The $36 Billion Bargain: Strategy and Politics in U.S. Assistance to Israel 9780231891752

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THE $36 BILLION BARGAIN: STRATEGY AND POLITICS IN U.S. ASSISTANCE TO ISRAEL

THE $36 BILLION BARGAIN: STRATEGY AND POLITICS IN U.S. ASSISTANCE TO ISRAEL

A. F. K. Organski

Columbia University Press New York

Columbia University Press New York Oxford Copyright © 1990 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Organski, A. F. K., 1923The $36 billion bargain: strategy and politics in U.S. assistance to Israel/A. F. K. Organski. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-231-07196-5 1. United States—Foreign relations—Israel. 2. Israel—Foreign relations—United States. 3. Military assistance, American—Israel. 4. Economic assistance, American—Israel. I. Title. II. Title: Thirty-six billion dollar bargain. E183.8.17074 1990 327.7305694—dc20 90-30102 CIP Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books are Smyth-sewn and printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper @ Printed in the United States of America c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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CONTENTS

TABLES

xi

PREFACE

xv

INTRODUCTION Four Possibilities The Limits of This Work Plan of the Book

1 4 6 8

PART ONE. THE DOMESTIC SCENE

1. A M E R I C A N PRESIDENTS A N D ISRAEL The Pattern of U.S. Assistance to Israel, 1948-Present The Nixon Role The Utility of an Illusion

13 15 24 27

CONTENTS

vili

The Fear of Communist Expansion The Making of Decisions

31 36

2. AMERICAN OPINION Sympathy for Arab States and Israel Public Opinion on Major Arab-Israeli Issues Opinions of Jews and the General Public Jewish Backing of Israel

38 40 46 53 56

3. CONGRESS AND AID TO ISRAEL Jews and Congressional Support for Aid to Israel Jewish Support, Internationalism, and Senatorial Votes Congressional Partiality for the Israeli Cause

62 63 75 78

4. THE FORGING OF A FOREIGN POLICY CONSENSUS The Source of the Interventionist Political Consensus The Timing of U.S. Assistance to Israel Conclusion

86 88 101 103

PART TWO. THE EXTERNAL SCENE

INTRODUCTION The Actors and Their Concerns

107 109

5. AMERICAN FOREIGN ASSISTANCE Donor and Recipients: The Official Story What Should Be Considered "Help"? Revised Estimates of U.S. Foreign Assistance The Fortunate Recipients

114 117 120 129 132

6. AID TO THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE MAGHREB Assistance to the Principals in the Arab-Israeli Dispute An Even-Handed Policy The Effects of Economic and Military "Assistance"

135 137 141 147

7. REASONS FOR GIVING ASSISTANCE Why Assistance Has Been Given Why U.S. Assistance to Israel Escalated Escalation of American Aid

153 154 158 161

8. PATRON AND CLIENT: A MATTER OF CONTROL The Setting for Negotiation

180 181

CONTENTS

The Israeli "Negotiating Style" The Issue of U.S. Control over Israel American Control of Israel Patron-Client Control

ix

183 187 190 199

9. THE LOGIC OF U.S. A I D T O ISRAEL Strategic Considerations for U.S. Help to Israel Domestic Factors

202 202 209

EPILOGUE

213

APPENDIX A

219

APPENDIX B

243

APPENDIX C

250

APPENDIX D

256

NOTES

263

BIBLIOGRAPHY

293

INDEX

309

TABLES

3.1. Size of Jewish Constituencies and Senatorial Support, 1969-1982 3.2. Percent of Financial Contributions from Jewish Sources and Senatorial Support for Pro-Israel Measures 19771982 3.3. Effects of Campaign Contributions from Jewish and/or pro-Israel Sources and Size of Jewish Constituencies on Senatorial Support of Israel 3.4. Effects of Degree of Internationalism, Campaign Contributions from Jewish and/or Pro-Israel Sources and Size of Jewish Constituencies on Senatorial Support of Israel 3.5. Effects of Senatorial Internationalism, Security Concerns, Campaign Contributions, Size of Jewish Constituencies on Senatorial Support of Israel

66

72 76

77 79

5.1. 5.2. 5.3. 5.4. 6.1. 6.2. 6.3. 6.4.

