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Israel’s Lobby vs US Democracy | A Special Roundtable — Transcript

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0:03[music]
0:09>> Hi, this is John Mearsheimer and today
0:11is October 21st, 2026.
0:16And we are bringing you a special video
0:18collaboration between the Quincy
0:21Institute for Responsible Statecraft
0:24and my YouTube channel Offensive
0:27Realism. The focus is basically on a
0:31round table discussion of the Israel
0:34Lobby.
0:35And in particular, we're going to focus
0:37on two books. The 2007 book that Stephen
0:41Walt and I wrote on the Israel Lobby and
0:44US foreign policy.
0:46And on the important, truly important,
0:51new book written by Eli Clifton and Ian
0:54Lustick entitled Israel's Lobby: America
0:59in the Grip of a Foreign Power.
1:02Now,
1:03uh
1:04let me say a word about each of the
1:06authors. As I'm sure most people know,
1:09uh I'm a professor of political science
1:12at the University of Chicago.
1:14Uh my co-author Stephen Walt teaches at
1:18Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
1:22Uh Ian Lustick is a distinguished
1:26professor emeritus of political science
1:29at the University of Pennsylvania.
1:32While Eli Clifton is one of the most
1:35distinguished investigative reporters in
1:38the United States and is also one of the
1:42co-founders of the Quincy Institute.
1:45We're going to have Rashid Khalidi serve
1:49as the moderator today. Rashid has
1:52taught at Columbia University in the
1:55history department for many years,
1:58although he is now emeritus
2:01in that department.
2:03>> [snorts]
2:03>> So, what we will do now is turn to the
2:08discussion, turn to the round table, and
2:11turn this over to Rashid, who will
2:14moderate the discussion among the four
2:17authors. Thank you.
2:18>> Hi everybody. Uh I am thrilled to be
2:21moderating a discussion
2:24among the four authors of the two books
2:26that we'll be talking about.
2:28Um most recently Eli Clifton and Ian
2:31Lustick's Israel's Lobby: America in the
2:34Grip of a Foreign Power, and the
2:38classic by now, uh 19-year-old uh John
2:42Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's The
2:43Israel Lobby
2:45and US Foreign Policy. Um
2:48I think that the publication of the new
2:50book of Israel's Lobby by uh by Eli and
2:53by Ian
2:55um
2:56marks a new phase in the willingness of
2:59people to critique American foreign
3:01policy insofar as Israel and Palestine
3:03are concerned. Um but the pioneers in
3:06this were were John and and Steve way
3:08back in 2007. Um I I am a great fan of
3:12both of these books. Um
3:14I I I thought the I thought the
3:16Mearsheimer-Walt book uh was
3:20it it was provided a breakthrough in our
3:23understanding. And the readership of
3:25that book is in the zillions by now, and
3:27I think that people agree.
3:29Uh for all of the horrific ad hominem
3:32rather stupid critiques of the book, um
3:35it's stood the test of time. And I'm
3:37pretty sure that uh that Eli and Ian's
3:39book will do that.
3:40That said, uh I I I have enormous
3:43admiration for these these four authors.
3:45Several of them are good friends of
3:47mine.
3:48Um I have a couple critiques,
3:50and I'm going to lay a couple of them
3:51out right now.
3:53Um and then I'm going to ask first, I
3:55guess
3:57John and Steve and then
4:00Eli and I and to to to respond.
4:04My first critique and it's not really a
4:06critique but it's something that I don't
4:07think is sufficiently emphasized
4:10in either of these books
4:12is the fact that the the lobby for
4:14Israel is not just
4:17the folks whom both books focus on.
4:21Yes, AIPAC this. Yes, this enormous
4:24range of supporting actors, a chorus
4:28that is behind them.
4:30Supported by the same groups within
4:31American society and as as Eli and I and
4:34book talk about, supported by some of
4:37the richest people in the United States.
4:39All of that is true but something that I
4:41feel is to some extent missing from both
4:43books
4:44is the extent to which the Israel lobby
4:48includes the war lobby, includes the
4:50military industrial complex, includes
4:52the defense industries which have a very
4:54close relationship with Israel in a
4:56variety of ways and which are
4:59involved with a sort of forever war
5:01lobby
5:03which is a close ally of Israel and I I
5:05never felt that this was it is actually
5:07mentioned at one point in in Eli and I
5:11and book but I don't think enough
5:12emphasis is given to this. The people we
5:15hear and we see are people funded in
5:18Congress by AIPAC's and others other
5:21donors.
5:22The people we we hear and read in the
5:24newspapers and on on on television are
5:26people affiliated exactly with the
5:28lobbies that both books talk about. But
5:31I think that a lot of the muscle behind
5:33the support for Israel
5:36outside of the the voters among
5:38Christian fundamentalists and people in
5:40the American Jewish community who are
5:42very very deeply supportive of Israel is
5:45the people who take up 52% of the
5:48discretionary budget, which is defense.
5:50The discretionary 52% of our of our
5:52budget goes to defense. Those people are
5:54extraordinarily powerful. And the other
5:56group allied with them are the oil
5:58lobby, the energy lobbies.
6:01Um in 2015, Irene Gendzier in a book
6:03called Dying to Forget,
6:05which has a subtitle oil power,
6:08Palestine, and the foundations of US
6:10policy, revealed that the Pentagon and
6:12the oil industry back in 1948
6:14understood the value of Israel to them,
6:16even though they had misgivings about
6:19support for Israel at the outset. And I
6:21don't think that that's reflected that
6:23the degree to which these enormously
6:25powerful
6:26uh lobbies in American life,
6:30oil, defense,
6:31uh or energy and defense, are are are
6:34are fully
6:36um pictured in in these two books. I I
6:38think I maybe Stephen John,
6:41uh one or both of you could could speak
6:43to that. And then and then uh you and I
6:45and and I and
6:46>> Yeah, I'll take I'll take a swing at
6:47that. I mean, obviously the
6:49military-industrial complex and oil
6:51companies have a lot of political clout.
6:54Uh but I think that there is really a
6:55still a sharp distinction between the
6:58interests that they pursue and those
7:00that the quote Israel lobby uh pursues.
7:03Interest groups will ally with each
7:04other when their uh objectives are
7:06compatible, but they will also depart.
7:09Uh so, say in the case of the
7:10military-industrial complex, you know,
7:12Boeing really wanted to sell AWACS
7:14aircraft to Saudi Arabia back in the
7:16Reagan administration, and they the
7:18Reagan administration had a terrible
7:20fight on its hands because of course
7:22Israel didn't want the planes sold, and
7:24the lobby went all out. Uh Reagan won
7:27that, but he barely uh won the vote uh
7:31approving it in Congress, and the Reagan
7:34administration learned a lesson from
7:35that, that they didn't want to go
7:36toe-to-toe uh with the lobby. So, there
7:39was a case where the military-industrial
7:41complex, as you would define it,
7:43departed from the lobby. Remember
7:45[snorts] that uh defense companies just
7:47want to sell weapons. They just want to
7:49get rich, make money, and therefore
7:51they'll work with anybody uh to do that.
7:54And I'd say much the same thing with uh
7:56respect to oil companies. You know, for
7:57a long time oil companies were skittish
8:01about the American relationship with
8:02Israel because it complicated their
8:04dealings with oil producers. Um and I'm
8:07always reminded of what Dick Cheney said
8:10back in the 1990s when he was running
8:13Halliburton, an oil services company,
8:16and kept complaining about what he
8:18called America's sanctions-happy foreign
8:21policy,
8:22>> [snorts]
8:22>> especially directed at Iran. Right? Now,
8:25the sanctions on Iran were heavily uh
8:28shaped by the lobby by uh trying to keep
8:31the pressure on Iran. And of course,
8:33running an oil services company, Cheney
8:35just wanted to make money by doing
8:37business uh with Iran. Uh similarly,
8:40Conoco signed an oil deal with Iran to
8:43develop some oil fields there in the
8:45'90s, and Clinton, under pressure from
8:47AIPAC and others, vetoed uh the
8:50arrangement. So, their interests are
8:53sometimes aligned, but not uh all the
8:56time. And when they depart, of course,
8:58it's the Israel lobby that tends to win
9:01out on most of those battles.
9:04>> I think if you look at the cases that
9:06Steve and I dealt with in our book, and
9:09you look at the cases that Ian and Eli
9:12deal with in their book, where the lobby
9:14weighs in in a big way to influence
9:17policy, you rarely see the military
9:20industrial complex operating side by
9:24side with the lobby in a one-two punch
9:27kind of way. It's pretty much the lobby
9:30by itself. It is doing the heavy
9:33lifting. So, although I I
9:36say for 1 second that the lobby and the
9:40MIC don't have similar interests
9:43uh at a macro level. I think when you
9:46get down and you look at particular
9:47cases, you see the awesome power of the
9:50lobby pretty much by itself at work.
9:53>> Bef- Before before uh I and and Eli
9:56respond, I would just throw in cases
9:58like the Iraq War.
10:00Where you did have a confluence and
10:03other I think a lot of what we've seen
10:05with Iran most recently. Again, it's not
10:09just selling weapons. To sell weapons,
10:10you have to have conflict and this is
10:12one of the major arenas of conflict in
10:13the world for the last several decades.
10:16So, I think that the the the the shared
10:18interests there don't necessarily I
10:20agree with John and I agree with
10:22actually what Steve said. Um
10:25there are many instances where they they
10:27have clashed. I I would raise a larger
10:29point, which is that where it can be
10:31argued and I think both of you have said
10:33this in your all four of you have said
10:34this in your books, where it can be
10:36shown by an American president that
10:37there's an absolute overriding American
10:39strategic interest even down to the
10:41level of AWACS, but the JCPOA that
10:45President Obama forced through,
10:47Eisenhower forcing Israel out of the
10:50Gaza Strip. The United States forces
10:52Israel to do what it wants irrespective
10:54of the lobby. But where other less
10:56significant issues like Palestine are
10:57concerned, where there's no major
10:59strategic American interest, there's no
11:01American strategic interest whatsoever.
11:03In fact, because the Arab regimes are
11:04completely complacent about whatever
11:06happens to the Palestinians, so the
11:07United States gets what it wants there.
11:10Uh you see you see the United States can
11:14force Israel in spite of the lobby to do
11:16what it wants. You both illustrate the
11:18Kissinger example with the disengagement
11:20agreement. Those were forced down the
11:22throat of Israel because of Cold War
11:24considerations. And I think both of all
11:26all all four of you have correctly
11:29identified those those kinds of cases
11:31where an overriding American strategic
11:34interest
11:35caused the lobby to be ignored or at
11:37least to
11:38reduced its influence. I and and and
11:41Eli, if you'd like to to answer.
11:43>> I mean I I actually agree with Stephen
11:46John, but I would emphasize it this way.
11:50There's a you can say there's an
11:52objective alliance by a by identifying
11:55common interests, but number one, if
11:59United States switched its special
12:01relationship so that it was with Turkey
12:04and not Israel, the lobby the
12:06military-industrial complex would be
12:08just as happy. In fact, right now they
12:10probably are not very happy about
12:11Israel's attempt to gin up Turkey as the
12:14next
12:15enemy because it's such a good customer.
