lo yeeOn
2015-12-09 23:06:13 UTC
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/09/opinions/obeidallah-trump-muslims/index.html
Some have speculated that Trump's extreme rhetoric during this
campaign may just be simply to get headlines. That may or may not be
true. But I'll tell you one group that doesn't care either way. This
group clings ferociously to Trump's most extreme positions, and its
member are far to the right of the rest of the Republican Party. The
group: Trump's supporters and they are scarier than he is.
One recent clue? After Trump's speech Monday night detailing his
plan for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the
United States," his supporters gave him a standing ovation. Trump's
GOP rivals have publicly criticized the proposal, by contrast. Even
Dick Cheney, yes Cheney, said the proposal "goes against everything
we stand for and believe in." . . .
Huh?
Let's see what the Daily Beast commentator Michael Daly has said about
Cheney (and his wanna-be-successor Jeb Bush) recently:
Jeb is only able to claim otherwise because the people who truly are
to blame have never been held accountable.
That includes not just Jeb's brother but also former Vice President
Dick Cheney, who promises to be even nuttier than Jeb when he makes
an appearance of his own at the Reagan Library on September 9, two
days before the 14th anniversary of 9/11.
Cheney and his daughter, Liz, will be there to sign copies of their
new book, Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America. The
library's website says, "Dick and Liz Cheney explain the unique and
indispensable nature of American power, reveal the damage done by
President Obama's abandonment of this principle, and show how
America can and must lead again.
Never mind that between the war in Iraq, the loss of focus on
Afghanistan and the CIA torture scandal, the elder Cheney probably
did more to weaken America than any other single individual in
recent history.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/12/jeb-bush-is-even-nuttier-than-trump-now.html
"Cheney probably did more to weaken America than any other single
individual in recent history"!!!
Yes, the only reason why the CNN can get away with being so shameless
is because the neocons are still powerful enough to keep Dick Cheney,
George W Bush, and their PNAC buddies from being indicted for war
crimes.
But Washington is so eager to rid Trump from the scene (to prevent him
from waking the American people further from their long heavy
slumber), it's willing to quote America's biggest war criminal to make
_false_ accusations against Trump and his supporters.
We should first note that neither Trump nor his supporters have
dropped a bomb on or tortured anybody. They did not start one war
after another to kill Muslims or Arabs in the tens of thousands, if
not more. They did not set up Guantanamo to have "suspicious" people
detained without an indictment. They did not breed ISIS.
To the contrary, it is George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Obama, and Hillary
Clinton who have created ISIS/ISIL. It is this group of people who
have created the present danger for the American people! It is this
group who has endangered the world through their callous actions.
Check out the latest from Mearsheimer below. But please note that
Mearsheimer: I think there is no question that the the US is
principally responsible for the creation of ISIL.
There was no ISIL before the US invaded Iraq. And ISIL is largely a
consequence of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and toppling of
Saddam Hussein.
This has been compounded by the fact that since roughly 2011, the US
has been committed to toppling Assad from power in Damascus, which
has helped to create a civil war in Syria now, in addition to the
mess we created in Iraq.
This of course provided fertile territory for ISIL to grow by leaps
and bounds, so there is no question in my mind that the US played a
main role.
[John Mearsheimer is a noted American political scientist and an
expert on the Middle East.]
It's very simple to understand why the Washington Establishment is
hysterical about Trump because
1) Trump disagrees with the neocons' decades-long adventurism on
behalf of their phony "war on terror"; and
2) Trump cannot be bribed, unlike Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Hillary
Clinton.
So now, they even rally the Pentagon to denounce Trump. They rally
number 10 Downing Street; they rally Erdogan's office; and they have
even made Netanyahu to say "Israel respects all religions".
Yes, how nice!
And that's what George W Bush and Dick Cheney also said for 8 years
and what Obama has said for still another 8 more years. But their
actions are something else! When their words do not match their
deeds, well, everybody can see. And maybe that's why they say that
70% of Trump's supporters will follow him if the GOP kicks him out.
"I will follow, I will follow [someone]", you know that song?
lo yeeOn
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/12/isil-won-defeated-151208064707882.html
Why ISIL won't be defeated
John Mearsheimer speaks with Al Jazeera about the war on ISIL, the
Israel lobby and the Palestinian question.