6.5. 6.6. 6.7. A.l. A.2. A.3. A.4. A.5. A.6. B.l. B.2. B.3. B.4. B.5. B.6. B.7. B.8.

American Foreign Aid, 1946-1983 The Ten Largest Recipients of American Aid, 1946-1983 Revised Estimates of Foreign Assistance 1948-1983 Ten Largest Recipients of U.S. Assistance, Corrected Aid Figures, 1946-1983 Military Assistance to the Principals in the ArabIsraeli Conflict, 1950-1983 Economic Assistance to the Principals in the ArabIsraeli Conflict, 1950-1983 Military and Economic Assistance to Israel, 1952-1983 Western European and Warsaw Pact Military Assistance to Arab Front Line States and Primary Backers, 1952-1983 U.S. Economic Assistance to Arab States, 1947-1983 Total Estimated Assistance to All Participants in the Arab-Israel Conflict, 1948-1983 Total Assistance Adjusted for Political Capacity of Recipient Governments, Israel, and Front-Line Arab States Senatorial Campaign Contributions, 1977-1982 Voting Behavior of Senators in the 95th, 96th, and 97th Senates, 1977-1982 votes Voting Records of Senators in the 91st-97th Senates, 1969-1982 Bills Jewish and/or Pro-Israeli Campaign Contributions and Pro-Israeli Vote Contributions from Jewish Sources and Average Senatorial Support, 1970-1982 Jewish and/or Pro-Israeli Contributions as a Percentage of all Contributions and Pro-Israeli Vote U.S.-Israeli Cooperation 1950-1956 Sympathy for Selected U.S.-Friendly Nations U.S. Public Perceptions of Israel and Egypt Measures of American Sympathy Toward Israel and the Arab Countries, 1967-1982 The Public's View of Egypt and Israel Expressions of American Sympathy with the Arab States and Israel During the Oil Embargo Level of Military Support American Public Opinion on Return of the Territories Conquered in the 1967 War

117 118 129 133 138 140 142

145 146 146

151 226 230 234 240 241 242 244 244 245 245 247 247 248 248

TABLES

B.9. Opinions on Jerusalem's Future C.3. U.S. Defense Expenditures Committed to NATO, 19501983, in Millions of Constant 1982 U.S. Dollars D.I. U.S. Military Sales Agreements to Principal Middle Eastern Nations, 1950-1983 D.2. U.S. Government Estimates Warsaw Pact Military Sales to Principal Middle Eastern Nations, 1950-1984 D.3. U.S. Government Estimates of Western European Arms Sales Agreements to Principal Middle Eastern Nations, 1950-1984 D.4. Israeli and U.S. Government Estimates of Western European Assistance to Israel, 1954-1983

xiii

249 253 257 260 261 262

•

PREFACE

I

N 1983 I ran across a Congressional Research Service series on assistance to Israel from 1948 to 1983, and I was surprised by what I saw. The numbers told an important story. Assistance to Israel before 1970 had been very low. After 1972 levels shot up. The data fairly screamed that American Jews could not have been responsible for U.S. policy, for it is elementary that one cannot explain a variation with a constant, and American Jews had been in favor of assistance all along. How could such an obvious untruth be believed so widely? I decided to look into the problem. The more I dug into it, the more strongly I felt that this testimony did indeed need to be made public. This book is a report on what I have found. I am deeply indebted to very many people without whose help this work would never have seen the light of day. I cannot possibly thank individually all of my colleagues in government who helped me over the many years this work took to complete,- there are simply too many of them, and all I can do here is to identify their in-

