Study: U.S. Mideast policy motivated by pro-Israel lobby

John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt

For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.

Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.

Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing that given to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance since 1976, and is the largest recipient in total since World War Two, to the tune of well over $140 billion (in 2004 dollars). Israel receives about $3 billion in direct assistance each year, roughly one-fifth of the foreign aid budget, and worth about $500 a year for every Israeli. This largesse is especially striking since Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to that of South Korea or Spain.

Other recipients get their money in quarterly installments, but Israel receives its entire appropriation at the beginning of each fiscal year and can thus earn interest on it. Most recipients of aid given for military purposes are required to spend all of it in the US, but Israel is allowed to use roughly 25 per cent of its allocation to subsidise its own defence industry. It is the only recipient that does not have to account for how the aid is spent, which makes it virtually impossible to prevent the money from being used for purposes the US opposes, such as building settlements on the West Bank. Moreover, the US has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems, and given it access to such top-drawer weaponry as Blackhawk helicopters and F-16 jets. Finally, the US gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its Nato allies and has turned a blind eye to Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Washington also provides Israel with consistent diplomatic support. Since 1982, the US has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It blocks the efforts of Arab states to put Israel’s nuclear arsenal on the IAEA’s agenda. The US comes to the rescue in wartime and takes Israel’s side when negotiating peace. The Nixon administration protected it from the threat of Soviet intervention and resupplied it during the October War. Washington was deeply involved in the negotiations that ended that war, as well as in the lengthy ‘step-by-step’ process that followed, just as it played a key role in the negotiations that preceded and followed the 1993 Oslo Accords. In each case there was occasional friction between US and Israeli officials, but the US consistently supported the Israeli position. One American participant at Camp David in 2000 later said: ‘Far too often, we functioned . . . as Israel’s lawyer.’ Finally, the Bush administration’s ambition to transform the Middle East is at least partly aimed at improving Israel’s strategic situation.

This extraordinary generosity might be understandable if Israel were a vital strategic asset or if there were a compelling moral case for US backing. But neither explanation is convincing. One might argue that Israel was an asset during the Cold War. By serving as America’s proxy after 1967, it helped contain Soviet expansion in the region and inflicted humiliating defeats on Soviet clients like Egypt and Syria. It occasionally helped protect other US allies (like King Hussein of Jordan) and its military prowess forced Moscow to spend more on backing its own client states. It also provided useful intelligence about Soviet capabilities.

Backing Israel was not cheap, however, and it complicated America’s relations with the Arab world. For example, the decision to give $2.2 billion in emergency military aid during the October War triggered an Opec oil embargo that inflicted considerable damage on Western economies. For all that, Israel’s armed forces were not in a position to protect US interests in the region. The US could not, for example, rely on Israel when the Iranian Revolution in 1979 raised concerns about the security of oil supplies, and had to create its own Rapid Deployment Force instead.

The first Gulf War revealed the extent to which Israel was becoming a strategic burden. The US could not use Israeli bases without rupturing the anti-Iraq coalition, and had to divert resources (e.g. Patriot missile batteries) to prevent Tel Aviv doing anything that might harm the alliance against Saddam Hussein. History repeated itself in 2003: although Israel was eager for the US to attack Iraq, Bush could not ask it to help without triggering Arab opposition. So Israel stayed on the sidelines once again.

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http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/mear01_.html

Abstract
The centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy is its intimate relationship with Israel. Though often justified as reflecting shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, the U.S. commitment to Israel is due primarily to the activities of the “Israel Lobby.” This paper describes the various activities that pro-Israel groups have undertaken in order to shift U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction.

I wish this could be printed in the SF Chronicle

"from Harvard University and the University of Chicago"

Bastions of Marxism and Stalinism. They hate America as well.

