Geo Political Risk

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The Israel Lobby with John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt | Outside the Box Podcast Apr 18, 2024

9:13 So one way you shape policy is by shaping who's in the key jobs and you see that in the Biden Administration the way Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has openly declared himself to be a longtime Zionist etc has reacted to this series of events.

The second thing you see is efforts by people who are in the lobby and lobbying groups to condemn anyone who is critical of what Israel is doing. So just to take one very visible example the director of film Zone of Interest who won the Academy Award and then gave a speech saying that his Jewish identity shouldn't be hijacked and the history of the Holocaust shouldn't be hijacked to defend what Israel is doing now. He immediately faces a firestorm of criticism for being critical of what Israel is doing as well.
And that's all designed to try and shape how Americans are viewing the conflict and are shaping American policy.

10:48 It's important to distinguish between the mainstream media and the alternative media when we talk about the lobby’s efforts to influence, maybe even control the discourse in the mainstream media. The lobby is very effective and all you have to do is look at the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. The Wall Street Journal supports Israel down the line, it supports the Netanyahu government down the line. There is hardly ever any meaningful criticism of Israel in the Wall Street Journal. It's quite remarkable and this has been the case for a long time and if you look at the New York Times. The two key people on the editorial page who write about Israel are Tom Fredman and Brett Stevens and both of them are deeply committed Zionists, who are deeply committed to defending Israel as best they can.

12:35 Israel gets portrayed in a very favorable light as a result of the composition of writers on New York Times editorial page. And you get occasional voices on the other side.

When you look at all these alternative media platforms and you look at the discourse in that realm regarding Israel it is fundamentally different than what you see in the mainstream media.
There are huge numbers of pundits and intellectuals and former policy makers who are critical of Israel. They just can't get their voice heard in the mainstream media but you can get your voice heard in the alternative media and this is a huge problem for the lobby and they are scrambling to do everything they can to control the media and you see this most clearly with regard to TikTok. There's no question that the lobby is going to enormous length to shut down TikTok because TikTok is filled with pieces that are critical of Israel. And lots of young people get their news from TikTok not from the Wall Street Journal or from the New York Times and therefore unsurprisingly you see much more criticism of Israel among young people than you do among older people.

16:38 The Grayzone is a very important alternative media outlet and on the whole subject of the rape charge on October 7^th. Israel and its supporters have maintained that there was a systematic rape of Israelis on October 7th by Hamas and others who came into Israel from Gaza. And people who work for the Grayzone have gone to great lengths to show that there is no evidence of systematic rape on October 7th despite what Israel and its supporters say. So you actually have this real battle that takes place inside the United States regarding what happened with regard to the systematic rape charge on October 7^th. You would not have that debate if there were no alternative media. If the mainstream media controlled the discourse about what happened on October 7th there would be no reason to question whether there had been systematic rape on October 7^th.

So in terms of shaping the discourse just on the October 7th and current Gaza crisis the perspective from The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post would be unprovoked attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians, 1,200 Israelis murdered, crimes like the systematic use of sexual violence and rape were part and parcel of Hamas's strategy and the taking of hostages. I would just add to that also the sense that it, the history began on October 7^th, that the previous 40 or 50 years of Israeli Palestinian relations are irrelevant.

The fact that the Palestinians have been treated in a remarkably brutal fashion for a long, long time. You remember the fundamental issue here is the fact that you have roughly seven and a half million Palestinian Arabs and roughly 7 and a half million Israeli Jews essentially cohabitating or comingled within the same territory. So controlled by Israel but with these two roughly equal populations where one population is largely denied all political rights or has its rights severely infringed and the other one rules supremely and that's the political issue and that goes back to the founding of the state of Israel actually and certainly since 1967 on the West Bank and in Gaza. What the popular discourse of this would like to say well this horrible thing happened on October 7th.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taXIbXYt6YY
The Israel Lobby with John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt | Outside the Box Podcast Apr 18, 2024

20:12 Let's be clear, what Hamas did is in my view a war crime, attacking innocent civilians but that's not the where this history started. This history started well before that and if you just read the Israeli accounts of this they would like to start the clock on October 7th and deal with those events without talking about the more fundamental political problems that lie beneath it.
Whenever you get into discussions about what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians after October 7th Israel and its supporters try to bring you back to October 7^th.