xvi

PREFACE

stitutional affiliations. They were in the GAO, the Departments of State and Defense, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the Senate staff, the National Security Council, the Federal Election Commission and the intelligence community. Without these colleagues' data and their special understanding of what the numbers they had put together meant, this work would not have been possible. Drs. Ronald Tammen and Stanley Feder deserve special thanks for making it possible to locate the data and expert help I needed. I also wish to acknowledge publicly my large debt to three institutions that directly contributed resources to this project. My gratitude goes to the Earhart Foundation, that provided me with initial funds to begin this project. Dr. Antony Sullivan, a program officer of the Foundation and a Mideast specialist, read the work on its completion and helped me with his rich and perceptive commentary. I am also grateful to the Department of Political Science and its Ad Hoc Committee, and to Professor Samuel Eldersveld, chairman of the Committee, who awarded me the John Orin Murfin chair in political science, thereby giving me the time and freedom to work on this project. Finally, I wish to acknowledge my debt to the Center for Political Studies in the Institute of Social Research. These two institutions provide ideal conditions for the maintenance of a research culture that has proved a boon for the work I do. Most important in the environment of ISR are the highly competent young researchers ready to help. Over the years four doctoral students assisted me in my work. I am very grateful to Mr. Adam Bacher, who put together the data dealing with U.S. assistance and those on U.S. public opinion on the Middle East; to Dr. Alice Hayes, who, while still at Michigan in her doctoral training, did with great ability the first analysis of congressional roll calls; to Ms. Regina M. Baker, who executed with uncommon skill the final statistical analyses on congressional voting behavior that made the data yield the critical information needed; and to Ms. Ellen M. Lust, who took time away from her work on another project to carry out very ably the endless repairs always required in putting a work of this kind into final form. These young colleagues' thorough competence in matters of research, willingness to help, cheer, wit, and endless laughter made collaboration a real pleasure. But my personal debts extend much further. My colleagues' generous consent to read all or part of someone else's work before it goes to print is a very special extra benefit of research life. It has been in my view always an important part of what is generally called "peer review." I have been very fortunate in wise and skilled advice

PREFACE

xvii

from many quarters. These colleagues have sought their best to improve what I had done. I wish to express my gratitude to Professors Richard Hall of the University of Michigan and Janet Gretzke of Holy Cross College; the latter very generously made available to me her own extensive FEC data set on financial contributions to Congress. The work of these colleagues in estimating the effects of Political Action Committees' activities on congressional behavior have served as a guide for me in dealing with such material. I also wish to thank Professor Steven Spiegel of the University of California at Los Angeles, whose unparalleled knowledge of U.S.-Israeli relations was made available to me when he generously read a very early version of the manuscript and made suggestions. Mrs. Jean Converse, a colleague and friend at the University of Michigan, whose work I have long admired, read the entire manuscript; I wish to thank her for her comments, which I found as tactful as they were perceptive. Dr. Robert Shapiro of Columbia University consented to read the manuscript for Columbia University Press and presented me with what I thought was a demanding but masterful review. I also wish to thank three longtime collaborators: Professor Youssef Cohen, of New York University, read the manuscript and helped with excellent suggestions; Professor Jacek Kugler, of Vanderbilt University, and Dr. Franco Pavoncello helped with difficult analytic problems. These colleagues' comments and suggestions were very useful, and I sought to incorporate them in so far as I was able into the final version of the manuscript. Finally, as any author knows, a good editor is a boon to any work. I was fortunate in having available to me the judgment, encouragement, and help of such a one; I wish to express my gratitude to Ms. Kate Wittenberg, editor at the Columbia University Press. Still other people deserve special thanks. My wife, Patricia Joan Bard, on my telling her of the substance of the book suggested the title I chose. It seems to me that a title should tell the story, and this one does. I also wish to thank, for skilled editorial advice and work on part, or the whole, of very early versions of the manuscript, Dr. Christian Braider, Ms. Claire Laporte, Mrs. Barbara Skala and Mr. Jackson Braider. Finally, I wish to thank very much Ms. Anita Ernst at the ISR who faithfully processed endless versions of a manuscript that simply refused to be completed. Had I been able to profit fully from all the help I received from so many people, this would have been a better book. I need hardly add that all who helped did not necessarily agree with me. I alone take responsibility for what I have written.

