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I'm dutch and read the book in dutch. i wrote a dutch wikipedia article about it. they want to remove it. they want more critical sources. i can read french english german and dutch. if anyone has an article send it to me
I would suggest that all articles about this subject are merged into one article wich can describe all signficant POVs. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:18, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Don't merge. Both articles are very long. — Ashley Y 01:48, 28 August 2006 (UTC) Don't merge. 1) The article sits distinctly on its own. 2) It is large and complex to merge into the other article. Continue the debate on this page. (How is 'mergin' a word? Do you mean merging?) Dogru144 14:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
why is 2/3 of the article about reception and most notably about criticism? I've never seen an article that has such a huge section devoted to criticism... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.192.232.128 ( talk) 03:18, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Marvin Kalb is a lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, founding director (now Senior Fellow) of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy there, Faculty Chair for the Kennedy School's Washington programs, and Edward R. Murrow Professor of Press and Public Policy from 1987 to 1999. This on top of his distinguished career in journalism. He is not an "administrator", and his opinion is certainly notable. Jayjg (talk) 15:29, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
His criticism in this article refers to the paper and not the book "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", however this article on wikipedia refers to the book and therefore should not be there.
JAYJG deleted the following w/o discussion. I believe it belongs in the article b/c much of the criticism is that Walt & Mearsh have no factual basis for their findings
O.K. Thanks Ben. Will314159 19:06, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
No thanks,Ben. The Zogby poll ( I bet you have little problem with Zogby polls that you agree with ) states the American public's opinion on the subject - even though I would guess that a very small percent have ever heard of much less read this paper. Shows how little new ground the paper reached, nothing that the majjority of Americans didn't already know. Didn't you know this already, Ben?
The "Reaction to the reception" section reads a lot like another "Praise" section. This lends unfair weight to the POV that the report is praiseworthy and not anti-Semitic. I suggest either removing the "Reaction to the reception" section from the article (while keeping "Mearsheimer and Walt's response" within the "Reception" heading) or adding a section stating the specific refutations of the claims within the article by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America and others who criticize the report. -- GHcool 06:06, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
11 days later and no response? OK. I'm going for it. -- GHcool 06:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to remove all the "External links" that I find that are duplicates of references. I assume no-one objects. — Ashley Y 23:46, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Could be integrated into the article as it covers the subject at hand:
Also talks about Abe Foxman, Tony Judt, Israel lobby in the United States and Jimmy Carter (in the context of his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid). -- 70.48.240.99 18:09, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
This is not about a "Jewish lobby" or Jews in congress, nor is there any reason to suppose that "Jewish American politicians are by far the most ardent supporters of Israel". — Ashley Y 21:42, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I excised a huge portion of material added recently by Wardeagle999 for a number of reasons. First, it was entirely un-encyclopedic, at times completely casual in tone, meandering, and repetitive. Secondly, the tone and thesis of the paper is already summarized quite well in the already extant section "The Lobby" under the heading "Content". Thirdly, his additions contained much unsourced material and were somewhat POV — thus, inappropriate for Wikipedia. Inoculatedcities 15:14, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
A balanced article would give equal airtime to criticism and praise. This criticism section is around four times as long as the praise section. Moreover, almost half of the praise section is devoted to the neo-Nazi David Duke, which further undermines the praise section. I propose truncating the criticism section, making sure all key viewpoints are represented. It is not necessary to feature every single person who has ever criticized this topic. A second idea would be to increase the size of the praise section, but I think that's a worse idea. Organ123 18:36, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
OK -- so if nobody objects, I'm going to go ahead and remove "the emphasis on Duke." I'm also going to significantly trim the criticism section, being careful to include key criticisms from both the left and the right. I'll create a final bullet point for "Other critics" where I perhaps list and identify other critics without elaborating on their quotes and arguments. Organ123 19:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Four times more criticism..... Isn't this what the paper asserts. A loosely organized collection of groups - not all Jewish - join together to fight for Israel's welfare. Even Chomsky, I don't know why I say "even", jump to the rescue - ie mentionig oil companies, etc with their interests - gee whiz, occasionallt Israel and oil companies et al have coinciding interests, wow. Wiki jumps in with its little bit too, wow I bet the Meirsheimer and Walt wouldn't have able to predict this. 159.105.80.141 13:05, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Four times more criticism than praise; article is unbalanced? Whoever did the heading of this section must be very uneducated and ignorant of the world. Maybe only in America or Israel is that unbalanced praised that you claim true but if you look at the entire world it will be the opposite. The whole world outside of America and Israel knows exactly what is going on and the power of the Isreal lobby. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.180.44.97 ( talk) 05:35, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Carol Moore 04:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC) User:Carolmooredc User talk:Carolmooredc
I agree that this article is unbalanced. I think that the criticism section could fairly be truncated in order to give approximately equal space to both sides, and if anybody wants to attempt to do this, I would support them. Also, I think that cutting the length of the article would help generally, as it has become a pretty sprawling piece. Groundsquirrel13 ( talk) 04:48, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
The section title "The Content", aside from being horribly written, appears to consist entirely of original research; that is, it lists dozens of cherry-picked quotations from the paper itself. Rather than doing so, the article should list what reliable third-parties have stated are the key elements of the paper. Unless someone can come up with a good reason for including this section, I'm recommending deletion. Jayjg (talk) 23:07, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
The new book is 496 pages, so is more than just an "an enlarged version" of the paper. I think it deserves its own separate section. — Ashley Y 02:48, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
A new section for the book is appropriate. I suggest that the thesis of the paper, the author's rebuttal to criticism and the book have such overlap that they can be combined into the first major section. A subsection can detail the differences between the initial paper and the book. This can then be followed by a second major section (with subsections were appropriate) on the reaction to the paper. A third major section could cover the response to the book.
