“The United States has a terrorism problem largely because it is so closely allied with Israel.”

This assertion is only one of a series of pathetic stupidities in this piece. Why should we support a plucky little democracy with a free-market economy, the honest rule of law, equal rights for women, and the best civil rights conditions for its Arab minority in the entire Middle East, when we could throw our lot in with dictators, military leaders and kings from Syria to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Israel is not perfect, as its own people will admit, but it is a heck of a lot closer to perfect that any of its Arab neighbors.

I guess that a borderline racist column like this is the only thing that could take people’s minds off of hazing.

The US relationship with Israel is interfering with our relationship with corrupt Arab dictatorships? Why am I not concerned?

As for the now discredited fable pushed by Mearsheimer and Walt, may I point out they are the same team which blamed the Iraq war on Israel? This is dispite the fact then PM Sharon advising Bush NOT to invade. The then confidential conversations have since been made public by former Bush officials present at the time. The position of the Israelis was that Iraq was not a threat and an invasion would encourage Iranian expansion. Unfortunately, the Israelis agreed to keep silent on the matter. Given the Israeli silent, just who controls who?

There was nothing groundbreaking about John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt’s “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.” It was the same anti-semitic rants and ravings against a supposed Jewish conspiracy of control behind the scenes that Jews have been accused of for centuries, just wearing seemingly more respectable clothing.

In the words of Harvard Professor Ruth Wisse, “When the authors imply that the bipartisan support of Israel in Congress is a result of Jewish influence, they function as classic conspiracy theorists who attribute decisions to nefarious alliances rather than to the choices of a democratic electorate.”

Defenders of Mearsheimer and Walt struck back against their critics, accusing them of conflating being anti-Israel with being anti-semitic, a fair response in some instances. After an event this past Fall, however, Mearsheimer is more difficult to defend. In the Fall 2011, Mearsheimer endorsed a book by an anti-semitic conspiracy nut who denies the Holocaust, calls for a reevaluation of the notion that the blood libel is and was untrue, and argues that, to borrow Jeffrey Goldberg’s description of his views, “the Jews persecuted Hitler.” This isn’t a guilt by association, palling around with bad people sort of claim, this was an endorsement. But hey, what can one expect. Having been praised so wildly for dressing up anti-semitic tripe in the dapper clothing of academia, I suppose it’s unsurprising that Mearsheimer would try to drape a cloak of respectability over other anti-Jewish works.

Casler talks about a shadowy conspiracy that stifles debate about Israel, even as he takes the other side of, gasp, the debate about Israel. A debate which is prominent in the Jewish community, debate which is prominent on univeristy campuses, a debate which is prominent in newspapers and on TV, in short, a debate that seems quite robust and hardly stifled. Casler’s claim about the Jewish control of the debate on Israel rings as hollow as the claims of conservative polemicists who blast the “liberal media” in columns that run in allegedly liberal papers.

The direction of our policy in Iraq had nothing to do with Israel, which first came out against the US going to war with Iraq and had to be persuaded otherwise, and had everything to do with George W. Bush and Cheney thinking Bush Sr. missed an opportunity when not deposing Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War. A war which took place to defend, not Israel, but Kuwait and Saudi Arabia!

As for Casler’s absurd claim that US has a terror problem because of its alliance with Israel, one key motivation for al-Qaeda’s attacks on the US was the presence of the U.S. military in Saudi Arabia! Or would Casler like to try blaming the US presence in Saudi Arabia on Israel too?

^nice ad hominem attack.

Israel, not United States, is Iran’s enemy. An Iran with nuclear weapons will disrupt Israel’s cruel and outrageously exercised Mideast hegemony. All our Mideast wars have been against our interests, yet successfully advocated by the Jewish state. Again against our interests, Israel has involved us in increasingly overt operations against Iran. Spies and American military drones in Iranian airspace are the most recent revelations. Since before 9/11, American soldiers have been dying for the Jewish state. We are at war. Who did this to us? Israel, AIPAC, the One Percent and other organized and monied Israel Firsters have corrupted our politicians and entire electoral system. Justice and the future of America demand that they be prosecuted and jailed.

Fantastic article Don.

The claim that “The United States has a terrorism problem largely because it is so closely allied with Israel,” though, I think goes too unsubstantiated in the article, regardless of its veracity.

And whoever thought this article was even remotely racist, well, articles like these have to be written because of people like you.

“lacks a persuasive moral justification for continued American support.” The publicly stated goal of Israel’s neighbors wiping Israel off the map and the fact that Israel is by far the most moral nation in the Middle East have to be discarded by Mr. Casler in order to reach his tortured conclusions. Americans need to knuckle under to retrograde 8th century nutballs by letting Israel fend for itself in order to make ourselves supposedly “safe” for some period of time.

Everything in the article is probably correct. But, it overlooks the zealous support from Christian Zionist, which I think outweighs all the other Jewish influence mentioned.

Casler in his anti-Israel screed above states that “[Israel]lacks both strategic value and a persuasive moral justification for continued American support.”

I suggest Don Casler et al get the facts straight! Indeed Israel Aid To the U.S.A. is invaluable! Please, read here:

http://sites.google.com/site/mtevansco/Home/israel-aid-to-the-usa

I guess Casler like his shoddy sources, Mearshimer & Walt, stop at nothing to vilify our best ally in the ME, Israel. One would ask why would they go to such extent as to distort the truth? Indeed their hatred for Israel/Jews eclipses decency and rational, sadly to say in this era.