Al Jazeera Staff | 08 Dec 2015 10:47 GMT | Middle East, War &
Conflict, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, US, Barack Obama
In late August 2006, John Mearsheimer and Steve Walt published a book
called 'The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy', ever since life, says
Mearsheimer, has been fundamentally altered.
"If you criticise Israel or criticise the lobby, you pay a significant
price and most people are unwilling to pay this price," Mearsheimer
told Al Jazeera.
A specialist of international politics and author of several books,
Mearsheimer maintains a critical view of United States foreign policy
with special emphasis on its Middle East policies.
He argues that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) will
not be defeated in traditional warfare because "you do not defeat an
ideology".
Mearsheimer is working on a new book that tackles the relationship
between liberalism and nationalism in international politics.
"My argument is that nationalism is the most powerful ideology on the
planet and, whenever liberalism and nationalism clash, nationalism
wins almost every time," he said.
He spoke to Al Jazeera about the war on ISIL, US foreign policy and
the Palestinian question.
Al Jazeera: What is your take on the US-led coalition war on ISIL?
John Mearsheimer: My view is the West - and here we are talking mainly
about the US - has a clear strategy for how to deal with ISIL, but it
is a deeply flawed one. There are two components to the US-led
approach: first to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power
and, second, to use Western air power, coupled with local forces on
the ground, to inflict a decisive defeat on ISIL.
The problem with this approach is, now that the Russians, Iranians and
Hezbollah are committed to keeping Assad in power, that there is no
way the US, and the West more generally, are going to topple Assad
from power.
Instead what you will end up with is a situation where the Russians
and the Americans fight a proxy war over Assad which is going to
detract from the American-led efforts against ISIL.
Even more importantly, there is no way that you can decisively defeat
ISIL because you are trying to defeat an Ideology.
There is no question that if the US and the European powers put a
large number of ground forces in Syria and Iraq they could defeat ISIL
in a traditional war, but the problem is that ISIL fighters would just
evaporate.
They would just disappear into cities and towns just like the Taliban
did, and the end result would be twofold; one as long as the West
occupied Syria and Iraq,this would just generate more terrorists.
Secondly, once the US and its allies left, ISIL fighters would come
back as Taliban fighters did in Afghanistan.
So again, trying to topple Assad makes no sense now that the Russians
have entered the fray.
Al Jazeera: Several analysts argue that the only way to defeat ISIL is
by putting boots on the ground. The US is already considering sending
a special force to Syria and there are already some forces in Iraq.
Mearsheimer: There are two issues here. Who will put boots on the
ground to deal with ISIL?
Everybody agrees that ISIL cannot be defeated with air power alone,
and we need boots on the ground. The Americans - and Europeans, for
sure - do not want to send ground troops because they know what
happened in Afghanistan and they know what happened in Iraq.
It just makes the problem worse. Get the local forces to intervene on
the ground and have the US and Europeans provide air power to support
those ground forces. However, the fact is that there are no local
actors who are willing to put boots on the ground.
It is also hard to see where we are going to get the troops that would
be necessary to topple ISIL.
And even if you topple ISIL and inflict a military defeat on it -
let's just say the Americans and Europeans put down ground forces and
roll up the ISIL military units that now control all that territory in
Iraq and Syria - in the end, this will not matter because you cannot
defeat an ideology.
ISIL fighters will not stand and do battle with the American military.
What they will do is melt away into the towns, countryside and cities,
and they will come back to fight another day, so there is no military
solution to defeating ISIL.
ANALYSIS: What does US intel really know about ISIL?
Al Jazeera: Messy US intelligence failure in the war in Iraq has
resurfaced recently. To what extent do you think the US is responsible
for the rise of ISIL?
Mearsheimer: I think there is no question that the the US is
principally responsible for the creation of ISIL.
There was no ISIL before the US invaded Iraq. And ISIL is largely a
consequence of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and toppling of Saddam
Hussein.
This has been compounded by the fact that since roughly 2011, the US
has been committed to toppling Assad from power in Damascus, which has
helped to create a civil war in Syria now, in addition to the mess we
created in Iraq.
This of course provided fertile territory for ISIL to grow by leaps
and bounds, so there is no question in my mind that the US played a
main role.
Al Jazeera: Was this a deliberate action?
Mearsheimer: What is remarkable about all of this is that the Bush
administration did not anticipate any trouble in Iraq. They thought
that we were going to go in there, topple Saddam Hussein from power,
put some benevolent leader in charge in Baghdad and we would be able
to leave and march on to the next country to invade.