Two recent book reviews: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2007/09/03/070903taco_talk_remnick http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article2348741.ece
Editorial responses: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1188392502669&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/rosnerBlog.jhtml?itemNo=897116&contrassID=25&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=1&listSrc=Y&art=1
Newswire coverage: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gWxHKqNB_f903kIumTxdblGH9OCA
AIPAC and Israel have decided to ignore the book in order not to give it additional attention: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1188128150170&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
A past incident: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-israelbook_aug21,1,6109069.story?ctrack=1&cset=true http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/08/07/speechless-in-chicago/
An upcoming protest: http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/103917.html
The authors will be on the Colbert Report on October 2, 2007 according to the book's official website: http://israellobbybook.com
-- Lucretius 03:20, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Sept 4th FreshAir NPR Interview with Stephen Walt and response: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14154082 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14154089 -- Lucretius 18:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I created this table of contents by flipping through the book page-by-page and transcribing all of the section headers. It is more detailed that the table of contents published at the start of the book. -- Lucretius 03:01, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Introduction
Part I: The US, Israel and the Lobby
Part II: The Lobby in Action
Conclusion: What Is to Be Done?
The book contents are much better organized than the contents of the original short paper. I have posted the table of contents of the book above so that other Wikipedia editors can get a sense of it. It is very dense reading and much of it is challenging to summarize in a succinct form. I will in the next week try to summarize the final section entitled "What is to be Done?" as this part of the book, at least in my understanding, has no clear analog in the prior paper. -- Lucretius 03:01, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
I found the separate section devoted to the nutjob David Duke amazingly dishonest in its intentions. David Duke has been pretty much relegated to a "nobody", so why does his opinion matter so much that a new section with a picture of Duke's book posted prominently on it? The reason to me seems obvious-- conflate Duke's antisemitism with the Professors' book. When you can't argue with the book's contents, malign the author. And an age-old technique is to keep it simple, stupid by affixing images of bigots and other "villains" to a story to "bend" it a certain way. Guilt by association does no one good and is not helpful in the overall discussion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abureem ( talk • contribs) 13:49, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree, having a separate section is a not-so-subtle way to wrongly infer an association between M&W with a loathsome character (Duke). It's unfortunate that someone here at Wikipedia would use this sort of guilt by association tactic, which kind of supports one of the points that W&M were making. The Duke section should go back under the other "support" section, with all the same caveats that are there now. Arjuna 02:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
I've been asked to comment on this. The consensus on Wikipedia is that Holocaust deniers are not even considered reliable sources for their own views (see the archived discussions at Holocaust denial). My previous position has always been that if Duke et al are to be quoted here they should be quoted in the "criticism" section, as their support for the paper has been considered notable only by its critics. Duke is an avid batshit-crazy blogger and weighs in on everything from homosexuality to Harvard professor Robert Putnam's latest findings, and a thumbs-up or thumbs-down from him on this-and-that just isn't notable. It should also go without saying that citing his blog or radio show as a reliable source is a no-no. I still think if he is to be mentioned in any depth it should be in the "criticism" section. Reviewing the material, I see that most of it discusses Duke with reference to the paper's critics, which supports my position. I do note, however, that the Washington Post and one other source mention Duke's support in passing, and not specifically or implicitly as ammo for the paper's critics. So I would amend my position to say that a brief mention of Duke's endorsement in the praise section might be appropriate. Something along these lines, after all the longer endorsement blurbs: Walt and Mearsheimer's paper also drew praise from David Duke, further fueling public controversy. Critics pointed to the endorsement as evidence of the authors' antisemitism, while supporters dismissed this as guilt by association. The authors and the publisher of the essay expressed displeasure at the endorsement and rejected its significance.-- G-Dett 21:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
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BetacommandBot ( talk) 19:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I was just skimming through the Farsi copy of the article and I noticed that the summary and the positive assessments of the article are missing from the translation. Only the sections dealing with criticism of the book have been translated. That is mighty suspicious. -- Lucretius 04:29, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Duplicity has removed an external link to my progressive critique [3] of the Walt-Mearsheimer book claiming that I have a conflict of interest in doing so. I can find no Wikipedia rule that prohibits such a link. To be clear, I derive no benefit whatsoever fr. such a link as my website is entirely non-profit.
The reason for the external link to my critique is that very few American Jews have written positively about the book. I have done so. I have a gradudate degree in this field & write reviews for American Conservative Magazine and have published at the L.A. Times, and The Guardian on the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Some Wikipedia readers may want to delve further into the book and read the perspective I bring to bear on it in my own critique. The link is meant to enrich the Wikipedia experience & not to benefit me personally. Richard ( talk) 08:43, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :)
DumZiBoT ( talk) 23:28, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
This article has a lot of problems, but one thing that seems irrelevant is the CAIR speech section. It seems an attempt to make some POV/ WP:original research point or other. They've given dozens of speeches since then. Why this one? It may be amusing to those who like to see the lobby knocked, but how does it increase the encyclopedic value of the article? I think it should be removed.
