The full Walt and Mearsheimer book is now out, over a year after the pair first radically distanced themselves from the rest of the academic world by putting their disdain for the Jewish State into print. Do you think they took so long with the second half of the book because they had trouble translating it out of the original German?
Here's the New York Times story. It is different in absolutely no way from what you expect it to be. This is where we'd usually link to some careful point by point refutation of their scholarship, but honestly... eh. Why go through the motions of even pretending that reasons or arguments have anything to do with the on-the-ground dynamics of anti-Israel animus?
When a distinguished professor insists that he believes in an untenable conspiracy - one that happens to sound remarkably similar to vicious anti-Semitism - because of laughably disprovable assertions like "Al Qaeda's grievances regarding US/Israeli ties are suppressed by the US media"... You're supposed to do what? Show him the thousands of articles in the US media about the degree to which US/Israeli ties are a motivation for Al Qaeda? When he utters insipid nonsense like "you can tell that Israeli interests are hostile to the US because if they weren't then Israel wouldn't need a lobby"… you're supposed to do what? Bring in a 16 year old high school student to tell him that every interest on the planet is represented in DC - and on both sides of every issue? This isn't about arguments or evidence. These are not naturally stupid people - they must have a sense of their position. And if they don't - if they're really that deep in conspiracy theory "we're the sane ones everyone else is crazy" land - then whatever has made them stupid is far beyond the reach of mere logic.
[Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric]
DEDICATED TO EXPOSING DISINFORMATION AND PROPAGANDA AND TO PROMOTING UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS - WITH SHARP ANALYSIS AND BLUNT COMMENTARY. NO ADS. NO TIP-JAR. JUST THE TRUTH.
I see two possibilities:
ReplyDelete1. Walt and Mearsheimer are being paid off (by forces hostile to Israel) to write this book using the imprimatur of their respective universities. This is somewhat a paranoid view, so I'll present the more likely scenario:
2. Walt and Mearsheimer are true idiots, and the rest of their work over the years needs a very careful re-evaluation.