US-Israel Relations and Aid

May 25, 2006

Mike Wallace’s Middle East Problem

As Mike Wallace nears retirement, virtually all the retrospectives so far on his 43-year career at CBS News recall his reputation for tough interviews and the ability to get the story.  The reputation may be deserved, in general, but at least one subject has tripped up the "60 Minutes" veteran continually over the years — Israel.
May 19, 2006

NPR Coddles Hamas

A segment airing on May 9th about U.S. policy towards Hamas typifies the one-sided NPR focus on critics of Israel. Interviewer Mike Shuster and his guests sanitize the Hamas-dominated Palestinian Authority while falsely equating Israeli and Hamas' attitudes toward peace.
April 19, 2006

Tony Judt, the New York Times, and the anti-Israel bandwagon

Whom did the New York Times choose to write an op-ed about the controversy over claims by two academics that the "Israel Lobby" distorts U.S. foreign policy to the detriment of U.S. interests? None other than Tony Judt, who has called Israel an "anachronism" which should be done away with.

March 30, 2006

Will the real John Mearsheimer please stand up?

Professor John Mearsheimer recently coauthored a very controversial study charging that the "Israel lobby" played a critical role in the decision to go to war against Saddam's Iraq, with Jewish officials including Paul Wolfowitz supposedly acting in the interest of Israel rather than the U.S. But just 15 months ago Mearsheimer stated the opposite, saying that Wolfowitz in particular acted in good faith, believing in his "heart of hearts" that "Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and that he was joined at the hip with Osama Biin Laden." In other words, Prof. Mearsheimer has some explaining to do.
March 22, 2006

Harvard Backs Away from “Israel Lobby” Professors; Removes Logo from Controversial Paper

A widely criticized report by Harvard professor Stephen Walt and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer that faults the "Israel lobby" for allegedly distorting the foreign policy of the United States to the detriment of U.S. interests, no longer sports the Harvard logos that previously appeared on its front page, and instead carries a devastating disclaimer from the two universities.

March 20, 2006

Study Decrying “Israel Lobby” Marred by Numerous Errors

A new study by Harvard professor Stephen Walt and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer charges, with no legitimate evidence and many errors, that the "Israel lobby" has distorted the foreign policy of the United States to the point of serious damage to U.S. interests. (Updated April 3, 2006)

February 1, 2006

Sharon Stroke Coverage: The Washington Post Stumbles

Historians will have to treat the Post's first- and second-day coverage of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Jan. 4 stroke skeptically. Glenn Kessler's analysis repeatedly misrepresents U.S.-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy. The Post's editorial commenting on Sharon's incapacitation is superficial and mistaken. Scott Wilson's news articles misleads on fundamentals of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
January 31, 2006

Hastings’ Mideast Expert Wrong on U.S. Aid

In a recent Op-Ed, George Bisharat, a professor at UC Hastings College of the Law, vastly overstated U.S. aid to Israel and entirely misrepresented Arab and Jewish demographics in Jerusalem.
January 27, 2006

Discredited Qumsiyeh at Center of Davos Fracas

Mazin Qumsiyeh, a former Yale University associate professor of genetics, frequently publishes Op-Eds relying on misinformation to make his case for the replacement of Israel with a "binational state." According to today's New York Times, Qumsiyeh is now at the center of an uproar at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos for penning a magazine article calling for an international boycott of Israel and accusing Israel of "apartheid" practices.
January 23, 2006

Partisanship in the Guardian’s Middle East Coverage

In recent years, some have accused the Guardian of fueling hostility towards the Jewish state through its unbalanced reporting of events in the Middle East. The coverage by Brian Whitaker, who has served as the paper's Middle East Editor since May 1999 and contributes articles for Guardian Unlimited, the internet edition of the Guardian, as well as the Guardian paper, is representative of the paper's perspective.