Freedman - Israel and the United States

edited by

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Israel and the United States : six decades of US-Israeli relations / edited by Robert O. Freedman.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8133-4494-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)ISBN 978-0-8133-4497-3 (e-book)

1. United StatesForeign relationsIsrael. 2. IsraelForeign relationsUnited States. I. Freedman, Robert Owen.

E183.8.I7I83 2012

327.7305694dc23

2011047237

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to my wife,
Sharon, a true partner for life.

Robert O. Freedman

David Makovsky

Robert O. Freedman

Dov Waxman

Amnon Cavari

Roby Nathanson and Ron Mandelbaum

Stuart A. Cohen

Steven R. David

Pnina Lahav

Steven Bayme

Neil Rubin

Mark Rosenblum and Dan Fleshler

I have been studying the Middle East, and the American role in the region, for more than forty-four years. My study of the Middle East began in February 1967 when, as a young US Army officer, I was appointed to teach in the Department of Social Sciences of the US Military Academy at West Point. There I met a number of officers who shared with me their experiences of military service in the region, which included equal doses of fascination and frustration. Several months later came the June 1967 Six-Day War, and discussion among the West Point faculty intensified as to what the proper role for the United States should be in the rapidly escalating Arab-Israeli conflict. Following completion of my army service, I participated in the Scholar-Diplomat Program of the US Department of State, where I had the opportunity not only to interact with high-ranking State Department officials, such as then US Deputy Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Alfred (Roy) Atherton, but also to read the cables coming into the Near Eastern and South Asian Bureau from diplomats in the Middle East. In subsequent years I had the opportunity to get to know and learn from a number of US State Department and National Security Council officials, such as L. Dean Brown, Hermann Eilts, Philip Habib, Hal Saunders, Richard Murphy, Robert Pelletreau, Dan Kurtzer, Dennis Ross, Bill Quandt, Sam Lewis, and Aaron David Miller. I also met and interviewed a number of Arab and Israeli leaders, such as Yasser Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, Yitzhak Rabin, Ariel Sharon, Tsippy Livni, and Jordanian King Hussein Ibn Talal, as well as numerous Israeli, Egyptian, Jordanian, Kuwaiti, Iraqi, Syrian, Palestinian, Turkish, Saudi, and Tunisian diplomats. One issue became very clear from all of my discussions with State Department officials, Arab and Israeli leaders, and Middle Eastern diplomats: the centrality of the US-Israeli relationship as a major factor in US policy in the region.

Given this situation, I decided to organize a conference at Johns Hopkins University in October 2010 on the nature of the US-Israeli relationship. My goal was to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of the relationship. Thus, although one chapter of this book is devoted to the history of the diplomatic relationship between the United States and Israel, and another to the Iranian nuclear threat against Israel, other chapters cover areas not usually discussed in analyses of US-Israeli relations. These include the influence of the US legal system on Israel, the impact of US strategic thinking on the Israeli military, the interrelationship of the American Orthodox Jewish community and the State of Israel, evangelical Christian attitudes toward Israel, changing US public attitudes toward Israel, US-Israeli economic interactions, the nature of the pro-Israeli lobby in the United States, and the American Jewish peace movements relationship with Israel. In addition, I have selected scholars from both the United States and Israel to contribute chapters to this book to ensure a balance of perspectives.

In sum, it is my hope that readers of this volume will come away with a fuller understanding of the dynamics of what is both a very intense and a very extensive US-Israeli relationship.

ROBERT O. FREEDMAN

Baltimore, Maryland
May 2011

There are many individuals whom I would like to thank for making this book possible. First, my thanks go to Rabbi Debbie Pine, the executive director, and Monica Davis, the office manager, of the Hillel Foundation of Johns Hopkins University, who made available the facilities of Hillel for the October 2010 conference, Six Decades of US-Israeli Relations, on which this book is based. Second, I would like to thank Dr. Kenneth B. Moss, associate professor of modern Jewish history and director of the Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Jewish Studies Program of Johns Hopkins University, and Dr. Steven R. David, professor of political science and vice dean for undergraduate education at Johns Hopkins University, for their strong support from the beginning of this project. Third, I would like to thank the late Dr. Norman Lavy, along with Mrs. Marion Lavy, and the Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Jewish Studies Program of Johns Hopkins University for providing the funding both for the conference and for the book. Fourth, I would like to thank both the Baltimore Jewish Times and the Baltimore Jewish Council for their support in publicizing the conference. Fifth, I was fortunate to have two quality editors at Westview Press working with me on the project, Karl Yambert and Lindsey Zahuranec, and I would like to acknowledge their help. Sixth, the whole project would not have been possible without the outstanding assistance of Ms. Mary Otterbein, who serves as both academic coordinator of the Department of Political Science and administrator of the Leonard and Helen R. Stulman Jewish Studies Program of Johns Hopkins University. Seventh, I would like to thank Mrs. Diane Kempler for her untiring efforts in typing the book manuscript. Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Sharon, for her support for my academic efforts over forty-six years.