Paper on Israel lobby power draws ire

WASHINGTON, April 3 (UPI) -- Critics of an academic paper claiming the United States sometimes favors Israel's interests over its own say the document is "paranoid and conspiratorial."

Harvard Dean Stephen Walt and University of Chicago Professor John Mearsheimer, claim: "The United States has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around."

They write the war in Iraq was not about oil but about making Israel more secure.

The pair also argues lobbyists working for Israeli interests have "managed to divert U.S. foreign policy as far from when the American national interest would otherwise suggest" more so than any other country's efforts.

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz told The Washington Post: "We've heard all this before, the talk of the powerful Jewish lobbies and the language one hears on Arab and extreme right-wing Web sites. This is paranoid and conspiratorial."

John F. Kennedy School of Government Senior Fellow Marvin Kalb told the Post the Walt-Mearsheimer paper "does play into the terrible argument that Jewish no-goodniks control the media and our foreign policy."

The paper, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," is available at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government Web site.