Right wing loonies always use that one. When in doubt, bash the media, the institution, ect. (i.e. Harvard in this case) Hilarious.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006 1:54 p.m. EST
Attack on 'Pro-Israel Lobby' Has Flaws


Two of America's top scholars have created a furor by publishing a scathing
attack on Washington's pro-Israel lobby, claiming the lobby operates against
U.S. interests.

In the article published in the London Review of Books and on Harvard
University's Kennedy School of Government Web site, Professors John
Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of the Kennedy
School charge that the Israel lobby has seized control of American foreign
policy.

But the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA)
reports that the professors' article "is riddled with errors of fact, logic
and omission."

In their piece, the professors attacked those on both the political Left and
Right and said the lobby includes such diverse entities as the Brookings
Institution and American Enterprise Institute, the New York Times and the
Wall Street Journal editorial boards, Sen. Hillary Clinton, World Bank
President Paul Wolfowitz and evangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson.


"The overall thrust of the U.S. policy in the region is due almost entirely
to U.S. domestic politics, and especially to the activities of the 'Israel
Lobby,'" the authors wrote in their introduction. "[No] lobby has managed to
divert U.S. foreign policy as far from what the American national interest
would otherwise suggest."

The CAMERA report examines the article in detail and points to these
"errors":

The professors argue that the U.S. is targeted by terrorists because of its
support for Israel. But CAMERA noted that according to documents cited by
experts on al-Qaida, "the group attacked the United States on 9/11 (and
before) not primarily because of our support for Israel, but because of our
support for Saudi Arabia and other 'moderate' Arab countries ...
"After Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia, bin Laden
was horrified that the Saudis were considering a U.S. offer to send troops
to protect the Kingdom. Bin Laden urged against what he saw as sacrilege ...

"The attacks against the Unites States, in Saudi Arabia, in Kenya and
Tanzania, in Yemen, and finally on the U.S. homeland on 9/11, had nothing to
do with Israel and everything to do with U.S. support for Arab regimes. It
should be noted also that al-Qaida never even tried to attack an Israeli
target, much less Israel itself, until after 9/11."


Mearsheimer and Walt claim that Israel has "provided sensitive U.S. military
technology to potential U.S. rivals like China, in what the U.S. State
Department Inspector General called 'a systematic and growing pattern of
unauthorized transfers.'"

CAMERA notes: "What they don't tell readers is that after the State
Department report was released its credibility was shredded. Richard Clarke,
for example, then the official in the State Department responsible for
overseeing arms transfers, and later President Clinton's counter-terrorism
chief, stated there was one, minor improper transfer, not a pattern of
them."


The professors also charge that Israel passed to the Soviet Union
information it received from convicted spy Jonathan Pollard.
CAMERA's report by Alex Safian states: "This claim, which originated in an
extremely controversial sentencing memorandum submitted by Defense Secretary
Casper Weinberger, is known to be false.

"Prof. Angelo Codevilla (a former Senior Staff Member of the Senate
Intelligence Committee and an intelligence specialist) declared in an
interview that the memo 'reportedly said the Israelis sold part of the
information to the Soviet Union. All of these things are not only untrue,
they were known by Weinberger not to be true.'"


Mearsheimer and Walt write that "contrary to popular belief, the Zionists
had larger, better-equipped and better-led forces during the 1948-1949 War
of Independence.
In fact, Israel had only three tanks, five artillery pieces and 35 aircraft
in the first critical weeks of the war, while the Arabs had 270 tanks, 150
artillery pieces and 300 aircraft, CAMERA points out, adding that the
Israelis won "because they were fighting for their lives, unlike the Arab
forces."


The authors claim that Prime Minister Ehud Barak's peace offer to the
Palestinians was not generous at all: "No Israeli government has been
willing to offer the Palestinians a viable state of their own. Even .
Barak's purportedly generous offer at Camp David in July 2000 would only
have given the Palestinians a disarmed and dismembered set of 'Bantustans'
under de facto Israeli control."
But CAMERA notes that Ambassador Dennis Ross, President Clinton's chief
Middle East negotiator, has stated that under the offer "the Palestinians
would have in the West Bank an area that was contiguous. Those who say there
were cantons, completely untrue. It was contiguous... And to connect Gaza
with the West Bank, there would have been an elevated highway, an elevated
railroad, to ensure that there would be not just safe passage for the
Palestinians, but free passage."


