You Have Mail! My letter to the editor of the Christian Science Monitor In Re: "The Israel Lobby" and the ADL

[Leigh Meyers <leighcmeyers@xxxxxxxxx>]

Good Afternoon,

I had the misfortune of reading the ADL's 'rebuttal' 
http://www.adl.org/Israel/mearsheimer_walt.asp to Mearsheimer and Walt's 
paper published in the London Review of Books 
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/print/mear01_.html  which was linked from 
your website today.

They (and your editors) might also care to peruse Noam Chomsky's 
statement  
http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=9999&sectionID=11 
pubilshed today by Znet.

These are scholarly works in their entirety, and for the ADL to make 
statements as trite as "On every issue, the authors start with unproven, 
anti-Israel assumptions and then look for isolated examples to justify 
these assumptions. One does not have to take a pro-Israel position to 
recognize that the authors, despite their reputations, have no interest 
in producing a serious, balanced work. The result is a sloppy diatribe.

Hereâs how it works. Mearsheimer and Walt start by blaming Israel for 
everything in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Once establishing 
Israelâs consistent guilt, from the creation of the state to present 
day, they then move to asserting that the âIsrael lobbyâ (which is 
loosely and inconsistently defined) in the United States uses every 
device and method of pressure politics to stifle criticism of Israel and 
to ensure Americaâs pro-Israel policy, against Americaâs true interests 
and to serve the interests of the Jewish state."
Defines and hones the meaning of the  Phrase "cheap attack".

Has it ever dawned on the ADL that controversy and academia are 
synonomous? Unlikely. In the ADL's lexicon, disagreement with Israel's 
policies, and the US. foreign policy extensions thereof are tantamount 
to stupidity or treason no matter how well thought out the argument 
might be.

Hence the diatribe with nothing whatsoever within that rant to disprove 
any of Mearsheimer and Walt's assertions. But I have come to expect such 
behavior from the ADL, as the more intelligent Jews of the world that 
could rebut the assertions contained within the  Mearsheimer and Walt's 
paper would most likely find ADL's posturing and beliefs offensive, and 
in the long run, dangerous to Jews and the Jewish faith throughout the 
world.

Shame on the Christian Science Monitor for allowing a cheap attack on 
respected scholars within the pages of their website, lending an 
undeserved legitimacy to an organization that would be one of the 
focuses of any investigation of U.S-Israeli Policy interlinking.

Sincerely,
Leigh Meyers