Читать книгу America's Israel - Kenneth Kolander - Страница 7

Introduction

The United States and Israel share an uneasy alliance. On the one hand, the two countries need each other. The United States provides Israel with vital military and political protection that ensures its place in the Middle East. Israel serves as a dependable and important ally for the United States in a turbulent region marked by a considerable amount of anti-Westernism. Many Americans feel a cultural connection to Israel and appreciate having a U.S. stronghold in the region. Many Israelis are deeply grateful for American help, especially given Europe’s history of anti-Semitism, and dread the thought of ever losing U.S. support.

On the other hand, the two countries have divergent national interests that often lead to conflicts. American officials have criticized Israel for dealing unjustly with Arabs within and beyond its borders, and fear that Israel intends to hold onto substantial tracts of territory it took during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. These longstanding issues complicate U.S. relations with the Arab world and weaken America’s global image. Israeli officials believe that U.S. policymakers are naïve about Arab attitudes toward Israel and fear that U.S. aid and political support can be used to strongarm Israel into accommodating Arab states and nations that are bent on Israel’s destruction. Quite certainly, U.S.-Israel relations have an abundance of consensus, conflict, and anxiety.

This uneasy alliance did not happen all at once, but instead grew out of a “special relationship” and a Cold War strategic alliance. The United States formed a special relationship with the State of Israel many years ago, on May 14, 1948, the day of Israel’s modern founding. The special relationship, rooted in powerful cultural factors, amounts to an unshakable American commitment to ensure the survival of Israel. After the Holocaust, U.S. policymakers, along with many everyday Americans, felt a moral obligation to protect Israel. The special relationship required American political support and foreign assistance to secure Israel’s permanency in the Middle East.

The two countries also developed a strategic alliance during the Cold War. Time and time again, Israeli officials told their American counterparts of Israel’s strategic value in the Middle East. They could point to practical results. For example, the Israeli intelligence organization Mossad managed to flip an Iraqi pilot, Munir Redfa, who agreed to fly a Soviet MiG 21 from Iraq to Israel in August 1966. Israel eventually shared that technology with the United States, which helped American military planners, and especially U.S. pilots, to understand the capabilities of the Soviet fighter plane.¹ At the behest of the Richard Nixon administration, Israeli forces mobilized in defense of King Hussein of Jordan during Black September in 1970. Although Israel did not directly intervene in the crisis, which ended in a decisive Jordanian victory over Palestinian and Syrian forces, the move signaled to Moscow that an American ally stood ready to act, if necessary, and also demonstrated to Washington that Israel could be counted on to advance American objectives in the region.

Israeli officials emphasized Israel’s strategic utility to justify the acquisition of more weapons from the United States, and to strengthen the bonds between the two countries. Some U.S. policymakers wanted Israel to become an American ally in a crucial region to contain communism, especially given the disastrous war in East Asia, which meant selling more weapons to Israel. U.S. military aid grants to Israel, which in 2019 have come to reach nearly $4 billion annually, grew out of the special relationship and, at times, served American strategic purposes. Yet one has to wonder – at what point does U.S. military aid and political protection for Israel exceed the boundaries of either a special or strategic relationship? At what point does U.S. support for Israel become excessive to the point that it undermines other U.S. interests, as well as the pursuit of peace in the Middle East?

Neither the special relationship nor a strategic alliance properly frames U.S.-Israel relations since the 1970s. Rather, the two countries share an uneasy, yet durable alliance that contains elements of a special relationship and a strategic alliance.

This alliance, which continues into our present time, came into existence between the Six-Day War in June 1967 and the Sinai II Disengagement Agreement in September 1975. A formative moment happened when the Gerald Ford administration agreed to secret executive agreements with Israel, connected to the Sinai II agreement between Israel and Egypt in 1975, which created a new foundation for U.S.-Israel relations moving forward. The United States pledged to provide for Israel’s future economic and military needs and, at the same time, agreed to not force Israel to return Arab territories taken in 1967. The administration believed it needed to secure an agreement between Israel and Egypt to keep the peace process alive, to prevent the outbreak of war, and to continue drawing Egypt away from the Soviet Union. Unable to pressure Israel into going along with U.S. foreign policy, the Ford administration instead felt obligated to buy the agreement. With these open-ended and far-reaching commitments, Israel managed to get just what it wanted: virtually unlimited weaponry without American arm-twisting to give back Arab lands. In return, Israeli officials understood that the United States expected Israel’s full cooperation with any security issues that might arise in the region. As numerous U.S. legislators noted at the time, these agreements represented a monumental change in U.S.-Israel relations.

A sense of uneasiness persisted between the two countries. This new arrangement severely strained U.S.-Arab relations and diminished the prospect of a regional peace, and U.S. officials continued to stress to Israel the need to address Palestinian grievances and return Arab lands. Israeli officials, for their part, continued to fear the possibility of a Palestinian state—especially one governed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)—and to worry that U.S. officials would coerce Israel into accepting that reality. These concerns would not abate but, instead, would fester.