12:19But I'd also say this, is this your
12:22question is related to a larger point
12:24that comes up quite often. What about
12:26Noam Chomsky's argument? What about the
12:28argument that American imperialism it
12:30uses Israel as a tool that it that's
12:32what Israel really is. My response to
12:35that whole position is
12:37process tracing questions. When you look
12:40at what is actually on the minds of the
12:42State Department officials, presidents,
12:45Congress people when they make decisions
12:47about Israel, it is not pressures from
12:50Lockheed, it is pressures from
12:52from AIPAC and from the panoply of
12:54organizations that are associated with
12:56the lobby. So
12:58that's what I say. Yes, your machine it
13:00makes sense, but show me show me the
13:02process tracing
13:04and that's what I don't see. But when
13:06you look into it
13:08as we do in the book, try to,
13:11you really see
13:12what the actual causal impacts are.
13:15>> I think talking about process tracing,
13:17if you if you look at Irene Gendzier's
13:19book and how she shows shifts in
13:21American policy from what both of you
13:25talk about, Marshall opposing
13:26[clears throat]
13:27the recognition of Israel and and
13:31Clark Clifford and and Truman's other
13:33advisers basically prevailing.
13:36The shift over time is the oil companies
13:37and the and the Defense Department
13:39suddenly realized Israel is a potential
13:41asset and Israel won't harm us. So if
13:43you if you look at that over at the
13:45period of time that she does which is a
13:46several years,
13:48I think you'll see cases like that
13:50where in fact these are I don't disagree
13:53with what all of you are saying. The
13:55lobby is out front. The lobby has the
13:58ability to
13:59pressure the president in a way that I
14:01agree. I don't think the oil companies
14:03have that same interest or they do it in
14:04the same way nor the defense industries.
14:07But I think I think there there's a
14:10substratum there
14:11of
14:13a
14:13desire to to to to sell arms and desire
14:16to have this relationship with the oil
14:18producing countries of the Middle East
14:20which is which is completely
14:22convergent with Israeli interest. I
14:24agree with you. The the lobby is always
14:26out front and and can and usually wins
14:30when it comes up. I think the issue with
14:32Turkey is going to be fascinating. I
14:33think Israel is a better customer and
14:34Israel is involved in more conflict
14:36which means selling more weapons
14:38ultimately. Eli, did you want to say
14:40something? I'm sorry.
14:41>> I'd love to answer your question just I
14:42think a little bit differently and and
14:44jumping off of Ian's point about sort of
14:45the Noam Chomsky argument. And a key
14:48rebuttal to that is obviously that an
14:50enormous amount of money is being spent
14:53to try to maintain these pro-Israel
14:55policies from the US government. And if
14:58this was simply in the nature of the
15:00United States or something that
15:02Americans could agree about or something
15:03that
15:05all even elected leaders agreed about,
15:06you wouldn't need all of this pressure
15:09campaigns and the hundreds of millions
15:10of dollars that are being spent in this
15:12midterm election alone. But let's apply
15:14that same framework I think to the
15:18question about the military industrial
15:19complex and uh Israel lobby. And what
15:23you see particularly over and I would
15:25say the last 13 years and you'll find
15:27out why I say that 13 years I think is
15:28very significant
15:30is that they are putting a lot of money
15:33into trying to create
15:35uh more connective tissue between the
15:38military industrial complex and Israel
15:41than has been there in the past. And you
15:43know, we can interpret that how we
15:45might. I would interpret it to mean that
15:48Israel's lobby does not feel like there
15:50has been sufficient
15:52uh uh
15:54connection, sufficient
15:56uh coordination between uh venture
15:59capital particularly in the United
16:01States that wants to invest in defense
16:02technologies and uh the Israeli and
16:06American weapons companies that indeed,
16:08as you've tried to as you've pointed
16:10out, profit from these sorts of
16:11conflicts and wars. But the fact of the
16:13matter is is that you look for since
16:15there's been the start up of this thing
16:16called Startup Nation Central funded by
16:18Paul Singer, hedge fund billionaire
16:20who's one of the largest donors in
16:21Israel's lobby and one of the largest
16:23donors in the Republican Party. And this
16:25Startup Nation Central is designed to be
16:27this hub connecting again venture
16:29capitalist generally speaking in the
16:31United States with emerging companies,
16:34startup tech companies in Israel. But
16:35when you really look at what a
16:36significant number of those companies
16:38are, they are in the defense tech drone
16:40space, AI, various either multi-use or
16:45or
16:45explicitly weapons related technologies.
16:49And this is a lot of money going into
16:51trying to create that. And now we can
16:52flash forward to practically the present
16:54day with section 224 of the NDAA, which
16:57is being promoted again by Israel's
16:59lobby is deeply unpopular.
17:00>> that is to the ordinary listener.
17:03>> a piece of legislation that's cleared
17:05the house, is now with the Senate,
17:06unclear where it's going to go. It's a
17:08piece of the the defense budget more
17:10broadly, the National Defense
17:11Authorization Act. And what this
17:13legislation would do is deeply tie
17:15together the
17:17uh the defense and weapons research and
17:19development in the United States and
17:21Israel, actually mandating that the the
17:24Department of Defense needs to uh work
17:26with Israeli defense tech companies and
17:29coordinate the development of
17:30technologies, effectively making it
17:32harder to unravel the US-Israel
17:35relationship in you know in a much more
17:36deep weapon systems level uh that could
17:39survive. And and to be clear, advocates
17:41of it say the reason for this is to make
17:43it harder to unwind this relationship as
17:46it becomes less and less popular. So,
17:49all of these efforts are being are being
17:51pushed by Israel's lobby and they are
17:52doing so uh I believe because whether we
17:55can identify instances in which the
17:57military-industrial complex was in
17:58alliance with the lobby or not uh and we
18:01can certainly find evidence to promote
18:03either theory uh since 1948, uh the fact
18:07of the matter is is that the lobby feels
18:08there needs to be greater integration
18:10and what has been there has been
18:11insufficient in their view.
18:13>> No, I I you I think you're absolutely
18:15right. The other reason for pushing this
18:17is of course
18:18the fact that opposition to overt aid to
18:21Israel, the $3.8 billion that the
18:24President Obama approved nine years ago,
18:27um is forcing them to find a
18:30a subterfuge whereby Israeli defense
18:33establishment and its defense industries
18:35can be subsidized by American tax
18:37dollars
18:38uh in a way that's not as visible as
18:40$3.8 billion every year. Um I'm going to
18:43I'm going to drop this. Um
18:46and I want to go back to something that
18:47I mentioned, which I think both books,
18:50to be fair,
18:51uh stress, but I just want to I want to
18:54poke all four of you for a little more
18:56on this.
18:57I I see
19:00uh the United States
19:01in its foreign policy in the Middle East
19:04where as both of you correctly all both
19:07author both sets of authors correctly
19:09state,
19:10um
19:12prioritizing, for example, Cold War
19:15uh
19:17issues and the possibility of war with
19:19the Soviet Union during the Cold War as
19:21far, far more important than the
19:23relationship with Israel.
19:25Um I and you you both, I think, stressed
19:27that and stressed correctly the degree
19:30to which Israel was sort of joined to
19:32the hip with the United States from the
19:34'60s right through the end of the Cold
19:36War for Cold War reasons.
19:38Um and I don't think maybe enough
19:41emphasis is put on the fact that the the
19:43the the issue that gets left by the
19:45wayside in this is again and again the
19:48Palestinians. I I I was just going
19:50through John and and and Steve's book,
19:52and you do mention it, as as do I and
19:55and and Eli, but I It seems to me that
19:58this is very clear. This is not
19:59something of very high priority for the
20:01United States. It's not as important as
20:03oil or selling weapons or certainly
20:06avoiding a
20:07a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet
20:09Union. Um the kinds of issues that drove
20:12American presidents to push Israel aside
20:14and do what they please.
20:16And this is to me seems like a
20:17consistent issue right up until the
20:20present, where maybe it might be the
20:22case that this is changing. And that
20:25will lead me to another question, which
20:27I'll ask after you guys all four of you
20:29respond.
20:30>> I think that
20:31there's no question that from the
20:33Israeli point of view, the most
20:35important issue is the Palestinian
20:38issue. It trumps all the other issues,
20:40which is not to say they don't care
20:42about Iraq or Iran, but they care the
20:44most about
20:46Palestinians cuz they're interested in
20:48creating a greater Israel that has
20:51hardly any Palestinians in it. Second,
20:54it's very important to emphasize, of
20:56course we all know this, that
20:59there's no real strategic considerations
21:02at play when it comes to the United
21:04States dealing with the Palestinians.
21:06When it's the United States dealing with
21:08Iran or Iraq or dealing with Egypt and
21:11Syria during the Cold War, it's a
21:12completely different matter. It has all
21:14sorts of strategic implications. And
21:17those are the places where you can make
21:19the argument, I don't believe it for one
21:21second, that Israel is our attack dog.
21:25But when it comes to the Palestinians,
21:27you can't make that argument at all.
21:29It's quite clear that Israel and the
21:32lobby are driving the train when it
21:35comes to our dealing with the
21:36Palestinians.
21:38>> I'd like I'd like to make a comment
21:40about this a little different. You know,
21:42I completely agree, of course, on what
21:45was just said. The Palestinian issue is
21:46not of great strategic importance. And
21:49as John said, it is the key issue in
21:51Israel. It's not so much that Israelis
21:53cares that much about Iran. The reason
21:55Netanyahu expresses an obsession about
21:58Iran has to do with the fact that they
22:00don't want to have to produce a solution
22:02to the Palestinian problem. They need
22:03some other conflict constantly. They
22:05need to dominate the region. So, once
22:08So, if that is the most salient issue
22:11for Israel, and it's not particularly
22:13salient for the United States, what's
22:14really puzzling is why so many
22:16presidents, whether it's Ford or it's
22:19Carter or it's Obama, even the
22:22Baker-Bush team, even Eisenhower in his
22:25way, all tried to advance some kind of
22:28solution, some kind of response to the
22:30Palestinian problem, and they were
22:32checked. They were defeated by these
22:35what I call "oh shit" moments when they
22:36realize that the lobby's going to go
22:38down their throat and ruin something
22:40that they care about in domestic
22:42politics. So, to me, I mean, I think
22:44your analysis is correct, but the reason
22:47for the absence of American action is
22:51clearly the lobby.
22:53What it also shows us is there is a deep
22:56state in which there are constantly
22:59people who are whose teeth are grinding
23:02about American policy toward the Middle
23:04East. They remember the Liberty. They
23:06they they can't they have to keep their
23:08mouth shut on all the on all these
23:10things that they know about. And so when
23:12a new president comes in, they're
23:13looking for an opportunity to kind of
23:15support an initiative and they usually
23:17fail because of the lobby.
23:20>> Speaking [clears throat] of the deep
23:21state, I would bet that all four of us
23:23who have been teaching for a very long
23:24time have taught many dozens of people
23:28who are in that deep state and who tell
23:30us about these things when in a private
23:33moment when they they know that they're
23:34not being listened to. Anybody else want
23:37to say something about this?
23:38>> Yeah, I wanted to sort of highlight a
23:40common theme in both books and it it
23:42builds on something you said Rashid in
23:44your earlier comment about, you know,
23:46that when American presidents see a
23:48strategic interest, they're willing to,
23:50you know, play some hardball. I think
23:52one of the themes in our book, you could
23:54almost argue it's the overarching
23:58sort of historical argument is that
24:00whatever you thought the strategic case
24:02for supporting Israel during the Cold
24:04War was, that case diminished
24:07dramatically when the Cold War came to
24:09an end.
24:09>> Right.
24:10>> And whatever you thought about the moral
24:11case for supporting Israel as a
24:14democracy, etc. in the Middle East, that
24:18case was declining over time given the
24:20treatment of the Palestinians, the
24:21occupation,
24:23>> the campaign for a greater Israel. So,
24:26the case for a close special
24:28relationship was declining over time and
24:31yet the special relationship was getting
24:33deeper and deeper and deeper over time
24:36and you could argue our book was an
24:37attempt to explain that puzzle.