So from Israel's point of view and its defenders point of view the name of the game is to focus exclusively on what happened on October 7th and furthermore to make all sorts of charges against Hamas that make it look like they are extreme barbarians. And this is not to say that the Hamas did not commit what we would call war crimes on October 7^th. I'm not denying that but the number of charges that have been made against Hamas for what it did on October 7th that are not correct or quite significant and this involves the rape charge, the beheading of baby, the argument that women had babies cut out of their womb and so forth and so on.

Further it's important to understand that a good number a good number of the Israelis who were killed on October 7th were killed by Israelis because the Israelis invoked the Hannibal Doctrine on October 7th and the Hannibal Doctrine says that from Israel's point of view it is unacceptable for Hamas or the Palestinians to capture Israelis and hold them as hostage and in those instances it makes more sense to kill the Israelis who are possible hostages rather than allow Hamas to take them back into Gaza. So the Israelis actually killed a good number of Israel citizens on October 7^th. We don't know what the number is and I'm not implying that the majority of Israelis who were killed that day were killed by the IDF. There is nevertheless evidence that the IDF did kill a good number of Israelis.

We'd like to know what that number is. We'd like to have some sort of systematic analysis of who was raped and whether or not there was a campaign of rape on the part of Hamas.

But Israel up to now has had a vested interest in making the argument that the Palestinians alone killed huge numbers of civilians and they committed crimes like beheading babies, beheading women and so forth and so on that really don't bear up if you look at what's being said in the alternative media media.
At least a third of the Israelis who were killed in the Hamas attack were IDF soldiers or security personnel, not exactly civilians.

If you look at international law there's no question that the Palestinians have a right to resist. And resistance involves killing military personnel on the other side, killing the occupiers so you I don't think you can make the argument that what Hamas did in terms of killing Israeli military personnel violates international law. I think it does not but there's no question that killing innocent civilians is a violation of international law.
But there's also no question that Palestinian according to international law have a right to resist the occupation.

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The Israel Lobby with John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt | Outside the Box Podcast Apr 18, 2024

26:19 I said earlier that one of the key things is to make sure that people who are sympathetic don't get important jobs and there have been a number of cases in the past where people have been nominated for important positions and then ran afoul of the lobby. For example, President Obama wanted to nominate or wanted to appoint Chaz Freeman a very experienced knowledgeable American Diplomat to head the National Intelligence Council but because Freeman had been critical of Israel in a number of contexts in the past it was clear he was going to face terrible opposition on Capitol Hill and eventually he withdrew the nomination.

Another good example would be Samantha Power, both Chuck Hegel and Power were regarded as somewhat suspect by key groups in the lobby because of things they had said previously and they basically had to go up on Capitol Hill and contort themselves into a pretzel talking about how supportive of Israel they were in order to get confirmed into government positions. That actually though points to a critical aspect of the power of groups like AIPAC and others and we haven't talked about it yet and that's basically their role in American elections. AIPAC is not a PAC, a political action committee. It does not give money directly but it has influence over a number of existing PACs. It's actually helped create some independent PACs and it guides where that money goes. In fact it often asks congressional candidates to answer a questioner and fill out how they feel about Middle East issues to know if they're going to be certified as appropriate for support and of course everyone running for congress knows this. That there's a lot of money that can either go to their opponents or can go to them as long as they're supportive of Israel and of course once they're on the AIPAC payroll or the payroll of the lobby for campaign contributions then they'll also weigh in on issues like Gaza, they'll weigh in on appointments etc and there's many, many examples of the influence that AIPACs been able to have over members of Congress.

28:43 You see this of course in in Biden's response to Gaza and in some respects Joe Biden is in a terrible position where he's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. If he supports Israel to the hilt which is pretty much what he's done he's alienating Arab Americans which is going to hurt him in some key States like Michigan and he's also alienating progressives on the left of the Democratic party who aren't going to be as enthusiastic, may vote for others, they may just stay home in the presidential election, so he's hurt by that politically.
But if he goes the other way if he starts putting lots of pressure on Israel if he withdraws American support suspends military aid then he's going to lose support from Israel's supporters and in particular from people who give large sums of money. Nobody knows exactly what these numbers are but it is widely understood that American Jews particularly American Jews who are strongly committed to Israel give a lot of money in American political campaigns.

This has happened for many, many years it's I think well understood and it's one of the key sources of a lobby's power, like other interest groups in American politics that have deep pockets. And politicians understand that if you go up against big Pharma, if you go up against the National Rifle Association, if you go up against the farm lobby you're going to make your life much more difficult than it would be if you go along. And because there's no countervailing force on the other side here, there's no Arab American lobby with similar resources similar deep pockets, the average politician who doesn't care one way or the other about Middle East issues knows what the smart political choice is.

