John Mearsheimer: evaluation

Transcript context

…What’s the underlying motivation of the lobby? Is it religious in nature? Is it similar to the way war hawks are sort of militaristic in nature? Is it nationalistic in nature? If you were describe this loose coalition of people, what would you say is their motivation? Well, first of all, I think you have to distinguish between Jews and Christians. You want to remember that there are a huge number of Christian Zionists who are deeply committed to Israel no matter what, right? And then, there are a large number of Jews. The Jews are obviously the most important of those two groups in the Israel lobby. But one of the arguments that we made in the book is that you should not call it the Jewish lobby because it’s not populated just by Jews and Christian Zionists are an important part of that lobby. But furthermore, there are a good number of Jews who are opposed to the lobby and the policies that the lobby pervades. And there are a number of Jews who are prominent anti-Zionist, and they’re obviously not in the lobby. Or if you take a group like Jewish Voice for Peace, Jewish Voice for Peace is not in the lobby. So it’s wrong to call it a Jewish lobby. But with regard to the American Jews who are in that lobby, I think that really, this is all about nationalism. It’s not so much religion. Many of those Jews who are influential in the lobby are not religious in any meaningful sense of that term. But they self-identify as Jewish in the sense that they feel they’re part of a Jewish nation. And that in addition to being an American, they are part of this tribe, this nation called Jews. And that they have a responsibility to push the United States in ways that support the Jewish state. So I think that’s what drives most, if not almost all the Jews. This is not to say there’s not a religious dimension for some of them, but I think that the main connection is much more tribal in nature. So I had a conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu and he said, “Fundamentally, if you’re anti-Zionist, you’re antisemitic.” So the Zionist project is tied to the hip to the Jewish project, what do you have to say to that?…

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