According to the professors, "pro-Israel forces have long been interested in
getting the U.S. military more directly involved in the Middle East, so it
could help protect Israel." CAMERA counters: "They support this extremely
dubious claim with footnote 181, which lists only one reference, a report,
'Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New
Century.'
"This report is easily searched, and it mentions Israel only once: 'Ever
since the Persian Gulf War of 1991, when an Iraqi Scud missile hit a Saudi
warehouse in which American soldiers were sleeping, causing the largest
single number of casualties in the war; when Israeli and Saudi citizens
donned gas masks in nightly terror of Scud attacks; and when the great "Scud
Hunt" proved to be an elusive game that absorbed a huge proportion of U.S.
aircraft, the value of the ballistic missile has been clear to America's
adversaries.'

"Obviously this report offers no support whatsoever for the claim that
Israel wants the U.S. to fight its battles. Whether this is a careless
mistake, or something more serious, it only further undermines the
credibility of the authors."

http://www.ifamericansknew.org

The new John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt study of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" should serve as a wake-up call, on both sides of the ocean. The most obvious and eye-catching reflection is the fact that it is authored by two respected academics and carries the imprimatur of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. The tone of the report is harsh. It is jarring for a self-critical Israeli, too. It lacks finesse and nuance when it looks at the alphabet soup of the American-Jewish organizational world and how the Lobby interacts with both the Israeli establishment and the wider right-wing echo chamber.

It sometimes takes AIPAC omnipotence too much at face value and disregards key moments - such as the Bush senior/Baker loan guarantees episode and Clinton's showdown with Netanyahu over the Wye River Agreement. The study largely ignores AIPAC run-ins with more dovish Israeli administrations, most notably when it undermined Yitzhak Rabin, and how excessive hawkishness is often out of step with mainstream American Jewish opinion, turning many, especially young American Jews, away from taking any interest in Israel.

Yet their case is a potent one: that identification of American with Israeli interests can be principally explained via the impact of the Lobby in Washington, and in limiting the parameters of public debate, rather than by virtue of Israel being a vital strategic asset or having a uniquely compelling moral case for support (beyond, as the authors point out, the right to exist, which is anyway not in jeopardy). The study is at its most devastating when it describes how the Lobby "stifles debate by intimidation" and at its most current when it details how America's interests (and ultimately Israel's, too) are ill-served by following the Lobby's agenda.

The bottom line might read as follows: that defending the occupation has done to the American pro-Israel community what living as an occupier has done to Israel - muddied both its moral compass and its rational self-interest compass.

The context in which the report is published makes of it more than passing academic interest. Similar themes keep recurring in influential books, including recently, "The Assassin's Gate," "God's Politics," and "Against All Enemies." In popular culture, "Paradise Now" and "Munich" attracted notable critical acclaim. In Congress, the AIPAC-supported Lantos/Ros-Lehtinen bill, which places unprecedented restrictions on aid to and contacts with the Palestinians, is stalled. Moderate American organizations such as the Israel Policy Forum, Americans for Peace Now and Brit Tzedek v'Shalom - each with their own policy nuances - have led opposition to the bill and Quartet envoy Wolfensohn has seemed to caution against it. In court, two former senior AIPAC officials face criminal charges.

Not yet a tipping point, but certainly time for a debate. Sadly, if predictably, response to the Harvard study has been characterized by a combination of the shrill and the smug. Avoidance of candid discussion might make good sense to the Lobby, but it is unlikely to either advance Israeli interests or the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Some talking points for this coming debate can already be suggested:

First, efforts to collapse the Israeli and neoconservative agendas into one have been a terrible mistake - and it is far from obvious which is the tail and which is the dog in this act of wagging. Iraqi turmoil and an Al-Qaida foothold there, growing Iranian regional leverage and the strengthening of Hamas in the PA are just a partial scorecard of the recent policy successes of AIPAC/neocon collaboration.