33:44 The fact is that by supporting Israel unconditionally we have gotten ourselves into a lot of trouble all you have to do is look at what's happening in Gaza. Joe Biden fully understands that he is in deep trouble, that the United States is in deep trouble in the Middle East and that's because of the Israel Lobby. The Israel Lobby makes it almost impossible for Joe Biden to get tough with Israel when in fact Joe Biden wants to get tough with Israel because he thinks it's in the American national interest to do that. So, if Joe Biden didn't have to deal with the lobby and if Joe Biden was free to act as a realist in terms of the present conflict the United States would be in much better shape.

34:53 One key point here of course is that the United States is a very unusual country, extraordinarily powerful, extraordinarily secure, realism is a theory that talks about all the constraints that states face living in a world of anarchy but the United States particularly in the unipolar moment was at least partly insulated from a lot of those things. It could afford to do dumb things right because it was in such a privileged position overall so that's not the fact that the United States allow its foreign policy to be shaped in powerful ways by the lobby does it's not entirely inconsistent with the realist perspective.Again because we're so powerful we can do certain things.

If you don't follow realist precepts you're going to pay a price for it. The system is going to punish you in in a variety of ways and I think we've seen that. We're certainly seen that in Gaza now where much of the world and especially the global South thinks the United States is behaving in a reprehensible fashion and that's going to make it more difficult to elicit cooperation from them. But also and this is something we talked about at great length in our book the lobby was involved in a lot of other major foreign policy mistakes. Possibly the most controversial argument in the book was our claim that the lobby, and in particular the neoconservative movement was instrumental in driving the United States to attack Iraq in 2003. It was not the only reason why the United States attacked Iraq, George W Bush ultimately made that decision etc but it was a critical part of the story. And if you don't understand the role that the lobby played in helping persuade Bush to do that and then helping sell the idea to the American people so it had some public support you don't understand how we got involved in a war that cost us thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.

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The Israel Lobby with John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt | Outside the Box Podcast Apr 18, 2024

36:52 You could also argue that the lobby has made it virtually impossible for American governments to try and improve the relationship with Iran. Iran has tried repeatedly going back to the 1990s to try and lower the temperature with the United States, reach out to us in a variety of ways and every time that happens the lobby has mobilized to make sure the United States kept Iran as isolated as possible. The lobby was strongly opposed to the nuclear deal with Iran in in 2015 as well. So one of the reasons we have this horribly unproductive relationship with Iran is the influence of the Israel Lobby. It's not to say Iran hasn't done some dumb things that have made this more difficult as well but the point is American policy on Iraq back in 2003, on Iran ever since the revolution etc would be substantially different if the United States, if American policy makers didn't have groups like AIPAC and others leaning over their shoulder and pushing them in other directions.

38:04 If you look at the situation in the Middle East today one of the big questions that immediately pops out is who is responsible for creating this disastrous situation and when we talk about this disastrous situation. We're not simply talking about Gaza. We're talking about what's happening on Israel's northern border with regard to Hezbollah, we're talking about the war that the United States is now in with the Houthis, we're talking about the fact that the United States is being attacked by groups in both Iraq and Syria. So what's the basic cause of all of this trouble in the greater Middle East? And if you read what Israel and its supporters say they blame Iran. Iran is the master puppeteer and what Hamas did was obey Iran's dictates and attack Israel on October 7^th. What Hezbollah is doing is evidence of Iran waging war against Israel and so forth and so on the Houthis are always identified with Iran. Iran is the master puppeteer and therefore Iran is principally responsible for the disasters that we now see in the Middle East.

39:30 The alternative scenario is that Israel is responsible. It's largely a result of the occupation that the Palestinians attacked Israel on October 7^th. Hezbollah has made it clear that it is responding to what's going on in Gaza and if the war in Gaza stops Hezbollah would stop attacking Israel. The same thing is true with the Houthis and so forth and so on. So you have two possible interpretations of which country is principally responsible for driving conflict in the Middle East Iran or Israel.

In my opinion the evidence is overwhelming that Israel is principally responsible for this disaster and it is the occupation, it is the fact that Israel has become an apartheid state and this is why every president since Jimmy Carter has gone to significant lengths to try to create a two-state solution because they understood that if you didn't have a two-state solution you'd have a first intifada, a second intifada and October 7th but of course because of the lobby it's been almost impossible for any president to make any progress in terms of getting a two-state solution. And the end result is you have these various disasters in the Middle East today that are tied to the occupation and there is in my opinion little evidence that Iran is the master puppeteer and responsible for all these conflicts that are now going on.

