The Israel Lobby?

Here's Noam Chomsky's widely anticipated response to the Mearsheimer and Walt paper on the Israel lobby.

As one would expect, Chomsky throws some cold water on their thesis.

The reality of the situation, he claims, is the inverse of their argument: US policy makers latched on to Israel early on as a device that would help project American power into the Middle East and secure better control (critical leverage) over the region's energy reserves. Chomsky dates this back to well before the '67 war. In other words, the Israel lobby, broadly defined, didn't drag the US into supporting Israel, but rather grew up alongside the realization of Israel's strategic importance. In part, this explains why support for Israel permeates the "intellectual-political class."

His second major point is that the Israel lobby, while powerful, is dwarfed by other lobbies that play a much more significant role in crafting US policy, namely the energy and weapons industry. Any study that doesn't contrast the influence of all of these lobbies is essentially useless, he argues.