Stephen M. Walt and "The Jews"

By David Edenden

Stephen M. Walt

Stephen M. Walt has co-written a controversial book on  "The Israel (read Jewish) Lobby". If he had written a scholarly book on how politicians cave and betray their country and their own values for very small number of votes, from a wide variety of ethnic groups, then there would be no problem. 


Saying that "the Jews" control US policy towards Israel is like saying the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. However, singling out only "the Jews" for undue influence on government policy is where we run into a problem.


Stephen ... you know the Jews ... the have a poker up their butt when it comes to even a whiff of antisemitism.


I, as an ethnic Macedonian from Greece, (see here also) have a huge poker up my butt regarding the Greek lobby and its influence in US politics. (more on this in a later post).


In addition to the Israeli lobby, Stephen, you should have addressed the Greek, Armenian, Cuban and for historical purposes ... the China lobby.

Stephen, it would not take too much of an effort to embrace and extend your original work.

Is the United States in Danger of Collapse? | Stephen M. Walt 

A fourth source of foolish decisions is the well-known tendency for individuals to act in ways that are in their own selfish interest but not in the interest of the society as a whole. The "tragedy of the commons" is a classic illustration of this problem, but one sees the same basic dynamic whenever a narrow interest group's preferences are allowed to trump the broader national interest. Tariffs to protect particular industries or foreign policies designed to appease a particular domestic constituency are obvious cases in point.