24:39>> Right.
24:40>> If the case for doing it is weakening,
24:43what's explaining the direction? And of
24:46course, what Ian and Eli have done is
24:48they've taken that case forward and
24:51shown that first of all, that trend has
24:53continued. It's got
24:54>> If anything, increased.
24:56>> Well, and and what's and what's
24:57fascinating is that you have successive
24:59US presidents, Obama, Trump, Biden, all
25:02talking about wanting to pivot from the
25:03Middle East to focus on managing a
25:05rising China in whatever ways they
25:07thought was necessary. And they have not
25:09been able to do so. And sorry, I'll
25:10throw it back to you, Steve.
25:11>> No, well, and I was going to just one
25:12final point that's consistent with that
25:14is that the other thing that had started
25:16to change, didn't hadn't changed when we
25:19wrote our book, but it changed by the
25:20time this book came out, was that the
25:23American public was finally moving on
25:25this issue.
25:26>> Right.
25:26>> Right. And you still
25:28>> was not apparent when you guys published
25:29your book. That's correct.
25:30>> Exactly. The American public was
25:31strongly pro-Israel, more than you know,
25:35more than far more than say
25:36pro-Palestinian. That's completely
25:39That's completely shifted now, and yet
25:41American policy, to a first
25:43approximation, hasn't changed at all,
25:45maybe even has continued to march in the
25:47same direction.
25:49>> But
25:49>> That's the puzzle that needs to be
25:51accounted for in this uh their book does
25:53a terrific job of doing that.
25:55>> American policy is like a huge aircraft
25:57carrier or ocean liner. It takes a very
25:59long time to change course. The shift in
26:02public sympathy for Palestinians and and
26:05and increasing criticism of Israel is
26:08relatively recent. We're talking 5, 10
26:09years ago. I mean, you you had students
26:12coming out on campuses as as as I think
26:14Eli and I and Joe
26:178, 10 years ago talking about divestment
26:19from Israel. That's the first signs you
26:21even had of the beginning of a smart
26:23young students on all these campuses had
26:26realized what's wrong with American
26:27policy then, in a few years, the older
26:31generations caught up. But this is
26:33relatively recent. And I'm going to come
26:35to that that issue, but go ahead, John.
26:38>> Just a very quick point. The fundamental
26:40difference between Ian and Eli's book
26:43and our book is that we wrote at a time
26:47when the lobby effectively controlled
26:50the discourse and control policy.
26:53>> Correct.
26:54>> They wrote at a time when the lobby had
26:57lost control of the discourse, but not
27:01the policy. And therefore, there's this
27:03real disjuncture between
27:06what's happening at the level of the
27:08discourse and the policy.
27:10>> Correct.
27:10>> lobby is therefore having to act
27:13differently now than it acted when we
27:17wrote our book. So, you see, they're
27:21plugging into a very different world
27:24than the one that we plugged into. And
27:26this is why their book is not in any
27:29meaningful way a follow-on to our book,
27:32you know, an updated version of our
27:34book.
27:34>> It's a new world.
27:35>> It's a new world, yeah.
27:36>> Yes. Yes.
27:37>> Uh and therefore, they have all sorts of
27:40things to say that we did not say, not
27:43because we were lackadaisical or
27:45irresponsible, but just because we were
27:47dealing with a different world.
27:49>> What I'd like to point out, John,
27:52I in fact I did in a talk yesterday, is
27:53what the difference
27:55the difference between our subtitles.
27:57Your your subtitle essentially is
28:00an US foreign policy. Ours is America in
28:04the grip of a foreign power because what
28:06has happened is
28:08because the lobby lost control of the
28:10discourse, which is probably because
28:11Israel became so crazy that they had no
28:14hope of winning arguments in public, the
28:17lobby
28:18has had to put pour its effort into a
28:21witch hunt to suppress
28:23>> Right.
28:23>> uh and punish elements of civil society
28:26that are producing these critics. So,
28:29that's an entirely different kind of
28:30political war than you and Steve uh were
28:35contending with. Uh and we In other
28:38words, completely I mean, agree and take
28:40forward your analysis
28:42of the lobby's effect on compromising
28:45and damaging US foreign policy
28:46interests. That's we can both while
28:48agree is not an absolutely new argument.
28:51People have been making that argument
28:52for a while including George Ball. But
28:54so we just took that up
28:56the Iran war is a current
28:59the the chair
29:01on on the Sunday. But but this new kind
29:04of witch hunt, this argument over at the
29:07use of anti-Semitism to go after
29:10people and institutions, this is the
29:13sense in which America, not just foreign
29:15policy, is at stake in the in the
29:19lobbies work.
29:20>> You know, one thing that persuaded me
29:22that that writing this book was was
29:25necessary was simply you know looking at
29:28at the historical record and that you
29:30know Stephen and John published their
29:31book in in 2007 and you know three years
29:34later you have the Citizens United
29:36Supreme Court decision and the speech
29:38now lower court decision.
29:39And you know that's so interesting
29:41because they wrote in their book and
29:43their list of predictions that they saw
29:46in in all fairness to them they saw the
29:49uh what would be the trends in public
29:51opinion.
29:52And they identified that there were
29:53other factions starting to emerge who
29:56were looking to have a more balanced
29:57relationship between the US and Israel.
29:59And whether those factions were going to
30:00be within the existing Israel lobby in
30:02the context of J Street or outside of it
30:05was sort of where where where I think
30:07that they saw I don't want to put words
30:08in their mouths but where they saw
30:10the future of this debate playing out.
30:14And that there could be some form of
30:15gradual change within our existing
30:17democratic processes as a result.
30:20And I think that they may have been
30:22right that that's what could have
30:23happened had it not been that we opened
30:27the floodgates to our campaign finance
30:30marketplace
30:31in 2010 in a manner that allowed people
30:34who were the extreme extreme
30:38wealthiest people within our within our
30:40country to have an outsize say in our
30:43elections. And then when we flash
30:45forward now and are asking this question
30:47about well, why is it when you have 75%
30:49of Democrats and a third of Republicans
30:50saying that they oppose further aid to
30:52Israel, and why is that not being
30:54translated into meaningful policy
30:58changes?
30:59I think you have to look at the fact
31:01that again in this midterm election
31:02alone, we have over $200 million being
31:05raised and spent by pro-Israel super
31:07PACs and that that money could not have
31:09entered into our system had those
31:10changes not been made
31:13back in 2010 and that that money is what
31:16manages to prevent that transmission.
31:18From again, from public opinion into
31:20policy. Whether that's going to be able
31:22to to sustain itself in the long run, I
31:25I have my doubts. I think that at the
31:27end of the day, every dollar spent has a
31:29diminishing marginal return.
31:31And I think that as I
31:32>> to see whether you're right in in one
31:34week.
31:35>> [laughter]
31:36>> Well,
31:37so I get I get that I get that point
31:39made a lot and and what I always say in
31:41response is that
31:43you know, I can tell you what the answer
31:45is going to be on November 3rd. If we're
31:46talking about Israel's lobby, we're
31:48going to say well, it was a mixed bag.
31:50You know, they won some races, they lost
31:52some races. And I think that's sort of
31:54missing the point. The point is is the
31:56price of competitiveness
31:58has gone up exponentially for them. The
32:02fact that they need to spend over $200
32:04million, over $30 million, probably
32:06closer to 50 by the time November 3rd
32:08rolls around it in Michigan alone
32:11says a great deal about the state of
32:14this special interest within our
32:16democracy. And if you have to spend that
32:18much money, the fact of the matter is is
32:20that you are trying to push back against
32:23an electorate that you have not
32:25persuaded and that you are certainly not
32:27not carrying their support through any
32:29natural means.
32:30>> Just very quickly, Rashid,
32:32just to
32:33put in very simple terms is I think Eli
32:36just said.
32:37The lobby The lobby has been forced to
32:40engage in smashmouth politics.
32:43>> Yes.
32:43>> And the best way and the most effective
32:46way for a lobby to work is to operate in
32:49the back channels and not be seen doing
32:52its business.
32:53>> Steve Rosen, formerly of AIPAC, made
32:56that argument very clearly. Those days
32:58are gone. And when you're engaging in
33:00smashmouth politics in the age of the
33:03internet, you are in deep trouble.
33:06>> I I'm going to add one point, too, and
33:08then move on. Just that I want to
33:10highlight No, this
33:11>> No, this is great. Keep going.
33:12>> No, no, this is one of the the real
33:14contrasts in these two books, and I want
33:16to highlight that for people who watch
33:17this. That John and I didn't say
33:19actually very much about the effect of
33:22the lobby's activities and the special
33:24relationship on American politics more
33:26broadly. We were focusing mostly on the
33:28effect it had on foreign policy. We had
33:30a few comments along the way, and we
33:32were certainly explaining how we thought
33:34the lobby worked. But we didn't say very
33:36much about what this was going to do to
33:37American democracy, other institutions,
33:40and what Ian and Eli do is show that in
33:44fact, these are starting to have really
33:46dramatic implications for American for
33:48our American domestic institutions, both
33:51in terms of the role that money is
33:53playing, but also the fact that the
33:55charge of anti-Semitism, which used to
33:57be focused on a small number of people,
34:00basically people who were critical of
34:02the special relationship or critical of
34:04Israel's policies, now has become a much
34:06more broad-brush campaign to you know,
34:10go after institutions like universities
34:12and others which are not seen as singing
34:15from the proper, you know, choir book,
34:18as it were. And and again, they will
34:22Readers will learn a lot about the
34:23broader domestic political impact that
34:26this has had.
34:27>> Right.
34:27>> from their book, which is an issue we
34:29did not talk about a great detail in
34:31ours.
34:32>> And and just just to to emphasize the
34:34the subtitle of our book, American the
34:35grip of a foreign power,
34:38exactly those the ways in which the
34:40lobby has sought to suppress and stifle
34:43speech within the United States,
34:46um it should be particularly concerning
34:48to to to all Americans because they are
34:50not just advocating or trying to smear
34:53people as we've all been targeted as
34:55somehow anti-Semitic or or beyond the
34:57pale cuz you know, within the First
34:59Amendment they're entitled completely
35:00entitled to make try to make that case.
35:03The fact of the matter is is that we've
35:04seen in the past several years,
35:07you know, the utilization of state power
35:10to try to shut down speech, to impose
35:12speech codes on university campuses, to
35:15withhold uh hundreds of millions of
35:17dollars in some cases of federal
35:18research funding to universities until
35:21they impose these speech codes in the
35:23classrooms and on their campuses, uh
35:26trying to shut down any criticism of a
35:28foreign country 6,000 miles away, even
35:30going so far as trying to deport green
35:33card holders, again for participating in
35:35protests or signing on to to op-eds that
35:38are critical of the US-Israel
35:39relationship. And I think that that's
35:42certainly
35:43a new threat, one that we had not seen
35:46completely manifesting itself before,
35:48certainly not at this scale, and one
35:50that should give all Americans real
35:52cause for concern because this is again,
35:54now we are you're starting to to use
35:57levers of power that only the state can
35:59bring to bear.
36:01>> Right. I'd like to sharpen that point
36:03with something that is important in our
36:05book and that doesn't really appear in
36:07yours or wasn't on the agenda and that
36:09is
36:09there really is a problem of rising
36:12anti-Semitism in the United States that
36:14wasn't
36:15true and that and that's because of the
36:17lobby that's our and Israel's
36:20Israel's act actually
36:21>> Both say this both say this clearly in
36:23the name of the Jewish people.