Second, Israel would do well to distance itself from our so-called "friends" on the Christian evangelical right. When one considers their support for Israel's own extremists, the celebration of our Prime Minister's physical demise as a "punishment from God" and their belief in our eventual conversion - or slaughter - then this is exposed as an alliance of sickening irresponsibility.

Third, Israel must not be party to the bullying tactics used to silence policy debate in the U.S. and the McCarthyite policing of academia by set-ups like Daniel Pipes' Campus Watch. If nothing else, it is deeply un-Jewish. It would in fact serve Israel if the open and critical debate that takes place over here were exported over there.

Fourth, the Lobby even denies Israel a luxury that so many other countries benefit from: of having the excuse of external encouragement to do things that are domestically tricky but nationally necessary (remember Central Eastern European economic and democratic reform to gain EU entry in contrast with Israel's self-destructive settlement policy for continued U.S. aid).

Visible signs of Israel and the Lobby not being on the same page are mounting. For Israel, the Gaza withdrawal and future West Bank evacuations are acts of strategic national importance, for the Lobby an occasion for confusion and shuffling of feet. For Israel, the Hamas PLC election victory throws up complex and difficult challenges; for the Lobby it's a public relations homerun and occasion for legislative muscle-flexing.

In the words of the simplistic Harvard study authors, "the Lobby's influence has been bad for Israel ... has discouraged Israel from seizing opportunities ... that would have saved Israeli lives and shrunk the ranks of Palestinian extremists ... using American power to achieve a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians would help advance the broader goals of fighting extremism and promoting democracy in the Middle East." And please, this is not about appeasement, it's about smart, if difficult, policy choices that also address Israeli needs and security.

In short, if Israel is indeed entering a new era of national sanity and de-occupation, then the role of the Lobby in U.S.-Israel relations will have to be rethought, and either reformed from within or challenged from without.

Daniel Levy was an advisor in the Prime Minister's Office, a member of the official Israeli negotiating team at the Oslo B and Taba talks and the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/698051.html

An article titled “Israeli lobby,” which merits attention, was published on the third anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq.

The authors are: John Mearsheimer, professor of political science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, professor of international relations at Havard University.
Publisher: London Review of Books.
Date: March 23, 2006.
Internet address: (http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/print/mear01_.html).

The main arguments of the article can be summarized as follows: The US is setting aside its own security and that of many of its allies to advance the interests of Israel. Direct US assistance to Israel so far is in the tune of $140 billion. Israel receives $3 billion direct assistance from the US esvery year, which is equal to one - fifth of total foreign aid, even though Israel is as rich as Spain. Israel does not have to account for how this money is spent, being the only country given such a privilege. The US provides Israel intelligence it denies to its NATO allies, turns a blind eye on Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Washington which provides consistent diplomatic support to Israel, has since 1982 vetoed 32 UN Security Council resolutions critical of Israel.

If Israel was strategically important for the United States or if there was a compelling moral case for supporting Israel, then all these would have been understandable. Israel, however, is a strategic burden on the US. Close ties with Israel harm US relations with the Arab world, and makes the US target of terrorist attacks. Israel does not behave like a faithful ally and tops the list of countries spying against the US. The state of Israel does not conform to the democratic values of the United States. Israel is established as a Jewish state, and treats its 1.3 million Arabs as second-class citizens. The founding of Israel was a response to the crimes committed against the Jews, but this has now paved the way for more crimes to be committed against Palestinians, an innocent third party. No Israeli government has agreed to respect the rights of Palestinians.

