how much influence should the Israel lobby have?

This is the question for American supporters of Israel—not to mention American supporters of lobbying, and lobbyists—to raise, and in a public way. And soon. It’s a fair question, if you assume that any one lobby can have “too much” influence and if you can all agree on what just the right amount of influence is. And if you can decide what “influence” is, anyway. And how it’s exerted. Overtly? Covertly? How, exactly? By making phone calls? threats? offering bribes? How do you know? What did you see? If you didn’t see anything, how do you know? Who told you? You don’t know the guy who told you?…

You get the picture. Or so I hope.

So: Attack the growing creepiness head-on. Don’t let it fester.

What “growing creepiness?” you ask. Er…um…this growing creepiness, reported by the Forward: a DVD featuring recent appearances by Professors Walt and Mearsheimer expounding their “Israel Lobby” theories and recommendations (to cut Israel loose). The DVD was produced by the Council for the National Interest foundation:

Seeking to capitalize on the publicity swirling around a high-profile report attacking the role of the “Israel Lobby” in shaping American foreign policy, an advocacy group that opposes America’s close relationship with the Jewish state is hocking a DVD on Amazon.com of two recent public debates involving one of the paper’s authors.

This is the same group I wrote about here, when I first noticed them riding Walt and Mearsheimer’s coattails. They’re still riding.

The Council for the National Interest Foundation, which Sunday published its third full-page ad in the New York Times this year condemning America’s alliance with Israel, is poised this week to market “The Tipping Point: Changing Perceptions of the U.S.-Israel Relationship,” according to the foundation’s director, Eugene Bird.

If you want to check out this self-proclaimed “grassroots non-partisan” foundation, here’s their website.

This is the kind of danger Alan Dershowitz wrote about in his rebuttal to Walt and Mearsehimer:

What would motivate two recognized academics to issue a compilation of previously made assertions that they must know will be used by overt anti-Semites to argue that Jews have too much influence, that will give an academic imprimatur to crass bigotry, and that will place all Jews in government and the media under suspicion of disloyalty to America?

Some of Walt and Mearsheimer’s defenders*** have said they are not, personally, bigoted. The professors were, they said, made uncomfortable by the early enthusiastic reception they received from David Duke. Likewise, the editor of the London Review of Books wasn’t pleased with Duke’s endorsement. The professors and the magazine weren’t looking for those kinds of endorsements.

Here’s the thing, though: when you move into the arena of political operations—where the two activist professors find themselves now—you can’t choose your supporters. Lie down with dogs and all that.

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***I have written about this subject ad nauseam, or so it seems to me, and don’t feel like linking. Here’s a post with lots of links.