Also, the OBAMA ad story is totally wp:undue and two sentences are more than sufficient. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 03:34, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
This article is way too long with all too much emphasis on reactions, reactions to reactions, criticisms, reception etc. Do we really need to detail every opinion ever offered about this book, or can we find the most notable 2-3? Ill boldly summarize to kick off the edit cycle. Bonewah ( talk) 15:12, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
bad link - citation 45 doesn't lead anywhere 173.76.152.35 ( talk) 11:46, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Hi all,
I notice that someone has added a quote from David Rothkopf's blog that attacks Stephen Walt for responding to the bin Laden endorsement. I am confused as to why a blog is allowed as a source for such a personal attack. I am also curious as to why such a personal attack is appropriate for a Wikipedia article, it doesn't seem at all noteworthy as it only tangentially addresses the topic at hand. I also add that the individual who added this material is insisting on a large quoteblock of text for this personal attack (which makes the personal attack more prominent in the article) while also insisting that Walt's response to the bin Laden endorsement (which given he is the author of the book bin Laden is endorsing should be more noteworth) not be given a quoteblock (I was reverted when I tried to equalize the use of quoteblocks for some reason.) Here is the passage in question that an editor is insisted be included in this article (and is sourced to a blog, albeit one hosted on FP):
"Walt's response gets really good when he then goes so far as to suggest that Osama's embrace of his book only proves his point that the Israel lobby ... is used as a justification by terrorists. Blind to the irony all his book did was weave precisely the kind of fabric of partial truths and old biases that are used to dress up the hatreds of demagogues everywhere, Walt actually has the chutzpah to try use the news that the most evil man in the world is reading his work as a soap box from which to once again sell his argument (and books)." [[[David Rothkopf|Rothkopf, David]]. "Walt, Mearsheimer, and why Osama Bin Laden is reading The Israel Lobby." Foreign Policy. 16 September 2009. 17 September 2009.]
Thoughts? I will take this up on Monday on the RS noticeboard as I think it is a pretty clear case of inappropriate personal attacks sourced to a blog and it is also not worthy of an encyclopedia.
-- John Bahrain ( talk) 15:52, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Not to mention that the one single paragraph that constitutes as the "praise" section is pretty much criticism as well. The way this article is written as of now is completely biast and ridiculous. And why is there a specific section dedicated to "Endorsement by Osama Bin Laden"? I think it´s safe to say the only thing objective about this article is the summary of the book-which, what this article is supposed to be about, is in itself only one paragraph. It seems to me that this article is in serious need of revision/editing for the current state it´s in is absolutely unacceptable. Does anyone else agree with me? 17:01 February 12, 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.230.255.80 ( talk) 19:50, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Some criticism in the section refers to the PAPER and NOT the book by the same name. I will remove the criticism referring directly to the PAPER as it gives a distorted image of the criticism of the book itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.179.173.4 ( talk) 02:19, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
I rv-ed this edit and ScriptusSecudus incorrectly reverted it back. I'm afraid that the claim that " David Duke endorsed this book because of how similar it is to his own views and stances, and highly recommends it to everyone" is either an WP:OR violation (and arguably a smear as well, but I'm not going to argue that here). Duke may claim that the book is similar to his views, but the sentence as currently phrased suggests that this is true when in fact it may or may not be true. To endorse Duke's view of the book as true is POV pushing and/or OR. I am not going to revert again because I'm not going to get into an edit war, but a responsible editor should step in and correct this. I am not arguing that the Duke reference should be deleted, but simply that the wording needs to change to be NPOV and avoid OR issues. Arjuna ( talk) 00:13, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
The opinion of Alex Safian is currently presented in the article. Currently no evidence has been provided that he is a significant view that has been published in RS on this topic. His opinion should be removed from the article until such time as evidence is provided that he is a notable opinion on the topic of this article that has been published in RS.
Copious mainstream media column inches have been devoted to this topic, as well as broad scholarly debate by significant academics. WP:UNDUE states "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint.". Given the amount of coverage that this topic has received by RS if Safian's opinion has not even been published by RS there can be no justification for including it. Dlv999 ( talk) 10:21, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
What is presented is the opinion of CAMERA, a notable organization with a notable point of view. Censorship will not fly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Top of the Tower ( talk • contribs) 23:26, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
I plan to introduce this source which discusses claims of Antisemitism. This source may be more suitable for Mearsheimer's actual article. Thoughts? Ankh. Morpork 13:39, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "cbc-2004":
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden appeared in a new message aired on an Arabic TV station Friday night, for the first time claiming direct responsibility for the 2001 attacks against the United States.
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 05:53, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
To quote the relevant policy: Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint."
