PART 1: THE ISRAEL LOBBY & U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

Some years back these two gentlemen wrote a well publicized paper on the Elephant in the room. I found a copy of their book which expands the reach and depth of their paper on Israel's nukes and the United States policy toward those weapons.With the Preface as well as their introduction included,along with chapter 1,this will be a longer entry then the ones to follow with this book.It makes absolutely no sense the control this little country has over the United States.I can think of no benefit to American civilians to count this country as an ally. 

THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND 

U.S. FOREIGN POLICY 

By 

JOHN J . MEARSHEIMER 

AND 

STEPHEN M. WALT 

PREFACE 

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. 

—Bertrand Russell 

In the fall of 2002, the Atlantic Monthly invited us to write a feature article on the Israel lobby and its effects on U.S. foreign policy. We accepted the commission with some reservations, because we knew this was a controversial subject and that any article that scrutinized the lobby, U.S. support for Israel, or Israeli policy itself was likely to provoke a harsh reaction. Nonetheless, we felt this was an issue that could no longer be ignored, especially in light of the September 11 terrorist attacks and the looming war with Iraq. If U.S. support for Israel was a significant source of anti-Americanism in the Middle East and a source of tension with key strategic allies, and if pro Israel groups and individuals were a major influence on U.S. foreign policy in this vital region, then it was important to raise the issue openly and encourage public discussion of the lobby's actions and impact. 

We worked on the article off and on over the next two years, in close collaboration with the Atlantic?, editors, and we sent them a manuscript conforming to our prior agreements and incorporating virtually all of their suggestions in January 2005. A few weeks later, to our surprise, the editor informed us that the Atlantic had decided not to run the piece and that he was not interested in our attempting to revise it. 

We considered submitting the article to several other journals but concluded that they would be unlikely to run the piece, either due to its content or its length. We also considered the possibility of turning the article into a book, but responses to our initial inquiries were not sufficiently enthusiastic to convince us to commit additional time and effort to it. So we put the manuscript aside and turned to other projects, although an abbreviated version of some of this material was included in Stephen M. Walt's Taming American Power, which was published by W. W. Norton in September 2005. 

Then, in October 2005, a distinguished American academic contacted us and suggested that we consider publishing the article in the London Review of Books. Someone at the Atlantic had given him a copy of the rejected essay, and he told us he thought the editor of the LRB, Mary-Kay Wilmers, would be interested. We sent her the manuscript and she quickly expressed her desire to publish it. After another round of updating and revision, the article—now titled "The Israel Lobby"—was published in the March 23, 2006, issue. At the suggestion of one of the scholars who had read and commented on an earlier draft, we simultaneously posted a fully documented version of the article on the Faculty Working Papers website of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. We did this because the LRB's format does not allow for extensive references or footnotes, and we wanted readers to see that our argument rested on a wide array of credible sources. 

The case advanced in the article was straightforward. After describing the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel, we argued that this support could not be fully explained on either strategic or moral grounds. Instead, it was due largely to the political power of the Israel lobby, a loose coalition of individuals and groups that seeks to influence American foreign policy in ways that will benefit Israel. In addition to encouraging the United States to back Israel more or less unconditionally, groups and individuals in the lobby played key roles in shaping American policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the ill fated invasion of Iraq, and the ongoing confrontations with Syria and Iran. We suggested that these policies were not in the U.S. national interest and were in fact harmful to Israel's long-term interests as well. 

The response to the essay was breathtaking. By July 2006, the Kennedy School's website had recorded more than 275,000 downloads of the working paper and we had received numerous requests to translate or reprint the LRB article. As expected, the essay initially generated a firestorm of criticism from prominent groups or individuals in the lobby, and we were denounced as anti-Semites by the Anti-Defamation League and by op-ed writers in the Jerusalem Post, New York Sun, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. The New Republic devoted four separate articles to attacking our article, and a number of critics accused us—erroneously—of having made numerous historical or factual mistakes. A few critics even predicted that the article (and its authors) would soon fade into what they thought would be a richly deserved obscurity. 

They were wrong. A wide variety of readers—both Jewish and gentile— came out in support of the article. They did not agree with every point we had made, but almost all of them agreed that such an examination was long overdue. Predictably, reactions outside the United States were generally favorable, and there were even some positive responses in Israel itself. Respectful appraisals appeared in the New York Times, Financial Times, New York Review of Books, Chicago Tribune, New York Observer, National Interest, and Nation, and the controversy eventually received prominent coverage in a wide array of news outlets, from Haaretz in Israel to National Public Radio in the United States. 

The distinguished journal Foreign Policy organized a symposium on the article in its July/August 2006 issue, and the Washington Post Sunday Magazine published a thoughtful cover story in July exploring the issues we had raised. Later that summer, a reviewer in Foreign Affairs described the article as a "hard-headed analysis . . . that might set in motion a useful paradigm shift in United States' Middle East policy." 

Over the course of 2006, it became increasingly clear that the conversation about Israel and U.S. Middle East policy was indeed changing, and that it had become somewhat easier to discuss the lobby's role in shaping U.S. policy. This was not entirely our doing, of course, as awareness of the lobby's activities and impact was also increased by Israel's disastrous war in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the continued debacle in Iraq, the personal attacks on Jimmy Carter following the publication of his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, the simmering war of words between the United States and Iran, and the conspicuous but failed efforts to silence or smear other prominent critics of the lobby. A growing number of people seemed to realize that this subject needed airing, and more were willing to speak out. 

Equally important, thoughtful individuals were beginning to recognize that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other hard-line groups in the lobby—including some vocal Christian Zionists—were not representative of mainstream opinion in the American Jewish community or the United States more broadly. There was a growing debate about whether the policies advocated by these groups were in America's or in Israel's interest. As a result, some pro-Israel groups began to talk openly about the need to shift the balance of power in more moderate directions, and prominent publications such as the Economist and the New York Times published commentaries suggesting that it was time for a new relationship between Israel and the United States, for the benefit of both. 

We were gratified by these developments, because we wrote the original  article in order to foster a more clear-eyed and candid discussion of this subject. That conversation was now under way, although it still tended to be shrill, confrontational, and overly personal. But should we write a book? Perhaps we had already said enough, and it was time to move on to other topics. After some reflection, and despite some lingering misgivings, we concluded that writing a book would help advance the dialogue in several ways. 

First, although the original article was long by the standards of most magazines, space limitations had forced us to omit a number of important issues and to deal with certain topics more briefly than we would have liked. This unavoidable brevity may have contributed to some misunderstandings of the original article, and writing a book would provide an opportunity to present a more nuanced and detailed statement of our views. 

Accordingly, this book contains a more complete definition of the lobby, an extended discussion of the role of Christian Zionism, and a fuller account of the lobby's evolution over time. We also provide a more detailed account of Israel's past conduct and current behavior, especially toward the Palestinians. We do this not from any animus toward Israel or its supporters in the United States, or because we are eager to highlight Israeli misconduct. Rather, we address this topic because it is central to some of the moral arguments commonly used to justify an exceptional level of U.S. support for the Jewish state. We focus on Israel's behavior, in other words, because the United States focuses an extraordinary degree of support on Israel. We also address the controversial issue of dual loyalty, which was not discussed in the original article. 

Second, writing this book enables us to respond to the central criticisms that were lodged against our original article. We addressed some of them in two subsequent letters to the London Review of Books and in the Foreign Policy symposium mentioned above, and we have also written a point-by-point rebuttal of the various charges directed at the article (see "Setting the Record Straight: A Response to Critics of 'The Israel Lobby,"' available online at www.israellobbybook.com). Although the vast majority of charges leveled against the original article were unfounded—as were the various personal attacks leveled at us—there were a number of thoughtful critiques that raised important issues of interpretation and emphasis. We have learned from these criticisms even when not fully persuaded by them, and we have tried to address them here. 

Third, writing a book makes it possible to provide further empirical support for our core claims and to bring the analysis up to date. Not only has additional evidence come to light regarding important events such as the Iraq war, but some other events—most notably the second Lebanon war of July/ August 2006—had not taken place when the original article appeared. America's response to that war proved to be a further illustration of the lobby's power, as well as its harmful influence on U.S. and Israeli interests. The lobby's activities could also be seen in the evolution of U.S. policy toward Iran and Syria, and in the harsh attacks on former President Jimmy Carter, the historian Tony Judt, and several other prominent critics of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. 

Finally, this book presents an opportunity to discuss how the United States should advance its interests in the Middle East, and how Americans, and indeed the rest of the world, should think about the influence of the pro-Israel lobby. The stakes are high—for Americans and non-Americans alike—because the Middle East is a volatile and strategically vital region and America's policies toward that region will inevitably have extensive repercussions. As the war in Iraq demonstrates, the United States can do great damage to itself and to others if its policies are misguided. This fact makes it all the more important to identify what is driving U.S. policy and to figure out what that policy ought to be. Our original article did not offer much in the way of positive prescriptions, but the concluding chapter of this book outlines a different approach to U.S. Middle East policy and identifies how the lobby's power might be mitigated or made more constructive. 

Although we see encouraging signs of more open discussion on these vital issues, the lobby still has a profound influence on U.S. Middle East policy. The problems that the United States and Israel face in this region have not lessened since the original article appeared; indeed, they may well have grown worse. Iraq is a fiasco, Israelis and Palestinians remain locked in conflict, Hamas and Fatah are battling for dominance within the Palestinian community, and Hezbollah's role in Lebanon is deeply troubling. Iran is still seeking to acquire full control of the nuclear fuel cycle, groups like al Qaeda remain active and dangerous, and the industrial world is still dependent on Persian Gulf oil. These are all vexing problems, and the United States will not be able to address any or all of them effectively if Americans cannot have a civilized conversation about our interests in the region and the role of all the factors that shape U.S. foreign policy, including the Israel lobby. To encourage that continued conversation, we have written this book. 

We acknowledge various personal debts at the end of the book, but we would like to register one of them here. For more than twenty-five years, we have been fortunate to enjoy the friendship and support of one of America's most accomplished social scientists, Samuel P. Huntington. We cannot imagine a better role model. Sam has always tackled big and important questions, and he has answered these questions in ways that the rest of the world could not ignore. Although each of us has disagreed with him on numerous occasions over the years—and sometimes vehemently and publicly—he never held those disagreements against us and was never anything but gracious and supportive of our own work. He understands that scholarship is not a popularity contest, and that spirited but civil debate is essential both to scholarly progress and to a healthy democracy. We are grateful to Sam for his friendship and for the example he has set throughout his career, and we are pleased to dedicate this book to him. 

John J . Mearsheimer 

University of Chicago 

Stephen M. Walt 

Harvard University

INTRODUCTION 

America is about to enter a presidential election year. Although the outcome is of course impossible to predict at this stage, certain features of the campaign are easy to foresee. The candidates will inevitably differ on various domestic issues—health care, abortion, gay marriage, taxes, education, immigration—and spirited debates are certain to erupt on a host of foreign policy questions as well. What course of action should the United States pursue in Iraq? What is the best response to the crisis in Darfur, Iran's nuclear ambitions, Russia's hostility to NATO, and China's rising power? How should the United States address global warming, combat terrorism, and reverse the erosion of its international image? On these and many other issues, we can confidently expect lively disagreements among the various candidates. 

Yet on one subject, we can be equally confident that the candidates will speak with one voice. In 2008, as in previous election years, serious candidates for the highest office in the land will go to considerable lengths to express their deep personal commitment to one foreign country—Israel—as well as their determination to maintain unyielding U.S. support for the Jewish state. Each candidate will emphasize that he or she fully appreciates the multitude of threats facing Israel and make it clear that, if elected, the United States will remain firmly committed to defending Israel's interests under any and all circumstances. None of the candidates is likely to criticize Israel in any significant way or suggest that the United States ought to pursue a more even handed policy in the region. Any who do will probably fall by the wayside. 

