J'Accuse?

So, is it anti-semitic? I refer to the Mearsheimer and Walt(M&W) study of the powerful Israel lobby in the U.S. Eliot Cohen says yes and Glenn, as usual agrees without really saying anything. I don't know for sure, but some of Cohen's claims don't hold up. For example, he says "Israeli citizenship rests 'on the principle of blood kinship,' it says, and yet the country has a million non-Jewish citizens who vote." But M & W say:

Some aspects of Israeli democracy are at odds with core American values. Unlike the US, where people are supposed to enjoy equal rights irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship. Given this, it is not surprising that its 1.3 million Arabs are treated as second-class citizens, or that a recent Israeli government commission found that Israel behaves in a ‘neglectful and discriminatory’ manner towards them. Its democratic status is also undermined by its refusal to grant the Palestinians a viable state of their own or full political rights.

They might be wrong, but what they are saying is considerably more nuanced than what Cohen says that they are saying.

Cohen also claims that "Osama bin Laden's grievance with the United States begins with Israel, it says." What M&W actually say is:

More important, saying that Israel and the US are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: the US has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around. Support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the war on terror more difficult. There is no question that many al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are motivated by Israel’s presence in Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians. Unconditional support for Israel makes it easier for extremists to rally popular support and to attract recruits. (emphasis added)

Tapes of Osama bear this out: "We swore that America wouldn't live in security until we live it truly in Palestine. This showed the reality of America, which puts Israel's interest above its own people's interest. America won't get out of this crisis until it gets out of the Arabian Peninsula, and until it stops its support of Israel." -Osama bin Laden, October 2001

I don't know enough about the issue to definitively support or oppose the study by M&W, however I can spot a shoddy hit job when I see one. My first clue was that Cohen led off by mentioning David Duke