I'm somewhat optimistic about this but you know we're a political system that was sort of designed not to change radically. You could certainly change a lot if you ended uh the way campaigns are financed but that's an enormous issue not likely to happen anytime time soon.

Here's why I'm optimistic I'll point to two things. One we've already talked about and that is that a discourse has changed I mean for us when we first wrote the original article and then the book to even bring up the Israel Lobby in public in explicit ways and talk about how it operated was very controversial, using the phrase was controversial, that's not true anymore. People across the political spectrum will talk openly about the political clout that AIPAC has you know we've talked about the New York Times New York Times had a bit big article a couple of weeks ago on how the lobby is facing more difficulties now in trying to defend the situation in Gaza so we've in some respects helped legitimate having a conversation about the political influence of these various groups in ways that what didn't happen before. We wanted to break that taboo and I think that's been accomplished.

43:33 Second, because there are now more media outlets as John described information is flowing to people in ways that it didn't before. And finally and this is related to that there is a huge generational change going on here right people who are much younger than John or I have grown up with a very different experience of the US Israeli relationship. Their experience of Israel is not 1948, it's not making the desert bloom in the 1950s, it's not what we sometimes call the Leon Uris school of Israeli history. What they see is the occupation, they see the oppression of one group by another and many younger Americans see it through that particular frame even if they don't have any particular interest in the Middle East per se. So I think generational change is also driving a change in attitudes and that's ultimately going to shape what happens in the political system as well because people in Congress are going to have to pay attention to the votes of people who are in their 20s and 30s and 40s once people like John and I have left the stage along with lots of people who are sort of instinctively supportive of Israel.

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The Israel Lobby with John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt | Outside the Box Podcast Apr 18, 2024

44:55 I think there's no question that the discourse has changed. I think that Steve and I played a key role in changing the discourse when we wrote first the article and then the book but the discourse can change. But the really important question is whether policy actually changes and I think we would all agree that there has not been a significant change in American policy towards Israel. The lobby remains remarkably powerful.

There's no question that in the body politic views about Israel especially among younger people have changed significantly.

45:48 There's much less sympathy for Israel among younger people than there used to be and again this is why the lobby is so interested with shutting down Tiktok. But the question you have to ask yourself is whether or not that's going to matter at the elite level because the elite level is where policy is formulated and executed and what you have is a situation where I believe the lobby remains extremely effective at influencing how policy makers think and act towards Israel even though down below the discourse has caused a change. The discourse has changed in fundamental ways. The question you have to ask yourself is whether you believe that if the discourse changes even more moving forward that change down below will manifest itself in important ways up at the policy level or do you believe in contrast that the lobby will be able to keep policy makers in line despite what's happening down below.

I obviously hope that what happens down below puts pressure on people at the top and they change policy I'm not terribly optimistic probably more pessimistic than Steve that's point number one.

47:13 Point number two is one could make an argument that what you see happening here is that as time goes by the Democratic party is becoming more hostile to Israel and the Republican party is becoming more supportive of Israel and one could make an argument that at some point down the road you will have a real difference of opinion on what our policy should be towards Israel between Democrats in one on one hand and Republicans on the other hand.

It's very important to understand that 50% of the people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 this is 50% believe that the Israelis are committing genocide in Gaza that's a really stunning figure. There is a great deal of hostility inside the Democratic party towards the lobby and towards Israel and one can argue that if Joe Biden is defeated in November and people attribute that defeat in part or maybe in good part to the Lobby's efforts, in Israel's efforts to undermine Biden's policies toward the Middle East during this crisis that that will have serious consequences for the Democratic party's relationship with Israel and with the lobby moving forward. I'm not making the argument that that's going to happen for sure but one does not want to underestimate what the potential consequences are of this crisis for the future of relations between the United States and Israel. This is not just the minor crisis this is a crisis of huge proportions that has not played itself out yet and how it does play itself out remains to be seen. And I'm just saying I would not be surprised if the Democratic party becomes much more hostile towards Israel in the future that had than it has been in recent years.

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The Israel Lobby with John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt | Outside the Box Podcast Apr 18, 2024

49:24 Two recent developments - one is the majority leader in the Senate Chuck Schumer's recent comments which many people think were constituted unprecedented criticism of a sitting Israeli Prime Minister. And then most recently the Biden administration's 180 degree about face on calling for an immediate ceasefire at the United Nations. Is this evidence that the Democratic party may be at a glacial pace but perceptibly moving in a different direction?