This observation is hardly a bold prediction, because presidential aspirants were already proclaiming their support for Israel in early 2007. The process began in January, when four potential candidates spoke to Israel's annual Herzliya Conference on security issues. As Joshua Mitnick reported in Jewish Week, they were "seemingly competing to see who can be most strident in defense of the Jewish State." Appearing via satellite link, John Edwards, the Democratic party's 2004 vice presidential candidate, told his Israeli listeners that "your future is our future" and said that the bond between the United States and Israel "will never be broken." Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney spoke of being "in a country I love with people I love" and, aware of Israel's deep concern about a possible nuclear Iran, proclaimed that "it is time for the world to speak three truths: (1) Iran must be stopped; (2) Iran can be stopped; (3) Iran will be stopped!" Senator John McCain (R-AZ) declared that "when it comes to the defense of Israel, we simply cannot compromise," while former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) told the audience that "Israel is facing the greatest danger for [sic] its survival since the 1967 victory."1 

Shortly thereafter, in early February, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) spoke in New York before the local chapter of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), where she said that in this "moment of great difficulty for Israel and great peril for Israel . . . what is vital is that we stand by our friend and our ally and we stand by our own values. Israel is a beacon of what's right in a neighborhood overshadowed by the wrongs of radicalism, extremism, despotism and terrorism."2 One of her rivals for the Democratic nomination, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), spoke a month later before an AIPAC audience in Chicago. Obama, who has expressed some sympathy for the Palestinians' plight in the past and made a brief reference to Palestinian "suffering" at a campaign appearance in March 2007, was unequivocal in his praise for Israel and made it manifestly clear that he would do nothing to change the U.S.-Israeli relationship. 3 Other presidential hopefuls, including Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, have expressed pro-Israel sentiments with equal or greater ardor.4 

What explains this behavior? Why is there so little disagreement among these presidential hopefuls regarding Israel, when there are profound disagreements among them on almost every other important issue facing the United States and when it is apparent that America's Middle East policy has gone badly awry? Why does Israel get a free pass from presidential candidates, when its own citizens are often deeply critical of its present policies and when these same presidential candidates are all too willing to criticize many of the things that other countries do? Why does Israel, and no other country in the world, receive such consistent deference from America's leading politicians? 

Some might say that it is because Israel is a vital strategic asset for the United States. Indeed, it is said to be an indispensable partner in the "war on terror." Others will answer that there is a powerful moral case for providing Israel with unqualified support, because it is the only country in the region that "shares our values." But neither of these arguments stands up to fair-minded scrutiny. Washington's close relationship with Jerusalem makes it harder, not easier, to defeat the terrorists who are now targeting the United States, and it simultaneously undermines America's standing with important allies around the world. Now that the Cold War is over, Israel has become a strategic liability for the United States. Yet no aspiring politician is going to say so in public, or even raise the possibility. 

There is also no compelling moral rationale for America's uncritical and uncompromising relationship with Israel. There is a strong moral case for Israel's existence and there are good reasons for the United States to be committed to helping Israel if its survival is in jeopardy. But given Israel's brutal treatment of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, moral considerations might suggest that the United States pursue a more evenhanded policy toward the two sides, and maybe even lean toward the Palestinians. Yet we are unlikely to hear that sentiment expressed by anyone who wants to be president, or anyone who would like to occupy a position in Congress. 

The real reason why American politicians are so deferential is the political power of the Israel lobby. The lobby is a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively works to move U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. As we will describe in detail, it is not a single, unified movement with a central leadership, and it is certainly not a cabal or conspiracy that "controls" U.S. foreign policy. It 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. The various groups that make up the lobby do not agree on every issue, although they share the desire to promote a special relationship between the United States and Israel. Like the efforts of other ethnic lobbies and interest groups, the activities of the Israel lobby's various elements are legitimate forms of democratic political participation, and they are for the most part consistent with America's long tradition of interest group activity. 

Because the Israel lobby has gradually become one of the most powerful interest groups in the United States, candidates for high office pay close attention to its wishes. The individuals and groups in the United States that make up the lobby care deeply about Israel, and they do not want American politicians to criticize it, even when criticism might be warranted and might even be in Israel's own interest. Instead, these groups want U.S. leaders to treat Israel as if it were the fifty-first state. Democrats and Republicans alike fear the lobby's clout. They all know that any politician who challenges its policies stands little chance of becoming president. 

THE LOBBY AND U.S. 

MIDDLE EAST POLICY 

The lobby's political power is important not because it affects what presidential candidates say during a campaign, but because it has a significant influence on American foreign policy, especially in the Middle East. America's actions in that volatile region have enormous consequences for people all around the world, especially the people who live there. Just consider how the Bush administration's misbegotten war in Iraq has affected the long suffering people of that shattered country: tens of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands forced to flee their homes, and a vicious sectarian war taking place with no end in sight. The war has also been a strategic disaster for the United States and has alarmed and endangered U.S. allies both inside and outside the region. One could hardly imagine a more vivid or tragic demonstration of the impact the United States can have—for good or ill— when it unleashes the power at its disposal. 

The United States has been involved in the Middle East since the early days of the Republic, with much of the activity centered on educational programs or missionary work. For some, a biblically inspired fascination with the Holy Land and the role of Judaism in its history led to support for the idea of restoring the Jewish people to a homeland there, a view that was embraced by certain religious leaders and, in a general way, by a few U.S. politicians. But it is a mistake to see this history of modest and for the most part private engagement as the taproot of America's role in the region since World War II, and especially its extraordinary relationship with Israel today.5 Between the routing of the Barbary pirates two hundred years ago and World War II, the United States played no significant security role anywhere in the region and U.S. leaders did not aspire to one. 6 Woodrow Wilson did endorse the 1917 Balfour Declaration (which expressed Britain's support for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine), but Wilson did virtually nothing to advance this goal. Indeed, the most significant U.S. involvement during this period—a fact-finding mission dispatched to the region in 1919 by the Paris Peace Conference under the leadership of Americans Henry Churchill King and Charles Crane—concluded that the local population opposed continued Zionist inroads and recommended against the establishment of an independent Jewish homeland. Yet as the historian Margaret Macmillan notes, "Nobody paid the slightest attention." The possibility of a U.S. mandate over portions of the Middle East was briefly considered but never pursued, and Britain and France ended up dividing the relevant portions of the Ottoman Empire between themselves. 7 

The United States has played an important and steadily increasing role in Middle East security issues since World War II, driven initially by oil, then by anticommunism and, over time, by its growing relationship with Israel. America's first significant involvement in the security politics of the region was a nascent partnership with Saudi Arabia in the mid-1940s (intended by both parties as a check on British ambitions in the region), and its first formal alliance commitments were Turkey's inclusion in NATO in 1952 and the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact in 1954. 8 After backing Israel's founding in 1948, U.S. leaders tried to strike a balanced position between Israel and the Arabs and carefully avoided making any formal commitment to the Jewish state for fear of jeopardizing more important strategic interests. This situation changed gradually over the ensuing decades, in response to events like the Six-Day War, Soviet arms sales to various Arab states, and the growing influence of pro-Israel groups in the United States. Given this dramatic transformation in America's role in the region, it makes little sense to try to explain current U.S. policy—and especially the lavish support that is now given to Israel—by referring to the religious beliefs of a bygone era or the radically different forms of past American engagement. There was nothing inevitable or predetermined about the current special relationship between the United States and Israel. 

Since the Six-Day War of 1967, a salient feature—and arguably the central focus—of America's Middle East policy has been its relationship with Israel. For the past four decades, in fact, the United States has provided Israel with a level of material and diplomatic support that dwarfs what it provides to other countries. That aid is largely unconditional: no matter what Israel does, the level of support remains for the most part unchanged. In particular, the United States consistently favors Israel over the Palestinians and rarely puts pressure on the Jewish state to stop building settlements and roads in the West Bank. Although Presidents Bill Clinton and George W.Bush openly favored the creation of a viable Palestinian state, neither was willing to use American leverage to make that outcome a reality. 

The United States has also undertaken policies in the broader Middle East that reflected Israels preferences. Since the early 1990s, for example, American policy toward Iran has been heavily influenced by the wishes of successive Israeli governments. Tehran has made several attempts in recent years to improve relations with Washington and settle outstanding differences, but Israel and its American supporters have been able to stymie any détente between Iran and the United States, and to keep the two countries far apart. Another example is the Bush administration's behavior during Israel's war against Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Almost every country in the world harshly criticized Israel's bombing campaign—a campaign that killed more than one thousand Lebanese, most of them civilians—but the United States did not. Instead, it helped Israel prosecute the war, with prominent members of both political parties openly defending Israel's behavior. This unequivocal support for Israel undermined the pro-American government in Beirut, strengthened Hezbollah, and drove Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah closer together, results that were hardly good for either Washington or Jerusalem. 

Many policies pursued on Israel's behalf now jeopardize U.S. national security. The combination of unstinting U.S. support for Israel and Israel's prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory has fueled anti-Americanism throughout the Arab and Islamic world, thereby increasing the threat from international terrorism and making it harder for Washington to deal with other problems, such as shutting down Iran's nuclear program. Because the United States is now so unpopular within the broader region, Arab leaders who might otherwise share U.S. goals are reluctant to help us openly, a predicament that cripples U.S. efforts to deal with a host of regional challenges. 

This situation, which has no equal in American history, is due primarily to the activities of the Israel lobby. While other special interest groups— including ethnic lobbies representing Cuban Americans, Irish Americans, Armenian Americans, and Indian Americans—have managed to skew U.S. foreign policy in directions that they favored, no ethnic lobby has diverted that policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest. The Israel lobby has successfully convinced many Americans that American and Israeli interests are essentially identical. In fact, they are not. 

Although this book focuses primarily on the lobby's influence on U.S. foreign policy and its negative effect on American interests, the lobby's impact has been unintentionally harmful to Israel as well. Take Israel's settlements, which even a writer as sympathetic to Israel as Leon Wieseltier recently called a "moral and strategic blunder of historic proportions."9 Israel's situation would be better today if the United States had long ago used its financial and diplomatic leverage to convince Israel to stop building settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, and instead helped Israel create a viable Palestinian state on those lands. Washington did not do so, however, largely because it would have been politically costly for any president to attempt it. As noted above, Israel would have been much better off if the United States had told it that its military strategy for fighting the 2006 Lebanon war was doomed to fail, rather than reflexively endorsing and facilitating it. By making it difficult to impossible for the U.S. government to criticize Israel's conduct and press it to change some of its counterproductive policies, the lobby may even be jeopardizing the long-term prospects of the Jewish state. 

THE LOBBY'S MODUS OPERANDI 

It is difficult to talk about the lobby's influence on American foreign policy, at least in the mainstream media in the United States, without being accused of anti-Semitism or labeled a self-hating Jew. It is just as difficult to criticize Israeli policies or question U.S. support for Israel in polite company. America's generous and unconditional support for Israel is rarely questioned, because groups in the lobby use their power to make sure that public discourse echoes its strategic and moral arguments for the special relationship. 

The response to former President Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid perfectly illustrates this phenomenon. Carter's book is a personal plea for renewed American engagement in the peace process, based largely on his considerable experience with these issues over the past three decades. Reasonable people may challenge his evidence or disagree with his conclusions, but his ultimate goal is peace between these two peoples, and Carter unambiguously defends Israel's right to live in peace and security. Yet because he suggests that Israel's policies in the Occupied Territories resemble South Africa's apartheid regime and said publicly that pro-Israel groups make it hard for U.S. leaders to pressure Israel to make peace, a number of these same groups launched a vicious smear campaign against him. Not only was Carter publicly accused of being an anti-Semite and a "Jew-hater," some critics even charged him with being sympathetic to Nazis. 10 Since the lobby seeks to keep the present relationship intact, and because in fact its strategic and moral arguments are so weak, it has little choice but to try to stifle or marginalize serious discussion. 

Yet despite the lobby's efforts, a considerable number of Americans—almost 40 percent—recognize that U.S. support for Israel is one of the main causes of anti-Americanism around the world. Among elites, the number is substantially higher. 11 Furthermore, a surprising number of Americans understand that the lobby has a significant, not always positive influence on U.S. foreign policy. In a national poll taken in October 2006, 39 percent of the respondents said that they believe that the "work of the Israeli lobby on Congress and the Bush administration has been a key factor for going to war in Iraq and now confronting Iran." 12 In a 2006 survey of international relations scholars in the United States, 66 percent of the respondents said that they agreed with the statement "the Israel lobby has too much influence over U.S. foreign policy." 13 While the American people are generally sympathetic to Israel, many of them are critical of particular Israeli policies and would be willing to withhold American aid if Israel's actions are seen to be contrary to U.S. interests. 

Of course, the American public would be even more aware of the lobby's influence and more tough-minded with regard to Israel and its special relationship with the United States if there were a more open discussion of these matters. Still, one might wonder why, given the public's views about the lobby and Israel, politicians and policy makers are so unwilling to criticize Israel and to make aid to Israel conditional on whether its actions benefit the United States. The American people are certainly not demanding that their politicians support Israel down the line. In essence, there is a distinct gulf between how the broader public thinks about Israel and its relationship with the United States and how governing elites in Washington conduct American policy. [That is for sure DC]

The main reason for this gap is the lobby's formidable reputation inside the Beltway. Not only does it exert significant influence over the policy process in Democratic and Republican administrations alike, but it is even more powerful on Capitol Hill. 14 The journalist Michael Massing reports that a congressional staffer sympathetic to Israel told him, "We can count on well over half the House—250 to 300 members—to do reflexively whatever AIPAC wants." Similarly, Steven Rosen, the former AIPAC official who has been indicted for allegedly passing classified government documents to Israel, illustrated AIPAC s power for the New Yorkers Jeffrey Goldberg by putting a napkin in front of him and saying, "In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin."15 These are not idle boasts. As will become clear, when issues relating to Israel come to the fore, Congress almost always votes to endorse the lobby's positions, and usually in overwhelming numbers. 