36:24>> What the lobbyist come up with is the
36:26argument that Israel is the collective
36:28Jew.
36:30Then that new anti-Semitism means the
36:32criticisms of Israel actually attacks on
36:34all Jews. Well, that produces a that
36:39teaches people that that to judge any
36:42Jew no matter what his or her attitude
36:45toward Israel is as responsible for what
36:48Israel is doing. And the government, our
36:51current administration, is working
36:53hand-in-hand with the lobby to do things
36:55which is generating anti-Semitism. And
36:57the one, I think one of the most
36:59spectacular pieces of evidence of that
37:01is what happened with NEH, the National
37:04Endowment for the Humanities, canceled
37:06over 80% of its grants under the Trump
37:08administration because they {quote}
37:10"favored one group over another."
37:13Gays or women or blacks or Hispanics,
37:15they were all canceled on DEI grounds.
37:18Then the largest grant in NEH history
37:21was made in to the Tikvah Fund for its
37:25Jewish Civilization Project, $10.4
37:28million,
37:29which is all about privileging and
37:32honoring Jewish civilization as
37:33peculiarly
37:35and specially valuable as a model for
37:37America and for Judeo-Christian
37:39civilization. Now, if that isn't a
37:42evidence of the of the [clears throat]
37:45of the transactional ties that exist
37:47between the state now and the lobby and
37:50what they're doing with it to attack
37:51institutions, attack freedom of speech
37:54and American freedom of academic
37:55freedom, I don't think you could find a
37:57better a better case.
37:59>> Uh
38:00Rashid, could I just
38:01>> I I'm not in control of this, so just go
38:03go right ahead.
38:04>> Yeah, just just very quickly. One of the
38:07things I learned when Steve and I wrote
38:10the book about the lobby was that you
38:13cannot refer to the Jews when you talk
38:17about Israel and Israeli foreign policy
38:20and how American Jews think about Israel
38:23because there is no one view and as
38:27Stephen I used to remark when we wrote
38:29the article and then the book and we got
38:31savagely attacked virtually all of our
38:34public defenders were Jewish.
38:37>> Right.
38:37>> And furthermore, some of the harshest
38:39critics of Israel and the lobby over
38:42time have been Jewish. So to try and put
38:46Jews into one category and identify by
38:50them with Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu
38:53is not simply wrong, but it's also as
38:56Ian points out dangerous.
38:58>> Well, and it's a point of deep rage and
39:00anger for the lobby that Jewish
39:03Americans of which Ian and I are are not
39:07more lockstep in line with the lobby and
39:10with Israel. And you know, a couple of
39:12things they point to. You know, one
39:14clear one is that Jewish voters
39:17as a whole are not a swing vote.
39:19Something like 2/3
39:20of Jewish voters vote Democratic in
39:22every single election and they've done
39:23so for something like the past 40 years
39:25meaning of any ethno-religious group
39:27they are the most static in how they
39:29vote and their party affiliation. And
39:32that has covered a time period in which
39:34the Republican party has objectively
39:36become way more pro-Israel and it has
39:39not resulted in any significant movement
39:41of the Jewish vote. Furthermore, when
39:43you look at issue ranking for for Jewish
39:46voters, Israel is in foreign policy more
39:48broadly is something like in the sixth
39:49or seventh position in pretty much every
39:51single election and that's not unique to
39:53Jewish voters. That's most voters. So
39:55the fact is is that Jewish voters
39:57actually vote like all other voters in
39:58this country and tend to vote with a
40:00very strong party allegiance that has no
40:02correlation to pro-Israel policies
40:04whatsoever.
40:05>> That's why what what Ian just mentioned
40:08is so
40:09extraordinarily dangerous. Identifying
40:12everybody in the entire Jewish community
40:14in the United States with Israel
40:16is first of all a travesty. It's false.
40:18It's not right. It's true of the
40:20institutions that purport to represent
40:22the community and of the lobby and of an
40:24older generation. It's completely untrue
40:26of younger Jews. Completely untrue. I
40:28mean, the degree to which they dominated
40:31the encampments and campus, not
40:33dominated but played the leading role. I
40:35mean, the Jewish Voice for Peace were
40:37one of the two leading organizations
40:38here at Columbia.
40:40And and Jewish students were enormously
40:43present throughout at every university
40:44I've ever
40:46did did where I've talked to people who
40:47have been involved. And yet, the lobby
40:51and the institutions of the community
40:53claim that they and their extreme
40:55right-wing pro-Netanyahu,
40:57pro-settlement, pro-oppression of the
40:59Palestinians position purports to be the
41:01the position of the entire Jewish
41:02community, which is leading to danger. I
41:04I agree with Ian. I mean, the degree to
41:07which anti-Semitism is going to be fed
41:09by this is quite scary. And I wanted to
41:12move on I wanted to move on to something
41:14linked
41:15but but um
41:17but uh somewhat separate,
41:19which is a point that that uh Ian and
41:22and and Eli make uh
41:24towards the end of their book.
41:26Uh and they talk about the fact that in
41:28the past
41:30in Israel advocates have made a case for
41:32Israel,
41:33have argued policy, have talked about
41:36moral connections between the United
41:38States and Israel or have talked about
41:39strategic advantages that Israel
41:41provides or have have in most cases
41:44lyingly described Israel's relationship
41:46with the Palestinians as a as a
41:47benevolent one and so on and so forth.
41:50And the point that they make is that
41:51Israel the the lobby can no longer
41:54defend Israeli policies. They're
41:56indefensible.
41:5720,000 children?
41:59What can possibly justify the killing of
42:0120,000 children in Gaza? No.
42:04What can justify killing and maiming 10
42:0612% of the Gaza population? No. You
42:08can't justify it. So, you can't talk
42:10about it. You talk about something else.
42:12And where I'm going with this is what
42:14you do is something that
42:16frankly is not entirely new
42:18in the Zionist and {slash} Israeli
42:21playbook, which is smearing
42:24ad hominem,
42:25distracting,
42:27doing anything but talking about
42:29whatever solid points are being made by
42:32critics of Israel. This was brought home
42:34to me
42:35in two books that mainly talk about the
42:37period long before what your books talk
42:40about. Molly Crabapple spoke about the
42:42Jewish Bund
42:43and Ben Moser's book Anti-Zionism: A
42:46Jewish History, in which both of them
42:48described the means that various Zionist
42:52organizations, at a time when Zionism
42:54was a minority position in Jewish
42:57communities worldwide up until the
42:59Holocaust and all of us up until World
43:01War II.
43:02Basically,
43:04saying from exactly that playbook. They
43:06were a minority and they had to attack
43:09people ad hominem because they couldn't
43:10argue on the merits of the case. Right
43:12up until the '30s, they couldn't argue
43:14from the the founding of the Zionist
43:16movement in 1896,
43:18Herzl, right up through the '30s, they
43:20couldn't argue on the merits of the
43:21case. And that has that that that
43:23intellectual thuggery, which all of us I
43:26think have experienced in one respect or
43:29another, ad hominem, slurs,
43:32the the inter the the review recently of
43:35the of your book today in the Wall
43:37Street Journal. They don't take on any
43:39of the points you make. They don't dare
43:41take on the points you make. It's all
43:43It's all
43:44It's all basically intellectual
43:46thuggery. This has been a part of the
43:49playbook, but for very many years, as as
43:51I and
43:52Eli
43:53point out,
43:55Israel advocates were able to talk
43:57supposedly to the facts and to the
43:59policy issues. They're not able to do
44:01that anymore.
44:02Why do you guys think this has happened?
44:05We've talked about public opinion
44:07change.
44:08I think it's really important that
44:10they're obliged to do the kind of black
44:12money purchase of public opinion, the
44:15black money purchase of an electorate,
44:18that that the same kind of nasty
44:22ad hominem stuff that
44:24Molly Crabapple and Ben Moser talked
44:26about in the in the teens and the 20s
44:28and the 30s
44:29is now their entire arsenal.
44:31>> I'd love to argue, and I'm sure you
44:33would love to argue and Steve and John
44:35would have would There's a whole
44:36generation of people we educated so that
44:39they are more sophisticated about the
44:41Middle East, about Israeli politics.
44:42That may have contributed,
44:45but the what we argue is Israel became a
44:49crazy state.
44:51>> Yeah.
44:51>> It became a crazy state partly because
44:53of the unconditionality of and and
44:56enormous massive
44:58characteristic of American aid, which
45:01shifted made it impossible for moderates
45:04in Israel who might have who at least
45:06could be sold in America as ready for
45:08peace with their neighbors, as social
45:10democrats, made them impossible for them
45:13to win elections, and essentially made a
45:16subsidized
45:18far right and politicians who could move
45:21to the right to pander to the most
45:23extreme fears and fantasies of Israelis.
45:27We created that, this super abundant
45:30success of I should say of the lobby,
45:31not we in the United States, by
45:34hammerlocking American foreign policy,
45:36created a changed what Israeli democracy
45:39might have produced, but one of the
45:41things that it did was make it
45:44absolutely impossible for, as we've
45:46said, for the lobby to win arguments.
45:48And I One of the things we talk about in
45:50the book is the the changing messages in
45:53the manuals distributed by the lobby for
45:56guiding how you encounter, how you
45:59defeat, how you check, respond to
46:01critics on campuses, to move away from
46:03substantive discussion toward
46:05criticizing arguments as anti-Semitic,
46:08then criticizing the people who make
46:09them as anti-Semitic, to to to have
46:12people like Frank Luntz who know nothing
46:14about the Middle East authoring these
46:16manuals when in the past that at least
46:18the people who wrote them knew something
46:20about the Israel and Arab Arab conflict.
46:22This is all about how to spin, how to
46:24how to mobilize bias of your audience,
46:26how to change the subject. Uh so so to
46:29me, Israel becoming a state that is
46:35essentially a pariah in the
46:36international system,
46:37and this is accelerated by the Gaza
46:40genocide, but not started by it, is
46:42something that the lobby just has to uh
46:46accept. They're doing it in two ways.
46:49One is the anti-Semitic the
46:51anti-Semitism which we've talked about,
46:52but the other which is only starting to
46:54come on the scene is to develop a
46:58a an ideology of the United States and
47:00Israel fighting a global struggle on
47:03behalf of Judeo-Christian civilization
47:06uh against the red-green alliance, the
47:09neo-Marxists and the jihadis backed by
47:12the degenerate Western
47:14uh European secular humanists. And this
47:17is leading uh this is an argument that
47:20they make because partly they don't have
47:22to defend Israeli policies because
47:24civilization is at stake. And uh I don't
47:27believe that this is going to win, but
47:29it's splitting. It's creating a segment
47:32in the lobby that wants to build a
47:34fortress
47:35a fortress Jewish ghetto in the United
47:37States.
47:38Don't send your kids to Harvard anymore.
47:41Don't send them to Pennsylvania or
47:42Columbia. Send them to Israel, to
47:43Florida, to Texas A&M, anywhere anywhere
47:47but the elite schools. And we should
47:50only invest in in Jewish communal
47:53activities. The ADL, and
47:55League has already gone down that road.
47:57It is absolutely explicitly given up all
48:00its programming to fight bigotry and has
48:02only focused on weaponizing uses of
48:05anti-semitism.
48:06>> Can I piggyback on what Ian said?
48:10I of course agree with him in his
48:12response to your question about what's
48:13changed.