THE $36 BILLION BARGAIN: STRATEGY AND POLITICS IN U.S. ASSISTANCE TO ISRAEL

INTRODUCTION

T

a story that has gone the rounds in diplomatic circles for forty years or so now. It concerns a meeting in the Astor room of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City between representatives of certain Arab states and Israel, and the then American Ambassador to the U N Warren Austin. Losing patience with the obdurate refusal of either side to move toward some kind of settlement with the other, Ambassador Austin is said to have impulsively exclaimed, "Why can't the Jews and Arabs get together and act like Christians?" What a hilarious gaffe. Whenever the story is told people wince and laugh in equal measure. Though afterward he vehemently denied saying anything of the sort, Ambassador Austin was not known for being too careful in his choice of words, and the story stuck. It may well be apocryphal,1 but is so apt as to deserve being true. Assuming the story is true, there is no way of knowing exactly HERE IS

2

INTRODUCTION

what Ambassador Austin had in mind. Still, on reflection, the words attributed to him do accurately reflect the reality both of the Middle East and of American policy in the region. In a way that Ambassador Austin almost certainly would not appreciate, Arabs and Jews have in fact been acting just like their Christian brothers and sisters in Northern Ireland, for instance—killing each other whenever they get the chance. And American policy has for at least twenty-five of the last forty years been devoted to trying to get them together. This book is about that effort. The puzzle we have posed ourselves concerns the reasons for U.S. generosity to the state of Israel. Since the 1982 war in Lebanon, many have challenged not only the role of American support for Israel, but the wisdom of giving any aid at all. These skeptical voices are by no means new, but they have recently come to be expressed with growing volume and insistence. Indeed many academics, members of the press, current and former officials of the American government, and allies have voiced their opposition to aid for Israel from the very beginning, arguing that it has been counterproductive to American interests in the region. Yet, the United States has persisted. Why? And what can this tell us about American support for other countries both in the Middle East and elsewhere? It is an appropriate time to pose the questions I wish to explore. There is some indication that it may be the end of an era in the dispute between Israel and the Arab states and the beginning of another. The direct intervention of the Arab states into the Arab-Israeli conflict has receded. The Arab states, beaten in the field by Israel, are for the time being standing on the sidelines. With the revolt of the inhabitants in the occupied territories, the conflict is returning, in form if not in substance, to what it had been before the Arab states intervened in 1948: a conflict between Israel and Palestinian Arabs over the land of Palestine. The pause in direct Arab states' involvement may not last. Still, it signals that a phase may have ended. For forty years (1948-1988) Israel played David to the Arab states' Goliath. It is now, at least temporarily, playing Goliath in the occupied territories to the Palestinians' David. After twenty-four years the United States has begun to talk to the PLO. The final phase of the rapprochement between Israel and the Arab side has begun. This simple act revealed that the conventional wisdom explaining American policy toward Israel was incorrect and showed a misunderstanding of U.S. foreign policy in the region. This work is part of recent revisionist history and analysis seek-

INTRODUCTION

3

ing to strip away important myths in this conflict. The beliefs I explore are central to the debate over U.S. foreign policy in the ArabIsraeli conflict. They are very strongly held. They differ from other myths about this problem in that they do not suit the purpose of one side only. They suit the purpose of every actor in the drama. That is perhaps one reason why this belief has been left unchallenged for so long. It should be exposed, however, because it seriously distorts our understanding of the problem.2 It is alleged that Israel is a special case, and that what one deduces from American policy toward Israel cannot be applied to other cases. What is said to distinguish Israel from other recipients of U.S. assistance is the vigorous lobbying of the American Jewish community. Proponents of this view point out that in most other decisions involving foreign assistance, the beneficiaries, being citizens of other countries, cannot intervene directly on their own behalf in the American government's decision-making process, nor have they any recourse if American officials deny them help. But not Israel. The Israelis, of course, are not in a position to vote American politicians in or out of office, but American Jewry can, and because of the votes and money at their disposal, Israel's advocates in America allegedly possess considerable clout at the polls and, consequently, in the corridors of power. Thus, it is said, the chief reason for so much American aid to Israel is "domestic politics," the code word used to indicate pressure brought to bear on both the President and Congress alike by the American Jewish community. In short, what is different about America's giving to Israel is the intrusive impact of this political clout into the decisions of American leaders. The implication of such a view is clear. Were American leaders freed of the pressure exerted on them by Jewish electors and lobbyists, they would not have given Israel any aid at all, or would have given far less. This at least is the prevailing wisdom. But is conventional wisdom correct? Does the "domestic constituency" urging help in this case make the difference it is alleged to? And what if it does not? What light might this shed on the nature of and the reasons behind foreign policy decisions generally? Such questions are the principal concerns of this book. Very many adherents to the conventional wisdom about U.S.— Israeli relations strongly feel that, because of the peculiar character of this particular case, it will have especially little to teach us about American foreign aid policy at large. Case studies, they say, are not usually a good source for generalization. Were so many Mideastern

