The Israel Lobby - John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Wait

I was looking for something different. Something to stand out of the fluff and gruff that I so love to read. This is what I came up with. The authors start the book out by saying, "Hey we realize this is a touchy subject. People are going to call us racist. We understand that but we feel like it is important to bring this information to light." (Well in a few more words but you get the picture). They are right on all counts. Their research deals with the uneven handed US foreign policy toward Israel. It is touchy and I guess if you support these policies it may seem racist. Hey, I don't and it still seemed a bit on the edge, not the research itself but just compiling it. I honestly thought why do they feel the need to needle this. At one point I flipped to the front to see the authors' names and when I saw the "heimer" I thought, oh my. But then I realized, hey this is the time of supposed information freedom and just because they felt the need to share this information doesn't mean they are or are racist, or related to racists. Does it matter? Perhaps, perhaps not. They are like the anti-lobby and in my book that means take a look. The research they have compiled is AWESOME! I've dabbled in a tiny bit of the region's history, but there was stuff I'd never heard. There was stuff that my husband who has a BA in Near Eastern Studies had never heard or perhaps just forgot. Multiple times in this book I looked up and said, "Did you know this?" Actually I did that a lot!

On the Four Star Scale

Yuck Factor (*) - Politics is always a little icky in my opinion :)

Readability (****) - This is 496 pages of research but some of this length is taken up with footnotes and it flows nicely. Plus the "wow, I never knew that factor" keeps you plowing on.

Final notes - I agree that you could be suspect of their motives, but they are writing a book that has an argument and the argument is, "The US has crappy Middle Eastern policies and that is hurting us." They don't need to stay balanced. They are making their argument and from where I'm sitting it isn't half bad.