This is what the Bush doctrine was all about and, of course, this was
a remarkably foolish way to think about what would be the consequence
of an American-led invasion. And what we have seen is that we created
a chaos in Iraq that led to the creation of ISIL.
Al Jazeera: As we approach the end of President Barack Obama's second
term, how would you assess his Middle East policies? Was he executing
the Bush doctrine by another face and name?
Mearsheimer: I think there is a great deal of similarity between what
Obama is trying to do in the Middle East and what President Bush did.
The big difference is: Bush invaded two countries [Afghanistan and
Iraq] with American ground forces, but Obama knows that it is not a
good idea, and that is why he does not want to put ground forces in
Syria.
Nevertheless, President Obama, much like President Bush before him, is
deeply committed to fostering regime change in the Middle East.
Obama, like Bush, is interested in the remaking of the Middle East [by
force]. As we all know, the US played a role in toppling the
government in Libya in 2011, and the US has been deeply involved in
trying to foster regime change in Syria since mid-2000 when Bush was
in office.
Obama has not changed that policy at all. He is deeply committed to
the idea that Assad must go.
So the US is, in many ways, a revolutionary force in the Middle East
whether you are talking about Bush or Obama. And just listening to
various US presidential candidates, there is no reason to believe
there will be any rethinking of that basic policy of regime change.
READ MORE: The story of Bush and Blair's great lie
Al Jazeera: But the dominant perception in the region is that the US,
during Obama's previous years in office, adopted a hands-off approach
to the political turmoil in the Middle East?
Mearsheimer: There is no question that the US pulled its troops out of
Iraq and we definitely decreased the troop level in Afghanistan.
Although I would point out that Obama is not leaving Afghanistan. The
US will leave some residual force there for the foreseeable future.
With regard to Iraq, we have begun to insert small military units, and
in our fight against ISIL, we are in effect back in Iraq.
There is no question that the US has little interest in inserting a
large number of ground troops but, in terms of influence in Syria and
Iraq, the US is still in the game in a serious way. It is just trying
to do it from the air or with small American special forces on the
ground.
Al Jazeera: And on the Palestinian question?
Mearsheimer: The Obama administration has gone to great lengths to
convince Netanyahu [the Israeli prime minister] that the two-state
solution is in everyone's interest. However, Netanyahu's government is
adamantly opposed to the two-state solution. They are bent on creating
a greater Israel and, indeed, one could argue that they have already
created greater Israel.
Obama failed in his attempt to convince the Israelis to accept the
two-state solution and, as a result of the ensuing conflict between
Obama and Netanyahu over that issue and Iran's nuclear deal, relations
between the US and Israel are at an all-time low.
I have been an advocate of the two-state solution. It is not the best
alternative, but it is a good one. However, I think we are past the
point where it is a viable option.
There is not going to be a two-state solution. There is now - and will
continue to be - a greater Israel, and inside that greater Israel
Palestinians will soon outnumber the Israeli Jews. That means you will
have an apartheid state.
And the important question is whether Israel can maintain itself as an
apartheid state in the foreseeable future.
Al Jazeera: But is Israel not already an apartheid state?
Mearsheimer: I believe that certainly in terms of the occupied
territories it is an apartheid state, and you can make a plausible
argument when you include the pre-1967 border.
And the issue, from an Israeli point of view, is that once you go to
the one person, one vote system, the Palestinians will outnumber the
Jews and it will cease to be a Jewish state. So the Israelis will have
a powerful interest in maintaining the apartheid state.
The problem, however, is that Israel likes to think of itself as part
of the West, and supporters of Israel go to great lengths to say we
share the same values, but there is no way you can make that argument
once it is widely recognised that Israel is an apartheid state.
Al Jazeera: Does the Israel lobby still maintain its power and clout
in Washington's corridors of power?
Mearsheimer: The lobby is as powerful as ever. The lobby is alive and
well, and Israel is going to have to rely heavily on the lobby to deal
with the fact that it is rapidly becoming - if it is not already - an
apartheid state.
This will cause huge problems in the US - and the West more
generally. What the Israelis are betting is that the lobby will
protect them. If there was no lobby, the discourse on Israel in the US
would be fundamentally different from how it is today. Moreover, the
policies of the US government and European governments would be
fundamentally different.
The lobby, however, is such a powerful factor that it alters - in
profound ways - both the discourse and the policies. The problem is
that if you criticise Israel or criticise the lobby you pay a
significant price, and most people are unwilling to pay this price.
