It was publicized as much as any book about foreign policy would be. It was reviewed in Foreign Affairs and NY Times among others.
Are you referring to the book published in August 2007, or to the essay which was released in March 2006? I was aware of the release of the essay almost immediately and know first hand of the criticisms that were circulating concerning the lack of publicizing it here in the states. The NY Times did belatedly catch on and gave the essay a blatantly biased negative review afterward. The book, on the other hand, was a NY Times Best Seller. They HAD to review it. They had no choice.
Excerpt from:
Breaking the Taboo: Why We Took On the Israel Lobby _ October 16, 2007
Interview with John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
http://www.alternet.org/story/65271
“The article received enormous attention because it challenged what had become a taboo issue in mainstream foreign policy circles, namely the impact of the Israel lobby on U.S. Middle East policy......Although
the views we expressed are often discussed openly in other democracies --
including Israel itself --
they have rarely been set forth in detail by mainstream figures in the United States....”
Maybe they desperately need to become enightened about the AARP lobby, the NAACP lobby, the Big Agra lobby, the Cuban-American, Armenian-American, Taiwan lobbies as well. Lobbying is part of the American way of doing government. If they (Mearsheimer and Walt) want to abolish all lobbying they should say so. But they don't. They only whine about the Israel lobby.
More excerpts from the same interview:
“....The Israel lobby uses the same basic strategies that other interest groups employ......These various strategies are as American as apple pie, and there is nothing illegitimate about them. Yet it ought to be equally legitimate to examine and discuss how the Israel lobby works to push its agenda in government, and to debate whether its influence is beneficial, the same way that one might examine other interest groups like the gun lobby, the farm lobby, the pharmaceutical lobby, the energy lobby, and other ethnic lobbies (e.g., Cuban-Americans, Indian-Americans, Armenian-Americans, etc.)...Although most of the lobby's tactics are legitimate forms of political participation,
some groups and individuals in the lobby also try to silence or marginalize opponents and critics by smearing them as anti-Semites or self-hating Jews. This sort of response was evident in the
personal attacks directed at Jimmy Carter for writing a controversial book about Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories, and in the efforts of the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League to prevent the historian Tony Judt from giving a lecture on the Israel lobby to a group in New York City. True anti-Semitism is loathsome and should be firmly opposed, but
using this sort of accusation to silence or marginalize critics is antithetical to the principles of free speech and open debate on which democracy depends....”
[Q] “Do you think the upcoming 2008 presidential campaign will provide a chance for the Israel lobby's influence to be discussed?”
[A] “Regrettably, no. The candidates will undoubtedly disagree on a wide array of domestic and foreign-policy issues: health care, education, taxes, the environment, what to do in Iraq, how to deal with a rising China, etc. But the one issue on which
there will be virtually no debate is the question of whether the United States should continue to give Israel unconditional backing. Even though almost everyone recognizes that U.S Middle East policy is a disaster, no serious candidate is going to suggest anything other than steadfast and largely unconditional support for Israel. Indeed, all the major candidates (Clinton, Edwards, McCain, Obama, Romney, etc.) have already expressed their strong and uncritical backing for Israel, even though the campaign is just getting underway.
Not only is this situation bad for the United States, it is also not good for Israel. The United States would be a better ally if its leaders could make support for Israel more conditional and if they could give their Israeli counterparts more candid and critical advice without facing a backlash from the Israel lobby.”
I'm thinking of starting a thread on 'The Israel Lobby' over on the political forum. There's no doubt that this issue will be a very prominent one between now and the general elections in 2012.