4

INTRODUCTION

specialists to be proven correct that the study of this case would be devoid of any promise of becoming a source of generalization, the story of the U.S. role in the Arab—Israeli dispute would have, obviously, very limited appeal to anyone who is not really interested in the Middle East for its own sake. I undertook the task that led to this book because I believed this view to be false, as well as its conclusions as to why the United States has acted as it has. I believe the Israeli case is a source of generalization for many parts of U.S. foreign policy and of politics in general: for example, elites' influence on mass opinion; how much foreign resource allocation is an issue that is shaped from the top down, not from the bottom up, as classic democratic theory would have us think; the distortions in present estimates of foreign assistance; and presidential and congressional roles in foreign affairs, just to name a few. But, again, much depends, obviously, on the approach used, on the questions asked, and on the analytical methods used in dealing with a case study.

FOUR POSSIBILITIES

There are four major ways to explain American generosity toward Israel. Setting them forth here, at the very beginning, focuses on what we are after as we examine the evidence. Of these four ways one might explain American behavior, two conform to the conventional wisdom about American policy toward Israel—namely that it is a special case—and two reject it. The odds-on favorite explanation whenever it is asked why the United States helps Israel to the extent it does is that it is almost entirely the product of successful lobbying on the part of the Jewish community. This hypothesis, an extreme version of the conventional wisdom about Israel, implies that the role of the national interest in shaping American decisions with regard to Israel is either negligible or of minor importance. Indeed, those who propose this explanation of American behavior often hold the view that our strategic problems in the Middle East (i.e., the fact that some Arab states lean toward the Soviet Union rather than toward the United States) are the result of our alliance with Israel. In short, through our friendship with Israel we have created out own problems in the region, and if only the United States would give up its ill-conceived commitment to Israel, the Arab states would cease being hostile and our

INTRODUCTION

5

"strategic problems" would disappear. In discussions on the Middle East, one hears this view expressed over and over again. The second explanation is a more moderate variation on the same theme: The reason for U.S. help to Israel in the first instance stems mainly from the power of the Jewish community and its effectiveness in influencing government decisions. But the pressures that the Jewish community and its organized political arm exert cannot by itself entirely explain why the U.S. government gives so much. There are also strategic considerations to take into account, such as American efforts to contain Russian influence in the region, the instability of Arab governments, and the fear that local revolutions might endanger the oil supply. In this view, the dominant factor is political pressure from the Jewish community, and even though strategic interests count they are secondary. In fact, the United States would help Israel in its struggle with its Arab neighbors even if strategic considerations did not weigh on the decision. According to this hypothesis, were American strategic interests to remain constant, and were pressure from the American Jewish community to diminish, American aid could be expected to decrease proportionally. On the other hand, were the efforts of American Jews on behalf of Israel to remain constant, and were the importance of strategic considerations to decline, American aid to Israel would remain roughly what it has been over the last few years. There is good reason to believe that, were one to perform a systematic survey of the opinions of foreign policy elites (i.e., those who make or analyze foreign policy decisions) on this matter, this second explanation of American foreign policy would be the preferred one. The third explanation turns the second one around and abandons conventional wisdom about Israel. This theory takes the view that the critical factor in the decision to give aid to Israel has been American strategic interests in the region. This view implies that aid is both an important and effective instrument of policy. The domestic political activity of pro-Israeli interests then is of secondary importance. The efforts of the Jewish community on behalf of Israel in the endless struggle over budgetary resources might appear, to a proponent of this theory, to be a convenient second for the strategic imperatives that really govern the decision to give aid to Israel. In a democracy, when leaders decide to allocate resources in response to foreign policy imperatives, it always helps to have an organized domestic constituency prodding the government to do what it has already decided to do in any case. In this sense, the Jewish com-