The only explanation for US support for Israel is the unrivalled power of the Israeli lobby. Not all American Jews are part of this lobby. One-third of these say they do not have emotional ties to Israel, most of them support peace with the Palestinians, and opposed the invasion in Iraq. Some American Jews have, however, founded many powerful organizations to influence US foreign policy in favor of Israel. The Israeli lobby nests among the neo-conservatives, and also receives support from Christian Zionists. The lobby has two main strategies: to put pressure on the executive and legislative organs in favor of Israel, and to help form a positive image of Israel in the public opinion. Nobody dares criticize Israel in the U.S Congress because the lobby is immediately mobilized to block the re-election of that member. People who criticize Israel are silenced by accusations of anti-Semitism. No Westerner who criticizes Israel, however, questions its right to exist, but criticizes it because what this country is doing to the Palestinians violates human rights and international law.

Three-fourths of Americans favor even-handed treatment of Palestinians. President [George W.] Bush said when he was first elected that he will support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Today, however, the lobby has complete control over Bush who now endorses unilateral Israeli annexations of Palestinian territory. It is not true that Iraq was invaded because of oil. The Iraq War was encouraged by the Israeli lobby, which is currently prodding the US to attack Syria and Iran. The Israeli lobby does not only greatly harm the US but also to the people of Israel. This can no longer be ignored.

Some people may ask “What does this article declare other than the obvious?” My answer is: It shows the role the Israeli lobby plays in US domestic politics in a way that has not been done before. It also makes us ask “Is America waking up?” It may in fact be more appropriate to ask, “Can America wake up?” or “Can America ever wake up?” since the authors state that it is not possible to have this article published in the US.

http://www.zaman.com/?bl=columnists&alt=&trh=20060323&hn=31223

Like most consumers of American media, I always took Israeli settlements in the West Bank for inkblots (ever expanding?) within contiguous Palestinian territory.

Viewing the FRONTLINE Oslo II map, I figured out that the negotiated Palestinian homeland is to be the hodgepodge of inkblots (ever diminishing?) within a contiguous Israeli realm – which civilian domain encompasses 40% of West Bank land (today).

Not surprisingly, 75% of West Bank water is incorporated into said 40% (as I wrote this, I heard a C-Span call-in complain that settlers control 50% of Gaza water!?). Even future, sovereign Palestinian nation-etts are to be crisscrossed by the hundreds of miles of Jew-only bypass roads (http://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/MAPS/wbgs_campdavid.html ) and, even more incongruously, to be dotted with Israeli settlements and towns!

The Frontline map identifies 52 settlements created since Sharon took power -- out of the existing 98! Does Israeli civilian control really need to reach 50% -- with the Israeli military controling West Bank borders and Israeli civilian intrusion dispersed throughout Palestinian so-called sovereignty -- before all logic forces us to acknowledge the fact of “Greater Israel” ?

2004’s Gaza disengagement process bulldozed 28,000 people out of their houses (http://www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein04292005.html) – para. 15) -- while the IDF chief has announced the hope of excluding all Palestinian workers from Israel by 2008 (para. 21) – sounding more like a Marshall Plan in reverse.

If Israel truly intends to clear out of the West Bank, why does it never stop extending and proliferating its already hundreds of miles of Eisenhower interstate like -- single-sovereignty – bypass roads up and down and around every chunk of Palestinian-conceded terrain?

Israel would love to clear Palestinians out of the West Bank – but Palestinians have not taken the hint – nor have their billion-plus Islamic friends. Which is a necessary and sufficient explanation for America – suckered, by behind-the-curve media and path-of-least-resistance politicians, into doing too much for an Israel that does too much to vulnerable Islamic people – trading skyscrapers for settlements.

Forget any clash of Western and Islamic civilizations. Israel’s West Bank occupation is simply the Islamic world’s version of South African apartheid and Bosnian ethnic cleansing all rolled into one –perpetually vexing its people into undoing the unendurable – much as the “peculiar institution” of slavery once pecked away at the American conscience.

