Palestine Talks | John Mearsheimer discusses Gaza

Thank you very much John for sitting down with me here today to talk about many of your philosophical notions that apply to the Israeli attack on Gaza right now. I hope we can cover the view that you are known for at least one of the views of offensive realism and the broader or more general concept of rationality, the Israeli lobby in American politics and policies, and what an international order could be or looks like morally responsible. So maybe we can start with this vision of offensive realism, could you please? For those who may not be familiar with this, explain what that is and how it could manifest itself right now in Israel's attack on Gaza.

Well, I'm not sure that Israel's attack on Gaza has much to do with realism, but I will first give you a view of what is real my view of what realism is and then I can talk about the Israeli attack on Gaza realism is a theory of international politics that privileges power it says that power is the currency of international relations and states are primarily interested not exclusively but primarily concerned with the balance of power and want to maximize the amount of power they have, the best situation is to be a hegemon in the system now, why is that so?

The argument I make is that if a state operates in a world where there is no higher authority that can rescue it if it gets into trouble and one can never know what another state's intentions are today and certainly cannot know what its intentions will be in the future and that rival state can be very powerful in that world. you want to make sure that you are much more powerful than all your rivals because again, if it turns out that another state's intentions are evil and that state is really powerful and you get into trouble, there is no higher authority that you can turn to.

In a world like that it makes a lot of sense to be as powerful as possible, in fact to be the shotgun of the system, but of course all states understand that basic logic and the end result is that you get a competition for power. I call that security competition and sometimes security competition results in war, so that's the basic argument that I make and as you can see by listening to me talk, it's really a structural argument, it's the structure of the System. International, is the fact that there is no higher authority that States cannot know.

The attention intentions of each and some states are much more powerful than others, leading states to compete for power, so that is the basic realist theory now, the reason why it does not apply to the Palestinian case Israeli is that we are not talking about rival states. We are talking about a state that is Greater Israel and we are talking about the fact that within Greater Israel the Palestinians in Gaza are rebelling against the Israelis. This is basically a prison break. What happened was that the Israelis effectively locked the Palestinians into Gaza. in a giant open-air prison and they were treated horribly and what happened on October 7th is that there was a prison break and the Israelis reacted by invading Gaza, but this is not competition between two states if we had gotten two states a long time ago . state solution and there was a Palestinian state next to an Israeli state, then realist logic would apply because there would be two states competing with each other, but the Israelis had no interest in creating a Palestinian state, so there was a greater Israel and What you have here is basically a rebellion by these prisoners who are locked up in Gaza and you have also talked about rationality.

States that act rationally or irrationally and I wonder if we would apply it to the In the case of Israel, would it be safe to say that they are acting irrationally because something that you observed recently, correct me if I'm wrong is that Israel is trying to defeat Hamas, but You will never be able to do it, so how in that case? The meaning is that Israel is interested in continuing to fight this war well, Israel is interested in defeating Hamas. Whether you think it's morally correct or politically correct is another question. I mean, I think the Israelis should have given the Palestinians a state a long time ago of their own it was the smart thing to do, but they decided not to, now there is no doubt that the Israelis went into Gaza and argued that what they wanted to do was defeating Hamas and given that it is practically impossible. defeating Hamas in um in combat, in other words, for the Israel Defense Forces to confront Hamas and eliminate them, is practically impossible, you could argue that that is irrational, but I don't think that was Israel's goal.

I mean, they said that was their goal, their ultimate goal. I think from the beginning it was ethnically cleansing Gaza to drive the Palestinians out of Gaza, and by the way, if they had done that, they would have eliminated Hamas as a problem in Gaza. You follow what I'm saying here, so one could argue that the decision to try to expel Hamas from Gaza and the Toto Palestinians out of Gaza was morally wrong, but one could say that it was a rational strategy from the point of view of Israel, now you wonder why I would say that the fact is that Israel, great Israel, is today an apartheid state and, for future purposes, it is not clear that Israel can remain a separate state in the long term because an apartheid state It is a repugnant notion to a large number of people in the West and the rest of the world.