6

INTRODUCTION

munity's support is a critical legitimizing force. It is misleading, however, according to this view, to think that pressure from below is responsible for the policy and, that were such pressure to disappear, the policy itself would change at all significantly. A final explanation takes a view one step further than the third. According to this fourth line of reasoning, the motives for American aid to Israel are no different from those impelling the United States to help Taiwan, South Korea, South Vietnam, El Salvador, or Nicaragua under the Somoza regime: Strategic considerations, rightly or wrongly, dictate which countries receive substantial American support. In the end, the real contribution of the pro-Israeli forces on the domestic scene is to lessen the political cost the government must pay in giving resources to a recipient whose enemies, the Arab states, are also friends of the United States. Beyond such palliation, however, such political pressure has little or no effect in determining the quantity of aid given. In short, were the American Jewish community to disappear, the aid the United States gives Israel would not decrease to any measurable extent. All that would happen is that the leaders responsible for foreign-aid decisions would find the choice more costly in political terms. Some extreme holders of this fourth view even argue that the activities of pro-Israeli forces—the Jewish lobby,3 as it is sometimes called—are, in the long run, counterproductive. They muddy the waters. They create the illusion and thereby prompt the accusation that such aid is not in the American national interest but is the result of the manipulative efforts of a domestic constituency. Thus, there are two sets of views, each with an extreme version and each with a moderate alternative. One set assigns the responsibility for American aid to Israel to forces within the domestic political process: this is the position of the first and second explanations. The other set suggests that the explanation is to be sought in an analysis of American strategic interests, in particular the competition with the USSR. Which of the four is closest to the truth? It is the aim of this work to suggest some answers.

THE LIMITS OF THIS WORK

This text is not about whether the United States should give aid to Israel—whether such aid is wise, or just or fair. Nor will I discuss

INTRODUCTION

7

the rights and wrongs of the bitter strife between Israel and the Arab nations, or the issues in dispute between Israel and the Israelis on the one hand and the Palestinians and the PLO on the other. That problem is far more difficult to answer than the one central to this work. In a way the data I present speak for themselves. I shall decline to address such issues for an important reason: my central purpose is solely to seek to account for American behavior in the case of Israel, not to argue whether it is "right or wrong." Interference by great powers may have an impact on the eventual outcome in the Middle East, but what is in dispute in the region does not and is not in the future likely to influence the actions of the United States and the Soviet Union. Great powers have strategic motives of their own for embroiling themselves in regional conflicts and for supporting one side or another, and these rarely, if ever, have much if anything to do with the merits of the case. Since they have only a limited and peripheral bearing on the reason why the United States gives assistance, questions like these have little relevance to what is discussed here. Throughout I will touch upon why I think the U.S. policy of assisting Israel fits snugly with the U.S. leadership view of its own interests in the region. However, lest this statement seem unfeeling or to show a lack of concern for justice and the rights of the various parties to the conflict in the Middle East, let me express for my own part, here and now, the conviction that such questions are indeed as essential as they would appear. Nor are the emotion-charged positions taken by the contestants themselves and by different observers—the bitter frustrated rage of Israelis and Arabs for one another, the mutual grotesque dehumanizing and stereotyping, the learning of fear and hatred by the children—the least difficult to understand. Given the pain and the horrors endured in the region for the last fifty years—the bitter competition over the same small strips of ground, the killings, the wars, the constant retelling of old wrongs—how could one expect those involved to act otherwise? The intransigence of the participants in the conflict is wholly natural though often counterproductive; what leaders would not, under the circumstances, dig in their heels? And at the same time, one can see how this struggle has been tied to the much larger strife dividing the United States and the Soviet Union, with leaders of Arab states and Israel constantly searching for help against one another from the leaders of one or the other of the superpowers, and the leaders of the superpowers constantly seeking to recruit new allies among the rulers of

INTRODUCTION

8

the region. Finally, one can readily understand the impatience felt by outsiders faced with the recalcitrance of the warring parties: the accumulated frustration experienced in the rest of the world after thirty-five years of futile Arab-Israeli strife is immense. Of course, the questions "why" and "should" are not entirely separate. American decision makers give aid because they think they should. And for all of us, a clearer understanding of the question "why" may be helpful in exploring whether we ought to continue to give aid to Israel.

