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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1348 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for June 6, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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This is half culture war half Friday fun but I'm a bit more than halfway through reading The Israel Lobby by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. Politics aside, it is a very well written political science book. If you wanted to, you could turn the book into a chart, with every thesis supported by claims which are in turn supported by (cited) evidence. This gives the book a sort of structure of hard logic, which I think is a consequence of Mearsheimer and Walt trying to avoid the charge of antisemitism (which the ADL and others have nonetheless leveled at them). The authors are very analytical and never take sides in any of the conflicts mentioned, the entire situation is presented from afar: "There is a network of individuals working to influence the US government to act in certain ways that they believe will benefit the state of Israel" (Part 2, which I haven't read yet, seems to be "why the polices the network advocates for may not serve the best interests of the US or Israel"). This book was published in 2007 so it's not a wholly contemporary analysis of the situation, but it provides a good recent history and background. Apparently the book sparked a good deal of scholarly debate, and I plan on reading some of the back-and-forth articles once I finish it. I think the book creates a strong argument that at least in in 2007 there was a network of individuals and organizations seeking to benefit Israel by influencing American opinion, discourse, and government policy. (Mods feel free to take this down if it's too spicy)

If I recall correctly, Mearsheimer's realist thesis is that Israel's influence over the US is long-term bad for Israel because it makes them structurally dependent and less rational as a state - relying on US support rather than doing whatever realist stuff they need to survive on their own. But Mearsheimer's an interesting writer, in that he will overstate his theses if he thinks that's a direction that policy discourse should be dragged in (in order to counterbalance the weight of "mainstream" discourse).

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