Neocon Hypocrisy on Open Debate

Dimitri Alexander Simes

Politics, United States, Israel

Neoconservatives should ask themselves whether they are truly committed to promoting freedom at home and abroad.

On Tuesday, Bloomberg’s Eli Lake published an article called, “Koch Brothers Give a Megaphone to the Anti-Israel Fringe.” In it, he wrote that an event organized by the Charles Koch Institute featured a number of speakers that he deemed disreputable and unfit for polite society. Although Lake never directly accuses his targets of being anti-Semites, he refers to them as belonging to “the uglier fringes that blame Israel and its supporters for hijacking U.S. foreign policy.” Based on Lake’s description, one would think that the Charles Koch Institute had invited David Duke or someone from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards to headline its conference. However, as Lake later reveals, the supposedly scandalous speakers are scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, as well as former U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Charles Freeman Jr.

As a freshman at Johns Hopkins University, I should state upfront that Walt’s and Mearsheimer’s works have been assigned as essential reading—and that I’ve profited from studying them. I’m not sure that I agree with everything they write, but presumably their books were assigned by my professors, not because the authors are fringe figures, but the reverse: they are prominent academics who have something important to convey.

It is true that these three men, particularly Freeman, have been critical of the U.S.-Israel relationship. However, their criticism has nothing to do with anti-Semitism, and no serious evidence has been provided to suggest that any of them are anti-Semites. Criticism is not synonymous with hostility. Quite the contrary. In fact, all three have consistently stated they believe in Israel’s right to exist and be secure.