PLAN OF THE BOOK

As stated, any explanation for the assistance that the U.S. government gives to Israel lies either in the domestic political process, in the dynamics of the international scene, or in some combination of both. The first part of this book examines the domestic political scene, starting with a review of the actions of successive presidents in providing assistance to Israel. Some presidents provided a good deal of assistance, while others did not. The differences provide us with a clue as to why the United States has given assistance to Israel. The second topic is an examination of American attitudes toward Israel. Mass opinion is important ammunition political elites use in their tug-of-war over policy decisions. The question is whether such general public opinion is favorably disposed toward assisting Israel or whether it is the Jewish community alone pressing U.S. leaders to give Israel support. The third topic will review whether Jewish votes and money have an inordinate influence on congressional support for assistance to Israel. After all, Congress controls the purse strings and is a major actor in such support. Our focus will be on the question: Do Jewish political and financial contributions influence decisively the way Congress votes on aid to Israel? It is often said that they do, but few have looked for empirical verification. The chapter on Congress is particularly important, for observations of congressional behavior are precisely the kind that lend themselves to rigorous analyses and, therefore, offer us the opportunity to test, more definitively than one could do in the first two chapters, some of the key propositions about the forces that propel congressional support of assistance to Israel. Indeed, in the chapter on Congress we can also answer, at least indirectly, some of the

INTRODUCTION

9

propositions generated in the essays on "Presidents" and "American Opinion." The final chapter in Part 1 examines why American leaders have come to see the world the way they do, and why assistance to Israel has fit so snugly into the central thrust of American foreign policy in that region and in the world at large. This last chapter is an attempt to tie this case study to the general rule of American foreign policy. Most importantly the discussion suggests that the domestic factors that played an important role in the Arab-Israeli conflict were worlds apart from the lobbying efforts of pro-Israeli forces. Conventional wisdom has had us looking in the wrong places. Part 2 explores the principal international considerations that may account for American largesse toward Israel. It reviews what is legitimately to be called assistance and what is not and presents what the United States has given to other nations so that the reader will have a standard with which to compare help to Israel against help to Arab nations. This information is essential to evaluate the distribution of forces in the region, and what has been and is being done to change that distribution. It is in this part, also, that the reader has a look at the distribution of American and non-American economic and—more importantly—military resources, both to Israel and to the major Arab states over the past forty years. It is no secret that the Soviets have also poured resources into the Middle East for quite some time, and we shall try to determine the quantity and purpose of that aid. It has been substantial—much larger than is usually imagined. Nor are the Soviets and Americans the only donors to the region,- other countries have also given assistance. What should and what should not be considered assistance in international affairs is, as we shall see, a complicated problem. One caveat is important: The purpose of the quantitative data we present is to suggest policy direction and magnitudes. It is not there to present a detailed accounting of all transfers. Part 2 also includes a discussion of why U.S. assistance is given and, also, explores the question of whether Israel is out of U.S. control in spite of all the assistance the United States has given its small ally. The concluding chapter will draw together all the arguments presented in the rest of the book and set forth our considered judgment about why the United States gives aid to Israel. Having set the stage let us now turn to the American political scene and see how the play unfolds.

THE DOMESTIC SCENE

n

AMERICAN PRESIDENTS AND ISRAEL

I

N THE American system, in the field of foreign policy, presidents have the ultimate decision-making power; all the other actors have supporting roles. This is not to say that what American presidents want done can always become reality. Success or failure depends in large part on what the opponent does. And leaders of opposing countries prove not the only obstacles to what presidents want done. The various elites with which a chief executive must contend in framing foreign policy are not to be ignored. The information they communicate, the views they espouse, and the personal agendas these elites pursue are critical to what presidents understand and decide to do in the conduct of foreign affairs. When they disagree among themselves or with the president, as happened during the Truman administration, during Nixon's first term in office, and in the first years of the Reagan administration, the presidential direction given U.S. policy toward the Middle East may seem weak, indecisive and

