Stephen Walt has been getting into a really important online debate with Robert Satloff, the head of the chronically Israelo-centric ‘Washington Institute for Near East Policy’ (WINEP) on the issue of “dual loyalty”– or, as Walt prefers to call it, a “conflict of interest.”
Walt started the debate with a post on his FP blog on April 2 noting a recent news story about Dennis Ross having possibly fallen out of favor a bit within the Obama administration and exploring whether allegations of Ross having “dual loyalty”– to Israel as well as the U.S.– have any merit.
He examined the issue carefully arguing that it’s probably far better to discuss the issue in terms of a conflict of interest, such as may occur in any area of public life– and which is frequently used as a reason to bar someone from involvement in making important judgments in areas in which they have a demonstrated personal interest.
He concluded:
- Isn’t it obvious that U.S. policy towards the Middle East is likely to be skewed when former employees of WINEP or AIPAC have important policy-making roles, and when their own prior conduct has made it clear that they have a strong attachment to one particular country in the region? The point is not to question their patriotism, which is not the issue. Rather, the question is whether an attachment to Israel shapes how they think about the peace process, Iran, and the extent to which U.S. and Israeli interests are congruent. Their patriotism can be above reproach, but their advice may still be advancing policies that are not in the U.S. interest.
By the way, I’d have the same worries if U.S. Middle East policy were turned over to key figures from the American Task Force on Palestine or the National Iranian-American Council. When there are important national security issues at stake, wouldn’t it make more sense to have U.S. policy in the hands of people without strong personal feelings about any of interested parties?
Rob Satloff, the current head of WINEP, struck back– also on the FP wbsite– accusing Walt of “McCarthyism.”
And then on April 9, Walt replied, noting,
- There are only two important issues here, and Satloff ignores both of them. First, do some top U.S. officials — and here we are obviously talking about Dennis Ross — have a strong attachment to Israel? Second, might this situation be detrimental to the conduct of U.S. Middle East policy?
Regarding the first question, there is abundant evidence that Ross has a strong — some might even say ardent — attachment to Israel. These feelings are clearly on display in his memoir of the Oslo peace process, and they are confirmed by his decision to accept a top position at the Washington Institute of Near East Policy (WINEP) — an influential organization in the Israel lobby-upon leaving government service in 2000…
Furthermore, Ross served in recent years as chairman of the board of the Jewish People’s Policy Planning Institute, a think-tank established by the Jewish Agency, which is headquartered in Jerusalem. Satloff does not mention this key fact, but the implications are unmistakable. Why would anyone take such a job if they did not have a deep-seated commitment to Israel?
Actually, I think Ross was President of the JPPPI. But no matter.
Walt went on to note how unsuccessful the U.S. was during those many years in the 1990s when Ross was the head of Pres. Clinton’s Arab-Israeli negotiating team. (My, doesn’t it looks as if he’s been reading JWN all this time!)
He concluded with this:
- WINEP is funded and led by individuals who are deeply committed to defending the special relationship, and promoting policies in Washington that they believe will benefit Israel. Its board of advisors is populated with prominent advocates for Israel such as Martin Peretz, Richard Perle, James Woolsey, and Mortimer Zuckerman, and there’s no one on this board who is remotely critical of Israel or inclined to favor any other country in the “Near East.”
Although WINEP employs a number of legitimate scholars and former public officials, its employees do not question America’s special relationship with Israel and Satloff himself has a long track record of defending Israel against criticism. That’s his privilege, of course, but why does he get so angry when someone points out that WINEP is not neutral, and neither are the people who work there?
In short, Satloff doth protest too much, and I think I understand why. He knows that what I am saying is true; he just doesn’t like anyone calling attention to the elephant in the room. Plus, he knows that plenty of other people can see the elephant too, and are beginning to realize that the lobby is pushing an agenda that is not in America’s interest. No wonder he’s so upset.
Well, M.J. Rosenberg was quite right to call Walt’s takedown of Satloff “delicious”!
In that post, M.J. shares some of his own rich information base on WINEP’s history, too:
- Satloff pretends that he does not know that WINEP is an AIPAC creation. Maybe that is because he was not in the room (he wasn’t) when Steve Rosen announced his plan for an AIPAC cutout that would do AIPAC’s work but appear independent.
I was in the room. So was my friend, Tom Dine, the former head of AIPAC and other AIPAC staff. So what in God’s name is Satloff denying?
Too many of us were there. WINEP and Satloff are as much part of the lobby as Larry and Barbi Weinberg (the AIPAC officers who funded it) and staffed it with AIPACers who just moved down the hall. (Now WINEP is in a different building, not AIPAC’s 8 story palace on the Potomac.)
So finally, we can all start talking much more openly about the elephant in the room that is the conflict of interest that means that Ross and the rest of the old WINEP/AIPAC crew are not “neutral arbiters” on anything that involves Israel.
Well, as longtime JWN readers know, I’ve been saying that for a long time. But it’s good to have people like Walt and Rosenberg speaking out on the matter, too.
Another thing they don’t go into is the whole myth that Dennis Ross, as such, is actually any kind of an “expert” on anything in the Middle East except Israel. He isn’t. He’s never written a single text anywhere that demonstrates any understanding of Arab or Iranian or Turkish affairs.
Finally, with “nuclear terrorism: etc being the topic of the day in Washington this week, maybe it’s finally time to talk about that other big elephant in the room, Israel’s own huge nuclear arsenal.