I would argue that David Duke is a fringe source whose opinion is not significant on matters of foreign policy or international politics. Do any other Wikipedia articles regarding aspects of American foreign policy refer to Duke's opinion as a significant viewpoint? I think not. His inclusion here seems like a crude effort to tar by association. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eptified ( talk • contribs) 08:13, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Zunes never "took issue" with Massad's assertions. Read Zunes' piece in Mother Jones and you will see that he is simply quoting Massad. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.55.150.186 ( talk) 07:15, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
This issue has been repeatedly raised before. This is another case of article manipulation by few passionate editors, like we witnessed in the Hurricane Sandy article. It is not difficult to realize that this article is heavily biased against the book. Criticism on the book makes up a majority of this article (5,399 out of 9,486 words). This is in stark contrast with the off-Wikipedia reception of this book.
Due to its comprehensiveness and a fresh look at the tabooed subject in the U.S. politics, this book earned praise from The New York Times, The Guardian, Foreign Affairs (the most respected international affairs magazine), the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, and the list goes on. Yet, the article treats the book with overwhelmingly negative sentiment.
This issue must be corrected.
-- chulk90/ discuss/ contributions 19:05, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
Per WP:AGF Before telling people their edits are arbitrary Please review talk page. There is a major problem with this article. We have no Wikipedia obligation to list every single last piece of critique by everyone who has a pen to critique. This has been discussed and we have been doing it. Yet someone accuses me of using no rationale to remove content. I believe between the TK page and the edit summaries all removals have been per a ongoing process. -- Inayity ( talk) 07:00, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
AJC also published several critiques of the paper, many of which were reproduced in newspapers around the world. AJC's Anti-Semitism expert, Kenneth Stern, made the following argument against the paper: Why was this re-added after I stated AJC central criticism was already made a few lines above. What does this have to do with the book? It should be on the AJC page. Is it Notable? Who cares where else they published their opinion. The only thing is there main objections to the book and that is the end. -- Inayity ( talk) 08:12, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
![]() | This article's
"criticism" or "controversy" section may compromise the article's
neutrality. |
This articles main content occupies 584 words (excluding the lead) which is 277 words. The Praise is 699 words. The Mix reception and reply is 1700, plain hated it = 727. So we should probably rename the article AlL Opinions of the book, because from Benny to Chomsky I do not think anyone got left out. Per Wikipedia WP:SIZE and a whole host of other concerns like BEING CONCISE, Tel Aviv, we have a problem. Yes I understand it is a controversial book, but then do we include everything? Then a criteria is needed because in terms of someone actually reading this string on nonsense, you must be a die hard enthusiast of this topic. Many editors have already made this observation I am making it in specific terms to highlight a problem. discuss soln to this issue not a run-around or " I dont get the point." as the point is clear .-- Inayity ( talk) 10:29, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Mitchell Plitnick, Director of Education and Policy for Jewish Voice for Peace, wrote an extensive critique of the book, while also stating firmly that "The ideas Walt and Mearsheimer present are not comfortable and, in my view, sometimes not accurate. But they are not personally anti-Semitic, nor are they motivated by animosity toward Israel." Plitnick details his view that Walt and Mearsheimer seriously overstate "The Lobby's" role in policymaking, although their influence in Congress is considerable. He also challenges the view that Israel was a prime motivator in the invasion of Iraq, saying "...it was clear that Iraq was no threat to Israel. There was simply no reason for Israel to risk alienating a large segment of the American people in order to push for this war and, in fact, they did not. It was an American misadventure, and the Israeli involvement was by American request, not on their own impetus." Plitnick sees US Mideast policy as consistent with US policy in other places and based on an analysis with which both he and Walt and Mearsheimer would disagree, but saying "The Lobby" is responsible is overstating the matter
I am struggling with this article, it has excessive inclusion of information by what other people think about the book, including excessive quotes from everyone who has an opinion to offer. It compromises the quality of the article and the weight of the article. Other opinions would be nice on how to fix, see talk page on text size breakdown and history of objections [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] Inayity ( talk) 11:11, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Given the article edit restrictions, is there any chance of getting more info about the points addressed by any given critic's refutation and arguments? It doesn't have to be word-for-word but it would be helpful to know something substantial. For example: "Professor X attacked the book on the grounds that the authors used the wrong study from 1976 and misquoted Y."
I would also appreciate seeing why the selected individuals are credible authorities on this issue. For the CIA director and the Secretary of State, that's obvious. But I'm not sure why/how a review in the Denver Post or an author addressing Stanford would constitute authorities on the subject whose opinions should matter to most readers here. This is not an argument to remove any views, only a request to explain their usefulness.