Some have speculated that Trump's extreme rhetoric during this
campaign may just be simply to get headlines. That may or may not be
true. But I'll tell you one group that doesn't care either way. This
group clings ferociously to Trump's most extreme positions, and its
member are far to the right of the rest of the Republican Party. The
group: Trump's supporters and they are scarier than he is.
One recent clue? After Trump's speech Monday night detailing his
plan for "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the
United States," his supporters gave him a standing ovation. Trump's
GOP rivals have publicly criticized the proposal, by contrast. Even
Dick Cheney, yes Cheney, said the proposal "goes against everything
we stand for and believe in." . . .
Huh?
Let's see what the Daily Beast commentator Michael Daly has said about
Cheney (and his wanna-be-successor Jeb Bush) recently:
Jeb is only able to claim otherwise because the people who truly are
to blame have never been held accountable.
That includes not just Jeb's brother but also former Vice President
Dick Cheney, who promises to be even nuttier than Jeb when he makes
an appearance of his own at the Reagan Library on September 9, two
days before the 14th anniversary of 9/11.
Cheney and his daughter, Liz, will be there to sign copies of their
new book, Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America. The
library's website says, "Dick and Liz Cheney explain the unique and
indispensable nature of American power, reveal the damage done by
President Obama's abandonment of this principle, and show how
America can and must lead again.
Never mind that between the war in Iraq, the loss of focus on
Afghanistan and the CIA torture scandal, the elder Cheney probably
did more to weaken America than any other single individual in
recent history.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/12/jeb-bush-is-even-nuttier-than-trump-now.html
"Cheney probably did more to weaken America than any other single
individual in recent history"!!!
Yes, the only reason why the CNN can get away with being so shameless
is because the neocons are still powerful enough to keep Dick Cheney,
George W Bush, and their PNAC buddies from being indicted for war
crimes.
But Washington is so eager to rid Trump from the scene (to prevent him
from waking the American people further from their long heavy
slumber), it's willing to quote America's biggest war criminal to make
_false_ accusations against Trump and his supporters.
We should first note that neither Trump nor his supporters have
dropped a bomb on or tortured anybody. They did not start one war
after another to kill Muslims or Arabs in the tens of thousands, if
not more. They did not set up Guantanamo to have "suspicious" people
detained without an indictment. They did not breed ISIS.
To the contrary, it is George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Obama, and Hillary
Clinton who have created ISIS/ISIL. It is this group of people who
have created the present danger for the American people! It is this
group who has endangered the world through their callous actions.
Check out the latest from Mearsheimer below. But please note that
Mearsheimer: I think there is no question that the the US is
principally responsible for the creation of ISIL.
There was no ISIL before the US invaded Iraq. And ISIL is largely a
consequence of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and toppling of
Saddam Hussein.
This has been compounded by the fact that since roughly 2011, the US
has been committed to toppling Assad from power in Damascus, which
has helped to create a civil war in Syria now, in addition to the
mess we created in Iraq.
This of course provided fertile territory for ISIL to grow by leaps
and bounds, so there is no question in my mind that the US played a
main role.
[John Mearsheimer is a noted American political scientist and an
expert on the Middle East.]
It's very simple to understand why the Washington Establishment is
hysterical about Trump because
1) Trump disagrees with the neocons' decades-long adventurism on
behalf of their phony "war on terror"; and
2) Trump cannot be bribed, unlike Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and Hillary
Clinton.
So now, they even rally the Pentagon to denounce Trump. They rally
number 10 Downing Street; they rally Erdogan's office; and they have
even made Netanyahu to say "Israel respects all religions".
Yes, how nice!
And that's what George W Bush and Dick Cheney also said for 8 years
and what Obama has said for still another 8 more years. But their
actions are something else! When their words do not match their
deeds, well, everybody can see. And maybe that's why they say that
70% of Trump's supporters will follow him if the GOP kicks him out.
"I will follow, I will follow [someone]", you know that song?
lo yeeOn
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/12/isil-won-defeated-151208064707882.html
Why ISIL won't be defeated
John Mearsheimer speaks with Al Jazeera about the war on ISIL, the
Israel lobby and the Palestinian question.
Al Jazeera Staff | 08 Dec 2015 10:47 GMT | Middle East, War &
Conflict, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, US, Barack Obama
In late August 2006, John Mearsheimer and Steve Walt published a book
called 'The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy', ever since life, says
Mearsheimer, has been fundamentally altered.