What's very interesting in this regard and supports what I said a few minutes ago is that Mike Johnson who is the speaker of the House has hinted if not said that he plans to invite Netanyahu to speak before Congress. This is really quite remarkable and by the way it shows you how dysfunctional American foreign policy is but the Biden Administration has effectively made it clear that it would like to see Netanyahu replaced as prime minister of Israel. Chuck Schumer explicitly said that and Biden has in effect endorsed what Chuck Schumer said. This is the Democratic party interfering in electoral politics inside of Israel and it shows you how desperate the Democrats are to put an end to this war. On the other hand the Republicans see this as an opportunity to drive a wedge between Democrats and Israel and push Israel and its supporters into the Republican column and this is why I said relations between the Democratic party and Israel could change in significant ways over time.

I think first of all Schumer's speech which is really a remarkable development given where he has been throughout his political career and Schumer is a very sort of ear to the ground, connected to local politics in lots of ways. I think it's a sign that he understands that opinion is shifting. Second, I think that this was a speech that in my view probably did not happen without the White House being aware that he was going to give it. I'm sure he cleared this with the White House and of course they've been looking to find whatever ways they could to signal their displeasure with Netanyahu government. And this was a way of doing it without having Blinken or Biden having to come out and say it but it clearly sent that signal but I also think that this reflects a view a genuine view and I think Schumer probably shares this that Netanyahu's handling of the events in Gaza has been a disaster for Israel. I think Schumer was sincere when he said this leadership is bad for Israel. I'm someone who loves Israel I'm as pro-Israel as any member of the Senate and I think that what the Israeli government is doing is ultimately harmful to Israel so you know it's a form of tough love I guess and of course many Israelis believe that too .

52:55 There is the argument that one of the reasons Netanyahu wants the war to continue and is continuing to pursue it is that he understands that once you get a ceasefire, once you get peace the day of reckoning for him is coming quickly given how unpopular he is, given how some of his actions undoubtedly made October 7th more likely etc and of course the war itself has been an enormous black eye to Israel's image. I think Schumer believes all of those things and so for him to give that speech makes sense.

Just one final point though there is a strategy you see now deployed all over the place and it bears noting which is that to blame this entirely on Netanyahu that if we just had a different Israeli Prime Minister, if we get you know somebody else in there then this problem would go away and I think that's naive right because Israeli public opinion mostly supports what Netanyahu is doing. They don't like him very much anymore, but they're supporting the war up until now and Netanyahu is the most moderate member of his cabinet. So, you're not going to see a sea change in Israeli policy, you're not going to see a sudden embracing of a two-state solution if Benjamin Netanyahu left office tomorrow.

And the focus on Netanyahu is a way of distracting everybody from the fact that there's much more fundamental structural and political issues involved within Israel itself, deep divisions increasingly a hard line and very unsympathetic especially in the wake of October 7th to doing anything to address the Palestinian issue.

I would just say you cannot emphasize enough the importance of what Steve just said I mean this argument that you hear among many of Israelis among many of Israel's supporters in the United States that Benjamin Netanyahu is the problem and if only get we get rid of him everything will be okay is simply wrong. He is not on the right hand side of the political spectrum in his cabinet and he's the moderate voice in the Coalition.

You remember recently Benny Gantz who is a very key figure in the war cabinet and a deep opponent of Netanyahu came to the United States. And the United States or the Biden Administration was expecting that Gantz would distance himself from Netanyahu on the key policy issues of the day and what actually happened is that Gantz made it clear that he agreed with Netanyahu completely on what Israel was doing vis a vis the Palestinians and the idea that if you got rid of Netanyahu and put Gantz in his place that Israel policy would change was not true. Gantz was shoulder-to-shoulder with Netanyahu on what the right policy was for dealing with the Palestinians and of as time goes by Israel will become more hardline on the Palestinian issue and not simply because of what happened on October 7th and subsequently but also because the political center of gravity in Israel has been moving steadily to the right over time and there is no reason to think that it won't continue to move more and more to the right over time and all of this tells you that the Israel Lobby is going to have to work harder and harder over time to keep this present relationship between the United States in and Israel intact.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taXIbXYt6YY
The Israel Lobby with John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt | Outside the Box Podcast Apr 18, 2024

57:48 I just got back from India yesterday and there's no question that huge numbers of Indians believe our basic argument about the lobby. That's certainly true in China and all sorts of other countries which one would categorize these days as the global South. It's certainly true in the Middle East outside of Israel and I would argue that inside of Israel our basic argument is appreciated by or understood by many Israelis. They understand the importance of the lobby and they're quite blunt in talking about that influence. The place where you're going to run into the most resistance is obviously the United States and Western Europe. Those are the two places where there'll be significant resistance to our argument but that's not to say that in the United States and in Western Europe there aren't a lot of people who identify with our argument.