This article is completely anti-semitic and the fact that it made it into The Dartmouth is appalling. Our relationship with the Middle East is far more complicated than how Casler describes it. This argument isn’t rooted in facts and to say that Jews determine elections is just plain ridiculous when Jews only make up 2% of the electorate.

I have never been more ashamed of the D or its affiliation as a Dartmouth organization. The printing of a poorly researched opinion article that spews anti-Israel slogans while hinting at a greater jewish conspiracy is unacceptable.

Dartmouth should be ashamed that The D would print such an offensive, bigoted screed based on discredited work that borders on a paranoid replay of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. If Casper is an example of the product of a Dartmouth education, something is grossly amiss at the college on the hill.

An outraged ‘83

This is a really embarrassingly anti-Semitic article Don. The D should issue an apology for having printed it.

“the broad coalition that composes the Israel lobby wields an incredible and alarming amount of influence at various levels of American society”

Hmm. A secret but pervasive conspiracy of Jews threatening our national security. Where have I heard this before?

Don is making a good point with, unfortunately, a poorly written column. Yes, many Americans seem to believe the ridiculous notion that Israel can do no wrong and Palestine can do no right in the ongoing conflict, and our foreign policy is unduly skewed by this fantasy. And I have to be amused at all the comments calling Don an anti-Semite: just the latest incarnation of our Dartmouth PC police trying to stifle free speech by shouting down their opponents' legitimate arguments with charges of racism. However, the column misses several important points, such as the role of the Christian evangelical movement in promoting the “Israel lobby”; it’s certainly not just a Jewish movement, nor is it confined to a small segment of the population. And suggesting that American support for Israel is the main cause of terrorism comes across very badly. If supporting Israel is the morally right thing to do, should we stop doing it just because it upsets murderous terrorists?

Broadly speaking, there are only two races on the face of this earth: the jewish people (descendants of Noah’s son, Shem, known as theshemites) and the gentiles (descendants of Noah’s sons Ham (who was cursed by Noah) and Japheth).

As Olive Schreiner, South African novelist and social activist wrote “…The gentile nations of the world has decided once again to go out of ‘their’ way in order to find a stick to hit the Jews. The goal of the gentiles (roughly 6.8Billion of them)is to prove that the Jews (about 15Million of them) are as immoral and guilty of massacre and genocide as they themselves are.

“All this in order to hide and justify their own failure to even protest when Six Million Jews were brought to the slaughterhouses of Auschwitz and Dachau; so as to wipe out the moral conscience of which the Jews remind them, and they found a stick. Nothing could be more gratifying for them than to find the Jews in a struggle with another people (who are completely terrorized by their own leaders) against whom the Jews, against their best wishes, have to defend themselves in order to survive. With great satisfaction, the world allows and initiates the rewriting of history so as to fuel the rage of yet another people against the Jews. This in spite of the fact that the nations understand very well that peace between the parties could have come a long time ago, if only the Jews would have had a fair chance. Instead, they happily jumped on the wagon of hate so as to justify their jealousy of the Jews and their incompetence to deal with their own moral issues. When Jews look at the bizarre play taking place in The Hague, they can only smile as this artificial game once more proves how the world paradoxically admits the Jews' uniqueness. It is in their need to undermine the Jews that they actually raise them.”

The Dartmouth should be embarrassed. To add one more the the barrage of negative responses: How on Earth can you possibly claim that:

“Furthermore, entities with the power to shape public debate, including major American newspapers like The Wall Street Journal and think tanks like the Brookings Institution, staunchly defend American support for Israel. Their stance further narrows the range of dialogue”?

Dialogue means that people exist on both sides of the issue. The fact that two powerful institution take one side of it has no bearing on whether the dialogue is “stifled.”

I don’t think the column is anti-Semitic; I think it’s incredibly stupid.

To the anonymous post saying “A secret but pervasive conspiracy of Jews threatening our national security. Where have I heard this before?”

You can hear it on all your major news networks on any topic regarding American Muslims.

The United States, like all strong and proud nations, places its own national interests at the forefront of policy decisions. It is because America looks after our own national interests that we support our most important ally in the Middle East with whom we share the values of democracy, freedom of speech, religion and the press, and equal rights for women and minorities. Israel is a strong partner to the U.S. in our fight against terrorism.

I am appalled that the D printed a poorly substantiated vilification of Israel and American Jewry masquerading as a piece about Middle East policy. To refute Casler’s many half-truths and distortions, not to mention his reliance on two of the most discredited pseudo-academics in this country for his “facts” would lend too much credit to his attempt to poison open and honest debate at Dartmouth.

In reality, the independent Gallup organization regularly records strong majorities of Americans supporting Israel. Their most recent polling on the issue shows 63% of respondents saying their sympathies lie with the Israelis. (http://www.gallup.com/poll/146408/Americans-Maintain-Broad-Support-Israel.aspx)

Casler’s blame-the-victim mentality, in suggesting that Americans are somehow at fault for the horrific acts of terror that struck our homeland in September 2011 and have continued to kill American troops and civilians abroad “largely because [the U.S.] is so closely allied with Israel” is outrageous and offensive in the extreme. Does he also blame pledges for the hazing problem on campus?

Mr. Casler and others who seek to delegitimize Israel refer to some nefarious cabal of Jews or liberals or media figures conspiring to silence debate. Yet they continue to speak freely enough to publish this sort of rubbish. Shame on you, Mr. Casler, and shame on the D.