The Transparent Cabal.

• Author: Kwiatkowski, Karen
• Position: Book review

The word cabal is derived from the Hebrew word Kabbalah, meaning "received doctrine." Modern usage of cabal denotes a secretive group with mystical power and often insidious influence. For the past decade, in U.S. foreign policy the word has been associated specifically with neoconservatism and in particular with a narrow group of pro-Israeli neoconservatives with occupations in government, think tanks, academia, and the news media.

A true cabal is opaque and mysterious, not transparent. Yet Stephen Sniegoski has aptly and refreshingly titled his latest book The Transparent Cabal (Norfolk, Va.: Enigma Editions, 2008). The individuals who most convincingly articulated a need for war in Iraq and who strategized a U.S. mission to replace the Iraqi and other governments in the Middle East at gunpoint did not keep their vision veiled. Instead, they loudly trumpeted, persistently drummed, and publicly paraded it in the offices, conferences, and reading rooms of the American political elite for many years. Sniegoski relies on publicly accessible material to introduce and support his thesis, which is that a close relationship exists between U.S. neoconservatives and the Israeli Likudnik right and that neoconservatives view U.S. foreign-policy interests through the lens of Israeli interests as perceived by the right-wing parties influential in Israel's own democracy (pp. 3-7).

The idea that American neoconservatives have conflated U.S. security interests in the Middle East with the international-security perspective of ardent right-wingers in Israel has generated inflammatory and angry reactions from pro-Israel quarters in Washington. It is academically and politically a dangerous contemplation, as Sniegoski recognizes and as analysts of recent U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East know. The brief and heavily footnoted assessment entitled "The Israel Lobby," by respected realists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt (London Review of Books, March 23, 2006), not only was initially denied a U.S. publisher in 2006, but also gave rise to a sustained and somewhat hysterical smear campaign against both authors, replete with public accusations of anti-Semitism and calls for their removal from both academia and public life. Far from a polemic, "The Israel Lobby" is a benign and politically dry review of the actions and impact of the various organizations that actively promote Israel's interests in Washington, including the Likud-leaning American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations.

Mearsheimer and Walt's report on the power that American advocates for Israel exert in shaping policy and increasing financial, military, and moral support for Israel reads much like any of the expository speeches given at the annual AIPAC policy conference held each spring in Washington. The difference, of course, is one of perspective. Rather than self-congratulatory...