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THE OVERTON WINDOW AND ISRAEL.
I never get to say this, but Kaus is right: The rules have changed. Credit for this goes in no small measure to Walt and Mearsheimer, who made their statement aggressively enough and forthrightly enough that they shifted the acceptable window for conversation. It may still be that you're not supposed to agree with Walt and Mearsheimer, but so long as you don't mention them, you can echo their arguments and buy into pieces of their analysis.
This was largely the effect of bad strategy on the part of their detractors: By so cynically and aggressively calling them anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists, they compelled lots of other folks to defend them, work through their ideas, and prove that nothing happened when you voiced impolitic-yet-obvious statements like some Jewish neoconservatives view the containment and even destruction of Israel's adversaries as an important objective for American foreign policy. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with that perspective, nor even with the idea that zionists, like corn farmers, have a powerful political lobby, but you weren't supposed to say so before. Walt and Mearsheimer may have lost the public argument, but they won in creating the debate.
COMMENTS (9)
"I never get to say this, but Kaus is right: The rules have changed."
I hope you're right, but you may be celebrating prematurely. Meanwhile, did we really have a free press - the hallmark of democracy and a prerequisite for enlightened foreign policy - all these years?
Posted by: Independent | July 2, 2008 12:40 PM
I wonder if Klein could get away with saying this because he's a Jew.
In any case, the rules haven't changed for politicians.
Posted by: David Mizner | July 2, 2008 1:39 PM
Klein can get away with saying this in the eyes of non-Jews, yes. But the fact that he is a Jew makes his saying this more repulsive to pro-Israel Jews than it would be if he were, say, a Presbyterian.
Posted by: one of many | July 2, 2008 1:55 PM
It's Waltz.
Posted by: david | July 2, 2008 5:23 PM
I would like to add that a chap by the name of Jimmy Carter also played a role in this.
When people call him anti-semitic it'skind of hard not to laugh. He'soneof themore humane and gentle people on this earth.
Posted by: jeff | July 2, 2008 10:20 PM
Carter ran for president on an anti-integration platform of "ethnic purity."
What a wonderfully humane man! And how wonderful that Kaus and Joe Klein can now feel free to take cheap shots at Jewish politicians!
Posted by: Ragout | July 2, 2008 11:38 PM
I wouldn't be so positive they lost the debate, either. There were serious problems with the book, but nothing like the hysterical detractors insisted, and that very hysteria has probably pushed a few people into taking W+M seriously.
(Besides, their biggest problem wasn't AIPAC. It was that they still think structural realism is relevant. Attacking one sketchy position in aid of another isn't going to do you any favors.)
Posted by: Demosthenes | July 3, 2008 2:40 PM
I think David Minzer is right to suggest that Ezra can only get away with saying this because he is Jewish.
We'll know the rules have truly changed only when we start seeing media discussions of Israel with not every participant having a Jewish name.
Posted by: David | July 5, 2008 3:38 PM
Public debate? What public debate? Commentary regarding Walt & Mearsheimer's book in the MSM was, without exception, negative.
Posted by: Anonymous | July 5, 2008 7:08 PM