded in August 1990. But Kuwait was not pushing hard for war, and there is no evidence that the other oil-producing states were bent on war. So I don’t see how one could make the case based on the available evidence that oil was the main driving force behind this war. In fact, I think that if the oil companies and the oil-producing states were driving U.S. Middle East policy, we would not have invaded Iraq. I also think we probably would not have had sanctions against Iraq in the decade before the war.

What would a tougher U.S. policy toward Israel accomplish?

There are two important conflicts involving Israel that the United States should try to help settle. The first is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Washington should put significant pressure on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and allow for the creation of a viable Palestinian state there and in Gaza. Second, the United States should put pressure on Israel to establish peaceful relations with Syria. In fact, Syria and Israel almost reached a peace agreement in 2000, when the Israelis, not the Syrians, walked away from the deal, which was straightforward. The Israelis would return the Golan Heights to Syria; in exchange the Syrians would stop supporting terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas and establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel. That deal remains
the only basis for shutting down the Israel-Syria conflict. But the Israelis won’t agree to it, because they are unwilling to exchange land for peace. The same is true with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As a result, these two conflicts are going to fester for a long time, which will be to the detriment of both Israel and the United States, not to mention the Palestinians, who are suffering greatly at the hands of Israel. Therefore, the United States should put significant pressure on Israel to reach peace agreements with Syria and the Palestinians.

What should be the United States’ role in the Middle East in the future?

The United States should act as an offshore balancer. It should remove virtually all of its ground forces and most of its air forces from the region and station them offshore. It should depend in large part on countries in the region to check potential aggressors. And the United States should only intervene militarily when it appears that local actors cannot contain an especially powerful state. With regard to Israel, the United States should remain committed to its survival. Fortunately, Israel’s survival is not threatened today, and it is not likely to be anytime soon. This is good news for Israel and its American supporters. Of course, Israel would be even more secure if the United States could use the leverage at its disposal to push Israel to end its conflicts with the Palestinians and the Syrians. The Lobby, however, makes that impossible.

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