48:15But also, you do not want to
48:17underestimate the importance of the new
48:19historians in Israel
48:22who in the late 1980s, early 1990s began
48:27to lay out in a very public and detailed
48:30and sophisticated fashion how Israel was
48:33created, how Israel treated the
48:35Palestinians. Was of enormous
48:37importance.
48:38>> I agree.
48:39>> Furthermore, you had the development in
48:41the United States of a small coterie of
48:44scholars at respectable or elite
48:47institutions who began to tell the same
48:51story and to give you just three names,
48:53Ian Lustick, Rashid Khalidi, and Norman
48:57Finkelstein. You guys really mattered.
49:00So the discourse was changing because
49:03the body of literature that was
49:05available for scholars and lay people to
49:08look at to understand what was going on
49:11was expanding and it was telling the
49:14truth. And then the final point I would
49:16make, which is of enormous importance,
49:18is the internet. You cannot
49:20underestimate how important the internet
49:23is for changing the discourse about
49:26Israel over time.
49:28Just take the Gaza genocide, right? It
49:31was on public display. You could see it
49:33with your very eyes.
49:35>> Not through the mainstream corporate
49:37media, through the internet, through
49:39social media.
49:40>> Exactly.
49:41>> I want to piggyback on John. So
49:44So one of the other differences between
49:47the two books is that we didn't say very
49:49much about Israeli domestic politics. We
49:52had some warnings in there about where
49:54we thought it might go and we were
49:56worried about, you know, how
49:58unconditional support was not helping
50:00Israel internally, but we did not
50:02discuss it in detail. They devote a
50:04whole chapter
50:06to Israel as a crazy state argument to
50:08exploring the domestic implications in
50:11Israel itself. That's that's new.
50:13Second, I agree with John's point about
50:15the discourse has changed, so it's much
50:18harder to blow smoke about policy
50:21anymore. It's just a far more open
50:24set of discussions. The third point I'd
50:26make though is that even the attempt now
50:29to smear people, which is is happening,
50:31I don't think is nearly as effective as
50:33it used to be. It's not able to
50:35marginalize people who are critical in
50:38quite the same way. And I think in part
50:41because the lobby's been so discredited
50:44in some of its prior defenses that when
50:47they come and attack somebody in most
50:49cases attacking people who are quite
50:52obviously not anti-Semitic. They're just
50:55critical of Israeli policy or they have
50:57doubts about whether or not American
50:59unconditional support is a good idea.
51:01This is not anti-Semitism and most
51:03people can see that. Right, so the
51:06smearing I think is no longer as
51:08effective.
51:09The one part that is worrisome to me,
51:12and it gets back to our earlier
51:13discussion, is of course the lobby has
51:15made an alliance
51:18with the sort of right-wing cultural
51:19warriors who don't care at all about the
51:21Middle East, don't care at all about
51:23Israel, want to go after various
51:25institutions for their own political
51:27reasons. And you could argue that's
51:29almost a parallel to what you were
51:30saying, you know, sometimes the lobby
51:32has worked with the military-industrial
51:34complex or with oil companies. Today
51:37parts of the lobby work with the Chris
51:39Rufo's and others of the world who are,
51:42I would think, unreliable allies over
51:45time but are part of this broader war on
51:48sort of both rational thought, honest
51:51discourse, all in the service of
51:53political agendas of various kinds.
51:55>> I think you're completely right. And
51:58they've lost the they've lost the
51:59narrative. They've lost the discursive
52:01war. They cannot argue.
52:04But what they have gained because of the
52:06alliance you just talked about is state
52:08power.
52:09So you now have the state mandating that
52:11saying this or saying that of it is
52:13really is anti-Semitic, and you will be
52:15punished in law. You will be punished.
52:18Uh uh your university will bring you up
52:20before some kangaroo court for
52:22violations of title six, which are
52:24nothing to do with discrimination.
52:26Uh and again, uh one of the great things
52:28about the book the the recent book that
52:30Eli and and Eli and talked about is this
52:32politics of feeling.
52:34How people feel I feel that this
52:38expression of of intifada or this or
52:41somebody wearing a Palestinian kaffiyeh
52:44or somebody talking saying river to the
52:46sea makes me feel unsafe. And the state
52:50is now punishing people
52:52for these kinds of violations of the
52:55feelings of a tiny subset, as it
52:58happens, of of university students, for
53:00example. Uh this is this is brand new.
53:03Uh now you may be right, uh Steve, that
53:05alliance may dissolve within 2 years or
53:073 years or less. But right now it has
53:10the the power of the state behind it.
53:12Eli, you wanted to say something.
53:13>> I wanted to quickly just turn back to
53:15John's point about about social media
53:18and the medium uh changing, and as a
53:21result the lobby couldn't control what
53:24was getting out and uh what people were
53:26seeing and hearing. Uh and I think that
53:29uh while
53:31that is all true, I worry that focusing
53:35on that can overshadow sometimes the
53:38fact that the message itself, the facts
53:41on the ground
53:42became impossible to defend. And this
53:45goes back to your point Rashid about now
53:4720,000 dead children, maybe as much as
53:49100,000 uh dead civilians in Gaza.
53:52That's something that cuts across every
53:56uh aspect of our you know of our
53:57political spectrum in the United States
53:59and globally. People find that
54:01offensive. People find that horrendous.
54:03That leads to you know you watch people
54:05like Tucker Carlson speaking exactly to
54:08that, addressing Christian Evangelical
54:11groups that have in the past been been
54:13fervently Christian Zionist
54:15>> Right.
54:15>> and uh reaching them by saying, you
54:18know, there's a lot of dead kids here
54:20and this is something that our country
54:22is playing a role in and people don't
54:25like that.
54:26>> It's really hard to get around that.
54:28>> It's hard to get around that and yes,
54:30you can try to control it. You can try
54:31to get the mainstream media to to
54:33somehow sanitize it, which they have to
54:35a degree um and we could certainly point
54:38to the role of social media in going
54:40around that. Uh but all of this gets
54:42back to the fact that the simple facts
54:45on the ground are going to cost you
54:47public support and going to make it very
54:49very hard to utilize the arguments that
54:52they had successfully used in the past
54:55uh to justify uh the US-Israel
54:57relationship and maintaining the status
54:59quo.
55:00>> But again, this is because the facts on
55:01the ground were completely obscured for
55:03us before social media and independent
55:06media and so on.
55:07>> Yeah, and that's why it's so this
55:09striking contrast between the dis
55:12discursive defeat, the inability to
55:13actually argue anything and what what
55:16the state and the states are doing right
55:18now. There's a bill now being presented
55:22in the Pennsylvania legislature to make
55:24the IHRA hoax as the official definition
55:28of anti-Semitism that will
55:30will expand prosecutions and
55:32criminalization of criticism of Israel.
55:34This is this at a time
55:37when the governor will be presented with
55:40a politically fraught choice.
55:42Would Will he support this? Will he not?
55:45But from my point of view, what And
55:47we've asked this before, what accounts
55:49for this gap between policy, what the
55:53politicians are doing or even
55:55considering doing, and what the public
55:58is believing and wanting. And one of the
56:00things that we've suggested is to look
56:02at the NRA as a kind of cautionary tale
56:06here. They long ago lost the argument
56:08about whether whether it would be better
56:10to control attack control assault
56:13weapons or have them locked when they're
56:15not used, but they can't but the
56:17policies don't change.
56:19So there's an ability that lobbies have
56:22if they know how to operate behind the
56:24scenes as the Israel lobby certainly
56:26does to prolong the period in which
56:28there is a gap between what the public
56:30wants and what policy is.
56:32>> Climate change. The energy lobby has a
56:35lock on policy.
56:36>> Well, that's a good example.
56:37>> We're going down the steep
56:39steep incline towards an abyss and
56:42everybody realizes that. But the energy
56:45lobby, just like the NRA, has policy
56:47under its control. Go go ahead, John.
56:49>> Just very quickly, we addressed this
56:51issue in our book and Steve actually
56:53wrote those sections. So he's the expert
56:56on this, but his point to me, which we
56:58incorporated into the book, is that if
57:00you look at how the American political
57:02system is constituted, it is a right for
57:05interest groups to come in and
57:07manipulate the system. It's a very
57:10peculiar set of institutions that we
57:12have.
57:13Excuse me, and it's important to
57:15understand that those institutions allow
57:18the NRA and the Israel lobby, the Cuban
57:20lobby, you name it,
57:22to get their way even when public
57:24opinion points 180 degrees in the
57:26opposite direction.
57:27>> I I think this can go back to some of
57:29the Greek philosophers talking about the
57:31problems with democracy.
57:33I mean, they they were talking about the
57:34demos. They weren't talking about
57:35interest groups, but essentially look at
57:38France, look at the United Kingdom, look
57:40at Germany. Some of the same exact
57:43procedures
57:44play out in their political systems with
57:47all the differences. They didn't have
57:48Citizens United, but you know.
57:51>> Yeah.
57:51>> That's a big difference. Again,
57:52>> big difference. A big
57:54>> You're becoming an Aristotelian in your
57:56older age.
57:57>> Yeah, when I want to not think about the
57:59Middle East, I go back and read the
58:00classics. It's my It's my refuge.
58:03Um I I wanted to to to bring one or two
58:06other things up. But, um
58:09uh in reading this
58:11the vitriolic and stupid review in the
58:13Wall Street Journal of Israel's lobby
58:17uh uh
58:18Eli and I and book. But, the thing that
58:20came to mind was if I were if I were the
58:23authors and I felt like responding to
58:24this rubbish, all I would do
58:26is quote uh President Washington's
58:29farewell address, which you guys quote
58:32on page 15 at length. And just send that
58:35to the Wall Street Journal, say, "If
58:37this doesn't describe what this lobby
58:39does, you know, shoot me."
58:41I think you really you you absolutely
58:44nailed it with that. I've always thought
58:45about the founders and the framers
58:47and their their deep deep deep distrust
58:51of the United States playing a certain
58:52kind of role in the world. And how far
58:55the United States has deviated from that
58:57since certainly since into the from the
58:5820th century onwards.
59:00Um but, in particular, the way in which
59:02uh uh
59:03Washington talked about faction.
59:06I mean, it it links exactly to the
59:07discussion that we're having. I don't
59:09know if anybody wants to mention to talk
59:11about this, but it struck me as
59:13something that we should always be
59:14throwing it out there uh as as is do we
59:18really want to be this tightly linked to
59:20this specific country and this specific
59:23interest group in all of our policies as
59:26far as the Middle East is concerned, and
59:27even really
59:28and more dangerously in so far as public
59:30discourse, the First Amendment, and
59:32academic freedom are concerned. I mean,
59:34I left You mentioned this in the book. I
59:35left I stopped teaching at Columbia
59:37after I retired because they decided I
59:40IHRB was the basis on which they would
59:42adjudicate Title VI complaints. And at
59:44that point, half of what I wanted to say
59:46in classroom would bring me up before
59:49these kangaroo courts run by idiot
59:51administrators
59:53operating on the basis of this ludicrous
59:55definition of anti-Semitism, which has
59:57nothing to do with Jew hatred, which is
59:59what anti-Semitism is, and entirely to
1:00:01do with protecting Israel from any
1:00:02possible criticism. I wasn't going to go
1:00:04through that meat grinder. Why would I
1:00:06do that? Just so that I could say what,
1:00:08as as as John said, a bunch of Israeli
1:00:12scholars and a bunch of Palestinian
1:00:13scholars said 30, 40 years ago, Israel
1:00:16did this, this, this, and this in 1948,
1:00:18or this is the case as far as Gaza is
1:00:20concerned. You know, facts are suddenly
1:00:23become
1:00:24evidence, prima facie evidence of
1:00:26anti-Semitism.
