The Decline And Fall of Walt & Mearsheimer

Judeosphere
08 May '10

Stick a fork in Walt and Mearsheimer: They’re done.

And no, I’m not saying their respective careers are over. I’m saying that the “Walt & Mearsheimer Israel Lobby Road Show” is sputtering on fumes. Hey, they had a good run: four years, plus they pocketed a few hundred thousand dollars along the way. But they are now, in a word, irrelevant.

Why do I say this? Several reasons, starting with Mearsheimer’s most recent speech. This was not the victory speech of an academic who believed he had influenced policy or won hearts and minds. This was a tacit admission of defeat; an expressed belief that if everyone sits back and does nothing, events will right themselves.

To briefly summarize Mearsheimer’s “solution” for the Middle East problem: Israel—enabled by the “Afrikaner” Jews in the United States who control the Israel Lobby—will inevitably become a full-fledged Apartheid state. Of course, the full-scope of this brutality will be covered-up by the Lobby-controlled mainstream media (such as, he says, the Washington Post and the New York Times). However, thanks to that wondrous panacea, “the Internet,” everyone will see Israel for what it actually is. At that point, the scales will fall from the eyes of the majority of Jews—who currently fall into the category of the “undecided”—and they will join the ranks of the “Righteous Jews.” And, lo, the Righteous Jews shall defeat the power of the Afrikaner Jews, the Lobby’s power will be broken, and peace shall reign in the Holy Land.

There’s a certain Evangelical quality about it: a mass conversion of Jews ushering in a new era. (All that’s missing is a formal baptism.) But that’s the gist of Mearsheimer’s “plan of action”—do nothing, and wait long enough for the Jews to discover their inner righteousness.

Like I said, hardly a victory speech.

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Where Does Goldstone Fit in Mearsheimer’s List?

Emanuele Ottolenghi
Contentions/Commentary
09 May '10

So here’s a question for John Mearsheimer. As Noah Pollak pointed out not so long ago, John Mearsheimer classified Jews into three categories — new Afrikaner Jews, righteous Jews, and the “great ambivalent in the middle.” In his useful lists, he included one Judge Richard Goldstone among the noble ones. And so, in light of the revelations about Judge Goldstone to which Jennifer Rubin referred earlier on today, one is left to wonder. Where would Mearsheimer now put Goldstone — among the “New Afrikaner” or the “Righteous”? Maybe we should create a separate category — Old Afrikaner but Righteous? Good Ol’ Afrikaner?

Is he a Righteous Afrikaner because he bashes Israel after having hung a few Africans — the bashing makes him righteous, the hanging makes him Afrikaner?

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So which category of Jew are you?

Petra Marquardt-Bigman
The Warped Mirror/JPost
02 May '10

Mark 2010 as the year it became acceptable for a professor who serves as the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago to deliver a lecture that proposes how to define, and distinguish between, various categories of Jews.

So are you curious to find out if you qualify for the category of "righteous Jew", or whether you will find yourself denounced as one of the Jewish "new Afrikaners"? Or will you perhaps be counted as part of the "great ambivalent middle"?

Anyone interested in understanding the issue in its full academic "depth" (think "bottom of the barrel") might want to consult the original lecture of Professor John Mearsheimer, who introduced these categories when he delivered the Hisham B. Sharabi Memorial Lecture at the Palestine Center in Washington, DC, on 29 April 2010.

First, it is important to note the title of Professor Mearsheimer's lecture: "The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. New Afrikaners". When you read or listen to the relatively long lecture, you will see that the part where he explains how he categorizes Jews (or, to be precise, "American Jews who care deeply about Israel") comes only toward the end of the lecture. Up to this point, Mearsheimer presents his reasoning - based on highly selective facts, misrepresentations and cherry-picked polls - for his conclusion that "there is going to be a Greater Israel between the Jordan and the Mediterranean."

Mearsheimer then sets out to speculate about the question who will live in the "Greater Israel" he predicts and what kind of political system will be adopted in this entity. After devoting a few paragraphs to insinuating that Israel is only too eager to find some pretext to expel "massive numbers of Palestinians from Greater Israel", Mearsheimer argues that in his view, the "most likely outcome in the absence of a two-state solution is that Greater Israel will become a full-fledged apartheid state."

It is in this context that he turns to the question of whether American Jews and the "lobby" would continue to support Israel, and he then proceeds to offer his advice on how to categorize "American Jews who care deeply about Israel" - and it is truly revealing that it is this issue that gets highlighted in the lecture's title.

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