The U.S. Congress played a key role in shaping U.S.-Israel relations during this period (as it does today) and, therefore, occupies a central place in this book. Between 1967 and 1975, the United States placed itself in the middle of Arab-Israeli peacemaking and became Israel’s closest and most important supporter. Also during this period, congressional power and influence in foreign relations became unusually strong. Yet no study of U.S.-Israel relations focuses primarily on the role of Congress, which can bring together the main factors that scholars use to explain the U.S.-Israel special relationship: national-security concerns, cultural similarities (Judeo-Christian religious tradition, democracy, Western historical experience, and settler colonialism), and the importance of domestic politics, especially the activities of the Israel lobby. Congress, much more than the executive, captures the degree to which many more interests and concerns of Americans can have a voice in foreign policy. In many respects, support for Israel reflected a more democratic foreign policy. By integrating the role of Congress into the historical narrative of U.S.-Israel relations during a crucial period, this work seeks to connect popular affinity for Israel with decidedly pro-Israel positions of the U.S. government.

Traditional approaches to the study of U.S.-Israel relations have emphasized presidential policies.² Even in standard textbooks about U.S. foreign relations, the presidential narrative frames the discussion and tends to exclude other perspectives or angles of study.³ (The State of Israel, by contrast, has been much more interested than scholars in the legislative branch’s ability to shape U.S. foreign policy.)

The presidential narrative begins with Harry Truman’s recognition of Israel only minutes after the official announcement on May 14, 1948, and scholars like Peter Hahn have pointed out that Truman’s presidency, which included an arms embargo to the Middle East, was actually evenhanded, despite the administration’s quick recognition of Israel.⁴ U.S.-Israel relations during the Eisenhower years were marked by conflict, especially over the Suez Crisis, but as Douglas Little and Abraham Ben-Zvi have noted, a thaw in relations happened toward the end of Eisenhower’s presidency.⁵ The Kennedy-Johnson years are generally treated as the gradual abandonment of Eisenhower’s more evenhanded policy, as two successive Democratic presidencies inched closer and closer to Israel, particularly through modest increases in military aid and weapons sales, as well as political support in the international arena, especially after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.⁶

Scholars recognize that, in terms of military aid and political support, the 1970s were a crucial period. The Nixon and Ford years witnessed an enormous increase in U.S. military aid to Israel, and Henry Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy, as well as his pro-Israel leanings, have been well documented.⁷ The narrative continues with Jimmy Carter’s publicized battles with the Israel lobby over weapons sales and peace negotiations, and the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt at Camp David is seen as a watershed event.⁸ The United States and Israel moved closer together in the decades that followed. Researchers continue to wait for more declassified records to detail presidential approaches to U.S.-Israel relations after Camp David.

While some scholars have explored the congressional role in U.S. foreign policymaking, particularly in response to the Vietnam War, little attention has been devoted to the Middle East.⁹ Robert David Johnson avoids discussion of U.S.–Middle East relations in his outstanding study Congress and the Cold War.10 Books by Mohamed Rabie and Marvin Feuerwerger have shed light on congressional influence on foreign-aid packages for the Middle East, and specifically for Israel.¹¹ Former State Department Middle East expert Harold Saunders has written a helpful chapter about Congress and U.S.–Middle East policy.¹² No book-length treatment has placed Congress at the center of U.S.-Israel relations, which this work attempts to do.

Basic Argument

The imbalance in the scholarly perspective about U.S.-Israel relations has created a misleading narrative that treats the legislative branch as being incidental to foreign policymaking. But in the years between the 1967 Arab-Israeli War and the 1975 Sinai II agreement, an activist Congress, empowered by the quagmire in Southeast Asia and popular distrust of the presidency, and increasingly influenced by the Israel lobby, played a central role in reworking U.S.-Israel relations, and U.S. relations with the Middle East more generally.

Congress possesses a wealth of tools to influence foreign policy. The U.S. Constitution explicitly protects the president’s right to conduct foreign relations. But the Founding Fathers, fearful of the potential excesses of a tyrant, designed Congress to be the much stronger branch. Congress has the power to tax, declare war, make laws, regulate foreign commerce, and pass a yearly federal budget; Congress relies most heavily on the “power of the purse,” or its budgetary powers, to influence foreign policy. Following World War II, Congress deferred to the “Imperial Presidency” in order to give the executive branch enough power and flexibility to fight the Cold War.¹³ But the war in East Asia emboldened legislators to play a more active role in foreign policy. During the 1970s, Congress chipped away at excessive presidential power in an effort to restore better constitutional balance to foreign policymaking. Congress eventually cut off all funding for the Vietnam War, effectively ending the war, and also passed legislation to restrict executive power, such as the 1973 War Powers Act.

