Stephen Walt
Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA

Dear Steve:

You asked for my opinion, writing to me “I’m sure I will learn from” it.

Perhaps. I’ve read the book very carefully, all 355 pages of the text and very nearly all the 1,399 footnotes. And, as you know, I share both your commitment to a two-state solution and your assessment that the “lobby” has too often advocated policies that have done Israel no good.

That said, the sheer recklessness of your analysis is, in my view, bound to make progress towards a two-state solution more difficult. The controversy that has surrounded your earlier paper and now the book will do little to elevate the discussion and debate; it will, because your work is so tendentiously argued, put those within the Jewish community who actively advocate a two-state solution on the defensive lest their advocacy seems to put them in league with you. (I will have more to say about that in the second part of this review, to come.)
Read on…