Study Alleging Dominant Influence of Israeli Lobby Has Heated Fallout

The “Anti- Hamas bill that passed in the House yesterday was heavily supported by AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. In fact, one critic of the bill, Congresswoman Betty McCollum of Minnesota, accused AIPAC of threatening her because she voted against the bill. She said an AIPAC activist called her office to say that her QUOTE “support for terrorists will not be tolerated.”

We turn now to look at a recent study that has caused an uproar in the academic community and in the media. The study is titled “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy." The authors of the paper, Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard University and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, charge that the United States has willingly set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of Israel. In addition the study accuses the pro-Israeli lobby, particularly AIPAC of manipulating the U.S. media, policing academia and silencing critics of Israel by labeling them as anti-Semitic. Well, a new article in the New York Review of Books examines this controversial report and the reaction to it. It’s titled "The Storm over the Israel Lobby". It was written by media critic Michael Massing who joins us our in the Firehouse studio.

* Michael Massing, contributing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review and board member of the Committee to Protect Journalists. He frequently writes for the New York Review of Books, the American Prospect and the Nation.

LISTEN ONLINE:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/24/1436205