A profound shift happened during the 1970s. After peace negotiations following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War led nowhere, Washington preferred to remain mostly aloof from further peace discussions. Secretary of State William Rogers recognized the dangers of allowing the status quo to remain and tried to initiate peace talks on several occasions. But National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger continually worked to undermine his efforts, and Nixon was much more inclined to deal with Vietnam than the slow-moving peace process. The 1973 Arab-Israeli War (and oil embargo) forced the Nixon administration to play a more active role in facilitating a peace agreement. The Middle East, largely due to the oil embargo and its effect on Western economies, came to be seen as vital to U.S. security, while East Asia faded in importance. Americans sensed their vulnerability to Middle Eastern oil as they were forced to deal with long gas lines, a recessed economy, and inflated prices on consumer goods. Bruce Schulman, Daniel Sargent, and Salim Yaqub also identify the 1970s as being a crucial period for U.S. foreign policy.¹⁴

Presidents gradually agreed to provide Israel with weapons so it could protect itself against Arab neighbors that continually pledged to drive it into the sea, and to prevent the spread of communism. Presidents first authorized sales to Israel using military loans, and beginning with Richard Nixon’s emergency aid to Israel during the 1973 Arab-Israel War, a combination of loans and grants. Since fiscal year 1985, U.S. military aid to Israel has been exclusively military grants. But presidents also tried to balance U.S.-Israel relations with other interests in the region. The White House recognized that weapons equaled leverage and consistently tried to use the threat of withholding arms from Israel to get it to be more flexible in peace negotiations. Successive presidencies came to recognize that Israel planned to remain in much of the occupied territories and hoped to prevent a fortress mentality from developing in the minds of Israeli leaders. Moreover, the executive branch sought to avoid escalating the arms race in the Middle East and feared that overt support for Israel would compromise other security and economic interests in the region (that is, containing communism and securing access to oil).

But the presidency, crippled by Vietnam and Watergate, was at a low ebb. The United States and Israel developed a much tighter relationship just as congressional involvement in U.S. foreign policymaking reached its highest point in the Cold War.

Congress pushed back when the White House threatened to withhold weapons (or in the minds of some legislators, did not agree to sell enough weapons) and used a combination of policy initiatives and displays of public support for Israel to pressure the president to change course. Like other hotspots during the 1970s—Vietnam, Cyprus, and Angola, for example—Congress took on the White House over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and had its way. If the power of the presidency had remained high, the United States might not have developed such a close relationship with Israel.

The weakened White House had to bow to the gathered strength of a decidedly pro-Israel Congress, which helps to explain the sharp rise in U.S. military aid to Israel. Through 1970, annual military aid to Israel had not exceeded $90 million. But in 1971, spurred by Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson’s amendment to the Defense Procurement Act, the number jumped to $545 million. After the secret executive agreements in 1975, annual military aid to Israel reached $1 billion and has not dipped below that mark ever since. Military aid gradually increased to an annual level of $1.8 billion during the Reagan years and then remained steady through the end of the 1990s. But during the 2000s the number gradually increased again and moved up to $3 billion annually. According to a June 2015 Congressional Research Service report, “Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II,” with a total that exceeded $125 billion.¹⁵ In September 2016, the United States and Israel agreed to a new ten-year, $38 billion military-aid package, along with an American insistence that Israel use the grants to purchase U.S.-made products and services.¹⁶

U.S. Assistance to Israel, FY1949–FY1985 (millions of dollars)

Table: FFP means Food for Peace. TQ means “Transition Quarter.” In 1976, the U.S. federal fiscal calendar changed. Prior to 1976, the fiscal year ended on June 30. But beginning in 1976, the fiscal year ended on September 30. Therefore, TQ refers to the total amount of U.S. aid to Israel between July 1 and September 30, 1976. The amount of the 1976 FFP Grant, represented by *, refers to less than $50,000. There are additional loans and grants that impact the total amount not included in this table: Export-Import Bank Loans, Jewish Refugee Resettlement Grants, American Schools and Hospitals Grants, Cooperative Development Grants, a $20 million grant in 1975 for a seawater desalting plant, and a $17.5 million CCC loan in 1982. (Clyde R. Mark, “Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance,” April 26, 2005, Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress, CRS Issue Brief for Congress, received through the CRS Web, 13.)

Graph 1: The Sinai II agreement, which included open-ended and far-reaching secret executive agreements between the United States and Israel, led to the establishment of a much higher annual baseline of U.S. economic support, which is reflected in the total for 1976. A transition quarter existed between July 1 and September 30, 1976, when the U.S. government adjusted the fiscal calendar, and that has been added to the total for 1976, which makes the amount seem a bit higher than it actually was since it includes three extra months. The amount of economic assistance for the transition quarter was $25 million in loans and $50 million in grants. (Clyde R. Mark, “Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance,” April 26, 2005, Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress, CRS Issue Brief for Congress, Received through the CRS Web, 13.)

Graph 2: The Sinai II agreement, which included open-ended and far-reaching secret executive agreements between the United States and Israel, led to the establishment of a much higher annual baseline of U.S. military support, which is reflected in the total for 1976. The noticeably larger amounts of military aid were for the 1973 emergency airlift and the Camp David Accords. A transition quarter existed between July 1 and September 30, 1976, when the U.S. government adjusted the fiscal calendar, and that has been added to the total for 1976, which makes the amount seem a bit higher than it actually was since it includes three extra months. The amount of military assistance for the transition quarter was $100 million in loans and $100 million in grants. Since 1976, U.S. military aid to Israel has not dipped below $1 billion annually. (Clyde R. Mark, “Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance,” April 26, 2005, Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress, CRS Issue Brief for Congress, Received through the CRS Web, 13.)