WHY IS IT SO HARD TO 

TALK ABOUT THE ISRAEL LOBBY ? 

Because the United States is a pluralist democracy where freedom of speech and association are guaranteed, it was inevitable that interest groups would come to dominate the political process. For a nation of immigrants, it was equally inevitable that some of these interest groups would form along ethnic lines and that they would try to influence U.S. foreign policy in various ways. 16 Cuban Americans have lobbied to maintain the embargo on Castro's regime, Armenian Americans have pushed Washington to acknowledge the 1915 genocide and, more recently, to limit U.S. relations with Azerbaijan, and Indian Americans have rallied to support the recent security treaty and nuclear cooperation agreements. Such activities have been a central feature of American political life since the founding of the country, and pointing them out is rarely controversial. 17 

Yet it is clearly more difficult for Americans to talk openly about the Israel lobby. Part of the reason is the lobby itself, which is both eager to advertise its clout and quick to challenge anyone who suggests that its influence is too great or might be detrimental to U.S. interests. There are, however, other reasons why it is harder to have a candid discussion about the impact of the Israel lobby. 

To begin with, questioning the practices and ramifications of the Israel lobby may appear to some to be tantamount to questioning the legitimacy of Israel itself. Because some states still refuse to recognize Israel and some critics of Israel and the lobby do question its legitimacy, many of its supporters may see even well-intentioned criticism as an implicit challenge to Israel's existence. Given the strong feelings that many people have for Israel, and especially its important role as a safe haven for Jewish refugees from the Holocaust and as a central focus of contemporary Jewish identity, there is bound to be a hostile and defensive reaction when people think its legitimacy or its existence is under attack. 

But in fact, an examination of Israel's policies and the efforts of its American supporters does not imply an anti-Israel bias, just as an examination of the political activities of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) does not imply bias against older citizens. We are not challenging Israels right to exist or questioning the legitimacy of the Jewish state. There are those who maintain that Israel should never have been created, or who want to see Israel transformed from a Jewish state into a binational democracy. We do not. On the contrary, we believe the history of the Jewish people and the norm of national self-determination provide ample justification for a Jewish state. We think the United States should stand willing to come to Israel's assistance if its survival were in jeopardy. And though our primary focus is on the Israel lobby's negative impact on U.S. foreign policy, we are also convinced that its influence has become harmful to Israel as well. In our view, both effects are regrettable. 

In addition, the claim that an interest group whose ranks are mostly Jewish has a powerful, not to mention negative, influence on U.S. foreign policy is sure to make some Americans deeply uncomfortable—and possibly fearful and angry—because it sounds like a charge lifted from the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that well-known anti-Semitic forgery that purported to reveal an all-powerful Jewish cabal exercising secret control over the world. 

Any discussion of Jewish political power takes place in the shadow of two thousand years of history, especially the centuries of very real antiSemitism in Europe. Christians massacred thousands of Jews during the Crusades, expelled them en masse from Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and other places between 1290 and 1497, and confined them to ghettos in other parts of Europe. Jews were violently oppressed during the Spanish Inquisition, murderous pogroms took place in Eastern Europe and Russia on numerous occasions, and other forms of anti-Semitic bigotry were widespread until recently. This shameful record culminated in the Nazi Holocaust, which killed nearly six million Jews. Jews were also oppressed in parts of the Arab world, though much less severely. 18 

Given this long history of persecution, American Jews are understandably sensitive to any argument that sounds like someone is blaming them for policies gone awry. This sensitivity is compounded by the memory of bizarre conspiracy theories of the sort laid out in the Protocols. Dire warnings of secretive "Jewish influence" remain a staple of neo-Nazis and other extremists, such as the hate-mongering former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, which reinforces Jewish concerns even more. 

A key element of such anti-Semitic accusations is the claim that Jews exercise illegitimate influence by "controlling" banks, the media, and other key institutions. Thus, if someone says that press coverage in the United States tends to favor Israel over its opponents, this may sound to some like the old canard that "Jews control the media." Similarly, if someone points out that American Jews have a rich tradition of giving money to both philanthropic and political causes, it sounds like they are suggesting that "Jewish money" is buying political influence in an underhanded or conspiratorial way. Of course, anyone who gives money to a political campaign does so in order to advance some political cause, and virtually all interest groups hope to mold public opinion and are interested in getting favorable media coverage. Evaluating the role of any interest group's campaign contributions, lobbying efforts, and other political activities ought to be a fairly uncontroversial exercise, but given past anti-Semitism, one can understand why it is easier to talk about these matters when discussing the impact of the pharmaceutical lobby, labor unions, arms manufacturers, Indian-American groups, etc., rather than the Israel lobby. 

Making this discussion of pro-Israel groups and individuals in the United States even more difficult is the age-old charge of "dual loyalty." According to this old canard, Jews in the diaspora were perpetual aliens who could never assimilate and be good patriots, because they were more loyal to each other than to the country in which they lived. The fear today is that Jews who support Israel will be seen as disloyal Americans. As Hyman Bookbinder, the former Washington representative of the American Jewish Committee, once commented, "Jews react viscerally to the suggestion that there is something unpatriotic" about their support for Israel. 19 

Let us be clear: we categorically reject all of these anti-Semitic claims. 

In our view, it is perfectly legitimate for any American to have a significant attachment to a foreign country. Indeed, Americans are permitted to hold dual citizenship and to serve in foreign armies, unless, of course, the other country is at war with the United States. As noted above, there are numerous examples of ethnic groups in America working hard to persuade the U.S. government, as well as their fellow citizens, to support the foreign country for which they feel a powerful bond. Foreign governments are usually aware of the activities of sympathetic ethnically based interest groups, and they have naturally sought to use them to influence the U.S. government and advance their own foreign policy goals. Jewish Americans are no different from their fellow citizens in this regard. 20 

The Israel lobby is not a cabal or conspiracy or anything of the sort. It is engaged in good old-fashioned interest group politics, which is as American as apple pie. Pro-Israel groups in the United States are engaged in the same enterprise as other interest groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the AARP, or professional associations like the American Petroleum Institute, all of which also work hard to influence congressional legislation and presidential priorities, and which, for the most part, operate in the open.With a few exceptions, to be discussed in subsequent chapters, the lobby's actions are thoroughly American and legitimate. 

We do not believe the lobby is all-powerful, or that it controls important institutions in the United States. As we will discuss in several subsequent chapters, there are a number of cases where the lobby did not get its way. Nevertheless, there is an abundance of evidence that the lobby wields impressive influence. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, one of the most important pro-Israel groups, used to brag about its own power on its website, not only by listing its impressive achievements but also by displaying quotations from prominent politicians that attested to its ability to influence events in ways that benefit Israel. For example, its website used to include a statement from former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt telling an AIPAC gathering, "Without your constant support. . . and all your fighting on a daily basis to strengthen [the U.S.-Israeli relationship], it would not be." 21 Even the outspoken Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who is often quick to brand Israel's critics as anti-Semites, wrote in a memoir that "my generation of Jews . . . became part of what is perhaps the most effective lobbying and fundraising effort in the history of democracy. We did a truly great job, as far as we allowed ourselves, and were allowed, to go." 22 

J.J. Goldberg, the editor of the Jewish weekly newspaper the Forward and the author of Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish Establishment, nicely captures the difficulty of talking about the lobby: "It seems as though we're forced to choose between Jews holding vast and pernicious control or Jewish influence being non-existent." In fact, he notes, "somewhere in the middle is a reality that none wants to discuss, which is that there is an entity called the Jewish community made up of a group of organizations and public figures that's part of the political rough-and-tumble. There's nothing wrong with playing the game like everybody else." 23 We agree completely. But we think it is fair and indeed necessary to examine the consequences that this "rough and-tumble" interest group politics can have on America and the world. 

HOW WE MAKE OUR CASE 

To make our case, we have to accomplish three tasks. Specifically, we have to convince readers that the United States provides Israel with extraordinary material aid and diplomatic support, the lobby is the principal reason for that support, and this uncritical and unconditional relationship is not in the American national interest. To do so, we proceed as follows.

Chapter 1 ("The Great Benefactor") addresses the first issue directly, by describing the economic and military aid that the United States gives to Israel, as well as the diplomatic backing that Washington has provided in peace and in war. Subsequent chapters also discuss the different elements of U.S. Middle East policy that have been designed in whole or in part to benefit Israel vis-à-vis its various rivals. 

Chapters 2 and 3 assess the main arguments that are usually invoked to justify or explain the exceptional amount of support that Israel receives from the United States. This critical assessment is necessary for methodological reasons: in order to properly assess the impact of the Israel lobby, we have to examine other possible explanations that might account for the "special relationship" that now exists between the two countries. 

In Chapter 2 ("Israel: Strategic Asset or Liability?"), we examine the familiar argument that Israel deserves lavish support because it is a valuable strategic asset. We show that although Israel may have been an asset during the Cold War, it is now increasingly a strategic liability. Backing Israel so strongly helps fuel America's terrorism problem and makes it harder for the United States to address the other problems it faces in the Middle East. Unconditional support for Israel also complicates U.S. relations with a number of other countries around the world, thereby imposing additional costs on the United States. Yet even though the costs of backing Israel have risen while the benefits have declined, American support continues to increase. This situation suggests that something other than strategic imperatives is at work. 

Chapter 3 ("A Dwindling Moral Case") examines the different moral rationales that Israelis and their American supporters often use to explain U.S. support for the Jewish state. In particular, we consider the claim that the United States backs Israel because of shared "democratic values," because Israel is a weak and vulnerable David facing a powerful Arab Goliath, because its past and present conduct is more ethical than its adversaries' behavior, or because it has always sought peace while its neighbors always chose war. This assessment is necessary not because we have any animus toward Israel or because we think its conduct is worse than that of other states, but because these essentially moral claims are so frequently used to explain why the United States should give Israel exceptional levels of aid. We conclude that while there is a strong moral case for Israel's existence, the moral case for giving it such generous and largely unconditional support is not compelling. Once again, this juxtaposition of a dwindling moral case and ever-increasing U.S. backing suggests that something else must be at work. 

Having established that neither strategic interests nor moral rationales can fully explain U.S. support for Israel, we turn our attention to that "something else." Chapter 4 ("What Is the 'Israel Lobby'?") identifies the lobby's different components and describes how this loose coalition has evolved. We stress that it is not a single unified movement, that its different elements sometimes disagree on certain issues, and that it includes both Jews and non-Jews, including the so-called Christian Zionists. We also show how some of the most important organizations in the lobby have drifted rightward over time and are increasingly unrepresentative of the larger populations on whose behalf they often claim to speak. 

This chapter also considers whether Arab-American groups, the so-called oil lobby, or wealthy Arab oil producers are either a significant counterweight to the Israel lobby or even the real driving forces behind U.S. Middle East policy. Many people seem to believe, for example, that the invasion of Iraq was mostly about oil and that corporate oil interests were the primary movers behind the U.S. decision to attack that country. This is not the case: although access to oil is obviously an important U.S. interest, there are good reasons why Arab Americans, oil companies, and the Saudi royal family wield far less influence on U.S. foreign policy than the Israel lobby does. 

In Chapter 5 ("Guiding the Policy Process") and Chapter 6 ("Dominating Public Discourse"), we describe the different strategies that groups in the lobby use in order to advance Israel's interests in the United States. In addition to direct lobbying on Capitol Hill, the lobby rewards or punishes politicians largely through an ability to guide the flow of campaign contributions. Organizations in the lobby also put pressure on the executive branch through a number of mechanisms, including working through government officials who are sympathetic to their views. Equally important, the lobby has gone to considerable lengths to shape public discourse about Israel by putting pressure on the media and academia and by establishing a tangible presence in influential foreign policy think tanks. Efforts to shape public perceptions often include charging critics of Israel with anti-Semitism, a tactic designed to discredit and marginalize anyone who challenges the current relationship. 

These tasks accomplished, Part II traces the lobby's role in shaping recent U.S. Middle East policy. Our argument, it should be emphasized, is not that the lobby is the only factor that influences U.S. decision making in these issues. It is not omnipotent, so it does not get its way on every issue. But it is very effective in shaping U.S. policy toward Israel and the surrounding region in ways that are intended to benefit Israel—and believed also to benefit the United States. Unfortunately, the policies it has successfully encouraged have actually done considerable harm to U.S. interests and have been harmful to Israel as well. 

Following a brief introduction to set the stage, Chapter 7 ("The Lobby Versus the Palestinians") shows how the United States has consistently backed Israel's efforts to quell or limit the Palestinians' national aspirations. Even when American presidents put pressure on Israel to make concessions or try to distance the United States from Israel's policies—as President George W. Bush has attempted to do on several occasions since September 11—the lobby intervenes and brings them back into line. The result has been a worsening image for the United States, continued suffering on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide, and a growing radicalization among the Palestinians. None of these trends is in America's or Israel's interest. 