America’s talking heads and following leaders are way overdue getting the word to their people that a Palestinian nation cannot exist half slave and half free either.
****** ******* ******
500,000 people -- 6% of Israel's population may be causing a world war all by themselves. 50% of both American and Israeli Jews agree most settlements have to be removed from the West Bank – it should not be hard to get 80% of all other Americans and most American Jews behind removing all so-called settlers if and when our media fully portrays the off-the-scale, in-your-face punitiveness of the occupation.

I don't know what century Islamic terrorists are inhabiting: they drain tens, maybe hundreds of millions of dollars from the Saudis and who-knows-who-else to build hate schools systems, and blow up buildings full of people (didn't Menacham Begin start that in the mideast?); didn't they ever hear of television, or Madison Ave?

I can see one such media campaign now: "Imagine the worldwide uproar if China were criss-crossing Tibet with Chinese only roads that Tibetans could not travel on -- or even cross over.... !

They have a great story to tell -- why don't they switch one-tenth of their present effort to attempting to educate the one uncomprehending, isolated-by-oceans part of our universe, which happens to be the only part which supports Israel's aggression? -- a high-tech, unstoppable info outflanking worthy of twenty-first century political warfare.

Recent balanced reporting from the mideast:
http://www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein08172005.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/christison08152005.html
Israeli-only roads and island-s in the sand nationetts, mapped out:
http://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/MAPS/wbgs1.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/israel/map
Non-couch potato Israeli opposition regular e-mail reports:
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en
http://otherisrael.home.igc.org/

Denis Drew
Chicago
denis.drew [at] netzero.com
http://www.purpleocean.org/blog/80

A controversial research report, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, by Harvard professor Stephen Walt and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer, that criticizes the “Israel lobby” for allegedly distorting the foreign policy of the United States to the detriment of U.S. interests, and which has been severely criticized as inaccurate and wrongheaded, no longer sports the Harvard or Kennedy School of Government logos that previously appeared on the report's front page.

The original first page, with the Harvard and KSG logos, and the usual small disclaimer.
The revised first page -- no Harvard logos and a much stronger and prominent disclaimer.

In a further sign that Harvard and the University of Chicago are distancing themselves from Professors Walt and Mearsheimer, the report also no longer includes the pro-forma disclaimer used for all other research reports on that Harvard website. In its place is a far stronger disclaimer, in much larger type. The original disclaimer read:

The views expressed in the KSG Faculty Research Working Paper Series are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the John F. Kennedy School of Government or Harvard University.

The new, much more prominent disclaimer reads:

The two authors of this Working Paper are solely responsible for the views expressed in it. As academic institutions, Harvard University and the University of Chicago do not take positions on the scholarship of individual faculty, and this article should not be interpreted or portrayed as reflecting the official position of either institution.

It is especially notable that while the original disclaimer merely stated that Harvard did not necessarily share the views expressed in the article, the revised disclaimer goes much further, stating that:
1. The two authors are "solely responsible" for the content.
2. This article should not be interpreted or portrayed as reflecting the official position of either institution [Harvard or Univ. of Chicago].
3. The institutions take no position on the "scholarship of individual faculty."
As both universities, in fact, routinely take positions on the "scholarship" of faculty members -- regarding tenure, hiring, salaries and so on -- the addition of wording apparently distancing the universities from the document's "scholarship" suggests a devastating vote of no confidence by Harvard and the University of Chicago in the work of Professors Walt and Mearsheimer.

Harvard and the University of Chicago should take the obvious next step and remove the paper from their websites pending correction of numerous errors of fact, logic and omission.

Honest scholars of U.S. policy in the Middle East will be amused to learn that the word OPEC appears only once in the 83-page paper and that “AIPAC and its allies . . . have no serious opponents in the lobbying world.” Men perspire and ladies glow, goes the adage. So Arabs, we suppose, don’t lobby, they just bestow gifts, like the $20 million Saudi prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abd al-Aziz Al-Saud recently gave to the Kennedy School.

So now OPEC is a lobby??