Thus, the present work aims to transform the traditional narrative. Relying on a broad collection of sources, including the Congressional Record, presidential libraries, the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), personal papers of former legislators, the Center for Legislative Archives at the U.S. National Archives, and the Israel State Archives, I argue that U.S. foreign policy with respect to Israel by no means followed a course preferred by successive presidential administrations. An embattled White House due to Watergate and Vietnam created a situation for Congress to play an unusually large role in U.S.–Middle East relations, which resulted in a fundamental shift in U.S.-Israel relations. After the Sinai II agreement in the fall of 1975, the United States committed itself to preserving its dominance in the Middle East at the expense of the Palestinians and other Arab grievances in order to keep Israel powerful and Egypt out of the Soviet orbit. Taking Egypt out of the war with Israel ensured decades of peace between the two countries and further cemented the U.S.-Egypt relationship. But since then, annual military aid to Israel has increased substantially, while peace efforts have ebbed much more than they have flowed. Arming Israel regardless of movement in the peace process has empowered Israel to continue to occupy substantial tracts of the Arab lands taken in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, which in turn has contributed to an ever-growing amount of anti-Americanism in the Middle East, and other regions as well. The U.S.-Israel relationship that most people recognize today, which includes enormous amounts of U.S. military aid to Israel, a powerful strategic alliance, and an American willingness to acquiesce to Israeli occupation of certain Arab territories taken in 1967, came into existence between 1967 and 1975, particularly with the transformative executive agreements in 1975.

Congress and the Israel Lobby

In the case of Israel, Congress takes on an even more significant role in shaping U.S. policy because of the Israel lobby. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, in The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, describe the Israel lobby as being “a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively works to move U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction.”¹⁷ Mearsheimer and Walt argue that the Israel lobby, especially since the end of the Cold War, has been the most important factor influencing U.S.–Middle East policy.¹⁸ Regarding the lobby’s influence on U.S. foreign policy, two particular organizations deserve mention. The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (Conference of Presidents) meets with executive-branch officials and foreign dignitaries to discuss policy issues and put forward a particular position (and had no Arab counterpart until 1972), while the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) primarily lobbies Congress. These two organizations “funnel the bulk of articulate Jewish opinion on policy issues to governmental decision-makers” and thereby influence U.S. foreign policy on a level rivaled by few, if any, countries.¹⁹ While not a monolithic organization, according to Mearsheimer and Walt, the lobby “is simply a powerful interest group, made up of both Jews and gentiles, whose acknowledged purpose is to press Israel’s case within the United States and influence American foreign policy in ways that its members believe will benefit the Jewish state.”²⁰ During the 1960s the Israel lobby had already established itself as one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the United States.²¹

The president typically prefers to conduct foreign relations with little input from Congress and out of view of the American public. But the Israel lobby and Israeli officials have convinced many legislators to resist presidential initiatives if they are deemed disadvantageous to Israel. Congressional speeches on the House and Senate floors, statements from congressional offices, and even legislation often bear the imprint of AIPAC. When a U.S. official makes a public statement—regardless of who actually authored the statement—that position becomes legitimized in American political discourse. This dynamic forces the president to publicly contend with an Israeli position effectively channeled through Congress. Moreover, as Steven Spiegel notes, Israel’s advocates in the United States can “solicit support in Congress and from friends in the Pentagon appealing directly to the president over the heads of State Department and Defense Department opponents.”²² William Fulbright (D-AR), who served as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 1959 to 1975, complained in 1973, “The Israelis can count on 75 to 80 votes ‘on anything … (they) are interested in in the Senate.’” I. L. “Si” Kenen, then head of AIPAC, confirmed Fulbright’s observation: “I rarely go to the Hill. There is so much support for Israel that I don’t have to.”²³ In addition to contacts with legislators, Kenen admitted that Jewish campaign contributions “play a very real part” in congressional support for Israel.²⁴

The American political system is extraordinarily open to influence, and the degree to which it can be penetrated by foreign lobbyists and others representing foreign governments is something that must be understood and not just condemned. Stephen Walt, in an April 2019 article in Foreign Policy, makes a similar case. Walt argues “for a more hardheaded, cynical, and realistic approach to the influence that foreigners invariably seek to exercise over U.S. foreign policy. As long as the U.S. political system is so permeable, it behooves Americans to treat foreign efforts to shape their thinking with due discretion.”²⁵ The Israel lobby is strong because for the most part, though not always, it pushes against an open door. There is so much public support and sympathy for Israel that it does not face a great deal of difficulty in convincing legislators to vote its way. While all of the major Arab governments have their lobbyists in Washington, it has taken them a lot longer to learn the game, and they often have a much harder case to sell. However, both Anwar Sadat of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan proved very effective in generating American sympathy and support. Ultimately, lobbyists and foreign governments recognize that the U.S. Congress can play a very important role in shaping U.S. foreign policy.