In Chapter 8 ("Iraq and Dreams of Transforming the Middle East"), we show how the lobby—and especially the neoconservatives within it—was the principal driving force behind the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq in 2003. We emphasize that the lobby did not cause the war by itself. The September 11 attacks had a profound impact on the Bush administration's foreign policy and the decision to topple Saddam Hussein. But absent the lobby's influence, there almost certainly would not have been a war. The lobby was a necessary but not sufficient condition for a war that is a strategic disaster for the United States and a boon for Iran, Israel's most serious regional adversary. 

Chapter 9 ("Taking Aim at Syria") describes the evolution of America's difficult relationship with the Assad regime in Syria. We document how the lobby has pushed Washington to adopt confrontational policies toward Syria (including occasional threats of regime change) when doing so was what the Israeli government wanted. The United States and Syria would not be allies if key groups in the lobby were less influential, but the United States would have taken a much less confrontational approach and might even be cooperating with Syria in a number of limited but useful ways. Indeed, absent the lobby, there might already be a peace treaty between Israel and Syria, and Damascus might not be backing Hezbollah in Lebanon, which would be good for both Washington and Jerusalem. 

In Chapter 10 ("Iran in the Crosshairs"), we trace the lobby's role in U.S. policy toward Iran. Washington and Tehran have had difficult relations since the 1979 revolution that overthrew the shah, and Israel has come to see Iran as its most serious adversary, in light of its nuclear ambitions and its support for groups like Hezbollah. Accordingly, Israel and the lobby have repeatedly pushed the United States to go after Iran and have acted to derail several earlier opportunities for détente. The result, unfortunately, is that Iran's nuclear ambitions have increased and more extreme elements (such as current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) have come to power, making a difficult situation worse. 

Lebanon is the subject of Chapter 11 ("The Lobby and the Second Lebanon War"), and the pattern is much the same. We argue that Israel's response to Hezbollah's unjustified provocation in the summer of 2006 was both strategically foolish and morally wrong, yet the lobby's influence made it hard for U.S. officials to do anything except strongly back Israel. This case offers yet another classic illustration of the lobby's regrettable influence on American and Israeli interests: by making it hard for U.S. policy makers to step back and give their Israeli counterparts honest and critical advice, the lobby facilitated a policy that further tarnished America's image, weakened the democratically elected regime in Beirut, and strengthened Hezbollah. 

The final chapter ("What Is to Be Done?") explores how this unfortunate situation might be improved. We begin by identifying America's core Middle East interests and then sketch the essential principles of a strategy—which we term offshore balancing—that could defend these interests more effectively. We do not call for abandoning the U.S. commitment to Israel—indeed, we explicitly endorse coming to Israel's aid if its survival were ever in jeopardy. But we argue that it is time to treat Israel like a normal country and to make U.S. aid conditional on an end to the occupation and on Israel's willingness to conform its policies to American interests. Accomplishing this shift requires addressing the political power of the lobby and its current policy agenda, and we offer several suggestions for how the power of the lobby might be modified to make its influence more beneficial for the United States and Israel alike. 

THOSE WE LEARNED FROM 

No author is an island, and we owe a considerable debt to other scholars and writers who examined these subjects before we did. To begin with, there is the extensive academic literature on interest groups that helped us understand how small but focused movements can exert influence far greater than their absolute numbers within the population might suggest. 24 There is also a robust literature on the impact of ethnic groups on U.S. foreign policy, which confirms that the Israel lobby is not unique in its basic activities, only in its unusual level of influence. 25 

A second body of literature addresses the lobby itself. A number of journalists, scholars, and former politicians have written about the lobby. Written from both critical and sympathetic perspectives, these works contain a considerable amount of useful information on the ways that the lobby has worked to influence U.S. foreign policy We hope our account will extend the trail that these earlier writers blazed. 26 

We have also learned a great deal from other studies, too numerous to list in toto, that deal with particular aspects of U.S. Middle East policy, U.S.-Israeli relations, or specific policy issues. Although some of these works— such as Steven Spiegel's The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict: Making Americas Middle East Policy from Truman to Reagan and Warren Bass's Support Any Friend: Kennedy's Middle East and the Making of the U.S.-Israel Alliance— tend to downplay the lobby's influence, serious works of scholarship such as these nonetheless contain considerable evidence of the lobby's impact and especially its growing clout. 27 

There is a final body of literature that has played an important role in helping us to think about Israel, the lobby, and America's relationship with the Jewish state. We refer to the so-called new history that has come out of Israel over the past twenty years. Using extensive archival research, Israeli scholars like Shlomo Ben-Ami, Simha Flapan, Baruch Kimmerling, Benny Morris, Ilan Pappe, Tom Segev, Avi Shlaim, and Zeev Sternhell have effectively overturned the conventional wisdom on Israel's founding and on its subsequent policies toward both the surrounding states and the Palestinians. 28 Scholars from other countries have also contributed to setting the historical record straight. 29 Together these individuals have undermined the original, highly romanticized version of the founding, in which the Jews are usually portrayed as the white hats and the Arabs as the black hats. Moreover, these works make clear that after Israel gained its independence, it behaved much more aggressively toward the Palestinians and other Arabs than is commonly recognized. 

There are various disputes among these historians, of course, and we do not agree with every point they make. Nevertheless, the story they collectively tell is not just a matter of academic interest. In fact, it has profound implications for how one thinks about the moral rationale for supporting Israel over the Palestinians. It also helps one understand why so many people in the Arab and Islamic world are deeply angry at the United States for supporting Israel so generously and unconditionally.

A brief word about sources is in order before we proceed. Much of this study—especially Part II—deals with recent history, or with events whose ultimate outcome remains uncertain. Because official documents regarding contemporary events are normally unavailable to scholars, we have been forced to rely on other sources: newspapers, magazines, scholarly articles, books, reports from human rights organizations, radio and television transcripts, and personal interviews that we conducted. In a few instances, we had to work with an admittedly spotty record of events. Although we think it is unlikely, some parts of our story may look different once official records become available. 

In order to ensure that our various arguments are correct, we backed up virtually every significant point with multiple sources, which accounts for the extensive notes provided at the end of this book. We also relied heavily on Israeli sources like Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post, as well as the writings of Israeli scholars. Another indispensable source of information was American Jewish publications like the Forward and Jewish Week. Not only are these Israeli and Jewish-American sources filled with important information that is not found in the mainstream media in the United States, these newspapers were by and large not likely to be sympathetic to many of our arguments about the lobby. Our reliance on them should help make our conclusions even more reliable. 

CONCLUSION 

Our analysis begins by describing the material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel. The fact that America gives considerable support to the Jewish state is hardly headline news, but readers may be surprised to learn just how extensive and varied this largesse actually is. Documenting that support is the subject of the next chapter. 

1 

THE GREAT BENEFACTOR 

"We are more than thankful to you." Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was uncharacteristically effusive when he appeared before a joint session of Congress on July 26, 1994. Extending his remarks to the "wonderful people of America," Rabin emphasized that "no words can express our gratitude . . . for your generous support, understanding, and cooperation, which are beyond compare in modern history." Two years later, following Rabin's tragic assassination, one of his successors, Benjamin Netanyahu, stood in the same spot and offered similar words of appreciation: "The United States has given Israel—how can I tell it to this body? The United States has given Israel, apart from political and military support, munificent and magnificent assistance in the economic sphere. With America's help, Israel has grown to be a powerful, modern state." He told his audience, "I know that I speak for every Israeli and every Jew throughout the world when I say to you today, Thank you, people of America.'" 1 

These statements—and others like them—are not merely the gracious rhetoric that one typically hears from visiting foreign dignitaries. Rabin's and Netanyahu's words are an accurate description of the remarkable backing that the United States has long provided to the Jewish state. American taxpayers' money has subsidized Israel's economic development and rescued it during periods of financial crisis. American military assistance has strengthened Israel in wartime and helped preserve its military dominance in the Middle East. Washington has given Israel extensive diplomatic support in war and peace, and has helped insulate it from some of the adverse consequences of its own actions. U.S. aid has also been a key ingredient in the protracted Arab-Israeli peace process, with agreements such as the Camp David Accords or the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan resting on explicit promises of increased American assistance. More than any other country, the United States has been Israel's great benefactor. 

ECONOMIC AID 

The most obvious indicator of Israel's favored position is the total amount of foreign aid it has received from America's taxpayers. As of 2005, direct U.S. economic and military assistance to Israel amounted to nearly $154 billion (in 2005 dollars), the bulk of it comprising direct grants rather than loans. 2 As discussed below, the actual total is significantly higher, because direct U.S. aid is given under unusually favorable terms and the United States provides Israel with other forms of material assistance that are not included in the foreign assistance budget. 

Because this level of support is rarely questioned today, it is easy to forget that the "special relationship" that now exists did not emerge until several decades after Israel's founding. Prior to World War II, American leaders occasionally offered rhetorical support for the Zionist goal of a Jewish homeland, but no president exerted much effort to advance that objective. President Harry S. Truman did play a key role in supporting the establishment of a Jewish homeland when he decided to back the UN partition plan in 1947 and to recognize Israel immediately after its declaration of independence in May 1948. But both the Truman and Eisenhower administrations also realized that embracing Israel too closely would jeopardize relations with the Arab world and provide the Soviet Union with enticing opportunities to gain influence in the Middle East. Accordingly, the United States sought to steer a middle course between Israel and its Arab neighbors during the 1950s; economic aid to Israel was modest and the United States provided hardly any direct military assistance. 3 Israeli requests to purchase American weaponry were politely rejected, as were requests for a U.S. security guarantee.4 

There were also several sharp diplomatic disagreements between Washington and Jerusalem during this period. When Israel ignored UN demands that it halt work on a canal to divert water from the Jordan River in September 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles promptly announced that the United States was suspending foreign assistance. The threat worked: Israel agreed to stop the project on October 27 and U.S. aid was restored. 5 Similar threats to halt American aid played a key role in convincing Israel to withdraw from the territory it had seized from Egypt in the 1956 Suez War.Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion saw the war as an opportunity for territorial expansion, and he began the prewar discussions with Britain and France (the primary instigators of the attack on Egypt) by suggesting that Jordan be divided between Israel and Iraq and that Israel be given portions of Lebanon and control over the Straits of Tiran. 6 Britain and France were preoccupied with Egypt and uninterested in this grand scheme. But BenGurion made several statements following the conquest by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of the Sinai Peninsula (including a speech in the Knesset on November 7) suggesting that the 1949 armistice agreements were void and that Israel intended to keep the lands it had just seized. When Eisenhower threatened to block all public and private aid to Israel, Ben-Gurion quickly backtracked, agreeing "in principle" to withdraw in exchange for adequate assurances of Israels security. Israel then worked to rally support in the United States, a campaign that reduced Eisenhower's congressional support and led him to make a nationally televised speech justifying his actions. Israel finally withdrew from all the territories it had conquered in the spring of 1957, in exchange for assurances regarding border security in Gaza and freedom of navigation in the Straits of Tiran. 7 

U.S.-Israeli relations had warmed by the late 1950s, but it was the Kennedy administration that made the first tangible U.S. commitment to Israel's military security.8 In December 1962, in fact, Kennedy told Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir that the United States "has a special relationship with Israel in the Middle East really comparable only to that which it has with Britain over a wide range of world affairs," adding that "I think it is quite clear that in case of an invasion the United States would come to the support of Israel. We have that capacity and it is growing."9 Kennedy soon thereafter authorized the first major sale of U.S. weaponry—Hawk antiaircraft missiles—to Israel in 1963. This shift reflected a number of strategic considerations—such as the desire to balance Soviet arms sales to Egypt, dampen Israel's nuclear ambitions, and encourage Israel's leaders to respond favorably to U.S. peace initiatives—but skillful Israeli diplomacy, the influence of several pro-Israel advisers, and Kennedy's understandable desire to maintain support from Jewish voters and donors played a role in his decision as well. 10 The Hawk sale opened the door to several additional weapons deals, most notably the sale of more than two hundred M48A battle tanks in 1964. In an attempt to disguise American involvement and thereby limit repercussions in the Arab world, the tanks were shipped to Israel by West Germany, which in turn received replacements from the United States. 11 

In terms of the absolute amount of U.S. aid, however, the real sea change took place following the Six-Day War in June 1967. After averaging roughly $63 million annually from 1949 to 1965 (more than 95 percent of which was economic assistance and food aid), average aid increased to $102 million per year from 1966 to 1970. Support soared to $634.5 million in 1971 (roughly 85 percent was military assistance) and more than quintupled after the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Israel became the largest annual recipient of U.S. foreign assistance in 1976, a position it has retained ever since. Support for Israel shifted from loans to direct grants during this period, with the bulk of U.S. aid consisting of military assistance rather than economic or technical support. According to Clyde Mark of the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the official research arm of the U.S. Congress, "Israel preferred that the aid be in the form of loans, rather than grants, to avoid having a U.S. military contingent in Israel to oversee a grant program. Since 1974, some or all of U.S. military aid to Israel has been in the form of loans for which repayment is waived. Technically, the assistance is called loans, but as a practical matter, the military aid is grant." 12 