Anybody who'd ever worked on Capitol Hill understood how this operated and you could talk to staffers and they would tell you stories some of which we used in the book as well so it was it was widely understood. I had a colleague who said that to me once that we got in trouble for saying that APAC and others were extremely good at doing exactly what APAC and others said they were trying to do so

And lots of former American politicians once they left office, once they retired would talk rather candidly about what it was like to face pressure from the lobby. So, we weren't saying anything that didn't resonate with lots of people's experiences. The point is that people didn't want to say it out loud because there would be professional consequences.

Fortunately, John and I were in a position that we could do this. We could write this without losing our jobs, without having our futures completely turned upside down. And one of the reasons we did it was that we were in a position to say what many people believed but for their own reasons had chosen not to say out loud. And the position you were in is as tenured endowed professors at two of the nation's leading academic institutions.

1:02:36 In addition I think the thing that makes it really difficult is the long history of anti-Semitism in the Christian West and things like the protocols of the Elders of Zion these various conspiracy theories about how Jews had magical powers to influence politics, they've secretly controlled the world in a variety of ways and they did it you know in all sorts of nefarious fashions for their own dastardly purposes.

That is a horrible history it led obviously to many tragic events in the world most notably the Holocaust and when you have that as the backdrop right then anyone who comes in and talks about the political influence of not just as we made it clear not just American Jews but groups that are heavily populated by Jews who cared a lot about Israel for all sorts of obvious reasons once you start bringing that up once you start talking about the mechanisms by which these groups operate you're inevitably going to trigger the sense that maybe you're making some kind of anti-Semitic argument.

It's also true that groups in the lobby have used the accusation of anti-Semitism as a way to marginalize, smear, silence, deter people as well and we wrestled with this a lot just and made it clear that we were not talking about a cabal. We were not talking about a conspiracy. We were talking about interest group politics again as American as apple pie we used to say but you were inevitably I think going to face those kinds of accusations partly because of this centuries long history but also because it was a very effective way of trying to marginalize people and get the others not to pay attention to what we were saying.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taXIbXYt6YY
The Israel Lobby with John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt | Outside the Box Podcast Apr 18, 2024

48:46 You just don't want to underestimate how effective the lobby is. I mean I have enormous respect for the lobby in the sense that these are remarkably smart and clever individuals who work overtime, who are relentless about pushing the United States in a pro-Israel direction and they are just really good at what they do, they have resources, they have smarts and on and on, so you just don't want to lose sight of the fact that this is a really formidable bunch of individuals and groups that understand how the American political system works and have been profoundly effective at influencing American policy towards the Middle East and in particular American policy toward Israel as anybody who's followed the Israel Lobby controversy over the last 18 years knows .

1:06:49 I would just add to that I think it's very important in a liberal democracy to make it work that you have institutions where you have particular groups of people who are free to speak truth to power, who are free to make controversial arguments and not be punished in a truly serious way. I believe that this is why freedom of the press is so important. You want to have a media that's filled with people who are free to criticize the government. This is not to say they won't make foolish or wrong-headed statements from time to time that may be true, but you want institutions that can critique the powers to be.

With regard to me and Steve we are tenured professors at elite universities. The reason that we have tenure is so that we are free to make critical comments about US foreign policy or US domestic policy without losing our job. So I believe that we have an ethical responsibility to make controversial arguments.

Of course we have to think that those controversial arguments are true and in the case of the lobby Steve and I believed what we said. We thought there was a huge amount of empirical evidence that supported our argument and we made it. We understood full well from the get-go that we were going to pay a certain price for this. That there was going to be an enormous amount of criticism of course until that wave of criticism hit us I don't think we fully appreciated how big the wave would be but nevertheless we knew that we would be attacked for writing the original article and then writing the book but we did it because I think we felt that we had a social responsibility as tenured professors to speak out on this issue in what I think was a level-headed way.

We thought there were important policy issues at play here that needed to be addressed and that people were ignoring or not talking about in large part because it was so controversial and they would get into so much trouble so we decided that we would write the article. I think that we did the right thing and I am proud of what I did.

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