Dave Weigel writes that the anti-Muslim right is taking the Liberal Fascism I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I approach to responding to Steven Walt and John Mearshimer's book, The Israel Lobby. Sure, there's a conspiracy to control American foreign policy, it's just the Arabs who are doing it, not the Jews. From the description of the book:
This book was written in part to respond to the growing popularity of conspiracy theorists who believe that Jews somehow control U.S. Middle East policy. The "Israeli lobby" is obsessively scrutinized, mischaracterized, and demonized while ignoring the far more powerful Arab lobby. And right now, the Arab lobby is engaged in an increasingly successful global campaign to delegitimize and ostracize Israel.
In case you had any doubts about Hussein Ibish's argument that "Islamophobia is a barely warmed over, 20 seconds in the microwave, version of traditional anti-Semitism," the very concept of this book can help put those to rest. As Weigel points out, efforts to blunt Israel's support in Congress are, as far as effectiveness is concerned, "comparable to that of NAMBLA advocates."
The book is blurbed by Daniel Pipes, who does the important work of scrutinizing whether nonwhites and Muslim Americans in particular are unfairly privileged in beauty contests, and Anti-Defamation League head Abraham Foxman, who apparently thinks conspiracy theories about shadowy religious elites controlling everything from behind the scenes are fine as long as they aren't directed at Jews. I can imagine developing such a siege mentality about anti-Semitism that one could lose sight of the universal principles of tolerance that were once at the heart of the ADL's mission, but you'd think Foxman could look around at the company he's keeping and realize what side of that argument he's placed himself on.
At the very least you'd think that merely taking an argument Foxman himself sees as an anti-Semitic smear and changing the names around might ring a few alarm bells. Foxman wrote an entire book attacking The Israel Lobby as anti-Semitic "deadly lies," but he sees The Arab Lobby as "a well-documented, concise, and insightful account of the scope and impact of Arab states' influence on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East." We're on complete tribalist autopilot here.