Israel now receives on average about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, an amount that is roughly one-sixth of America s direct foreign assistance budget and equal to about 2 percent of Israel's GDR In recent years, about 75 percent of U.S. assistance has been military aid, with the remainder broken down into various forms of economic aid. 13 In per capita terms, this level of direct foreign assistance amounts to a direct subsidy of more than $500 per year for each Israeli. By comparison, the number two recipient of American foreign aid, Egypt, receives only $20 per person, and impoverished countries such as Pakistan and Haiti receive roughly $5 per person and $27 per person, respectively. 14 Jerusalem and Washington agreed to gradually phase out economic assistance beginning in 1997, and Congress has reduced economic aid to Israel by $120 million per year since FY 1999. This step has been partly compensated for by a parallel U.S. commitment to increase its military aid by $60 million per year, and by congressional willingness to vote supplemental aid packages, such as the $ 1.2 billion provided to support implementation of the 1998 Wye Agreement (in which Israel agreed to withdraw forces from parts of the West Bank) and an additional $1 billion in foreign military financing (FMF) aid in 2003 to help Israel prepare for the war with Iraq. 15 

Three billion dollars per year is generous, but it is hardly the whole story. As noted above, the canonical $3 billion figure omits a substantial number of other benefits and thus significantly understates the actual level of U.S. support. Indeed, in 1991, Representative Lee Hamilton (D-IN) told reporters that Israel was one of three countries whose aid "substantially exceeds the popularly quoted figures" and said the annual figure was in fact more than $4.3 billion. 16 

The discrepancy arises in part because Israel gets its aid under more favorable terms than most other recipients of U.S. assistance. 17 Most recipients of American foreign aid get their money in quarterly installments, but since 1982, the annual foreign aid bill has included a special clause specifying that Israel is to receive its entire annual appropriation in the first thirty days of the fiscal year. 18 This is akin to receiving your entire annual salary on January 1 and thus being able to earn interest on the unspent portion until you used it. 

Because the U.S. government normally runs budget deficits, transferring the aid all at once requires it to borrow the necessary amount of money up front, and the CRS estimates that it costs U.S. taxpayers "between $50 and $60 million per year to borrow funds for the early, lump-sum payment." 19 Moreover, the U.S. government ends up paying Israel additional interest when Israel reinvests the unspent portion in U.S. treasury bills. According to the U.S. embassy in Israel, early transfer of FMF funds has enabled Israel to earn some $660 million in extra interest as of 2004. 20 Israel has also received "excess defense articles" (surplus U.S. military equipment provided to friendly nations either free of charge or heavily discounted) beyond the normal limits imposed by the 1976 Arms Export Control Act. This limit was originally set at $250 million (excluding ships), but the appropriations bill of November 5, 1990, authorized a "one-time only" transfer to Israel of $700 million worth of surplus U.S. equipment in 1991. 21 

Likewise, the FMF program normally requires recipients of U.S. military assistance to spend all of the money here in the United States, to help keep American defense workers employed. Congress grants Israel a special exemption in the annual appropriations bill, however, authorizing it to use about one out of every four U.S. military aid dollars to subsidize its own defense industry. "No other recipient of U.S. military assistance has been granted this benefit," notes a recent CRS report, and "the proceeds to Israeli defense firms from purchases with U.S. funds have allowed the Israeli defense industry to achieve necessary economies of scale and become highly sophisticated." By 2004, in fact, Israel, a comparatively small country, had become the world's eighth largest arms supplier. 22 

Along with Egypt and Turkey, Israel is also permitted to apply its entire F MF funding to meet its current year obligations, rather than having to set aside portions to cover expected costs in subsequent years. According to the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO), this "cash flow" method of financing "permits a country to order more defense goods and services than it normally could because less money must be reserved when a contract is signed." 23 Israel can make its payments as long as the United States continues to provide similar amounts of aid, a situation that makes it harder for the United States to reduce its support in the future. And in a further manipulation of the methods of financing, recipients of U.S. aid are normally expected to draw down FMF loans and grants at an equal rate, but Israel is allowed to draw down the grant (or waived) portions of its FMF allocation before it uses any loaned portions. By delaying the date on which the loan is activated, this procedure reduces the amount of interest that Israel owes Uncle Sam. 24 

Remarkably, Israel is the only recipient of U.S. economic aid that does not have to account for how it is spent. Aid to other countries is allocated for specific development projects (HIV/AIDS prevention, counternarcotics programs, children's health, democracy promotion, improving education, etc.), but Israel receives a direct lump-sum cash transfer. 25 This exemption makes it virtually impossible for the United States to prevent its subsidies from being used for purposes that it opposes, such as building settlements on the West Bank. According to the CRS's Clyde Mark, "Because U.S. economic aid is given to Israel as direct government-to-government budgetary authority without any specific project accounting, and money is fungible, there is no way to tell how Israel uses U.S. aid." 26 

Another form of U.S. support is loan guarantees that permit Israel to borrow money from commercial banks at lower rates, thereby saving millions of dollars in interest payments. Israel requested and received approximately $ 10 billion in loan guarantees from the United States in the early 1990s in order to finance the costs of settling Soviet Jews immigrating to Israel. The U.S. government does not provide funds directly in a loan guarantee—it merely undertakes to reimburse private lenders in the event of a default— and advocates of these measures often claim that there is no real expenditure and thus no real cost to the U.S. taxpayer. Loan guarantees do have budgetary consequences, however, because Congress must appropriate funds to cover an estimate of what could be lost over the life of the loan based on its net present value. Estimates for the cost of the 1992 loan guarantee range from $100 million to $800 million. 27 

Washington authorized a second round of loan guarantees in 2003, totaling nearly $9 billion, to help Israel prepare for the war with Iraq, deal with a protracted economic crisis, and cover the costs imposed by the Second Palestinian Intifada. Because Israel is legally barred from using U.S. economic aid in the Occupied Territories, the actual amount allocated was eventually reduced by an amount equivalent to Israel's estimated expenditures on settlement construction. This reduction is not as severe as it may sound, however, as it involved no decrease in direct U.S. aid and merely forced Israel to pay a slightly higher interest rate on a small portion of the borrowed funds. [I swear it is an embarrassment to hear these people deny that Israel does not run this country. D.C] 

In addition to government subsidized aid and loan guarantees, Israel receives an estimated $2 billion annually in private donations from American citizens, roughly half in direct payments and half via the purchase of State of Israel Bonds. 28 These bonds receive favorable treatment in U.S. law; although the interest paid on them is not tax-exempt, Congress specifically exempted them from the provisions of the 1984 Deficit Reduction Act, which imposed additional tax penalties on other bonds with yields below the federal rate. 29 Similarly, private donations to charities in most foreign countries are not tax deductible, but many private donations to Israel are, due to a special clause in the U.S.-Israel income tax treaty. 30 [Why is Israel deemed special,Israel has never done one thing for any American,and only the Creator knows how many they have murdered D.C]

This flow of money to Israel has been a crucial boon to the general economy, but private contributions from U.S. citizens have also played an important strategic role, going back to the pre-independence era. 31 In his memoirs, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres revealed that private contributions from wealthy diaspora Jews (including several Americans) had helped finance Israel's clandestine nuclear program in the 1950s and 1960s. According to the Israeli journalist Michael Karpin, a key coordinator of this fund-raising effort was Abraham Feinberg, a well-connected U.S. businessman, philanthropist, and political adviser, and contributors to the campaign reportedly included Canadian beverage magnate Samuel Bronfman and several members of the Rothschild family. Feinberg never divulged the names of the American donors, however, and his own role has never been officially confirmed. 32 Today, groups like the Friends of Israel Defense Forces raise funds in the United States to "support social, educational, cultural and recreational programs and facilities for the young men and women soldiers of Israel who defend the Jewish homeland." One recent dinner in New York reportedly raised some $18 million in contributions, which are tax deductible under U.S. law. 33 [Think I am starting to get it,Israel is like the angry old god in the O.T. with all it's threats,and Washington is supplying the blood money in a pay or else way.D.C]

Other private donations from U.S. citizens have also helped subsidize Israel's prolonged campaign to colonize the Occupied Territories. These contributions to settlements in the West Bank (including those made via U.S. charities or other "Friends of . . ." organizations) are not supposed to be tax-exempt in the United States, but such restrictions are inherently difficult to enforce and were loosely monitored in the past. 34 For example, in order to safeguard the tax-exempt status of U.S. donations to the Jewish Agency for Israel (a quasi-governmental organization that helps settle new arrivals in Israel), the task of aiding settlements in the Occupied Territories was taken out of the agency's Settlement Department and assigned to a new "Settlement Division" within the World Zionist Organization (WZO). But as Gershom Gorenberg points out, "The Division was a shell that contracted all services from the Jewish Agency . . . The change kept the U.S. Jewish philanthropies clear of the occupied territories. On the ground, the same people continued the same efforts." 35 This problem was underscored when an official Israeli government study directed by Talia Sasson, former chief criminal prosecutor, revealed that the Settlement Division of the WZO (which receives support from prominent Jewish organizations all over the world) was actively involved in the creation of unauthorized settlements in the Occupied Territories. 36 More broadly, because Israeli charities operate beyond the reach of U.S. tax authorities, donations from Jewish and Christian evangelical organizations are hard to monitor once they are transferred to Israel. In practice, therefore, the U.S. government cannot easily determine the extent to which tax-exempt private donations are being diverted for unauthorized purposes. 37 

All this largesse is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is not a poor or devastated country like Afghanistan, Niger, Burma, or Sierra Leone. On the contrary, Israel is now a modern industrial power. Its per capita income in 2006 was twenty-ninth in the world, according to the International Monetary Fund, and is nearly double that of Hungary and the Czech Republic, substantially higher than Portugal's, South Korea's, or Taiwan's, and far outstrips every country in Latin America and Africa. 38 It ranks twenty-third in the United Nations' 2006 Human Development Report and thirty-eighth in the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2005 "quality of life" rankings. 39 Yet this comparatively prosperous state is America's biggest aid recipient, each year receiving sums that dwarf U.S. support for impoverished states such as Bangladesh, Bolivia, and Liberia. This anomaly is even acknowledged by some of Israel's more fervent supporters in the United States. In 1997, for example, Mitchell Bard, the former editor of AI PAC 's Near East Report, and Daniel Pipes, the hawkish founder of the pro-Israel Middle East Forum, wrote that "Israel has become an affluent country with a personal income rivaling Great Britain's, so the American willingness to provide aid to Israel is no longer based purely on need."

The United States has taken on other economic burdens for Israel's benefit, often as part of efforts to persuade Israel to accept or implement peace agreements with its neighbors. As part of the 1975 disengagement agreement between Egypt and Israel, for example, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that committed the United States to guarantee Israel's oil needs in the event of a crisis and to finance and stock "a supplementary strategic reserve" for Israel, at an estimated cost of several hundred million dollars. 41 The oil guarantee was reaffirmed during the final peace negotiations between Egypt and Israel in March 1979 and has been quietly renewed ever since. 42 

Finally, the aid that the United States provides to several of Israel's neighbors is at least partly intended to benefit Israel as well. Egypt and Jordan are the number two and three recipients of U.S. foreign aid, but most of this money should be seen as a reward for good behavior—specifically, their willingness to sign peace treaties with Israel. Egypt received $71.7 million in U.S. aid in 1974, but it got $1.127 billion in 1975 and $1.320 billion in 1976 (in constant 2005 dollars) following completion of the Sinai II disengagement agreement. U.S. aid to Egypt reached $2.3 billion in 1978 and soared to a whopping $5.9 billion in 1979, the year the Egypt-Israeli peace treaty was signed. Cairo still gets about $2 billion annually. 43 Similarly, Jordan received $76 million in direct aid in 1994 and only $57 million in 1995, but Congress rewarded King Hussein's decision to sign a peace treaty in 1994 by forgiving Jordan's $700 million debt to the United States and removing other restrictions on U.S. aid. Since 1997, U.S. aid to Jordan has averaged roughly $566 million annually. 44 U.S. willingness to reward Egypt and Jordan in this way is yet another manifestation of Washington's generosity toward the Jewish state. 