Bipartisan Support for Israel

The Israel lobby undoubtedly affects U.S. policy, but overemphasis on the lobby itself can diminish the importance of U.S. popular affinity for Israel. The lobby’s ability to influence U.S. policy, to some extent, is rooted in bipartisan American support for Israel. Indeed, any study of Congress’s influence on U.S.-Israel relations must recognize overwhelming legislative support for Israel and thereby affirm the solid foundation of the special relationship. While the present book is not about popular support for Israel, it implies that support through an analysis of Congress’s influence on U.S. foreign policy.

Many congressional members are happy to boldly, loudly, and publicly back an ally like Israel, and in some cases this support can swing a congressional election. Since many everyday Americans feel a connection to Israel, and for a variety of reasons, it befits legislators to adopt pro-Israel positions, either to represent their constituencies or to have a talking point for the next election, and perhaps both. The U.S. president can serve only two terms, but legislators can serve an unlimited number of terms and generally seek to advance policies that can lead to reelection. For legislators, the line between personal interest and the national interest, unfortunately, does not always appear very clear. It must be noted that legislators use Israel as much as the Israel lobby uses legislators; the political game is played by all parties involved.

In the context of U.S. domestic politics, broadly speaking, Americans more closely identify with Jews and the State of Israel than with Arabs and Arab states and nations in the Middle East. This understandably leads to preferential treatment for Israel vis-à-vis its Arab neighbors. The Israel lobby exerts significant influence on U.S. policy, but its ability to do so stems from popular affinity for Israel and manifests itself in the branch of government meant to represent popular opinion—the legislature. And congressional support for Israel is nothing new. Congress promoted the Zionist movement before Israel’s declared statehood. Resolutions in 1922 and 1944 endorsed the Balfour Declaration, while the pro-Zionist American Palestine Committee, founded in 1932 and revived in 1941, included the membership of more than two hundred congresspeople.²⁶ Many legislators became ardent supporters of Israel after its declared existence in May 1948.

Prior to the Cold War, the United States (similar to Europe) harbored a significant amount of anti-Semitism. But after the horrors of concentration camps became widely known, many Americans reconfigured their ideas about Jews. Cultural representations reflected this evolution of thought. In Eye on Israel, Michelle Mart includes a multitude of examples from American newspapers, magazines, fictional stories, and motion pictures to show that by the 1950s, American Jews occupied a much more respectable position than ever before.²⁷ Rather than depicting Jews as weak victims, cultural products refashioned Jews as masculine and strong. Israelis were also seen as pragmatic and individualistic—characteristics prized by Americans. Images linked Israelis to the pioneers of the American West. They were people who could tame the desert wilderness and transform a backward region into a forward-thinking, modern state. Surrounded by Eastern Arabs, Israel was seen as a “gutsy underdog,” like the undersized David slaying the mammoth Goliath.²⁸ Americans started to see cultural similarities, rather than differences, and even came to admire Israel for its accomplishments, which contributed to acceptance of Israel as an ally. Mart shows that popular culture impacted public opinion and forces one to consider the cultural and intellectual side to U.S.-Israel relations, rather than viewing it as simply a political-strategic relationship.²⁹

Many Americans feel a cultural closeness to Israel, and during the Cold War this translated into bipartisan political support for Israel. Beginning with the Truman administration, the Cold War consensus called for both Democrats and Republicans to advance an anti-communist foreign policy. This meant that Israel, a Western, democratic, noncommunist state, received American backing within a region perceived to be Eastern, or Oriental. Gradually, Americans started to view Israel as a crucial ally in the fight against the Soviet Union for global supremacy, and therein culture and Cold War politics overlapped.

The Democratic Party more quickly embraced the State of Israel than the Republican Party, though Republican support for Israel would accelerate during the late 1960s and 1970s. Support for labor, at one point a primary concern of the Democratic Party, inspired some Americans to offer assistance to Israel, which between 1948 and 1977 was governed by a labor-dominated coalition of political parties. Labor leaders emphasized their anti-communist position by arguing that Israel could serve as a Cold War ally, situated to the right of communism but also acceptably to the left of laissez-faire capitalism.

The Democratic Party also promoted civil liberties. Like African Americans, Jewish Americans experienced virulent prejudice from many racist Americans and, following World War II, helped to advance the Civil Rights Movement. (For instance, two Jewish activists and one black activist were murdered in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer of 1964, which formed the basis of the movie Mississippi Burning.) However, the relationship soured by the end of the 1960s. The Nation of Islam and the Black Power movement were often very critical of Zionism and what was perceived to be Israeli imperialism during and after the 1967 war, which contributed to a split between the two groups. The New Left in the United States also became critical of Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and Israeli treatment of Palestinians in occupied territories, despite the presence of many Jewish leaders and rank-and-file members in the movement. Nevertheless, liberal Democratic support for Israel remained strong, and still today, the majority of Jewish Americans lean to the political left.

States with large urban populations have proven to be another Democratic Party ally of Israel. Major American cities, such as New York, Boston, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, and Los Angeles, contain large numbers of Jewish Americans, with many who vote and actively participate in, and contribute to, political campaigns. Therefore, it behooves legislators from these states to demonstrate that they are responsive to concerns regarding the State of Israel.