1:00:27>> I want to pick up something I think is
1:00:29is adjacent to what you were just
1:00:31saying, and it's a point that I make
1:00:33occasionally, which is, you know, one of
1:00:36the other political costs here is the
1:00:39enormous amount of bandwidth
1:00:42a country of roughly 10 million people
1:00:44takes up in American political
1:00:46discourse. I mean, we're spending an
1:00:47hour plus talking about it as well. But,
1:00:51you know, people can write books about
1:00:52it. If you just read Wall Street
1:00:55Journal, Washington Post, New York Times
1:00:57every day, there are stories. The amount
1:01:00of time that every president, right, has
1:01:04to spend dealing with this one small
1:01:06country in various ways, and often very
1:01:09resentfully, you know, they tell their
1:01:11aides they're angry at Prime Minister X
1:01:14or Prime
1:01:14>> When they leave office, they tell us the
1:01:16truth, yeah.
1:01:16>> Yeah, right. But, the point is it's just
1:01:18this is and there's only 24 hours a day,
1:01:217 days in a week. The most precious
1:01:23commodity in most governments is the
1:01:25time of senior officials and look at all
1:01:28the time and attention that Obama
1:01:29devoted to this, that George W. Bush
1:01:31devoted to this, that Trump has devoted
1:01:34to it in various ways. I think I counted
1:01:37at one point that
1:01:39Anthony Blinken went to the Middle East
1:01:41to Israel something like a dozen times,
1:01:4315 times in the four years that he was
1:01:46Secretary of State. He went to the
1:01:47entire continent of Africa four times.
1:01:51Right? So, the amount of time it takes
1:01:53in our political system, the amount of
1:01:55bandwidth that occupies prevents us from
1:01:58focusing on a whole series of other
1:02:00problems that are likely to have much
1:02:02more impact on America's overall
1:02:04well-being over time.
1:02:06>> [clears throat]
1:02:06>> And that's again a consequence of a
1:02:09relatively well-organized, well-funded,
1:02:12small number of people who have managed
1:02:14to exploit the nature of the American
1:02:16political system to force politicians to
1:02:20spend all this time on this one little
1:02:22country.
1:02:23>> You'll be interested, Stephen, that back
1:02:25in the '80s, I asked Charlie Charles
1:02:28Maynes, the editor of Foreign Policy
1:02:30when it used to be and I published a
1:02:32couple of articles there on on Israel in
1:02:34the Middle East and I asked him once, I
1:02:35said, "Why are there so many articles on
1:02:39this topic every single issue?" He said,
1:02:43"Ian, if it were up to my readers, they
1:02:45would all be about
1:02:47Israel and the Arabs."
1:02:50>> And and again, you get this scenario
1:02:52Successive US presidents have said this
1:02:54is not how they want to spend their
1:02:55time. It's not just outside observers
1:02:58saying this and you know,
1:03:00Stephen, I think you've been saying it
1:03:01since before US presidents were saying
1:03:02it, but the fact of the matter remains
1:03:05that you know, Obama, Trump, Biden,
1:03:08Trump again have all said that this is
1:03:10not where, you know, the the majority of
1:03:12the bandwidth of American military or
1:03:14diplomatic thinking or planning should
1:03:17be devoted.
1:03:18>> I want to make what I think is an
1:03:19important point that is built into
1:03:22chapter 3, which is this chapter on
1:03:25crazy states in Ian and Eli's book. And
1:03:28that is I think that they are arguing
1:03:31that Israel is going to get crazier over
1:03:34time. They define it as a crazy state
1:03:37today, but in the second part of that
1:03:39chapter, they have what I think is a
1:03:41very important discussion about Israeli
1:03:45self-identification,
1:03:46how Israel identifies itself.
1:03:49And the argument is that Zionism in the
1:03:51beginning viewed itself as just a
1:03:54different form of nationalism. It was a
1:03:57Jewish state. If you go back to the
1:03:59title of Herzl's famous book, The Jewish
1:04:01State, right? Nation-state, Jewish
1:04:04state. It was a nation-state among other
1:04:07nation-states.
1:04:08And the argument that they make in the
1:04:10second part of the book is that that
1:04:13sense of self-identification
1:04:16is changing in a fundamental way, where
1:04:19Israel views itself as being in a very
1:04:23special category and viewing the rest of
1:04:27the world as the enemy. They're all
1:04:30potential Nazis.
1:04:32>> Right.
1:04:32>> Uh and you therefore think about the
1:04:35rest of the world, and this includes the
1:04:37West, and includes the United States as
1:04:39well, as the enemy, and Israel is all
1:04:43alone in this world. And by the way,
1:04:45there is this new Israeli military
1:04:48doctrine that everybody's been talking
1:04:50about over the past 2 weeks, which I'm
1:04:52sure everybody's familiar with. And as I
1:04:54was reading uh about that doctrine, I
1:04:58kept thinking of the second part of
1:05:00chapter
1:05:00>> your Explain to your viewers what you're
1:05:02talking about, cuz we know, but they may
1:05:04not.
1:05:05>> Well, the doctrine basically says that
1:05:07Israel is pretty much on its own moving
1:05:10forward. It can't rely on the United
1:05:12States anymore.
1:05:14>> Sparta among the nations.
1:05:15>> Sparta among the nations, right. Israel
1:05:17is very different than other nation
1:05:19states. And furthermore, it basically
1:05:22argues for a greater Israel and a highly
1:05:24aggressive foreign policy in pursuit of
1:05:27that greater Israel, which is completely
1:05:30consistent with what Eli and I and say.
1:05:33>> I've highlighted that that doctrine that
1:05:35you're talking about. The development of
1:05:37it was funded by the Israel lobby. It's
1:05:39funded by Tikvah
1:05:41into it into the think tanks in Israel
1:05:43that have produced it. It is also an
1:05:45outgrowth of Gush Emunim, of the block
1:05:48of the faithful that was behind the
1:05:50massive settlement project in the West
1:05:52Bank. Their position is I and I wrote a
1:05:55book about them in the '80s was always
1:05:58that well, it's like Abraham, you know,
1:06:00>> [clears throat]
1:06:01>> when God God speaks directly to Abraham,
1:06:04tells him to kill his son, that shows
1:06:06that when you have a people like the
1:06:07Jews to whom God speaks directly,
1:06:10regular ethical laws that govern the
1:06:12behavior of other nations don't apply to
1:06:15the Jews, don't apply to a Jewish state.
1:06:17What has happened is that that idea,
1:06:20that core fundamentalist idea has
1:06:23become the mainstream idea of the
1:06:25Israeli right. And that is what is
1:06:28governing Israel now. So, it's and and
1:06:31when you talk about this new doctrine,
1:06:34it's actually to expand Israel
1:06:36geographically, to occupy portions of
1:06:40essentially all the countries around it
1:06:42and to develop a massive army to do
1:06:45that. One of the things it doesn't go
1:06:47into is where are we going to get the
1:06:49manpower to do it? It says we're not
1:06:51going to talk about that problem, but
1:06:52that is a massive problem, in part
1:06:55because of immigration rates that are
1:06:58reacting to this craziness in Israel
1:07:01and because of something that I
1:07:03the the ultra-Orthodox, what I would
1:07:06call the draft resistance movement. They
1:07:08are unwilling to provide the manpower
1:07:11for their own reasons that the IDF needs
1:07:14to carry out that kind of program.
1:07:17>> But their percentage of the population
1:07:18is increasing. They're about 14% now,
1:07:22and by 2050 estimates are they'll be 33%
1:07:25of the population.
1:07:26>> out that's good news.
1:07:28Well, yes, that's what I'm That's what
1:07:30I'm
1:07:30They are the most chauvinist part of the
1:07:32Israeli Jewish population. On the other
1:07:34hand, they're doing what the other part
1:07:37should do, which is resisting the draft.
1:07:39[laughter]
1:07:40>> But but but to go back to the sort of
1:07:41expansive military doctrine, every
1:07:43country has extreme factions. That's not
1:07:45unique. It's certainly not unique to
1:07:47Israel. What is unique, however, is that
1:07:50they are able to pursue it while being
1:07:52largely shielded from the natural
1:07:55consequences that any other country of
1:07:57their size, certainly in the region or
1:07:59anywhere in the world, would experience.
1:08:02If you were to be, you know, engaging in
1:08:04sort of endless wars with one's
1:08:05neighbors and maintaining an occupation
1:08:07over people who certainly do not receive
1:08:10the same democratic rights that that
1:08:12that others who are in the same
1:08:13controlled territory do. This is
1:08:15something that is unique in Israel's
1:08:17case, and I think can only be ascribed
1:08:19to the to the successes of the lobby in
1:08:22protecting, you know, in more recent
1:08:24cases, you know, Israel from the ICC or
1:08:27from censure in the United Nations or
1:08:29from isolation in sort of in the global
1:08:31community in the sense of countries,
1:08:33particularly in Europe and the United
1:08:34States, not wanting to sell weapons. All
1:08:36of these are the sorts of consequences
1:08:38that naturally would occur from these
1:08:41sorts of excesses. But and that And this
1:08:43goes back to sort of something we've
1:08:44talked about a number of times, which is
1:08:46that in a sense that lobby is a victim
1:08:47of its own success. That they have now
1:08:50managed to enable Israel to pursue an
1:08:53agenda of to some degree of success that
1:08:57has made it impossible to defend when it
1:09:00comes to in the court of public opinion
1:09:02in the United States, let alone
1:09:03globally.
1:09:04>> Okay, I'm going to ask the four of you.
1:09:06You're all political scientists, I
1:09:07think, by training. Is that correct?
1:09:10>> I I I'm the only non-PhD on this uh
1:09:13>> I'm sure, but sure.
1:09:14>> I I I can recuse myself.
1:09:15>> Yeah, no policy no policy person.
1:09:18>> Um I mean, we have just
1:09:20laid out you you all four of you laid
1:09:23out different stages of of the history
1:09:25of this in your books.
1:09:27The degree to which
1:09:29it's no longer possible to defend
1:09:32Israeli policies.
1:09:34And we've laid out
1:09:37in this discussion some of the reasons
1:09:39for that. I would stress what John said
1:09:42actually. I think that the shift within
1:09:44academia started partly by the
1:09:46revisionist historians, but by many
1:09:48others. Not just me and you and
1:09:50>> [clears throat]
1:09:50>> I and so on. Very large number of people
1:09:53over
1:09:54including people who are not
1:09:56cutting-edge critics of Israel. They
1:09:58simply wrote the truth about Israeli
1:10:00society or about Palestinian society or
1:10:02about Middle East politics. And that has
1:10:04now become standard. You cannot say some
1:10:07of the things that people said in the
1:10:08'40s and the '50s in a
1:10:10in in a respectable academic
1:10:12environment. You cannot say those
1:10:13things. They're they're nonsense.
1:10:15They're false. Everybody knows certain
1:10:17things about the history and the
1:10:19politics and the societies that we're
1:10:20talking about. Given all of that, my my
1:10:23question is this.
1:10:25The United States and Western Europe
1:10:27generally are the
1:10:30absolutely essential base for Israel
1:10:33getting away with what it does. You both
1:10:35laid this out in different ways. You all
1:10:37four of you laid them in both books.
1:10:39I'm going to ask you guys to do
1:10:40something I wouldn't do as a historian,
1:10:42which is to predict.