"If you criticise Israel or criticise the lobby, you pay a significant
price and most people are unwilling to pay this price," Mearsheimer
told Al Jazeera.
A specialist of international politics and author of several books,
Mearsheimer maintains a critical view of United States foreign policy
with special emphasis on its Middle East policies.
He argues that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) will
not be defeated in traditional warfare because "you do not defeat an
ideology".
Mearsheimer is working on a new book that tackles the relationship
between liberalism and nationalism in international politics.
"My argument is that nationalism is the most powerful ideology on the
planet and, whenever liberalism and nationalism clash, nationalism
wins almost every time," he said.
He spoke to Al Jazeera about the war on ISIL, US foreign policy and
the Palestinian question.
Al Jazeera: What is your take on the US-led coalition war on ISIL?
John Mearsheimer: My view is the West - and here we are talking mainly
about the US - has a clear strategy for how to deal with ISIL, but it
is a deeply flawed one. There are two components to the US-led
approach: first to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power
and, second, to use Western air power, coupled with local forces on
the ground, to inflict a decisive defeat on ISIL.
The problem with this approach is, now that the Russians, Iranians and
Hezbollah are committed to keeping Assad in power, that there is no
way the US, and the West more generally, are going to topple Assad
from power.
Instead what you will end up with is a situation where the Russians
and the Americans fight a proxy war over Assad which is going to
detract from the American-led efforts against ISIL.
Even more importantly, there is no way that you can decisively defeat
ISIL because you are trying to defeat an Ideology.
There is no question that if the US and the European powers put a
large number of ground forces in Syria and Iraq they could defeat ISIL
in a traditional war, but the problem is that ISIL fighters would just
evaporate.
They would just disappear into cities and towns just like the Taliban
did, and the end result would be twofold; one as long as the West
occupied Syria and Iraq,this would just generate more terrorists.
Secondly, once the US and its allies left, ISIL fighters would come
back as Taliban fighters did in Afghanistan.
So again, trying to topple Assad makes no sense now that the Russians
have entered the fray.
Al Jazeera: Several analysts argue that the only way to defeat ISIL is
by putting boots on the ground. The US is already considering sending
a special force to Syria and there are already some forces in Iraq.
Mearsheimer: There are two issues here. Who will put boots on the
ground to deal with ISIL?
Everybody agrees that ISIL cannot be defeated with air power alone,
and we need boots on the ground. The Americans - and Europeans, for
sure - do not want to send ground troops because they know what
happened in Afghanistan and they know what happened in Iraq.
It just makes the problem worse. Get the local forces to intervene on
the ground and have the US and Europeans provide air power to support
those ground forces. However, the fact is that there are no local
actors who are willing to put boots on the ground.
It is also hard to see where we are going to get the troops that would
be necessary to topple ISIL.
And even if you topple ISIL and inflict a military defeat on it -
let's just say the Americans and Europeans put down ground forces and
roll up the ISIL military units that now control all that territory in
Iraq and Syria - in the end, this will not matter because you cannot
defeat an ideology.
ISIL fighters will not stand and do battle with the American military.
What they will do is melt away into the towns, countryside and cities,
and they will come back to fight another day, so there is no military
solution to defeating ISIL.
ANALYSIS: What does US intel really know about ISIL?
Al Jazeera: Messy US intelligence failure in the war in Iraq has
resurfaced recently. To what extent do you think the US is responsible
for the rise of ISIL?
Mearsheimer: I think there is no question that the the US is
principally responsible for the creation of ISIL.
There was no ISIL before the US invaded Iraq. And ISIL is largely a
consequence of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and toppling of Saddam
Hussein.
This has been compounded by the fact that since roughly 2011, the US
has been committed to toppling Assad from power in Damascus, which has
helped to create a civil war in Syria now, in addition to the mess we
created in Iraq.
This of course provided fertile territory for ISIL to grow by leaps
and bounds, so there is no question in my mind that the US played a
main role.
Al Jazeera: Was this a deliberate action?
Mearsheimer: What is remarkable about all of this is that the Bush
administration did not anticipate any trouble in Iraq. They thought
that we were going to go in there, topple Saddam Hussein from power,
put some benevolent leader in charge in Baghdad and we would be able
to leave and march on to the next country to invade.