Slowly during the Cold War, the interests of Israel and the Republican Party started to align. The Cold War consensus ended with Vietnam, and while liberals tried to reduce defense spending and focus on human rights, some Republicans, conservative Democrats, and Cold War hawks aimed to continue containment. Many conservatives disagreed with détente, which meant a relaxing of tensions with the Soviet Union, and started to view Israel as a powerful ally that could help America continue its global war against communism. Israeli military victories seemed even more impressive (and important) when juxtaposed alongside the quagmire in East Asia.

An emerging neoconservative doctrine added another layer of support for Israel. Some Cold War liberals grew disenchanted with the counterculture of the 1960s and with a liberal foreign policy that was regarded as too willing to give ground to communist forces, especially in light of the perceived weakening of American resolve due to Vietnam. Neoconservatism was driven by the writings of Jewish American intellectuals like Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz, and especially by the monthly magazine Commentary. Neoconservatives countered the increasingly anti-Israel New Left by pushing for a more assertive foreign policy based on American military might. As some Americans questioned the logic of U.S. internationalism and the employment of force without meaningful diplomacy, neoconservatives feared that liberals were naïve and that the United States might become more isolationist, which would lead to the spread of communism. Neoconservatives, therefore, advocated for a more vigorous defense policy that required a well-armed Israel.

Larger defense contracts for U.S. allies abroad, such as Israel, satisfied the needs of certain constituencies that relied on such contracts for federally subsidized employment. In 1968, Lockheed made 88 percent of its sales to the federal government; McDonnell Douglas, 75 percent; General Dynamics, 67 percent; Grumman, 67 percent; Martin-Marietta, 62 percent; and Boeing, 54 percent.³⁰ As the U.S. economy faltered in the 1970s, Congress had an incentive to subsidize the weapons industry, since weapons manufacturing was a source of high-paying, skilled-labor jobs in many congressional districts. Even as defense spending dipped in the middle of the 1970s, foreign military sales to the Middle East reached new heights. While many U.S.-made products suffered from international competition, U.S.-made weaponry was generally regarded as the most technologically advanced in the world. Beyond their deadly effectiveness, American weapons represented an important item of trade. U.S.-made weapons found many different homes during the Cold War (and after), with Israel being an important one. The United States has used defense and finance agreements to empower friendly regimes and open the door for more U.S. products and capital, all while providing jobs for Americans. Few countries could absorb and use American weaponry like Israel. Naturally, legislators from states with large defense industries have been some of the most vocal supporters of weapons sales to Israel. Although Dwight Eisenhower warned against a military-industrial complex, military power was deemed crucial in the fight against communism.

Of all the cultural factors that undergird the U.S.-Israel special relationship, religion is probably the strongest.³¹ A reversal of anti-Semitism paved the way for the development of a Judeo-Christian relationship. In Western history, some of the most violent oppressors of Jews have been Christians. But the declaration of the State of Israel inspired many conservative Christians, especially evangelicals and fundamentalists, to advocate for Israel for purely religious reasons. (That support, however, would slowly seep into the political sphere as well.) These Christians emphasized the Judaic foundation of Christianity and rationalized support for Israel based on Genesis 12:3, when GOD told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”³² For some Christians, literal interpretations of the Word view the modern State of Israel as a necessary precursor to the return of Christ. According to premillennial eschatology, Jews must occupy the Holy Land prior to Christ’s return to the Mount of Olives. But with the return of Christ comes the Rapture, a cataclysm for all Jews who will be paid back for their sins against Christ. Thus, Jews must occupy the Holy Land only for Christ to smite the Jews. Despite this dubious reasoning, American Christian Zionist support for Israel has proven to be substantial and impacts the voting behaviors of many Americans.

Christian Zionist sympathies became more pronounced after the 1967 Six-Day War, which enlarged the State of Israel and unified Jerusalem under Jewish control, and found more focused political expression in the late 1970s and early 1980s through the efforts of Ronald Reagan, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson. In the process, evangelicals and fundamentalists started to back hardline positions regarding Israeli occupation of Arab lands, as opposed to Catholics and liberal Protestants, who did not. In that way, political geography took on added importance during the Cold War. As the New Deal coalition dissolved in the midst of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement, Richard Nixon’s “southern strategy” split the South away from the Democratic Party. From 1968 moving forward, many Southerners—including Southern Baptists and other evangelicals—would become allied with the Republican Party. Although in previous years anti-Semitism had found fertile ground in the American South, after the Six-Day War and Nixon’s southern strategy, support for Israel gradually became religiously and politically right.

Thus, the U.S.-Israel special relationship is rooted in Western ideals of political liberalism, support for labor (particularly in urban areas), religion and other cultural values, along with defense spending and conservative and neoconservative ideas of projecting power and advancing liberal democracy abroad. Also important, Israeli officials, the Israel lobby, and some religious Jews have worked to cultivate bipartisan support for the State of Israel within the United States. When viewed through this lens, congressional support for Israel, as well as the effectiveness of the Israel lobby, becomes much more understandable.