1:10:45When does the disconnect and how and why
1:10:48and where will the disconnect come
1:10:51as between the overwhelming lack of
1:10:53sympathy of every single Western country
1:10:56surveyed by Pew, for example, for
1:10:57Israel. And their growing sympathy for
1:10:59the Palestinians. When does that and how
1:11:02does that affect policy? And when and
1:11:04how does that finally lead to somebody
1:11:06reigning in this what you've described,
1:11:08the two of you described as a crazy
1:11:10state. Uh you cannot demolish 60
1:11:13villages in Lebanon without the United
1:11:14States letting you do it. You cannot
1:11:16occupy further territories in in Syria
1:11:18without the United States letting you do
1:11:20it, or more territory in Gaza, or kill
1:11:221,400 Palestinians in Gaza during the
1:11:25so-called ceasefire. But that's the
1:11:27United States and Western Europe
1:11:28basically letting you do it, arming you,
1:11:30and as you all have talked about in your
1:11:32books,
1:11:34running interference for Israel in the
1:11:35Security Council, and so on. When does
1:11:38the disconnect between public opinion,
1:11:40which has shifted and I think it's
1:11:41continuing to shift, actually.
1:11:43Every sign I've seen is the numbers get
1:11:45high. It was 60% disapproval, it's up to
1:11:4762% in the last poll. When does this
1:11:50begin to affect policy? How?
1:11:53And all four of you are real experts. I
1:11:56And I don't predict the future, you
1:11:57guys. But you did actually have to say,
1:12:00John and and Steve did a pretty damn
1:12:02good job of predicting the future. And
1:12:04you two now Eli Eli I have to take it
1:12:07up. So,
1:12:08please.
1:12:09>> When it comes [clears throat] to
1:12:10prediction, it's interesting that our
1:12:11original prediction in the manuscript
1:12:14that was submitted was that Israel would
1:12:16drag the United States into a war
1:12:17against Iran.
1:12:19>> But you were you right?
1:12:20>> We were going to but
1:12:22we had to change the conclusion to an
1:12:24explanation uh from [clears throat] a
1:12:26prediction. But
1:12:28that's a very good question and I don't
1:12:30shy away from it. I have I've made a lot
1:12:32of predictions. I'm very proud of my
1:12:34record. I'll answer your question. I
1:12:36think that that change can come quite
1:12:39quickly, but it requires under current
1:12:41conditions, but requires one thing. It
1:12:44requires the politicians, and mainly in
1:12:46the Democratic Party, but not only, to
1:12:49figure out a way to be truthful and
1:12:52successful at the same time. And that
1:12:54means giving up the two-state solution a
1:12:57myth and talking and grounding their
1:13:00position on equality of opportunity,
1:13:04political equality, and liberal
1:13:06democracy. And then dissociating America
1:13:10from Israeli policies, not trying to
1:13:12orchestrate a solution,
1:13:14and realizing that this is going to be a
1:13:16long-term
1:13:18process. So getting us out of that, I
1:13:21think what I'm trying to say is
1:13:23politicians if the Democrats come into
1:13:26power and I think they will,
1:13:28they still need not to be suckered by an
1:13:32Eisenkot government that in now that
1:13:35>> [clears throat]
1:13:35>> now Israel's no longer a crazy state is
1:13:37Connecticut again.
1:13:39Uh
1:13:40and and
1:13:41develop this new position that I've just
1:13:44tried to articulate in which you don't
1:13:47tie your wisdom on the Middle East to uh
1:13:49in
1:13:50deep involvement with Israel. You don't
1:13:52tie it to
1:13:54a two-state solution. You don't tie it
1:13:56to territorial compromise. You tie it to
1:13:59uh fairness and equality
1:14:01of all those governed by the same regime
1:14:04between the river and the sea. And you
1:14:06say what you think at the UN and you
1:14:08don't give this massive aid uh to
1:14:11Israel. I think that's a position that
1:14:12can develop and it would be that kind of
1:14:14disconnect. But politicians have to come
1:14:17to the realization that they can win and
1:14:19be truthful at the same time.
1:14:21>> And we have two elections coming up.
1:14:23>> I would just go slightly upstream of
1:14:25that and say that I think you see change
1:14:27when it becomes recognizably politically
1:14:31untenable
1:14:32uh to continue endorsing and indeed
1:14:37imposing these status quo policies. And
1:14:39we've already seen some some hints that
1:14:42this might be the emerging reality. And
1:14:45one thing I I always like to point to
1:14:46are the polls uh, in the postmortem of
1:14:49the of the the 2024 election where the
1:14:52number one reason given by voters who
1:14:55had voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and had
1:14:57withheld their vote from Kamala Harris
1:14:59in 2024 that admitted they voted for
1:15:01Trump or they chose not to vote or
1:15:03write in was Gaza. Um, so that you know,
1:15:06that doesn't mean that that necessarily
1:15:07tilted the election, but that's a really
1:15:09important metric to look at.
1:15:10>> It might well have as you guys point
1:15:12out, these were swing states.
1:15:14>> It might well have.
1:15:15>> Statistics come from.
1:15:16>> And and so I think the reason
1:15:17>> Trump that had gone for Biden.
1:15:19>> Exactly. So I think the really next
1:15:20interesting test will be watching how
1:15:23Democratic uh, presidential primary
1:15:25candidates position themselves coming
1:15:27into 2028.
1:15:29>> We'll see.
1:15:30>> because if things continue on the
1:15:31trajectory that we've been talking about
1:15:33here, um, I think it's going to be new
1:15:36completely new pressure on uh, on
1:15:39presidential candidates who want to
1:15:41appeal to a broad-based uh, nationwide
1:15:44uh, to strike out in a different
1:15:46direction on this despite all the money
1:15:49uh, that's being uh, spent to try to
1:15:51maintain not just the status quo
1:15:53policies, but deeply unpopular policies.
1:15:56>> Not just by Republican right-wingers.
1:15:59>> Not just by Republican
1:15:59>> look at the money that the former mayor
1:16:01of New York just put in, tens of
1:16:03millions of dollars. His spokesman
1:16:05explicitly said, we will be giving this
1:16:07to centrist, i.e. right-wing Democrats
1:16:10and not DSA people, i.e. we want to
1:16:12preserve the Israel the pro-Israel
1:16:16stance of the entire leadership of the
1:16:17Democratic Party and reinforce those
1:16:20right-wing Democrats who will continue
1:16:22with this.
1:16:23>> was one of those plutocrats that we
1:16:24profiled in the book on on the left and
1:16:26also on on the Democratic Party we
1:16:28identify, you know, Reid Hoffman, Haim
1:16:30Saban as all playing
1:16:33uh, similar roles to those folks on the
1:16:35right that are more household names.
1:16:37>> Well, um, yeah, I I mean so first of
1:16:39all, I I've long had this fantasy that
1:16:42uh, someday a presidential press
1:16:43secretary goes out and says our policy
1:16:45is to support a two-state solution and
1:16:48all the reporters just busted a gut
1:16:50laughing.
1:16:51>> [laughter]
1:16:51>> And then they they they think that's
1:16:53that's silly. We may So I'd make three
1:16:56points. First of all, I think
1:16:58like I am the change can actually come
1:17:00quite quickly, which is one of the
1:17:02reasons the lobby has always fought so
1:17:04fiercely because if the momentum starts
1:17:06flowing away from them, you know, then
1:17:08it becomes easier for the next person to
1:17:12to take issue etc. So I think change can
1:17:15come quickly. I think the cost of the
1:17:18Iran war
1:17:19that is so clearly tied to the bad
1:17:22advice that Trump got from Netanyahu is
1:17:24so clearly seen as the United States
1:17:26fighting with Israel. I think that uh uh
1:17:28>> Fighting for Israel.
1:17:30>> Yeah, for for for Israel, exactly.
1:17:33And the fact that if you look sort of
1:17:35take a longer view, I think one of the
1:17:37implications of this war is it's going
1:17:40to make external powers, including the
1:17:43United States, far more reluctant to get
1:17:45involved in the Middle East. The region
1:17:47is going to be on its own in ways it has
1:17:49not been in the past as people realize
1:17:52that military power simply does not
1:17:54accomplish
1:17:55>> You would think Afghanistan and Iraq
1:17:57would have told people that
1:17:58>> you know, but you know, the illusion is
1:18:01has died hard but is I think I think
1:18:04dying. And then the third thing, and
1:18:06this may be more optimistic, is I do
1:18:08think we are starting to see the
1:18:10groundswell of a populist backlash
1:18:12against billionaires,
1:18:15against the role that some of these
1:18:17people play not just on this issue but
1:18:19on lots of other issues. And so you sort
1:18:21of put all of that together, something
1:18:24that tried to make a serious run at
1:18:26diminishing plutocratic influence on our
1:18:29politics would have the unintended
1:18:32consequence of also diminishing the
1:18:35lobby's impact on American Middle East
1:18:37policy. So again, this can all happen uh
1:18:40fairly quickly. Uh that's your your
1:18:42glass-half-full interpretation or your
1:18:44set of predictions for the future.
1:18:46>> John?
1:18:47>> I would say that I think that
1:18:50generational change matters a lot. My
1:18:53experience just talking to people about
1:18:56the Israel-Palestine issue is that most
1:18:59people who are my age, the baby boomers,
1:19:04were heavily influenced by the Exodus
1:19:06myths. And here I'm talking about Leon
1:19:08Uris's
1:19:09>> The movie and the book.
1:19:11>> Yeah, the movie and the book. And
1:19:13>> Not the Exodus across the Red Sea.
1:19:15>> Yes, exactly. And it it's very hard to
1:19:18move people who were baby boomers off
1:19:21dead center on this issue.
1:19:24>> I'm going to stop you because every time
1:19:25I'm addressing an older audience, I ask
1:19:27them, "How many of you have read the
1:19:28book or seen the movie?" And the number
1:19:30of hands that shoot up tells me I'll
1:19:32never get anywhere with this audience.
1:19:34Keep going.
1:19:35>> Yeah, but but as you know, cuz you have
1:19:38younger kids as we all do,
1:19:40>> I have grandkids who are adults.
1:19:42>> Yeah. And their their views and their
1:19:46friends' views on Israel are very
1:19:49different. And this is reflected in the
1:19:52American Jewish community as well as in
1:19:55the broader population.
1:19:56>> Tell me more.
1:19:57>> Younger Jews are much more critical of
1:19:59Israel
1:20:00than older Jews are. And the sad truth
1:20:03is, Rashid, that guys like you and I
1:20:06don't have that much more time on the
1:20:08planet.
1:20:09And when people in our generation go
1:20:13away and they're replaced by all these
1:20:15younger people who have uh
1:20:18critical views of Israel, I think that
1:20:21will have an effect on policy.
1:20:23>> So so you're basically putting your
1:20:25hopes uh on the Grim Reaper.
1:20:28>> [laughter]
1:20:29>> I've actually said that.
1:20:29>> Young people, on the young generation.
1:20:31>> I've actually said I've actually said
1:20:33exactly what you're saying. I I honestly
1:20:35think that some of these institutions of
1:20:37the Jewish community and some of these
1:20:40media
1:20:41conglomerates that are now owned by
1:20:44folks of the that generation.
1:20:46Um are going to see a big shift when
1:20:49people who are now in their 30s, 40s,
1:20:51and 50s or 20s and
1:20:53inherit.
1:20:54And it's going to be very interesting.
1:20:56Not just on this issue, I hope on issues
1:20:58like the climate climate and so on and
1:21:00so forth. You have people who are sane
1:21:02and not you know subject to these myths
1:21:05that they were inculcated with in so far
1:21:07as Palestine is concerned. Not just
1:21:09the way in which the Holocaust was
1:21:11understood in terms of the establishment
1:21:13of Israel. The way in which the Eichmann
1:21:15trial was played and it's very
1:21:16importantly that film and that book
1:21:19Exodus. And finally the way in which the
1:21:2167 war, all of those things formed that
1:21:23generation from the 50s into the 60s.
