Review: The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
| Date | 01 March 2008 |
| Published date | 01 March 2008 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200806300122 |
| Author | James Eldin Reed |
| Subject Matter | Review |
tional learning. As noted in the strategic summary, “the UN has found itself
at the nexus of new institutional arrangements with both the AU and the
EU, suggesting that it may be more adaptable than its critics generally
maintain” (9–10). As for cost effectiveness, the total cost of all 63 UN oper-
ations to date (1948-June 2007) is $47 billion, compared to $1.5 trillion for
the Iraq War. Perhaps we should talk of the peacekeeping dividend.
Peacekeeping is a circuit breaker in a spiralling cycle of violence. The
problem with traditional peacekeeping was that it could at best localize the
impact of conflicts and then freeze them. Contemporary peace operations
are more integrally linked to efforts at peace consolidation. The United
Nations can do the job, but only if given the tools: uniformed soldiers and
police officers from industrial and developing countries, specialized mili-
tary support services from countries with modern military forces, financial
resources, strategic force reserves, political support in the security council,
and sustained commitment. The last requires time and patience. The com-
munity of states must be willing to work with local partners and institutions
to create enduring structures of security, good governance (including eco-
nomic governance), the rule of law, market economy, and civil society.
Ramesh Thakur/CIGI and University of Waterloo
| Reviews |
| 232 | International Journal | Winter 2007-08 |
THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
Toronto: Viking Canada 2007. 484pp, $34.00 cloth (ISBN 0-670-06725-3)
When you check in at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem, the
favourite watering hole of foreign correspondents in the Levant, you are
offered a choice of Israeli newspapers to be folded into your morning
International Herald Tribune
: the right-wing nationalist
Jerusalem Post
(previously owned by Conrad Black) or the English-language edition of
Ha’aretz
, with its distinguished reporting and editorial openness to the full
spectrum of Israeli opinion. Mearsheimer and Walt, all-American national-
ists and prominent political scientists of the realist school, are decidedly
more comfortable with
Ha’aretz
, which they cite repeatedly in this hugely
controversial work.
While there is nothing in this book that would scandalize Israeli schol-
ars and intellectuals of the centre-left or cosmopolitan opinion overseas,
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
has created a furore among the
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