By contrast, Americans by-and-large do not feel any strong attachment to Arabs. This stems mostly from the absence of such cultural, social, and political factors as undergird Americans’ more positive views of Israel. Jewish settlers from Europe (Ashkenazi) laid the foundations of the State of Israel and did so with Western ideas of nationalism, secularism, and social democracy. When Israel emerged as a state in 1948, Arab states were just coming out from under the thumb of European colonialism, in particular, the League of Nations mandate system. Arab societies largely resented the West for denying them basic independence and political liberties and proved reluctant to adopt Western models of political and economic development. Moreover, while Ashkenazi settlers brought with them many centuries of Westernization, no such demographic existed within the Arab world. Simply put, Arab societies lacked a Western tradition while the political body of Israel was steeped in that tradition. When the Cold War divided the globe into West versus East, Israel fit nicely into the American mindset, and Arabs did not.

Many Americans consider Arabs to be the “other,” culturally different and unappealing. In Orientalism, Edward Said analyzed European othering of the Orient, and while the United States followed a different trajectory than that of Britain or France, Americans still developed similar ideas of cultural difference.³³ Douglas Little, while less interested in the literary and linguistic underpinnings of Orientalism, uses the concept as a way to explain U.S.-Middle East relations since 1945.³⁴ Melani McAllister devotes more attention to cultural representations and theory when analyzing Americans’ distrust of, and dislike for, Arabs.³⁵

Demographics naturally favor U.S.-Israel relations more than U.S.-Arab relations. Arab Americans comprise a much smaller percentage of the U.S. population than Jewish Americans and, therefore, attract much less attention from U.S. politicians. In terms of campaigns and reelections, backing an Arab position vis-à-vis one promoted by American Jews or the State of Israel brings with it very real political risks. Moreover, a sophisticated Arab lobby developed later and more slowly than the Israel lobby, particularly after the formation of the National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA) in 1972 and following the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.³⁶ In relation to the Israel lobby, the Arab lobby lacked cohesion and organization. By comparison, Arab interests suffered while Jewish interests, persuasively articulated through private meetings with U.S. officials and publications like the Near East Report, a lobbying newsletter of AIPAC, gained more traction in American political discourse.

Despite little understanding of the Arab world, as Salim Yaqub notes, during the 1970s “Americans and Arabs came to know each other as never before.”³⁷ Certain events necessitated greater awareness, such as the 1973 oil embargo, U.S. mediation of the Arab-Israeli peace process, expansion of trade with Arab states, international terrorism, an infusion of “petrodollars,” and an increase of Arab immigration to the United States.³⁸ Greater familiarity generated both increased tension and increased understanding. Gradually, due to Arab American activism, an Arab perspective received greater attention in the American media and academia. While many cultural representations “continued to rely on hostile portrayals of the Arab world,” this actually encouraged Arab Americans to develop more sophisticated means for challenging such representations, which persuaded some “popular media outlets to soften their anti-Arab caricatures.”³⁹ The events of the 1970s brought “Americans and Arabs into unprecedented proximity with one another. This growing intimacy encouraged attitudes of animosity and acceptance that would characterize U.S.-Arab relations in subsequent decades and, indeed, persist into our own era.”⁴⁰

At the same time, Yaqub emphasizes the growing rift in U.S.-Arab foreign relations during the 1970s and cites Henry Kissinger’s diplomacy as the main reason for that rift.⁴¹ According to Yaqub, Kissinger’s diplomacy after the 1973 war aimed to shield Israel from having to leave the territories taken in 1967, which led to the downfall of the peace process. Yaqub makes a valid point. Kissinger did in fact aim to shield Israel from external pressures. However, while Kissinger tried to protect Israel from being forced to vacate the occupied territories, on numerous occasions he counseled Israeli officials to use the opportunity to secure bilateral peace agreements with Arab states in return for the territories, which would normalize Israel’s position in the Middle East. Kissinger, like the presidents between 1967 and 1975, recognized the importance of improved U.S.-Arab foreign relations in order to protect and advance both the American and Israeli national interests. Additionally, while impossible to substantiate using documented evidence, one has to imagine that Henry Kissinger, who prized his Jewish ancestry, hoped to be the diplomat who managed to negotiate lasting peace agreements for Israel. The challenge for Kissinger was in finding a way to secure such agreements without having to force Israel to go along. Kissinger proved unable to do so, and his efforts, like those of the presidents he served, brought him into conflict with Congress and the Israel lobby.

In sum, domestic politics, as much as foreign politics, inspired congressional support for Israel. That support fit within an American cultural preference for Israel, as well as Cold War geopolitics rooted in an us versus them mentality.

Chapter Outline

The present book unfolds in the following manner. Using research from the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library, FRUS, and the Congressional Record, the first chapter explores U.S.-Israel relations during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency. In 1967, provocative moves made by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser and an Israeli first strike plunged the region into war. Legislators took to the House and Senate floors to proclaim the essence of the special relationship—an unwavering American commitment to ensure Israel’s survival. In the aftermath of the war, the Johnson administration decided to abandon existing U.S. policy regarding territorial integrity in the Middle East and support Israeli occupation of Arab lands in order to pressure Arab states to finally recognize Israel and make peace with it. The Johnson administration, like the administrations before it, could not solve the riddle of Arab-Israeli conflict and regarded the war as an opportunity to pursue a different path. The decision to not push Israel out of the territories, as well as an increase in weapons sales to Israel, were both justified by the American commitment to Israel’s survival and had a lasting impact on U.S. relations with the Middle East.

