A debate about Israel and the U.S. in New York City

[Mickey Brausch]

In March 2006 the literary magazine "London Review of Books" published John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's essay 'The Israel Lobby'. There was an extraordinary response to the article, and very passionate too, from both sides of the argument, which prompted the LRB to hold a debate under the heading 'The Israel lobby: does it have too much influence on American foreign policy?'

The debate took place in New York on 28 September in the Great Hall of the Cooper Union. The event was greatly oversubscribed, but there is a video of the event, now available online. Click here to view the debate.

Panelists:

John Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the co-director of the Program on International Security Policy at the University of Chicago.
Shlomo Ben-Ami is a former Israeli foreign and security minister and the author of Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy.
Martin Indyk is Director of the Haim Saban Center for Middle East Policy and Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution.
Tony Judt is Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European Studies and Director of the Remarque Institute at New York University.
Rashid Khalidi is Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University.
Dennis Ross is Counsellor and Ziegler Distinguished Fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the author of The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace.

Moderator:

Anne-Marie Slaughter is Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Bert G. Kerstetter ‘66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University.

It's usually educational to listen to intelligent and educated persons engaging in civilised dialogue. (I found it to be so, although the partisanship of the audience, eg clapping some panelists, was just a bit offputting. But an interesting and somber debate nevertheless. A rarity nowdays.)

Mickey Brausch