Israel’s Lobby vs US Democracy | A Special Roundtable

BUY THE BOOKS: Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power by Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick: https://amzn.to/4gMNJey The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by John Mearsheimer & Steve Walt: https://amzn.to/3SL2M0o ———————————————————— DESCRIPTION Why has American opinion on Israel shifted so sharply while U.S. policy has barely moved? The authors of the two major books on the Israel lobby take it on. In this special collaboration between the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and my YouTube channel, I join Stephen Walt (Harvard Kennedy School), Eli Clifton (Quincy Institute co-founder), and Ian Lustick (University of Pennsylvania) for a roundtable discussion on our book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2007) and their new book Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power. Rashid Khalidi, professor emeritus of history at Columbia University, moderates. We cover the military-industrial complex and oil lobbies, why the Palestinian issue is where the lobby dominates, the gap between public opinion and policy, campaign money after Citizens United, the antisemitism charge and the use of state power against campuses, why Israel's defenders struggle to argue the facts, and when policy might change. ———————————————————— CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction: 00:09 Offensive Realism & the Quincy Institute 02:20 Rashid Khalidi opens the roundtable 04:03 Is the military-industrial complex part of the lobby? 06:46 When defense & oil interests clash with the lobby 09:53 Strategic interests vs. the lobby: Kissinger, Eisenhower, the JCPOA 11:43 Ian Lustick: process tracing & the Chomsky argument 14:41 Startup Nation Central & the NDAA push to fuse U.S.–Israeli defense 18:43 The Palestinians: always left by the wayside 21:38 Why presidents' Palestine initiatives keep failing 23:38 The post-Cold War puzzle: weaker case, deeper relationship 25:14 Public opinion has shifted, but policy hasn't 26:39 The lobby lost the discourse, not the policy 29:20 Citizens United & $200M in pro-Israel super PAC money 32:39 "Smash-mouth politics" 33:06 The domestic fallout: universities, speech & state power 36:01 Rising antisemitism & the "collective Jew" argument 38:00 American Jews are not a monolith 41:12 Why the lobby can no longer defend Israel's policies 44:42 Israel as a "crazy state" & the civilizational-war narrative 48:06 New historians, scholars & the internet 49:48 Smears losing force & the alliance with culture warriors 53:13 The facts on the ground: Gaza & social media 55:42 The NRA parallel: why policy lags opinion 58:09 Washington's Farewell Address & the danger of faction 1:00:35 The bandwidth cost of the special relationship 1:03:18 Israel's new military doctrine & "Sparta among nations" 1:09:04 When will public opinion finally change policy? 1:12:09 Predictions: the Democrats, 2028 & the Iran war 1:18:50 Generational change 1:22:03 A grim note: "cooked" antisemitism statistics 1:26:14 The danger of a backlash & the dual-loyalty trope 1:28:51 Mearsheimer: antisemitism on campus before 2024 1:30:46 Closing remarks ———————————————————— MUSIC "The Ice Giants" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music modified (edited/remixed) from the original.