The themes of national security and domestic politics intersect in the second chapter. Based on the papers of Henry “Scoop” Jackson and J. William Fulbright, the chapter uses the conflict between the two Democratic senators to show how the growing Soviet presence in the Middle East, combined with the deteriorating situation in Southeast Asia in the late 1960s and early 1970s, brought about a major upheaval within the Democratic Party as well as a rise in conservative support for Israel from the halls of Congress. A discussion about the Jackson-Fulbright conflict encourages broader thinking about congressional participation in U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and also exposes significant political fault lines that would complicate the making of U.S. policy toward Israel for years to come. The United States and Israel developed a strategic alliance during this period, in addition to the special relationship, which involved a sizable increase in weapons sales from the United States to Israel.

The third chapter, based on research from the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, FRUS, and the Congressional Record, explores congressional reactions to Nixon’s request for $2.2 billion in emergency military aid for Israel, as well as U.S. involvement in the peace process. Despite objections from Fulbright and several other legislators, along with the Nixon administration’s lack of effort to justify such a massive aid package, Congress passed the emergency aid bill in full. Enough legislators successfully argued that Israel needed the immense amount of aid in order to feel strong enough to take risks in peace negotiations. But by May 1974, fearful that Israel felt too strong, the Nixon administration started to threaten to cut off all military aid to soften Israel’s position in peace negotiations. The fall of Nixon due to Watergate sapped the power of the White House at precisely the moment when a strong president was needed to advance such an ambitious program of U.S. peace diplomacy. Also important, Kissinger had to work against pro-Israel elements that sought to scuttle his gradual approach to a comprehensive peace.

The increasing influence of pro-Israel lobbying groups is a central theme of the entire book, and especially the fourth chapter. Research from the Israel State Archives in Jerusalem shows that the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. proved very able to influence U.S. policymaking during Ford’s reassessment of U.S.–Middle East policy in 1975, which included a freeze on military aid to Israel. In particular, the chapter reveals the efforts made by Israeli officials and pro-Israel lobbyists to secure a Senate letter to President Ford, signed by seventy-six senators in May 1975, that called for the resumption of military aid to Israel; otherwise, the senators insinuated that the upper chamber would kill Ford’s upcoming foreign-aid request. In effect, the president could not withhold weapons to pressure Israel into returning territory. Unlike the work by Mearsheimer and Walt, this chapter exhibits the actual dimensions—the extents and limits—of Israeli influence on U.S. foreign policy. The chapter reveals, in full and granular detail, how a foreign government is able to work within the American political system to influence foreign policy. Along with other scholars in the field of U.S.–Middle East relations, like Yaqub, Roham Alvandi, and Paul Chamberlin, this work demonstrates how Middle Eastern nations, in particular Israel, can influence U.S. policy.⁴² While these scholars assess influence on the White House and State Department, this book, which is different in detail and evidence, investigates Israeli influence through Congress.

The fifth and final chapter examines the controversial executive agreements connected to Sinai II, concluded in September 1975, in the context of a congressional effort to restrict the broad use of such agreements. In order to make Sinai II acceptable to both Israel and Egypt (and to avoid another war and oil embargo), the United States entered into a series of commitments that signaled a new stage in U.S.-Israel relations. The agreements, made in secret and central to Sinai II, committed the United States to providing for Israel’s military and economic security and pledged to not advance any steps in the peace process without Israel’s approval. Numerous legislators argued that the secret agreements marked a dramatic and questionable shift in U.S.-Israel relations and that they resembled treaties, which required Senate approval. Based on research from the Congressional Record, Center for Legislative Archives at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and congressional hearing reports, the chapter shows that legislators felt handcuffed by Sinai II. They felt obligated to pass a resolution to allow for U.S. technicians to man an early-warning station in the Sinai Peninsula in order to preserve the agreement between Israel and Egypt and thereby prevent another war. After wars involving Israel and Egypt in 1956, 1967, 1969–1970, and 1973, another war seemed quite possible to U.S. officials. But by passing the resolution, Congress also authorized, by what Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) called “backdoor” approval, the secret agreements that committed the United States to providing for the future economic, military, and energy needs of Israel, regardless of Israel’s willingness to adhere to the spirit of U.N. Resolution 242.

The May 1975 Senate letter forced the Ford administration to quit threatening to withhold military aid from Israel and instead buy the Sinai II agreement. But in order to preserve the agreement between Israel and Egypt, Kissinger’s diplomacy, in turn, forced Congress to approve of U.S. technicians and, by extension, of the secret and open-ended executive agreements with Israel. Neither U.S. presidents nor Congress wanted to advance U.S.-Israel relations to such an extreme but did so to prevent another war in the Middle East, which threatened to bring with it another oil embargo and possibly superpower confrontation, and to draw Egypt away from the Soviet Union. The United States developed an uneasy alliance with Israel, not by intent, but out of desperation.