Unfortunately, too many of the points in the criticism section are oversimplified down to generic outrage: accusations of scurrilous lies and "you don't know X/anything about X". That doesn't inform me of what fallacies the book might employ, where its numbers may be wrong, what bad studies on which it may rely, or really disprove anything. It only proves that people have very strong opinions and I could guess that much from the subject. 135.23.43.68 ( talk) 01:09, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
I think that is pretty extremely in the undue weight category to include and intend to remove it. A review by a non-expert in an audio tape isnt something we would typically include in an article on a scholarly book. The Duke bit is a. about the initial essay, and b. is contained entirely in one line of a newspaper piece. The Bin Laden piece has about the same level of coverage, with a paper covering a speech in which he recommended a number of books to Americans to read. I dont really see how either belongs in an article covering the book. nableezy - 02:38, 24 April 2021 (UTC)
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I'm dutch and read the book in dutch. i wrote a dutch wikipedia article about it. they want to remove it. they want more critical sources. i can read french english german and dutch. if anyone has an article send it to me
I would suggest that all articles about this subject are merged into one article wich can describe all signficant POVs. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:18, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
Don't merge. Both articles are very long. — Ashley Y 01:48, 28 August 2006 (UTC) Don't merge. 1) The article sits distinctly on its own. 2) It is large and complex to merge into the other article. Continue the debate on this page. (How is 'mergin' a word? Do you mean merging?) Dogru144 14:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
why is 2/3 of the article about reception and most notably about criticism? I've never seen an article that has such a huge section devoted to criticism... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.192.232.128 ( talk) 03:18, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Marvin Kalb is a lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, founding director (now Senior Fellow) of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy there, Faculty Chair for the Kennedy School's Washington programs, and Edward R. Murrow Professor of Press and Public Policy from 1987 to 1999. This on top of his distinguished career in journalism. He is not an "administrator", and his opinion is certainly notable. Jayjg (talk) 15:29, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
His criticism in this article refers to the paper and not the book "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy", however this article on wikipedia refers to the book and therefore should not be there.
JAYJG deleted the following w/o discussion. I believe it belongs in the article b/c much of the criticism is that Walt & Mearsh have no factual basis for their findings
O.K. Thanks Ben. Will314159 19:06, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
No thanks,Ben. The Zogby poll ( I bet you have little problem with Zogby polls that you agree with ) states the American public's opinion on the subject - even though I would guess that a very small percent have ever heard of much less read this paper. Shows how little new ground the paper reached, nothing that the majjority of Americans didn't already know. Didn't you know this already, Ben?
The "Reaction to the reception" section reads a lot like another "Praise" section. This lends unfair weight to the POV that the report is praiseworthy and not anti-Semitic. I suggest either removing the "Reaction to the reception" section from the article (while keeping "Mearsheimer and Walt's response" within the "Reception" heading) or adding a section stating the specific refutations of the claims within the article by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America and others who criticize the report. -- GHcool 06:06, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
11 days later and no response? OK. I'm going for it. -- GHcool 06:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I'm going to remove all the "External links" that I find that are duplicates of references. I assume no-one objects. — Ashley Y 23:46, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Could be integrated into the article as it covers the subject at hand:
Also talks about Abe Foxman, Tony Judt, Israel lobby in the United States and Jimmy Carter (in the context of his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid). -- 70.48.240.99 18:09, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
This is not about a "Jewish lobby" or Jews in congress, nor is there any reason to suppose that "Jewish American politicians are by far the most ardent supporters of Israel". — Ashley Y 21:42, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I excised a huge portion of material added recently by Wardeagle999 for a number of reasons. First, it was entirely un-encyclopedic, at times completely casual in tone, meandering, and repetitive. Secondly, the tone and thesis of the paper is already summarized quite well in the already extant section "The Lobby" under the heading "Content". Thirdly, his additions contained much unsourced material and were somewhat POV — thus, inappropriate for Wikipedia. Inoculatedcities 15:14, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
A balanced article would give equal airtime to criticism and praise. This criticism section is around four times as long as the praise section. Moreover, almost half of the praise section is devoted to the neo-Nazi David Duke, which further undermines the praise section. I propose truncating the criticism section, making sure all key viewpoints are represented. It is not necessary to feature every single person who has ever criticized this topic. A second idea would be to increase the size of the praise section, but I think that's a worse idea. Organ123 18:36, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
OK -- so if nobody objects, I'm going to go ahead and remove "the emphasis on Duke." I'm also going to significantly trim the criticism section, being careful to include key criticisms from both the left and the right. I'll create a final bullet point for "Other critics" where I perhaps list and identify other critics without elaborating on their quotes and arguments. Organ123 19:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
Four times more criticism..... Isn't this what the paper asserts. A loosely organized collection of groups - not all Jewish - join together to fight for Israel's welfare. Even Chomsky, I don't know why I say "even", jump to the rescue - ie mentionig oil companies, etc with their interests - gee whiz, occasionallt Israel and oil companies et al have coinciding interests, wow. Wiki jumps in with its little bit too, wow I bet the Meirsheimer and Walt wouldn't have able to predict this. 159.105.80.141 13:05, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Four times more criticism than praise; article is unbalanced? Whoever did the heading of this section must be very uneducated and ignorant of the world. Maybe only in America or Israel is that unbalanced praised that you claim true but if you look at the entire world it will be the opposite. The whole world outside of America and Israel knows exactly what is going on and the power of the Isreal lobby. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.180.44.97 ( talk) 05:35, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
Carol Moore 04:09, 8 November 2007 (UTC) User:Carolmooredc User talk:Carolmooredc
I agree that this article is unbalanced. I think that the criticism section could fairly be truncated in order to give approximately equal space to both sides, and if anybody wants to attempt to do this, I would support them. Also, I think that cutting the length of the article would help generally, as it has become a pretty sprawling piece. Groundsquirrel13 ( talk) 04:48, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
The section title "The Content", aside from being horribly written, appears to consist entirely of original research; that is, it lists dozens of cherry-picked quotations from the paper itself. Rather than doing so, the article should list what reliable third-parties have stated are the key elements of the paper. Unless someone can come up with a good reason for including this section, I'm recommending deletion. Jayjg (talk) 23:07, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
The new book is 496 pages, so is more than just an "an enlarged version" of the paper. I think it deserves its own separate section. — Ashley Y 02:48, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
A new section for the book is appropriate. I suggest that the thesis of the paper, the author's rebuttal to criticism and the book have such overlap that they can be combined into the first major section. A subsection can detail the differences between the initial paper and the book. This can then be followed by a second major section (with subsections were appropriate) on the reaction to the paper. A third major section could cover the response to the book.
