The Defamation League?

On Fresh Air yesterday, Terry Gross presented two interviews: the first with Stephen Walt, co-author of “The Israel Lobby”, which posits that the United States does not always serve its best interests by blindly supporting Israel; and the second with Abraham Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, who has written a response to Walt’s book entitled The Deadliest Lies.

If you can, listen to the two interviews, and you’ll experience two radically different styles of debate. Stephen Walt presents his thesis in a straight-forward, articulate and tempered way. Abraham Foxman is incendiary, volatile and, at times, misleading. The contrast is striking because, between the two, Dr. Walt is advancing the more controversial argument, which is, in essence, that there is a “loose coalition of individuals and organizations who actively work to steer U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction”, but that, in spite of their best intentions, these policies have sometimes been detrimental not only to the United States, but Israel as well. He argues that Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian territories prevents it from achieving a more widespread peace with its neighbors.

In the interview, Dr. Walt clearly articulates some caveats that bear reiterating, namely that:

  • The pro-Israel lobby is not specifically religious or ethnic in its membership
  • The lobby is defined by its political agenda
  • The lobby is not a cabal or a conspiracy
  • There is nothing illegitimate about the lobby
  • The lobby acts no differently than other lobbies, like AARP, labor unions, etc.
  • The United States should still support Israel, but on moral, rather than strategic grounds

Those sound reasonable, right? Well, Abraham Foxman doesn’t think so. But, after listening to his interview, it isn’t surprising because, from what I can tell, Mr. Foxman isn’t a reasonable person. Throughout the nearly 20-minute segment he uses a variety of logical fallacies in an attempt to discredit not just the premise of “The Israel Lobby”, but to attack the character of its authors.

Mr. Foxman begins almost immediately with a rhetorical device that should signal a warning to any careful listener: “one needs to understand…”. When you hear that, or any of its variants, be prepared to hear suspect information. While it is true that complex issues require nuanced discussion, “you’ve got to understand” is a form of rhetorical intimidation that I think should be removed from genuine, level debate.

But Mr. Foxman does something much worse at about six minutes into the interview when he completely and deliberately missstates the opinions of Dr. Walt and his co-author, John Mearsheimer, by saying that neo-conservatives “in their minds are only Jewish”. This is galling considering how just minutes earlier in the program (and I realize that they may have been recorded days apart, even) Dr. Walt specifically and repeatedly stated that not all neo-cons are Jews and vice-versa. He named several examples of prominent neo-conservatives who are Christian. On top of this blatant intellectual dishonesty on the part of Mr. Foxman, he persistently refers to any of Dr. Walt’s opinions as “dangerous” and “sinister”.

Mr. Foxman reaches the zenith of rhetorical malice by indirectly comparing Walt and Mearsheimer to Hitler and Stalin, pointing out that those dictators had initially implied Jewish disloyalty before ultimately instituting systematic genocide. Again, in his interview Dr. Walt explicitly states he is not accusing any Jewish Americans of disloyalty. Moreover, though Dr. Walt specifically says that he rejects any misinterpretation of his argument by groups with ulterior, anti-Jewish motives, Mr. Foxman insists on blaming him for others’ misapplication of his ideas. I could draw a number of valid analogies, but suffice it to say that it is irrational to blame Dr. Walt for the actions of others.

Finally, when Mr. Foxman does present facts, such as his point that a large faction of the American Jewish community was opposed to the war in Iraq, he is undone by ridiculous allegations of anti-Semitism. Indeed, it would almost seem that intimidation and insinuation are trademarks of Mr. Foxman, which is a shame, considering the very worthy and noble mission of the body he represents:

“The immediate object of the [Anti-Defamation] League is to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience and, if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people. Its ultimate purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.”

Alas, I don’t see how he can further those ends with hyperbole, misstatement, intellectual dishonesty and baseless accusations of something as loathsome as anti-Semitism.

Filed under: Current Events, Literature and Books, Rantings on September 5th, 2007 | No Comments »