MILITARY ASSISTANCE 

These various forms of economic assistance have been and remain important to Israel, but the bulk of U.S. support is now committed to preserving Israel's military supremacy in the Middle East. 45 Not only does Israel receive access to top-drawer U.S. weaponry (F-15 and F-16 aircraft, Blackhawk helicopters, cluster munitions, "smart bombs," etc.), it has also become linked to the U.S. defense and intelligence establishments through a diverse array of formal agreements and informal links. According to the Congressional Research Service, "U.S. military aid has helped transform Israel's armed forces into one of the most technologically sophisticated militaries in the world."46 

Moreover, according to the Wall Street Journal, Israel "enjoys unusually wide latitude in spending the military assistance funds." 47 The Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) handles almost all the purchasing and monitors U.S. aid for all other military aid recipients, but Israel deals directly with military contractors for virtually all of its purchases and then gets reimbursed from its aid account. 48 Israel is also the only country where contracts for less than $500,000 are exempt from prior U.S. review. 49 

The potential risks inherent in these comparatively lax oversight arrangements were revealed in the early 1990s, when the head of Israeli Air Force procurement, Brigadier General Rami Dotan, was found to have embezzled and illegally diverted millions of dollars of U.S. aid. According to the Wall Street Journal, Dotan (who eventually pleaded guilty in Israel and received a lengthy jail sentence) reportedly "parceled out work orders to stay under the $500,000 threshold." Nonetheless, the head of DSCA's predecessor, the Defense Security Assistance Agency, Lieutenant General Teddy Allen, subsequently told a congressional subcommittee that the Department of Defense inspector general's recommendation that the aid program for Israel be "revamped" had been rejected because it might cause "turbulence in our relations" with Israel. 50 

In addition to the economic and military aid already described, the United States has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons like the Lavi aircraft, the Merkava tank, and the Arrow missile. 51 These projects were funded through the U.S. Department of Defense and often portrayed as joint research and development efforts, but the United States did not need these weapons and never intended to purchase them for its own use. The Lavi project was eventually canceled on cost-effectiveness grounds (with much of the cancellation cost being borne by the United States), but the other weapons went into Israel's arsenal at Uncle Sam's expense. 52 The FY 2004 U.S. defense budget included a $136 million request for the Arrow, for example, with $66 million allocated for additional improvements to the system and $70 million authorized for the production of additional units. Thus, the money that Washington pays to help Israel's defense industry develop or produce these "joint weapons projects" is in reality another form of subsidy. 53 The United States sometimes benefits from the technology that Israeli firms develop, but America would benefit even more if these funds were used to support high-tech industries in the United States. 

Military ties between the United States and Israel were upgraded in the  1980s, as part of the Reagan administrations effort to build an anti-Soviet "strategic consensus" in the Middle East. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Israeli Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon signed a memorandum of understanding in 1981 establishing a "framework for continued consultation and cooperation to enhance their national security." 54 This agreement led to the creation of a Joint Security Assistance Planning Group (JSAP) and Joint Political Military Group, which meet regularly to review Israel's aid requests and to coordinate military plans, joint exercises, and logistical arrangements. Although Israeli leaders had hoped for a formal treaty of alliance and were disappointed by the limited nature of the framework agreement, it was a more formal expression of a U.S. commitment than earlier presidential statements, such as Kennedy's private remarks to Golda Meir in 1962. 

Despite tensions over a wide array of issues—U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the 1981 bombing of Iraq's nuclear reactor, Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights in December 1981, its invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and its abrupt rejection of the "Reagan Plan" for peace in September 1982—security cooperation between Israel and the United States increased steadily in the Reagan years. Joint military exercises began in 1984, and in 1986 Israel became one of three foreign countries invited to participate in the U.S. Strategic Defense Initiative (aka "Star Wars"). Finally, in 1988, a new memorandum of agreement reaffirmed the "close partnership between Israel and the United States" and designated Israel a "Major Non-NATO Ally," along with Australia, Egypt, Japan, and South Korea. States enjoying this status are eligible to purchase a wider array of U.S. weapons at lower prices, get priority delivery on war surplus matériel, and participate in joint research and development projects and U.S. counterterrorism initiatives. Commercial firms from these states also get preferential treatment when bidding for U.S. defense contracts. 55 

Security links between the two countries have expanded ever since. The United States began prepositioning military supplies in Israel in 1989, and Congress voted in 2006 to increase the stockpile from roughly $100 million to $400 million by 2008. 56 This policy has been justified as a way to enhance the Pentagon's ability to respond quickly to a regional crisis, but prepositioning U.S. supplies in Israel is actually an inefficient way to prepare for this contingency and the Pentagon has never been enthusiastic about this policy. According to Shai Feldman, former head of Tel Aviv University's Jaffe Institute of Strategic Studies, "Present arrangements permit the storage only of materiel that could also be used in an emergency by Israeli forces. In the view of Pentagon planners, this implies that the United States cannot be absolutely certain that arms and ammunition stored in Israel would be available in a crisis situation. Moreover, this 'dual use' arrangement means that instead of storing weapons and ordnance for pre-designated U.S. units, weapons would have to be distributed from general stocks under crisis conditions and then integrated into different combat units, creating a logistical nightmare." 57 The real purpose of the stockpile program is to enhance Israel's matériel reserves, and it is hardly surprising that Ynetnews, a Web news service affiliated with the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, reported in December 2006 that "a great portion of the American equipment stored in Israel . . . was used for combat in the summer [2006] war in Lebanon." 58 

Building on the other working groups created during the 1980s, the United States and Israel established a Joint Anti-Terrorism Working Group in 1996 and set up an electronic "hotline" between the Pentagon and Israel's Ministry of Defense. Further cementing the links between the two states, Israel was given access to the U.S. satellite-based missile warning system in 1997. Then, in 2001 , the two states established an annual "interagency strategic dialogue" to discuss "long-term issues." The latter forum was temporarily suspended during a dispute over Israeli sales of American military technology to China, but it reconvened in November 2005. 59 

As one would expect, U.S.-Israeli security cooperation also extends to the realm of intelligence. Cooperation between U.S. and Israeli intelligence services dates back to the late 1950s, and by 1985 the two countries had reportedly signed some two dozen intelligence-sharing arrangements. Israel gave the United States access to captured Soviet weaponry and to reports from émigrés from the Soviet bloc, while the United States provided Israel with satellite imagery during the 1973 October War and prior to the 1976 Entebbe hostage rescue, and reportedly helped finance several Israeli intelligence operations in Africa. 60 In the early 1980s, the United States even gave Israel access to certain forms of intelligence that it denied its closest NATO allies. In particular, Israel reportedly received almost unlimited access to intelligence from the sophisticated KH-11 reconnaissance satellite ("not only the information, but the photos themselves," according to the head of Israeli military intelligence), while British access to the same source was much more limited. 61 Access to this data was restricted following Israel's raid on Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981, but the first President Bush is believed to have authorized the transfer of real-time satellite information about Iraq's Scud attacks during the 1991 Gulf War. 62 

In contrast to Washington's long-standing opposition to the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the United States has tacitly supported Israel's effort to maintain regional military superiority by turning a blind eye toward its various clandestine WM D programs, including its possession of upward of two hundred nuclear weapons. 63 The U.S. government has pressed dozens of states to sign the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but American leaders did little to pressure Israel to halt its nuclear program and sign the agreement. The Kennedy administration clearly wanted to restrain Israel's nuclear ambitions in the early 1960s, and it eventually persuaded Israel to permit U.S. scientists to tour Israel's nuclear research facility at Dimona to ascertain whether Israel was trying to produce a nuclear bomb. The Israeli government repeatedly denied that it had a weapons program, dragged its feet in scheduling visits, and imposed onerous restrictions on the inspectors' access when visits did occur. Thus, the first U.S. visit, on May 18, 1961, involved just two American scientists and lasted only four days, only one of them spent at the Dimona site. According to Warren Bass, "Israel's strategy was to permit a visit . . . but ensure that the inspectors did not find anything." Pressed to allow a follow-up visit a year later, the Israelis unexpectedly invited U.S. Atomic Energy Commission officials inspecting a different Israeli facility to make an impromptu tour of Dimona. As Bass notes, this visit "hardly merits the name 'inspection,'" but the Kennedy administration "did not seem eager to pick a fight." 64 [And we know from The Samson Option that Israel deceived the America at Dimona big time,going to extraordinary measures to keep American officials out of their hair.I do not know how deeply they will get into the Nuke issue,but it needs to be remembered that it was Europe,France in particular who had the biggest hand in Israel becoming a nuclear power D.C] 

Kennedy stepped up the pressure the following year, however, sending both Ben-Gurion and his successor, Levi Eshkol, several stern letters demanding biannual inspections "in accord with international standards" and warning that "this Government's commitment to and support of Israel could be seriously jeopardized" if the United States were unable to resolve its concerns about Israel's nuclear ambitions. 65 Kennedy's threats convinced Israel's leaders to permit additional visits, but the concession did not lead to compliance. As Eshkol reportedly told his colleagues after receiving Kennedy's July 1963 démarche: "What am I frightened of? His man will come, and he will actually be told that he can visit [the Dimona site] and go anywhere he wishes, but when he wants a door opened at some place or another then [Emanuel] Prat [head of construction at Dimona] will tell him 'Not that.'" 66 On other visits, inspectors were not permitted to bring in outside instruments or take samples. 

As the more recent cases of Iraq and North Korea remind us, such obfuscatory tactics are part of the standard playbook for all clandestine proliferators. U.S. officials remained suspicious about Jerusalem's nuclear plans, but Israel's deception worked because neither Kennedy nor his successor,Lyndon Johnson, was willing to withhold U.S. support if Israel were not more forthcoming. As a result, notes Avner Cohen in his detailed history of Israels nuclear program, "the Israelis were able to determine the rules of the [U.S.] visits and the Johnson administration chose not to confront Israel on the issue, fearing that Israel would end the arrangement . . . Kennedy threatened both Ben Gurion and [Levi] Eshkol that noncompliance . . . could jeopardize American commitment to Israel's security and well being,' but Johnson was unwilling to risk an American-Israeli crisis over the issue." 67 "Instead of inspections every six months," writes Bass, "in practice Johnson settled for a quick visit once a year or so." 68 And when CIA Director Richard Helms came to the White House in 1968 to inform Johnson that U.S. intelligence had concluded that Israel had in fact acquired a nuclear capability, Johnson told him to make sure that nobody else was shown the evidence, including Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. According to the journalist Seymour Hersh, "Johnson's purpose in chasing Helms—and his intelligence—away was clear: he did not want to know what the CIA was trying to tell him, for once he accepted that information, he would have to act on it. By 1968, the President had no intention of doing anything to stop the Israeli bomb." 69 [Not much dereliction of duty there,and we as a country are paying a heavy price for him acting like a monkey on this issue D.C.]

In addition to its nuclear arsenal, Israel maintains active chemical and biological weapons programs and has yet to ratify either the Chemical or Biological Weapons Convention. 70 The irony is hard to miss: the United States has pressured many other states to join the NPT, imposed sanctions on countries that have defied U.S. wishes and acquired nuclear weapons anyway, gone to war in 2003 to prevent Iraq from pursuing WMD, and contemplated attacking Iran and North Korea for the same reason. Yet Washington has long subsidized an ally whose clandestine WMD activities are well-known and whose nuclear arsenal has given several of its neighbors a powerful incentive to seek WMD themselves. 

With the partial exception of Soviet support for Cuba, it is hard to think of another instance where one country has provided another with a similar level of material aid over such an extended period. 71 America's willingness to provide some support to Israel is not surprising, of course, because U.S. leaders have long favored Israel's existence and understood that it faced a hostile threat environment. As discussed below and in Chapter 2, U.S. leaders also saw aid to Israel as a way to advance broader foreign policy goals. Nonetheless, the sheer magnitude of U.S. aid is remarkable. As we show in Chapter 3, Israel was stronger than its neighbors before significant American military aid commenced, and it is now a prosperous country. U.S. aid has undoubtedly been useful for Israel, but it may not have been essential to its survival. 