The Israelis are worried that they will one day go the way of South Africa, which of course was an apartheid state and is no longer, at least as an apartheid state, so what the Israelis would like to do is ethnically cleanse Gaza and ethnically cleansing the West Bank to have a larger Israel that is filled primarily with Israeli Jews and almost all the Palestinians are gone, that is their ideal and I think they saw what happened on October 7th as an opportunity to ethnically cleanse Gaza and That's what they established. that I wanted to do and I think it was a rational strategy, although I want to make it clear that I think it was an abhorrent strategy from a moral point of view, but it failed and the end result is that not only were the Palestinians not expelled from Fortunately, in my opinion , Gaza, but they have not defeated Hamas either, do you think that Israel's apparent lack of concern for the international community trying to stop what they are doing and the likelihood that they will become a pariah state if they don't is irrational and with How seriously are they taking that because if they pull it off, you know, this way hypothetically where they take Gaza and do whatever they want with it, wouldn't that distance them even further from everyone else and what kind of winning position is the problem?

The problem in your argument is the correct use of the word everyone else for the Israelis, what really matters is what the United States does, but not just the countries in the United States like Canada and the countries in Europe, and the The fact is that the Israelis can do almost anything for the Palestinians and Americans, Canadians and Europeans, especially Western Europeans, will support them. We see this even with the Germans today. Who would you think, given their experience with genocide, that they would oppose what the Israelis are doing in Gaza, but the Germans are standing by the Israelis, as are the Americans and almost everyone else in the West, so the Israelis think they have a free hand here, but, of course, in most other places on the planet they are in serious trouble, because the people in those other places.

I understand that the Israelis are carrying out a genocide and think this is unacceptable, so perhaps what I was trying to say is that a state like Israel could survive this way in the long term if it only had the help of, say, a handful of powerful states. The long term is this and the interest of any State. I think there are good reasons to think that an apartheid state cannot last in the long term and, as I said before, I think the Israelis themselves understand that this is not a good situation and now we have a situation where it is not just about an apartheid state, Israel, but it is an apartheid state that is in the process of carrying out genocide in Gaza and that is going to be a moral blow to Israel's reputation.

I'm tempted to say for the foreseeable future, but you could say forever, this is a disastrous situation for Israel. Israelis tend to think they can get away with it now because Western elites back them to the hilt, but over time, when people take stock of what happened after October 7 and what Israelis are doing now, I think it will be disastrous for Israel's reputation, so you combine the genocidal behavior with the fact that it is a separate state and the future of Israel does not look promising and, in your opinion, point about Israel receiving help from the Americans I guess that would also include the Israel lobby or some segments of the Israel lobby and you are known for your seminal book on the Israel lobby.

I'm just wondering how you've seen the Israel lobby develop. regarding American policy since you wrote that book and how it is facilitating the ongoing attack or genocide in Gaza right now, well, there is no doubt that the Israel lobby is playing a key role and keeping the West on the side of Israel, there's no doubt that Steve Walt and I wrote the article on the Israel lobby in 2006 and then we wrote the book in 2007, so that was quite a while ago, a good 18 years for the article. I think there's no doubt that we've had a profound effect.

As a result of the article and the book on the discourse on Israel, I think we opened a big discussion, or a general discussion, about the Israel lobby, the relationship between the United States and Israel, and about Israeli policy itself, but I don't think we have had no effect. The actual policy is correct, so again we have influenced the discourse for sure, but in terms of actual policy, zero influence and I think that tells you two things: one is that the lobby is incredibly powerful and number two, I would say that the lobby has become more powerful.

As time has passed, I think what has happened here is that it has become increasingly difficult to defend Israel in public discourse in the West. I think Israeli behavior is so outrageous at times that the lobby has to work over time to defend Israel and I think it's fair to say that the lobby has risen to the occasion, it's gotten stronger over time. time and does an incredible job protecting Israel. I want to be clear that I don't think this is at the American national level. and I don't think it's in Israel's interest as well. I think the lobby has indeed helped lead Israel down the Primrose path, so I want to make it very clear that I don't think the lobby is good for even the United States.

United States or for Israel, but it is still very powerful, but there is another aspect of lobbying that we should talk about and that is important to understand lobbies or interest groups and there are many of them in the United States that are more effective when They can work behind closed doors. doors and they can work in very subtle ways and people don't talk about the influence of this lobby or that lobby, whether it's the National Rifle Association, the Cuba lobby or the Israel lobby, but about what has happened over the years. time and I think we have played a key role here in exposing the actions of the lobby is that the lobby now has to engage in Smashmouth politics, it has to operate openly in a shameless way and therefore more and more people are They have become aware of Israel's identity.

