Profile on Stephen Walt, Speaker at Upcoming “One State” Conference

Stephen Walt, an International Affairs Professor at the Kennedy School of Government, is scheduled to speak at this weekend’s one-state solution conference at the Kennedy School. Walt will participate in a panel discussion called “What Happened to the Two-State Solution?” The two other panelists, Ali Abunimah and Eve Spangler, are both supporters of a one-state solution, which would necessarily result in the dismantlement of Israel as a Jewish state. 

Walt’s anti-Israel positions were most prominently aired in his 2007 book, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” which he co-authored with John Mearsheimer. Since its publication, Walt has spoken to a variety of audiences about U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, asserting that the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. has excessive power and divided loyalties and uses its power to stifle criticism of Israel against America’s true interests. 

Walt also regularly focuses on Israel on his blog on ForeignPolicy.com. In the past year, Walt has authored more than a dozen posts about Israel, most of which focus exclusively on why the special relationship between Israel and the U.S. negatively affects American interests and should therefore cease to exist.

Walt’s framing of the issue makes it seem like pro-Israel forces in the U.S. engage in coercive tactics and compel U.S. policymakers to take harmful decisions on matters related to Israel. In a November 2011 post titled, “Is Israel REALLY a strategic asset?,” Walt writes, “Israel is the only country in the world that mainstream U.S. politicians (and most members of the foreign-policy establishment) cannot openly criticize.”

One-State “Solution” Conference to be Held at Harvard in March

Update: ADL welcomed Harvard University’s February 24 statement following receipt of a letter from ADL’s National Director to Harvard’s President, Dr. Drew Gilpin Faust. The Harvard University statement, which acknowledged ADL’s concerns, said in part: “We would never take a position on specific policy solutions to achieving peace in this region, and certainly would not endorse any policy that some argue could lead to the elimination of the Jewish State of Israel.” 

Just one month after the major BDS conference at the University of Pennsylvania, a conference to examine the “possible contours” of a one-state “solution” is scheduled to take place at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government over the first weekend in March. 

The event will feature Stephen Walt, the co-author of the 2007 book “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” which infamously asserted that the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. has excessive power and divided loyalties and uses its power to stifle criticism of Israel against America’s true interests. 

Walt is not the only anti-Israel academic who will speak at the conference. The list includes University of Exeter professor Ilan Pappe, Harvard Law School fellow Diana Buttu, Baylor University’s Marc Ellis and many others.  Several of the anti-Israel activists who headlined the Penn BDS conference will attend next month’s event as well, including Ali Abunimah, Dalit Baum and Sarah Schulman.

The conference program focuses on the inevitability of a one-state “solution” and strategies for overcoming the obstacles that might otherwise prevent it. Based on the speakers list and program, it seems likely that the messages propagated at both conferences will be virtually indistinguishable from one another with regard to their one-sided criticisms of Israel and lack of consideration for the complexity of the conflict.

One other thing to note: In contrast to last weekend’s BDS conference, the “One State” conference is receiving significant financial and institutional support from Harvard, including funding from two university departments, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Office of the Provost.