1:21:26That is our generation, our baby
1:21:28boomers. And those folks are most for
1:21:31the most part as you say absolutely
1:21:32hopeless.
1:21:33Whereas their children and grandchildren
1:21:35are in a completely different place in
1:21:37many cases. I have a I have a friend who
1:21:39is in a reading group of people of our
1:21:41age and she said every single one of the
1:21:43women in her reading group is fighting
1:21:45with their children and grandchildren
1:21:46over Palestine.
1:21:48Every single one is fighting with their
1:21:50kids or their grandkids over Palestine.
1:21:53It's a well-to-do Upper West Side group
1:21:55of whom
1:21:56a majority are Jewish and they're all
1:21:58fighting with their kids and their
1:21:59grandkids over this issue. I wanted I
1:22:01want to ask one last I want to finish on
1:22:05on a grim note because I think
1:22:07I think what you all have said I I tend
1:22:10to agree with. I think you're over
1:22:11optimistic but I tend to agree with you
1:22:13all. Um I want to go back to a really
1:22:16grim statistic that that
1:22:19Eli and I and bring up in their book
1:22:21which is the degree to which the
1:22:23statistics on anti-Semitism are being
1:22:25cooked
1:22:26to include criticism of Israel or rather
1:22:28to basically feature criticism of Israel
1:22:31as a as a central element. You you you
1:22:33mentioned that the Anti-Defamation
1:22:36League's statistics for antisemitism
1:22:39tripled
1:22:41uh between 2021 and 2024, between
1:22:442021-2022 and 2023-2024,
1:22:47such that almost 60% of incidents were
1:22:50related to Zionism and Israel. So
1:22:52essentially
1:22:53critiques of Israel and Zionism over
1:22:55Gaza is
1:22:57by large suddenly became the cause for a
1:23:00rise in antisemitism.
1:23:02Um and my fear here is that this may not
1:23:07go away. So this has been written into
1:23:09laws. Laws have to be either you know
1:23:12repealed
1:23:13or amended. You have you have the power
1:23:16of the state behind it even if there's a
1:23:18different administration
1:23:20in 2 years. Even if it is much less
1:23:24committed to an Israel first policy or
1:23:26whatever in so far as far as foreign
1:23:28policy is concerned. The aftereffect of
1:23:30this in terms of discourse, the
1:23:33aftereffect of this in terms of
1:23:34universities, I mean the place that this
1:23:36started in a certain sense was the
1:23:38universities. Public opinion started
1:23:40changing among young people. In
1:23:42particular educated young people.
1:23:44As a result of what John said, the the
1:23:46work over many decades of scholars
1:23:49who who chipped away at every stupid
1:23:51myth that Israel had established as
1:23:53fact.
1:23:54And the the the clampdown on our
1:23:56universities is is horrifying.
1:23:59I mean
1:24:00Steve knows people fired. As a result I
1:24:02know people forced to leave Columbia. We
1:24:04all know people. And the ones who are
1:24:06silenced
1:24:07>> What about the University of
1:24:08Pennsylvania where they fired the
1:24:09president?
1:24:10>> we all have experiences. And and for
1:24:12everyone actually fired there are dozens
1:24:15who are silenced.
1:24:17Uh we still have a vigil outside of
1:24:19Columbia on on on part of mainly tenured
1:24:21faculty because the contingent faculty
1:24:23know they'll lose their jobs if they
1:24:25open their mouth. This is not going to
1:24:27change as quickly as public opinion is
1:24:29changing. It might not even change as
1:24:30fast as policy on Israel changes.
1:24:33So I I just want to leave you with that
1:24:35grim note. If anybody I think I You look
1:24:39skeptical.
1:24:39>> For me, one of the most one of the most
1:24:41important points we make in the book is
1:24:43the hoodspa, the unbelievable hoodspa
1:24:45that the
1:24:46Anti-Defamation League had
1:24:48in using its reputation for being
1:24:52anti-bigotry
1:24:53>> Right.
1:24:54>> so as to advance statistics that were
1:24:56completely cooked. And you know, I teach
1:24:59my students how I ask the students, how
1:25:03can you double the amount of crime in a
1:25:05society without changing anyone's
1:25:07behavior?
1:25:09And
1:25:10a lot of students can't figure that out.
1:25:12I said, all you have to do is pass a law
1:25:14>> They did that.
1:25:15>> the behavior criminal. And that's what
1:25:17ADL did. Right after October 7th,
1:25:20literally the day after they changed the
1:25:22definition to adopt the IHRA definition
1:25:26just as protest against October 8th
1:25:29exploded. So then, oh my goodness,
1:25:32October 7th
1:25:33triggered [laughter]
1:25:34an increase in anti-Semitism when they
1:25:36shifted the definition the day that day
1:25:39the day after. And no one no one that I
1:25:42have seen has gone into their method and
1:25:45said this in
1:25:47we are doing it for what's the first
1:25:49time.
1:25:49>> This is the same thing.
1:25:50>> first
1:25:51This is the first The first place I've
1:25:52actually seen this published. Your book.
1:25:56The the the hoax of IHRA
1:25:59>> Well, that's another
1:26:00>> brilliantly
1:26:01dismantle in the book. I mean, it's
1:26:04worth reading just for this chapter on
1:26:07the witch hunt.
1:26:08It's worth reading for many reasons.
1:26:10>> I
1:26:11>> Steve, I see you I see you
1:26:13>> This is
1:26:13>> champing at the bit.
1:26:14>> Well, my my last comment I think and
1:26:16that is just to echo the grim note in
1:26:19one way. I worry a lot that this kind of
1:26:23overreach on the part of the ADL and
1:26:25other groups as well will ultimately
1:26:27generate a backlash.
1:26:29>> Yeah.
1:26:29>> And an anti-Semitic backlash.
1:26:31>> And anti a genuine anti-Semitic backlash
1:26:33among various people and various groups
1:26:35who have had that strand in their
1:26:38thinking groups on the far right etc.
1:26:40but also with more sympathy. Yeah yeah
1:26:43and and the left and you know that that
1:26:46in a sense doing this kind of
1:26:49manipulation using state power to do it
1:26:52you know is the kind of thing that makes
1:26:54people very angry over time and the
1:26:57overreaction could be you know actually
1:27:01much worse than what we've dealt with in
1:27:03the past and that worries me a lot. I
1:27:05think these groups are playing with fire
1:27:07in using this in the short term and the
1:27:09long term it does actually worry me a
1:27:11lot.
1:27:12>> Again going back to the history
1:27:14I know we're talking policy here but
1:27:16going back to the history as as Molly
1:27:18Crabapple and as
1:27:20Ben Moser say in many eras the
1:27:23anti-Semites were the best allies of the
1:27:25Zionists and this Israeli government has
1:27:27basically taken that and made it its
1:27:29playbook. Yes we want you to see that
1:27:31they're all anti-Semitic because it'll
1:27:33drive you towards us. It'll make people
1:27:35emigrate and come to Israel.
1:27:36>> I mean I think it's very abundantly
1:27:37obvious at this point that the ADL and a
1:27:39number of these Jewish institutions
1:27:42that had stated that they are that that
1:27:45part of their their mission was to
1:27:47combat anti-Semitism either do not care
1:27:49very much about anti-Semitism
1:27:51or may even welcome it in some in some
1:27:54in some cases. And I think in the case
1:27:56of the ADL and AIPAC two really
1:27:58interesting ones to look at over the
1:28:00course of the current election season
1:28:02they have repeatedly gone out there and
1:28:03said that criticism of AIPAC's and
1:28:07pro-Israel super PAC's roles in our
1:28:09election is a form of anti-Semitism. Now
1:28:12in doing that, they are effectively
1:28:14endorsing the dual loyalty trope, saying
1:28:16that Jewish Americans engaging in our
1:28:17democracy are synonymous with Israel's
1:28:21lobby.
1:28:22And that that is a very dangerous, very
1:28:24dangerous position for them to take. The
1:28:26ADL actually has a great article up on
1:28:28their website about the dangers of the
1:28:30dual loyalty trope. It would be lovely
1:28:32if they could actually do more to try to
1:28:34combat it instead of, it seems like,
1:28:37endorsing it with a great deal of
1:28:39frequency if you listen to the
1:28:40statements made by Jonathan Greenblatt
1:28:42over the past several years.
1:28:44>> Okay.
1:28:45John, you're the only one who hasn't
1:28:47weighed in. Go for it. And I And then I
1:28:48think we're done. Unless somebody has
1:28:50something else to say.
1:28:51>> final observation.
1:28:53>> It's It's your YouTube channel.
1:28:55>> In the spring of 2024, there were
1:28:58protests all across the country at
1:29:01different campuses.
1:29:03And the government and the lobby made
1:29:05the case that this was all due to
1:29:08anti-Semitism.
1:29:09That all of these campuses had become
1:29:12hotbeds of anti-Semitism.
1:29:14I said at the time, and I would like to
1:29:16say now, I have been in the academic
1:29:18world, starting with my undergraduate
1:29:21education in 1966 and my graduate
1:29:24education in 1971,
1:29:26for a long, long time.
1:29:28And before 2024,
1:29:31I never heard anybody in academia make
1:29:34the argument that there was an
1:29:36anti-Semitism problem at a university or
1:29:40a college in the United States. I just
1:29:42never heard it. And I must say, I never
1:29:45heard a colleague make an anti-Semitic
1:29:49comment. It was just unthinkable. And
1:29:52there were huge numbers of Jews in
1:29:53academia, at the university at the
1:29:56professorial level, at the student
1:29:58level, in terms of deans, provosts, and
1:30:01presidents, and so forth, and so on. And
1:30:03nobody commented on whether those people
1:30:05were Jewish or not. It just didn't
1:30:07matter. But all of a sudden, all of a
1:30:10sudden in the spring of 2024,
1:30:13it's like
1:30:15the campuses have been taken over by
1:30:17Nazis. All these anti-Semites are coming
1:30:19out of the woodwork. This is all
1:30:22ludicrous and it just illustrates the
1:30:24game that the lobby was playing in
1:30:27conjunction, and this is a theme you've
1:30:29been enunciating through this
1:30:30discussion,
1:30:32uh
1:30:33Rashid, and cannot be emphasized enough,
1:30:35with the cooperation of the state. In
1:30:38recent years, it's not just the lobby,
1:30:41it's the lobby operating with the state.
1:30:43And that's a deadly combination.
1:30:46>> Well, thank you, all four of you. Um
1:30:50and thanks to everybody putting this
1:30:51episode together. Um I I It was a It was
1:30:56a pleasure and very educational for me
1:30:58to listen to the four of you, whom I've
1:31:00been very happy to talk to in many cases
1:31:02and to read
1:31:03in the past, but the pleasure of going
1:31:06back over John and and Steve's book and
1:31:08reading Eli and Ian's book, is something
1:31:11that I think everybody who watched this
1:31:13should also undertake. If you haven't
1:31:15read The Israel Lobby in US Foreign
1:31:17Policy in the past, you should read it
1:31:19now. And if you haven't read Israel's
1:31:20Lobby, America in the Grip of a Foreign
1:31:23Policy, go out and buy it. It's These
1:31:26are These are essential for
1:31:27understanding the situation that we're
1:31:29all in. Thank you.
1:31:31>> Thank you, Rashid.
1:31:32>> Thank you.

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