This is what the Bush doctrine was all about and, of course, this was
a remarkably foolish way to think about what would be the consequence
of an American-led invasion. And what we have seen is that we created
a chaos in Iraq that led to the creation of ISIL.
Al Jazeera: As we approach the end of President Barack Obama's second
term, how would you assess his Middle East policies? Was he executing
the Bush doctrine by another face and name?
Mearsheimer: I think there is a great deal of similarity between what
Obama is trying to do in the Middle East and what President Bush did.
The big difference is: Bush invaded two countries [Afghanistan and
Iraq] with American ground forces, but Obama knows that it is not a
good idea, and that is why he does not want to put ground forces in
Syria.
Nevertheless, President Obama, much like President Bush before him, is
deeply committed to fostering regime change in the Middle East.
Obama, like Bush, is interested in the remaking of the Middle East [by
force]. As we all know, the US played a role in toppling the
government in Libya in 2011, and the US has been deeply involved in
trying to foster regime change in Syria since mid-2000 when Bush was
in office.
Obama has not changed that policy at all. He is deeply committed to
the idea that Assad must go.
So the US is, in many ways, a revolutionary force in the Middle East
whether you are talking about Bush or Obama. And just listening to
various US presidential candidates, there is no reason to believe
there will be any rethinking of that basic policy of regime change.
READ MORE: The story of Bush and Blair's great lie
Al Jazeera: But the dominant perception in the region is that the US,
during Obama's previous years in office, adopted a hands-off approach
to the political turmoil in the Middle East?
Mearsheimer: There is no question that the US pulled its troops out of
Iraq and we definitely decreased the troop level in Afghanistan.
Although I would point out that Obama is not leaving Afghanistan. The
US will leave some residual force there for the foreseeable future.
With regard to Iraq, we have begun to insert small military units, and
in our fight against ISIL, we are in effect back in Iraq.
There is no question that the US has little interest in inserting a
large number of ground troops but, in terms of influence in Syria and
Iraq, the US is still in the game in a serious way. It is just trying
to do it from the air or with small American special forces on the
ground.
Al Jazeera: And on the Palestinian question?
Mearsheimer: The Obama administration has gone to great lengths to
convince Netanyahu [the Israeli prime minister] that the two-state
solution is in everyone's interest. However, Netanyahu's government is
adamantly opposed to the two-state solution. They are bent on creating
a greater Israel and, indeed, one could argue that they have already
created greater Israel.
Obama failed in his attempt to convince the Israelis to accept the
two-state solution and, as a result of the ensuing conflict between
Obama and Netanyahu over that issue and Iran's nuclear deal, relations
between the US and Israel are at an all-time low.
I have been an advocate of the two-state solution. It is not the best
alternative, but it is a good one. However, I think we are past the
point where it is a viable option.
There is not going to be a two-state solution. There is now - and will
continue to be - a greater Israel, and inside that greater Israel
Palestinians will soon outnumber the Israeli Jews. That means you will
have an apartheid state.
And the important question is whether Israel can maintain itself as an
apartheid state in the foreseeable future.
Al Jazeera: But is Israel not already an apartheid state?
Mearsheimer: I believe that certainly in terms of the occupied
territories it is an apartheid state, and you can make a plausible
argument when you include the pre-1967 border.
And the issue, from an Israeli point of view, is that once you go to
the one person, one vote system, the Palestinians will outnumber the
Jews and it will cease to be a Jewish state. So the Israelis will have
a powerful interest in maintaining the apartheid state.
The problem, however, is that Israel likes to think of itself as part
of the West, and supporters of Israel go to great lengths to say we
share the same values, but there is no way you can make that argument
once it is widely recognised that Israel is an apartheid state.
Al Jazeera: Does the Israel lobby still maintain its power and clout
in Washington's corridors of power?
Mearsheimer: The lobby is as powerful as ever. The lobby is alive and
well, and Israel is going to have to rely heavily on the lobby to deal
with the fact that it is rapidly becoming - if it is not already - an
apartheid state.
This will cause huge problems in the US - and the West more
generally. What the Israelis are betting is that the lobby will
protect them. If there was no lobby, the discourse on Israel in the US
would be fundamentally different from how it is today. Moreover, the
policies of the US government and European governments would be
fundamentally different.
The lobby, however, is such a powerful factor that it alters - in
profound ways - both the discourse and the policies. The problem is
that if you criticise Israel or criticise the lobby you pay a
significant price, and most people are unwilling to pay this price.