Two recent book reviews: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2007/09/03/070903taco_talk_remnick http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article2348741.ece
Editorial responses: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1188392502669&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/rosnerBlog.jhtml?itemNo=897116&contrassID=25&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=1&listSrc=Y&art=1
Newswire coverage: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gWxHKqNB_f903kIumTxdblGH9OCA
AIPAC and Israel have decided to ignore the book in order not to give it additional attention: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1188128150170&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
A past incident: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-israelbook_aug21,1,6109069.story?ctrack=1&cset=true http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/08/07/speechless-in-chicago/
An upcoming protest: http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/103917.html
The authors will be on the Colbert Report on October 2, 2007 according to the book's official website: http://israellobbybook.com
-- Lucretius 03:20, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Sept 4th FreshAir NPR Interview with Stephen Walt and response: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14154082 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14154089 -- Lucretius 18:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I created this table of contents by flipping through the book page-by-page and transcribing all of the section headers. It is more detailed that the table of contents published at the start of the book. -- Lucretius 03:01, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Introduction
Part I: The US, Israel and the Lobby
Part II: The Lobby in Action
Conclusion: What Is to Be Done?
The book contents are much better organized than the contents of the original short paper. I have posted the table of contents of the book above so that other Wikipedia editors can get a sense of it. It is very dense reading and much of it is challenging to summarize in a succinct form. I will in the next week try to summarize the final section entitled "What is to be Done?" as this part of the book, at least in my understanding, has no clear analog in the prior paper. -- Lucretius 03:01, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
I found the separate section devoted to the nutjob David Duke amazingly dishonest in its intentions. David Duke has been pretty much relegated to a "nobody", so why does his opinion matter so much that a new section with a picture of Duke's book posted prominently on it? The reason to me seems obvious-- conflate Duke's antisemitism with the Professors' book. When you can't argue with the book's contents, malign the author. And an age-old technique is to keep it simple, stupid by affixing images of bigots and other "villains" to a story to "bend" it a certain way. Guilt by association does no one good and is not helpful in the overall discussion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Abureem ( talk • contribs) 13:49, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree, having a separate section is a not-so-subtle way to wrongly infer an association between M&W with a loathsome character (Duke). It's unfortunate that someone here at Wikipedia would use this sort of guilt by association tactic, which kind of supports one of the points that W&M were making. The Duke section should go back under the other "support" section, with all the same caveats that are there now. Arjuna 02:40, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
I've been asked to comment on this. The consensus on Wikipedia is that Holocaust deniers are not even considered reliable sources for their own views (see the archived discussions at Holocaust denial). My previous position has always been that if Duke et al are to be quoted here they should be quoted in the "criticism" section, as their support for the paper has been considered notable only by its critics. Duke is an avid batshit-crazy blogger and weighs in on everything from homosexuality to Harvard professor Robert Putnam's latest findings, and a thumbs-up or thumbs-down from him on this-and-that just isn't notable. It should also go without saying that citing his blog or radio show as a reliable source is a no-no. I still think if he is to be mentioned in any depth it should be in the "criticism" section. Reviewing the material, I see that most of it discusses Duke with reference to the paper's critics, which supports my position. I do note, however, that the Washington Post and one other source mention Duke's support in passing, and not specifically or implicitly as ammo for the paper's critics. So I would amend my position to say that a brief mention of Duke's endorsement in the praise section might be appropriate. Something along these lines, after all the longer endorsement blurbs: Walt and Mearsheimer's paper also drew praise from David Duke, further fueling public controversy. Critics pointed to the endorsement as evidence of the authors' antisemitism, while supporters dismissed this as guilt by association. The authors and the publisher of the essay expressed displeasure at the endorsement and rejected its significance.-- G-Dett 21:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)
Image:The-israel-lobby-and-us-foreign-policy.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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BetacommandBot ( talk) 19:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I was just skimming through the Farsi copy of the article and I noticed that the summary and the positive assessments of the article are missing from the translation. Only the sections dealing with criticism of the book have been translated. That is mighty suspicious. -- Lucretius 04:29, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Duplicity has removed an external link to my progressive critique [3] of the Walt-Mearsheimer book claiming that I have a conflict of interest in doing so. I can find no Wikipedia rule that prohibits such a link. To be clear, I derive no benefit whatsoever fr. such a link as my website is entirely non-profit.
The reason for the external link to my critique is that very few American Jews have written positively about the book. I have done so. I have a gradudate degree in this field & write reviews for American Conservative Magazine and have published at the L.A. Times, and The Guardian on the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Some Wikipedia readers may want to delve further into the book and read the perspective I bring to bear on it in my own critique. The link is meant to enrich the Wikipedia experience & not to benefit me personally. Richard ( talk) 08:43, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :)
DumZiBoT ( talk) 23:28, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
This article has a lot of problems, but one thing that seems irrelevant is the CAIR speech section. It seems an attempt to make some POV/ WP:original research point or other. They've given dozens of speeches since then. Why this one? It may be amusing to those who like to see the lobby knocked, but how does it increase the encyclopedic value of the article? I think it should be removed.
