Magazine's Terrorism Index Catches Attention in Israel

Here's a tidbit that didn't get much attention in the United States but "raised eyebrows" in Israel, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Last week, Foreign Policy magazine published its Terrorism Index, which surveyed American foreign policy experts from across the political spectrum on various U.S. national security issues. One of the questions asked the experts to choose the country that least serves U.S. national security interests.

Russia led the list at 34 percent. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia were next. But tucked away in fourth place was Israel at 14 percent.

One diplomatic official in Jerusalem, while acknowledging that 14% is a considerable minority, said he was still worried by the trend. "Considering the closeness and importance of our ties with Washington, this is something we need to watch," he said.

In the past, the Post articles notes, that kind of argument only seemed to come from far-right voices like former presidential candidate and TV pundit Pat Buchanan or far-left ones like outspoken MIT professor Noam Chomsky. But after John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard University argued in a paper last year that the U.S.-Israel relationship needs to be rethought, the idea is beginning to make its way into the mainstream of American intellectuals.

And the debate will likely deepen when Mearsheimer and Walt's book comes out next week. It argues that, with the end of the Cold War, Israel is a strategic liability for the United States.

4:43 PM ET | 08-28-2007 | permalink