The presence of the lobby in the American body politic and they have become more aware of how the lobby works and this is not good for the lobby or for Israel and this is another reason why, when you think about where Israel will be and where it will go the lobby eh, it's hard to tell a positive story, it seems like there are big problems ahead for Israel and big problems ahead for the lobby, well I'm glad you mentioned that because when I was reading the article In the book it seemed that somewhere moment the lobby was successful in working in this way that you are talking about, behind closed doors, versus now it seems that everyone knows that it is there and that it is influencing politicians and policies.

Do you see this how? It's a vulnerability for him now and he's in a position where he can actually be weakened because of that, well, it's a vulnerability because it makes it difficult to tell the story that the United States supports Israel because it is in the strategic interest of the United States. and because it is the morally correct thing to do, yes, what a lobby liked to do and likes to do is argue that Americans support Israel in the future because it is in our interest, we are birds of a feather, we are supporting our ally Israel . it is the only democracy in the Middle East it shares our values ​​this is the argument that it is morally and strategically correct to support Israel and what we said in the article and in the book is that that is not true strategically Israel is basically an albatross around the America's neck and the argument that it is ethically correct to support Israel against the Palestinians has been wrong for a long time, long beforeon October 7, and the real reason we support Israel is because of the lobby, not because of strategic or moral logic, and once the lobby is in sight and the lobby is seen exerting its influence in a very harsh way which works to undermine the argument that Israel and the United States are together for strategic and moral reasons because they would not.

A lobby is not needed, if there were strategic and moral reasons for a close relationship. The reason a lobby is needed is because Israel is not a strategic asset, it is a strategic liability and its behavior towards the Palestinians is morally reprehensible and I want to be. Sure, it has been that way for a long period of time, this is not something that started on October 7, so to deal with this situation you need a lobby, but again it is better if that lobby is in the background and is no longer in the background. Background I want to make another point in this survey, a very important one to understand that the arrival of social media has changed the game in very important ways.

It was much easier to work in the background and it was much easier to cover up what Israel was doing before the advent of social media, with social media now there are all kinds of videos on the internet of what the Israelis are doing in Gaza, There are all kinds of alternative platforms for critics of Israel to talk about the war in Gaza, yes the mainstream media is still supportive of Israel going forward, but the fact is that there are alternative platforms where people can go and criticize Israel. Israel and many young people have disconnected from the main media and what they do is turn to these alternative sources.

This is one of the main reasons why the lobby is committed to shutting down Tik Tock. Tik Tock posts all kinds of videos that portray Israelis acting towards Palestinians in barbaric ways and when young people see these videos on Tik Tock, they obviously become remarkably sympathetic towards Palestinians and think poorly, to put it mildly, of Israelis. , so the lobby would like to shut down Tick Tock and the problem is that in the age of social media there are real limits to what you can do and this is going to cause Israel huge problems in the future.

This is not the old world I grew up in, where the mainstream media was all you had. I'm wondering philosophically if you have any idea how lobbying actually trumps success in America. because it is possible, for example, that you can think of a world in which the lobby approaches politicians, legislators and tells them no, what you are asking for is immoral, there are human lives at stake, but we are seeing what contrary and I wonder if part One of the successes of the lobby is that it is somehow able to encourage immoral behavior and how it does it.

Let me talk a little bit about how the lobby operates. It operates on two levels, one you talked about and one you didn't talk about. The first level that you weren't talking about is in terms of public opinion and in terms of dealing with the public and there the lobby is deeply concerned about controlling the discourse as much as possible, that's what we were talking about before the lobby did it. make. I don't want the real thing to be portrayed in a negative light. The lobby doesn't want much discussion about the lobby's role in American politics.

True, the lobby wants to control speech or influence speech as much as possible, which has become extremely difficult to achieve. that was the point that I was making to you at the beginning of second and this is the Second Avenue of influence the lobby is interested in making sure that the policy makers within Congress and within the executive branch and here we are talking not only about the white house but also the state department, the defense department, etc., etc., making sure that those policymakers support Israel unconditionally. That word unconditionally cannot be underestimated, so the name of the game here is to influence those policymakers.