The most singular feature of U.S. support for Israel is its increasingly unconditional nature. President Eisenhower could credibly threaten to withhold aid after the Suez War (though even he faced significant congressional opposition when he did), but those days are long past. Since the mid-1960s, Israel has continued receiving generous support even when it took actions American leaders thought were unwise and contrary to U.S. interests. Israel gets its aid despite its refusal to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and its various WMD programs. It gets its aid when it builds settlements in the Occupied Territories (losing only a small amount through reductions in loan guarantees), even though the U.S. government opposes this policy. It also gets its aid when it annexes territory it has conquered (as it did on the Golan Heights and in Jerusalem), sells U.S. military technology to potential enemies like China, conducts espionage operations on U.S. soil, or uses U.S. weapons in ways that violate U.S. law (such as the use of cluster munitions in civilian areas in Lebanon). It gets additional aid when it makes concessions for peace, but it rarely loses American support when it takes actions that make peace more elusive. And it gets its aid even when Israeli leaders renege on pledges made to U.S. presidents. Menachem Begin promised Ronald Reagan that he would not lobby against the proposed sale of AWACS aircraft to Saudi Arabia in 1981, for example, but Begin then went up to Capitol Hill and told a Senate panel that he opposed the deal. 72 

One might think that U.S. generosity would give Washington considerable leverage over Israel's conduct, but this has not been the case. When dealing with Israel, in fact, U.S. leaders can usually elicit cooperation only by offering additional carrots (increased assistance) rather than employing sticks (threats to withhold aid). For example, the Israeli Cabinet agreed to publicly endorse UN Resolution 242—which, originally passed in November 1967, called for Israel's withdrawal from territories seized in the Six-Day War—only after President Richard Nixon gave private assurances that Israel would receive additional U.S. aircraft. 73 Moreover, its acceptance of the cease-fire agreement that ended the so-called War of Attrition with Egypt (a protracted series of air, artillery, and infantry clashes that began along the Suez Canal in March 1969 and continued until July 1970) was bought by a U.S. pledge to accelerate aircraft deliveries to Israel, to provide advanced electronic countermeasures against Egypt's Soviet-supplied antiaircraft missiles, and, more generally, to "maintain the balance of power."74 According to Shimon Peres (who served as Minister without Portfolio during this period), "As to the question of U.S. pressure on us to accept their programme, I would say they handled us more with a carrot than with a stick; in any event they never threatened us with sanctions." 75 

This pattern continued through the 1970s, with Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter pledging ever-larger sums of aid in the course of the disengagement talks with Egypt and during the negotiations that led to the 1978 Camp David Accords and the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty. Specifically, U.S. aid to Israel increased from $1.9 billion in 1975 to $6.29 billion in 1976 (following completion of the Sinai II agreement) and from $4.4 billion in 1978 to $10.9 billion in 1979 (following the final peace treaty with Egypt).76 As discussed below, the United States also made a number of other commitments to Israel in order to persuade it to sign. In much the same way, the Clinton administration gave Israel increased assistance as part of the peace treaty with Jordan in 1994, and Clinton's efforts to advance the Oslo peace process led him to pledge an additional $1.2 billion in military aid to Israel to win Israel's acceptance of the 1998 Wye Agreement. Prime Minister Netanyahu suspended the Wye Agreement shortly after it was signed, however, following a violent confrontation between a Palestinian crowd and two Israeli citizens. 77 According to U.S. negotiator Dennis Ross, "It was hard to escape the conclusion that Bibi [Netanyahu] . . . was seizing on this incident to avoid further implementation. This was unfortunate, because the Palestinians were working diligently to carry out most of their commitments under Wye, particularly in the area of making arrests and fighting terror." 78 Yet as the Israeli scholar Abraham Ben-Zvi observes, "The Clinton administration's frustration with Netanyahu's style was rarely translated into policy that harmed the American-Israeli special relationship." 79 

Indeed, attempts to use America's potential leverage face significant obstacles and are rarely attempted, even when U.S. officials are deeply upset by Israeli actions. When President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger grew impatient with Israeli intransigence during the disengagement negotiations with Egypt in 1975, a threat to curtail aid and conduct a far-reaching reassessment of U.S. policy was derailed when seventy-six senators signed a letter sponsored by AIPAC demanding that Ford remain "responsive" to Israel's economic and military needs. With their ability to reduce U.S. aid effectively blocked, Ford and Kissinger had little choice but to resume "step-by-step" diplomacy and try to gain Israeli concessions by offering additional inducements. 80 

President Jimmy Carter was similarly upset by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begins failure to implement the full terms of the 1978 Camp David Accords (the breakthrough agreement that created the framework for the subsequent peace treaty between Egypt and Israel), but he never tried to link U.S. assistance to Israeli compliance. 81 Clinton administration officials were equally frustrated when Prime Ministers Netanyahu and Barak did not live up to all of Israel's commitments in the Oslo agreements, and Clinton was reportedly "furious" when Barak reneged on a commitment to transfer three Jerusalem villages to Palestinian control, declaring that Barak was making him a "false prophet" in the eyes of another foreign leader, Yasser Arafat. Clinton also erupted when Barak tried to shift ground during the 2000 Camp David Summit, telling him, "I can't go see Arafat with a retrenchment! You can sell it; there is no way I can. This is not real. This is not serious." 82 Yet Clinton did not react to these maneuvers by threatening to withhold support. 

To be sure, America has occasionally withheld aid temporarily in order to express displeasure over particular Israeli actions, but such gestures are usually symbolic and short-lived, and have little lasting effect on Israeli conduct. In 1977, for example, Israel used U.S. armored personnel carriers to intervene in southern Lebanon (a step that violated both the Arms Export Control Act requirement that U.S. arms be used only for "legitimate self defense" and Prime Minister Menachem Begins pledge to take no action in Lebanon without first consulting Washington) and then denied having done so. After sophisticated intelligence information exposed Israel's deception, the Carter administration threatened to terminate future military shipments and Begin ordered that the equipment be withdrawn. 83 

A similar example is the Reagan administration's decision to suspend the 1981 memorandum of understanding on strategic cooperation following Israel's de facto annexation of the Golan Heights, but Reagan later implemented the key provisions of the agreement even though Israel never reversed the annexation. The United States also halted shipments of cluster munitions after Israel violated prior agreements regarding their use during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, but began supplying them again in 1988. 84 U.S. pressure also helped persuade Israel not to conduct a full-fledged assault on the PLO forces that had taken refuge in Beirut after Israel's 1982 invasion, but Israel's leaders were themselves reluctant to take this step and thus did not need much convincing. 85 

In 1991, the first Bush administration pressured the Shamir government to stop building settlements and to attend a planned peace conference by withholding the $10 billion loan guarantee, but the suspension lasted only a few months and the guarantees were approved once Yitzhak Rabin replaced Shamir as prime minister. 86 Israel agreed to halt construction of new settlements but continued to expand the existing blocs, and the number of settlers in the Occupied Territories increased by 8,000 (14.7 percent) in 1991, by 6,900 (10.3 percent) in 1993, by 6,900 (9.7 percent) in 1994, and by 7,300 (9.1 percent) in 1996, rates significantly higher than Israel's overall population growth during these years. 87 

A similar episode occurred in 2003, when the second Bush administration tried to signal its opposition to Israel's "security wall" in the West Bank by making a token reduction in U.S. loan guarantees to Israel. Withholding the entire guarantee or reducing direct foreign aid might have had an effect, but Bush merely withheld a portion of the loan guarantee equivalent to the estimated costs of those portions of the wall that were encroaching on Palestinian lands. Israel simply had to pay a higher interest rate on a small portion of its loan, a penalty amounting to a few million dollars. When compared to the billions of dollars of U.S. aid that Israel already gets (and expects to get in the future), this was barely a slap on the wrist. It had no discernible effect on Israel's behavior.

DIPLOMATIC PROTECTION AND WARTIME SUPPORT 

In addition to these tangible forms of economic and military aid, the United States provides Israel with consistent diplomatic support. Between 1972 and 2006, Washington vetoed forty-two UN Security Council resolutions that were critical of Israel. That number is greater than the combined total of all the vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members for the same period and amounts to slightly more than half of all American vetoes during these years. 88 There were also numerous resolutions focusing on Israel that never reached a vote in the Security Council due to the threat of an American veto. In 2002, U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Negroponte reportedly told a closed meeting of the Security Council that the United States would henceforth veto any resolutions condemning Israel that did not simultaneously condemn terrorism in general and specifically mention Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade by name. 89 The United States has voted to censure Israel on a few occasions, but only after particularly egregious Israeli actions, when the resolution in question offered only mild criticisms, or when Washington wanted to communicate a degree of displeasure with Israeli intransigence. 90 

Outside the Security Council, the United States routinely backs Israel whenever the UN General Assembly passes one of the many resolutions condemning Israeli behavior or calling for action on behalf of the Palestinians. Although these resolutions are nonbinding and largely symbolic, Washington's stance often puts it at odds with most of its allies and in the company of a tiny handful of other states. To take a typical example, UN General Assembly Resolution 59/124, on "Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People," passed by a vote of 149-7 (with 22 abstaining and 13 non-voting) on December 10, 2004. Among the many nations supporting the resolution were Japan, Germany, France, China, and Great Britain. The six countries that joined with the United States to oppose the resolution were Israel, Australia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, and Palau. 91 

Similarly, when Arab countries have tried to raise the issue of Israel's undeclared nuclear arsenal within the International Atomic Energy Agency, Washington has stepped in to prevent the organization from placing the matter on its agenda. As Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Jonathan Peled told the Jewish newspaper Forward in 2003, "The Arabs do this every year, but in order to have a comprehensive debate amid a consensus on a resolution against Israel, you need the okay of the board of governors [of the IAEA] and you don't have it" due to Washington's influence on the board. 92 [Am I the only one that sees the hypocrisy with the attitude of Washington toward Iran on the Nuke issue?Talk about being Israels little bitch DC]

America's willingness to take Israel's side in diplomacy and war has increased significantly over time. During the 1950s, as previously noted, the Eisenhower administration forced Israel to withdraw from the territory it had seized during the Suez War, and they successfully halted unilateral Israeli attempts to divert key water resources. Since the early 1960s, however, the United States has become more committed to protecting Israel's interests during major confrontations and in the subsequent negotiations. Washington has not given Jerusalem everything it wanted, but U.S. support has been consistent and considerable. 

When an escalating series of clashes between Israel and Syria in 1966-67 led Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to order troops back into the Sinai in May, alarming Israel's leaders and raising the danger of a wider war, the Johnson administration was nonetheless convinced that Israel was militarily superior to its Arab adversaries and exaggerating the danger of an Arab attack. 93 General Earle Wheeler, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, informed Johnson, "Our best estimate was that if there were a war, that the Israelis would win it in five to seven days," and Johnson himself told Israel Foreign Minister Abba Eban that if Egypt attacked, "you will whip hell out of them." 94 Key Israeli leaders privately agreed with this assessment but continued to send Washington alarming reports as part of a deliberate campaign to elicit sympathy and support. 95 

Based on its own appraisals, the United States tried to prevent the outbreak of war by convincing the Israeli government to refrain from using force and to pursue a diplomatic solution. 96 President Johnson called Egypt's decision to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping on May 26 "illegal" and was sympathetic to Israel's concerns, but he did not want to commit U.S. forces in light of American involvement in Vietnam and refused to make a blanket pledge to come to Israel's aid. His efforts to restrain Israel gradually softened, however, and by the first week of June, Johnson and several of his advisers were hinting to Israeli officials that the United States would not object if Israel acted, cautioning that they should not expect U.S. help if things went badly. Secretary of State Dean Rusk told a journalist that "I don't think it is our business to restrain anyone," and Michael Brecher reports that by June 3, "the perceived [Israeli] impression was that, if Israel took the initiative . . . the United States would not take an unfriendly view." In effect, Johnson gave the Israelis what one expert later called a "yellow light" for an attack. 97 The reasons for Johnson's shift remain obscure, although pressure from several pro-Israel friends and advisers, a letter-writing campaign organized by the Israeli embassy, and the growing sense that Israel was going to strike anyway may all have played a role. 98 

The United States did not put significant pressure on Israel to halt the fighting until it had emerged victorious and did not criticize Israel's action after the war. Indeed, when the Soviet Union threatened to intervene following Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights (which threatened Syria, the Soviets' ally), the president ordered the U.S. Sixth Fleet to move closer to Israel in order to deter Soviet interference. In sharp contrast with the 1956 Suez War, the Johnson administration made it clear there would be no American pressure for an Israeli withdrawal except in the context of a broader peace agreement. 99 Nor did the United States insist on a full and complete accounting of the tragic attack on the reconnaissance ship USS Liberty by Israeli naval and air forces on June 8, an event whose origins remain contested. 100 The United States may not have given Israel the diplomatic and military protection it originally sought at the onset of the crisis, but there was no doubt where America's sympathies lay. 

The United States tilted even more strongly toward Israel during the 1969-70 War of Attrition. Aid to Israel increased during the fighting, consistent with Nixon and Kissinger's belief that steadfast support for Israel would reveal the limited value of Soviet aid and eventually convince Moscow's Arab clients to realign with the United States. Although the Nixon administration did not give Israel all the weapons it asked for, which occasionally led to sharp exchanges between the two governments, the United States did provide increased arms supplies while doing relatively little to encourage Israeli concessions in the various peace talks that occurred during this period. When the escalating violence raised new fears of a possible superpower confrontation, however, Washington took the lead in arranging a cease-fire and persuaded Israel to accept it by promising significant aid increases. 101 A memorandum of understanding in 1972 committed the United States to provide planes and tanks on a long-term basis, and Nixon and Kissinger pledged to consult Israel before offering any new peace proposals. By doing so, one of the world s two superpowers had in effect given a small country a quasi veto over subsequent diplomatic initiatives. By the early 1970s, writes William Quandt, "United States Middle East policy consisted of little more than open support for Israel," and Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban later termed this period the "golden age" in U.S. arms supplies. 102 

U.S. support was even more dramatic during the October War in 1973. Nixon and Kissinger were initially confident that Israel would win a quick victory and believed that America's postwar leverage would be maximized if its support for Israel was not too overt and Israel did not win too decisively. As Kissinger recounts in his memoirs, "If Israel won overwhelmingly—as we first expected—we had to avoid becoming the focal point of all Arab resentments. We had to keep the Soviet Union from emerging as the Arabs' savior . . . If the unexpected happened and Israel was in difficulty, we would have to do what was necessary to save it." 103 Given these expectations and strategic objectives, the United States responded slowly to Israel's initial requests for help. When Israel encountered unexpected difficulties and began running short of critical military supplies, however, Nixon and Kissinger ordered a full-scale airlift of vital military equipment, paid for with a $2.2 billion grant of supplemental military aid. 104 Although the tide of battle had already turned before significant U.S. aid arrived, the assistance boosted Israel's morale and helped seal its victory. 105 Unfortunately for the United States, the resupply effort also triggered an Arab oil embargo and production decrease that quickly sent world oil prices soaring and imposed significant economic costs on the United States and its allies. 