Also, the OBAMA ad story is totally wp:undue and two sentences are more than sufficient. CarolMooreDC ( talk) 03:34, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
This article is way too long with all too much emphasis on reactions, reactions to reactions, criticisms, reception etc. Do we really need to detail every opinion ever offered about this book, or can we find the most notable 2-3? Ill boldly summarize to kick off the edit cycle. Bonewah ( talk) 15:12, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
bad link - citation 45 doesn't lead anywhere 173.76.152.35 ( talk) 11:46, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
Hi all,
I notice that someone has added a quote from David Rothkopf's blog that attacks Stephen Walt for responding to the bin Laden endorsement. I am confused as to why a blog is allowed as a source for such a personal attack. I am also curious as to why such a personal attack is appropriate for a Wikipedia article, it doesn't seem at all noteworthy as it only tangentially addresses the topic at hand. I also add that the individual who added this material is insisting on a large quoteblock of text for this personal attack (which makes the personal attack more prominent in the article) while also insisting that Walt's response to the bin Laden endorsement (which given he is the author of the book bin Laden is endorsing should be more noteworth) not be given a quoteblock (I was reverted when I tried to equalize the use of quoteblocks for some reason.) Here is the passage in question that an editor is insisted be included in this article (and is sourced to a blog, albeit one hosted on FP):
"Walt's response gets really good when he then goes so far as to suggest that Osama's embrace of his book only proves his point that the Israel lobby ... is used as a justification by terrorists. Blind to the irony all his book did was weave precisely the kind of fabric of partial truths and old biases that are used to dress up the hatreds of demagogues everywhere, Walt actually has the chutzpah to try use the news that the most evil man in the world is reading his work as a soap box from which to once again sell his argument (and books)." [[[David Rothkopf|Rothkopf, David]]. "Walt, Mearsheimer, and why Osama Bin Laden is reading The Israel Lobby." Foreign Policy. 16 September 2009. 17 September 2009.]
Thoughts? I will take this up on Monday on the RS noticeboard as I think it is a pretty clear case of inappropriate personal attacks sourced to a blog and it is also not worthy of an encyclopedia.
-- John Bahrain ( talk) 15:52, 19 September 2009 (UTC)
Not to mention that the one single paragraph that constitutes as the "praise" section is pretty much criticism as well. The way this article is written as of now is completely biast and ridiculous. And why is there a specific section dedicated to "Endorsement by Osama Bin Laden"? I think it´s safe to say the only thing objective about this article is the summary of the book-which, what this article is supposed to be about, is in itself only one paragraph. It seems to me that this article is in serious need of revision/editing for the current state it´s in is absolutely unacceptable. Does anyone else agree with me? 17:01 February 12, 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.230.255.80 ( talk) 19:50, 12 February 2010 (UTC)
Some criticism in the section refers to the PAPER and NOT the book by the same name. I will remove the criticism referring directly to the PAPER as it gives a distorted image of the criticism of the book itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.179.173.4 ( talk) 02:19, 3 January 2013 (UTC)
I rv-ed this edit and ScriptusSecudus incorrectly reverted it back. I'm afraid that the claim that " David Duke endorsed this book because of how similar it is to his own views and stances, and highly recommends it to everyone" is either an WP:OR violation (and arguably a smear as well, but I'm not going to argue that here). Duke may claim that the book is similar to his views, but the sentence as currently phrased suggests that this is true when in fact it may or may not be true. To endorse Duke's view of the book as true is POV pushing and/or OR. I am not going to revert again because I'm not going to get into an edit war, but a responsible editor should step in and correct this. I am not arguing that the Duke reference should be deleted, but simply that the wording needs to change to be NPOV and avoid OR issues. Arjuna ( talk) 00:13, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
The opinion of Alex Safian is currently presented in the article. Currently no evidence has been provided that he is a significant view that has been published in RS on this topic. His opinion should be removed from the article until such time as evidence is provided that he is a notable opinion on the topic of this article that has been published in RS.
Copious mainstream media column inches have been devoted to this topic, as well as broad scholarly debate by significant academics. WP:UNDUE states "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint.". Given the amount of coverage that this topic has received by RS if Safian's opinion has not even been published by RS there can be no justification for including it. Dlv999 ( talk) 10:21, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
What is presented is the opinion of CAMERA, a notable organization with a notable point of view. Censorship will not fly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Top of the Tower ( talk • contribs) 23:26, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
I plan to introduce this source which discusses claims of Antisemitism. This source may be more suitable for Mearsheimer's actual article. Thoughts? Ankh. Morpork 13:39, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.
Reference named "cbc-2004":
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden appeared in a new message aired on an Arabic TV station Friday night, for the first time claiming direct responsibility for the 2001 attacks against the United States.
I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 05:53, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
To quote the relevant policy: Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint."