Now, obviously, there are many policymakers who think that what Israel is doing in Gaza is reprehensible, but they will not speak out and vote for Israel at almost every turn. There will be some exceptions but not many which begs the question why and the answer is that in America getting elected to office and staying in office campaign contributions are very important and the lobby is very good at providing money and resources for people who support the lobby's positions and anyone who doesn't support the lobby's positions will find themselves opposed by someone in the next primary or in the next campaign by someone who supports Israel and who is receiving a huge amount of money from pro-Israel sources so that politicians and this again includes politicians in the executive branch and the legislative branch understand that there will be a huge price to pay if they do not support Israel's hook and sinker and as a result they would end up supporting to Israel in almost all cases, if the wobby's ability to provide campaign funds for political candidates were removed.

I think it would be seen. very different voting patterns when it comes to Israel because this is not a case where all these politicians love Israel and feel they have to support Isel because it shares our values ​​or is a strategic asset, they do it largely out of fear The lobby will set its sights on them and defeat them for office. I think that's why the realism and the way you explain it is so fascinating because you use the word reprehensible and I wonder why there seem to be so many politicians who are willing to cross that line or be complicit in this reprehensibility um when presumably or such Maybe this is a naive view according to the realist perspective where we rosy moral creatures are fundamentally concerned with doing what is right first, not what is advantageous to the system or power, and I wonder if you think that. the power structures that policymakers work within are primarily the cause of this kind of lobbying or does that say something about extremely flawed human nature well the fact is that every human being has a moral compass uh and at the same time At the same time, they have a set of interests.

Sometimes that set of interests and moral compass are aligned and you can pursue a policy or take actions that are morally right and that also maximize your chances of meeting your political or economic goals. but then there are those cases where your moral compass points in one direction and your interest compass points in the other direction and then the question is what do you do and there will be cases where people do what their moral compass says they should do. . But, as we both know from the study of history, there are many cases where people set aside what is morally right according to their own compass and instead pursue policies that are morally wrong but serve their own political interests. or economical.

This happens with great sadness. and uh I think this is a case of uh you know you have uh many people who know better uh and U, however, uh they think uh that from a political point of view from the point of view of their own selfish interests that Lo What they should do is support Israel's behavior in Gaza or support Israel's treatment of the Palestinians even before October 7. Yes, and you alluded to it before and you've talked about it in your work, this ultimate goal that Israel has to create the greater Israel and I wonder if you see this as ultimately destructive or counterproductive for Israel and if, in the To the extent that that may be true, it would be a stretch to call his behavior mellian um instead of saying reckless or unhinged because it seems that When we talk about mellian behavior, there is always some logic or strategy involved, whereas that is not so much the case when we talk of what is reckless or chaotic, etc., one wants to understand that the Israelis ethnically cleansed the Palestinians in 1948, yes.

They ethnically cleansed many Palestinians in 1948 and then they did it again in 1967 in the West Bank, when they captured the West Bank from Jordan, so they did massive ethnic cleansing on two occasions and they got away with it and it played a big role. key role in the creation of the State of Israel, so there are several people that I have spoken to over the years in Israel who believe that when the opportunity arises they will be able to carry out ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank, greatly reduce the number of Palestinians and in both places and therefore greatly reduce the number of Palestinians in greater Israel and the end result is that they will be much better off, they will have got their way, yes, there will be a certain moral stain which is associated with this, but they will deal with it, so that is the rational argument for doing this, and who knows, they may get away with it.

Do you want to remember that we are talking about a world here where the United States and the Europeans especially the Germans will basically support Israel no matter what it does, so one could argue that it is not such a foolish policy, it is a morally wrong policy. bankruptcy? Yes, it may ultimately prove to be a reckless policy, yes, but that remains to be seen, so John, thank you. So much for this fascinating discussion, very enlightening, but I also have to say that I find it disturbing because it forces me to revise some of my own assumptions about human nature and sometimes I am inclined to believe that we are more altruistic than not, but, again , Now I'm going to have to revisit it.

I'm wondering if there are any final thoughts or observations you'd like to share. I would just let Paul know that all of this is why my seminal book on international relations is called The Tragedy. very political, I wish it wasn't like that, but I'm a realist with a small r and a capital R and unfortunately that's how the world works, but thank you very much for inviting me on the program, my honor, thank you very much. Many thanks juan