Within certain limits, U.S. diplomacy during the war favored Israel: the United States helped convince King Hussein of Jordan to remain on the sidelines, and Kissinger handled the cease-fire negotiations (most notably his talks with Soviet leaders in Moscow on October 21 ) with an eye toward preserving Israel's freedom of action until the final stages of the war. Nixon had instructed Kissinger to tell Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev that the United States "wanted to use the war to impose a comprehensive peace in the Middle East," but in Moscow Kissinger successfully pressed for a simple cease-fire that would leave Israel with the upper hand and facilitate subsequent efforts to exclude the Soviet Union from the peace process. According to the historian Kenneth Stein, "The American-compiled minutes of the three meetings that Kissinger attended with Brezhnev unequivocally show that he accurately and repeatedly represented Israeli interests to Moscow, almost totally contrary to Nixon's preferences." Israel's leaders resented what they saw as Soviet-American collusion to author a cease-fire, but as Stein notes, "Kissinger, while not representing Israel to the Kremlin, certainly presented Israel's concerns." 106 

When the Security Council passed a cease-fire resolution on October 22, calling for an end to all fighting within twelve hours, Kissinger permitted Israel to violate it in order to consolidate its military position. He had previously told Israeli Ambassador Simcha Dinitz that Israel would be "well-advised" to use the time afforded by his trip to Moscow to complete its military operations, and according to the National Security Archive, a Washington-based research group that specializes in declassified U.S. sources, "Kissinger secretly gave Israeli authorities a green light to breach the ceasefire agreement" in order to "buy time for Israeli military advances despite the impending ceasefire deadline." 107 When the cease-fire broke down completely and the IDF surrounded Egypt's Third Army, prompting a blunt Soviet threat to intervene with its own troops, Nixon and Kissinger ordered a worldwide military alert, issued a sharp warning to Moscow to stay out, and told the Israelis it was now time to stop the fighting. 

Although there was considerable hard bargaining during the subsequent "step-by-step" diplomacy leading to the 1975 Sinai II disengagement agreement, the United States still worked to protect Israel's interests. In addition to giving Israel increased military aid, the United States pledged to "concert action" with Israel when preparing for a subsequent peace conference and gave Israel a de facto veto over PLO participation in any future peace talks. Indeed, Kissinger promised that the United States would not "recognize or negotiate" with the PLO so long as it did not recognize Israel's right to exist or accept UN Resolutions 242 and 338 (the cease-fire resolutions that ended the 1967 and 1973 wars, respectively, and called for Israel's withdrawal from occupied territories along with acknowledgment of its sovereignty and independence), a pledge that Congress codified into law in 1984. 108 According to the Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, "[Israeli Prime Minister] Rabin made it clear to Kissinger that the cabinet would not ratify the Sinai II [disengagement] agreement unless it was accompanied by an American-Israeli agreement." Shlaim terms the resulting arrangements "an alliance with America in all but name." 109 

The United States came to Israels aid once again following its ill conceived invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Amid escalating violence between Israel and PLO forces in southern Lebanon, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon sought American approval for a military response intended to drive the PLO from Lebanon, eliminate Syrian influence, and bring the leader of the Lebanese Christians, Bashir Gemayel, to power. U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig appeared to give conditional approval for the scheme in his talks with Israeli officials—saying at one point that a hypothetical Israeli response should be swift, "like a lobotomy"—though he probably did not know the full extent of Israel's ambitions and cautioned that Israel should act only if there were, as Haig put it, an "internationally recognized provocation." 110 Israel eventually invaded in June 1982 (even though Haig's criterion had not been met), but its ambitious plan to reorder Lebanese internal politics soon went awry. Although the IDF quickly routed the PLO and Syrian forces, the PLO remnants took refuge in Beirut and the IDF could not remove them without suffering extensive casualties and causing massive harm to Lebanese civilians. U.S. Special Envoy Philip Habib eventually negotiated a deal to end the siege and permit the PLO to withdraw, and several thousand U.S. marines were subsequently dispatched to Lebanon as part of a multinational peacekeeping force. 

Gemayel's assassination in September thwarted Israel's hope of creating a pro-Israel government in Lebanon, and the IDF then allowed Christian militias to enter the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, where they proceeded to slaughter a large number of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, with estimated death tolls ranging from roughly seven hundred to more than two thousand. 111 Repeated efforts to end Lebanon's internal struggles and foreign occupation failed, and U.S. personnel were gradually drawn into the intensifying Lebanese maelstrom. A suicide bomber struck the American embassy in April 1983, killing sixty-three people, and a truck bomb attack on the marine barracks in October left 241 marines dead and paved the way for a complete U.S. withdrawal the following year. 

Even though U.S. officials—including President Reagan himself—were upset by Israel's conduct during the war, they did not try to punish Israel for its actions. Reagan did send Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin a sharply worded letter on June 9, calling on him to accept a proposed ceasefire with Syria, but the IDF's objectives vis-à-vis Syria had been accomplished by that time and it involved no great sacrifice for Israel to agree. 112 

"Despite verbal protestations and other gestures and occasional genuine irritation," notes the historian and diplomat Itamar Rabinovich, the United States "lent Israel the political support that enabled it to proceed with the war for an unusually long time." 113 Indeed, instead of sanctioning Israel for invading a neighboring country, Congress voted to give Israel an additional $250 million in military assistance in December 1982, over the strong objections of both President Reagan and his new secretary of state, George P. Shultz. As Shultz later recalled: 

In early December [1982] .. . I got word that a supplement was moving through the lame-duck session of Congress to provide a $250 million increase in the amount of U.S. military assistance granted to Israel: this in the face of Israel's invasion of Lebanon, its use of cluster bombs, and its complicity in the Sabra and Shatila massacres! We fought the supplement and fought it hard. President Reagan and I weighed in personally, making numerous calls to senators and congressmen. On December 9, I added a formal letter of opposition saying that the supplement appeared "to endorse and reward Israel's policies." Foreign Minister Shamir called President Reagan's opposition "an unfriendly act" and said that "it endangers the peace process." The supplement sailed right by us and was approved by Congress as though President Reagan and I had not even been there. I was astonished and disheartened. This brought home to me vividly Israel's leverage in our Congress. I saw that I must work carefully with the Israelis if I was to have any handle on congressional action that might affect Israel and if I was to maintain congressional support for my efforts to make progress in the Middle East. 114 [What peace process are they talking about,Israel has never been serious about peace,and a person has to be a complete moron to not see that Israel has it's own agenda when it comes to the Middle East. DC]

Yet Shultz and Reagan soon followed Congress's lead: the 1981 MOU on strategic cooperation (suspended after Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights) was reinstated in November 1983, because key U.S. officials believed that close cooperation with Israel was the only way to influence Israel's behavior. 115 [That has worked out just peachy,not DC]

America's tendency to side with Israel extends to peace negotiations as well. The United States played a key role in the abortive peace efforts that followed the Six-Day War, as well as the talks that ended the War of Attrition in 1970. The United States agreed to consult with Israel before launching further peace initiatives in 1972, and Kissinger was never able to bring much pressure to bear on Israel during his conduct of the "step-by-step" diplomacy that followed the October War. Kissinger complained at one point during the negotiations, "I ask Rabin to make concessions, and he says he can't because Israel is weak. So I give him more arms, and then he says he doesn't need to make concessions because Israel is strong." 116 As discussed above, the disengagement agreements between Egypt and Israel were produced primarily through pledges of additional U.S. aid and by an American commitment to station civilian monitors in the Sinai. 

The same pattern can be seen in the Clinton administration's handling of the negotiations that produced the 1993 Oslo Accords and the unsuccessful attempt to reach a final status agreement in 1999-2000 . There was occasional friction between Clinton administration officials and their Israeli counterparts, but the United States coordinated its positions closely with Israel and generally backed Israel's approach to the peace process, even when U.S. representatives had serious reservations about Israel's strategy. 117 According to one Israeli negotiator, Ron Pundak, a key representative in the negotiations leading to Oslo and one of the architects of the subsequent framework agreement for the final status talks at Camp David in 2000, "The traditional approach of the U.S. State Department . . . was to adopt the position of the Israeli Prime Minister. This was demonstrated most extremely during the Netanyahu government, when the American government seemed sometimes to be working for the Israeli Prime Minister, as it tried to convince (and pressure) the Palestinian side to accept Israeli offers. This American tendency was also evident during Barak's tenure." 118 

U.S. participants in the peace process have offered similar judgments. According to Robert Malley, special assistant for Arab-Israeli affairs under President Clinton and another key Camp David participant, "The Israeli ideas put forward at Camp David were never stated in writing . . . They generally were presented as U.S. concepts, not Israeli ones." This practice underscores the degree to which the United States was providing Israel with diplomatic help even when supposedly acting as a neutral mediator. U.S. negotiators were also constrained by the "no-surprise rule," which Malley describes as "the American commitment, if not to clear, at least to share in advance, each of its ideas with Israel. Because Barak's strategy precluded early exposure of his bottom lines to anyone (the President included), he would invoke the nosurprise rule' to argue against US substantive proposals he felt went too far. The US ended up (often unwittingly) presenting Israeli negotiating positions and couching them as rock-bottom red lines beyond which Israel could not go." 119 As Aaron David Miller, an adviser to six different secretaries of state on Middle East and Arab-Israeli affairs and another key player in the Clinton administration's peace effort, put it during a 2005 postmortem on the failed negotiations: "Far too often, we functioned .. . as Israel's lawyer." 120

CONCLUSION 

Since Israel's founding in 1948, many important elements of America's Middle East policy have come to center around its commitment to the Jewish state. As we shall discuss in detail in Part II, this tendency has become even more pronounced with the passage of time. To note one final sign of Israel's privileged position among U.S. allies: since 1976, six Israeli leaders have addressed joint sessions of Congress, a higher total than for any other country. 121 A trivial indicator, perhaps, but it is still striking given that these six leaders represented a country whose 2007 population was less than that of New York City. 

Yitzhak Rabin was right: America's generosity toward Israel is "beyond compare in modern history." It has grown from modest beginnings to a "special relationship" that has no equal. As Mitchell Bard and Daniel Pipes put it, "From a comparative perspective, the United States and Israel may well have the most extraordinary tie in international politics." 122 

This support has accomplished one positive end: it has helped Israel prosper. For many people, that fact alone might justify all of the support that the United States has provided over the years. Given this record, it is no surprise that a June 2003 Pew poll found that in twenty out of twenty-one countries surveyed—including close U.S. allies like Britain, France, Canada, and Australia—either a majority or plurality of the population believes that U.S. Middle East policy "favors Israel too much." What is more surprising, perhaps, is that a plurality of Israelis (47 percent) agreed. 123 

Although the United States has derived a number of benefits from its support for Israel and from Israel's undeniable achievements, it has given far more than it has gained. This generosity would be understandable if Israel were a vital strategic asset for the United States—that is, if Israel's existence and continued growth made the United States substantially safer. It would also be easy to explain if there were a compelling moral rationale for maintaining such high levels of material aid and diplomatic backing. But this is not the case. In the next two chapters, we show that neither strategic interests nor moral imperatives can explain why the United States continues to give Israel such generous and unconstrained support.[It is called blackmail,our so called 'leaders',are all perverts and compromised.Would not surprise me one bit if we come to find out that Israel has numerous nukes in place across America right under our noses.My guess would be public 'art' as cover DC] 

Next
2 
ISRAEL : STRATEGIC ASSET OR LIABILITY ?64s

notes start at page 372 here
https://ia601701.us.archive.org/15/items/BooksCommunistManifestoEssaysArticlesReports-VariousPdfFiles2/TheIsraelLobbyAndU.s.ForeignPolicyjohnJ.MearsheimerStephenM.Walt.pdf

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. As a journalist, I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of artistic, cultural, historic, religious and political issues. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. Copyrighted material can be removed on the request of the owner.