I would argue that David Duke is a fringe source whose opinion is not significant on matters of foreign policy or international politics. Do any other Wikipedia articles regarding aspects of American foreign policy refer to Duke's opinion as a significant viewpoint? I think not. His inclusion here seems like a crude effort to tar by association. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eptified ( talk • contribs) 08:13, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
Zunes never "took issue" with Massad's assertions. Read Zunes' piece in Mother Jones and you will see that he is simply quoting Massad. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.55.150.186 ( talk) 07:15, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
This issue has been repeatedly raised before. This is another case of article manipulation by few passionate editors, like we witnessed in the Hurricane Sandy article. It is not difficult to realize that this article is heavily biased against the book. Criticism on the book makes up a majority of this article (5,399 out of 9,486 words). This is in stark contrast with the off-Wikipedia reception of this book.
Due to its comprehensiveness and a fresh look at the tabooed subject in the U.S. politics, this book earned praise from The New York Times, The Guardian, Foreign Affairs (the most respected international affairs magazine), the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, and the list goes on. Yet, the article treats the book with overwhelmingly negative sentiment.
This issue must be corrected.
-- chulk90/ discuss/ contributions 19:05, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
Per WP:AGF Before telling people their edits are arbitrary Please review talk page. There is a major problem with this article. We have no Wikipedia obligation to list every single last piece of critique by everyone who has a pen to critique. This has been discussed and we have been doing it. Yet someone accuses me of using no rationale to remove content. I believe between the TK page and the edit summaries all removals have been per a ongoing process. -- Inayity ( talk) 07:00, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
AJC also published several critiques of the paper, many of which were reproduced in newspapers around the world. AJC's Anti-Semitism expert, Kenneth Stern, made the following argument against the paper: Why was this re-added after I stated AJC central criticism was already made a few lines above. What does this have to do with the book? It should be on the AJC page. Is it Notable? Who cares where else they published their opinion. The only thing is there main objections to the book and that is the end. -- Inayity ( talk) 08:12, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
![]() | This article's
"criticism" or "controversy" section may compromise the article's
neutrality. |
This articles main content occupies 584 words (excluding the lead) which is 277 words. The Praise is 699 words. The Mix reception and reply is 1700, plain hated it = 727. So we should probably rename the article AlL Opinions of the book, because from Benny to Chomsky I do not think anyone got left out. Per Wikipedia WP:SIZE and a whole host of other concerns like BEING CONCISE, Tel Aviv, we have a problem. Yes I understand it is a controversial book, but then do we include everything? Then a criteria is needed because in terms of someone actually reading this string on nonsense, you must be a die hard enthusiast of this topic. Many editors have already made this observation I am making it in specific terms to highlight a problem. discuss soln to this issue not a run-around or " I dont get the point." as the point is clear .-- Inayity ( talk) 10:29, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Mitchell Plitnick, Director of Education and Policy for Jewish Voice for Peace, wrote an extensive critique of the book, while also stating firmly that "The ideas Walt and Mearsheimer present are not comfortable and, in my view, sometimes not accurate. But they are not personally anti-Semitic, nor are they motivated by animosity toward Israel." Plitnick details his view that Walt and Mearsheimer seriously overstate "The Lobby's" role in policymaking, although their influence in Congress is considerable. He also challenges the view that Israel was a prime motivator in the invasion of Iraq, saying "...it was clear that Iraq was no threat to Israel. There was simply no reason for Israel to risk alienating a large segment of the American people in order to push for this war and, in fact, they did not. It was an American misadventure, and the Israeli involvement was by American request, not on their own impetus." Plitnick sees US Mideast policy as consistent with US policy in other places and based on an analysis with which both he and Walt and Mearsheimer would disagree, but saying "The Lobby" is responsible is overstating the matter
I am struggling with this article, it has excessive inclusion of information by what other people think about the book, including excessive quotes from everyone who has an opinion to offer. It compromises the quality of the article and the weight of the article. Other opinions would be nice on how to fix, see talk page on text size breakdown and history of objections [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] Inayity ( talk) 11:11, 3 January 2015 (UTC)
Given the article edit restrictions, is there any chance of getting more info about the points addressed by any given critic's refutation and arguments? It doesn't have to be word-for-word but it would be helpful to know something substantial. For example: "Professor X attacked the book on the grounds that the authors used the wrong study from 1976 and misquoted Y."
I would also appreciate seeing why the selected individuals are credible authorities on this issue. For the CIA director and the Secretary of State, that's obvious. But I'm not sure why/how a review in the Denver Post or an author addressing Stanford would constitute authorities on the subject whose opinions should matter to most readers here. This is not an argument to remove any views, only a request to explain their usefulness.
Unfortunately, too many of the points in the criticism section are oversimplified down to generic outrage: accusations of scurrilous lies and "you don't know X/anything about X". That doesn't inform me of what fallacies the book might employ, where its numbers may be wrong, what bad studies on which it may rely, or really disprove anything. It only proves that people have very strong opinions and I could guess that much from the subject. 135.23.43.68 ( talk) 01:09, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
I think that is pretty extremely in the undue weight category to include and intend to remove it. A review by a non-expert in an audio tape isnt something we would typically include in an article on a scholarly book. The Duke bit is a. about the initial essay, and b. is contained entirely in one line of a newspaper piece. The Bin Laden piece has about the same level of coverage, with a paper covering a speech in which he recommended a number of books to Americans to read. I dont really see how either belongs in an article covering the book. nableezy - 02:38, 24 April 2021 (UTC)