14

THE DOMESTIC SCENE

even incoherent. On the other hand, when there is unity at the top, as in Nixon's second term or under the Carter administration, U.S. policy will have a very clear direction. But even when U.S. policy does in fact have a clear direction, this does not by itself ensure that it will achieve the results hoped for. Thus, while policies framed under Carter bore fruit, those formulated under Eisenhower did not. Still, the president remains a key to the fundamental course of policy. There are two ways to go. One could review in detail the complex process of policy formation toward the Middle East in each of the eight administrations in power between 1948, when Israel was born, to the present. It is a great temptation to go this way. It gives the opportunity to tell the endless number of tales of backstage intrigue and action that make up the fine texture of the history of the foreign policy toward the Middle East—the daily tug-of-war between the leaders of rival government departments; the manipulations, plottings, and clashes of individual personalities peopling the foreign policy exchange where Arab and Israeli political futures are traded; and the warring egos, personal power struggles and betrayals. There is, for instance, the story of how, during the preparation for the Camp David meeting at which the King of Morocco was an intermediary, Israel's Moshe Dayan secretly hinted to Egypt's President Sadat that Israel might be willing to return the Sinai to Egypt in exchange for a peace agreement. There is the case, during the Lebanon war of 1982, of how U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and Vice President George Bush managed to frustrate the efforts of the Secretary of State and the Israeli government to bring to a swift conclusion negotiations for the PLO's withdrawal from Beirut by telling the Saudis, who then let Arafat know, that the United States would not allow the Israelis to enter West Beirut, thereby enabling Arafat to stall for time. 1 There is the case of the American Joint Chiefs' analysis of how long it would take the Israelis to defeat Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in the 1967 war. The Chiefs were dead right. But President Johnson would not believe their first estimate that it would take only six or seven days and asked them to check again; The Chiefs' estimates had been proven wrong too many times in regard to Vietnam. Or there is the curious occasion on which Arafat secretly suggested to the United States that a good way of solving the Palestinian question would be to overthrow King Hussein of Jordan and create in Jordan a new Palestinian state. Equally intriguing are the stories of how Henry Kissinger concealed from the State De-

AMERICAN PRESIDENTS AND ISRAEL

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partment the fact that he was holding clandestine meetings with an envoy of Sadat in a safe house in Queens, New York. In short, we can explore each tree in the forest and then come to a conclusion. 2 But there is another, and more parsimonious way we can get at what we want to know by reviewing the sweep of U.S. behavior and policy of assistance toward Israel and exploring whether it is or is not what it would have to be if American Jewry were a major factor in formulating policy. And if it is not, what is it that moves the United States to act as it does?

T H E P A T T E R N OF U.S. A S S I S T A N C E T O I S R A E L , 1 9 4 8 - P R E S E N T

If one looks at the sweep of U.S. relations with Israel over all the administrations that have held power since that State was first created, one gains a clue as to what can and what cannot have been of major importance in shaping U.S. policy in the region. In the first four administrations, those of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and a small portion of the Nixon administration stretching slightly over the two decades from 1948—70, the United States gave very little help. This is so both in absolute terms and in terms relative to what the United States was giving other countries. 3 Israel was a low priority. In the second twenty years the story is totally different. Assistance to Israel has been a very high priority with successive administrations. President Nixon raised assistance to Israel massively from what it had been in the preceding Johnson administration, and the Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations have kept up, and occasionally raised to even higher levels the assistance given. In short, the story is in two parts. As Figure 1 indicates, the first successive Republican and Democratic administrations chose not to assist Israel or to assist very little. Somewhere in the midpoint of Israel's existence the pattern sharply changed and successive Republican and Democratic administrations helped very generously. The S-shaped curve traced by the pattern of U.S. assistance does not tell why this fundamental shift occurred. But it raises profound doubts about the proposition that the assistance to Israel, by successive administrations, is in major measure due to the pressure brought to bear on the government of the United States by ardent supporters of the Israeli cause (a code for American Jews). Pressures on the U.S. government by American Jewish activists on behalf of

T H E DOMESTIC S C E N E

16

Israel can be only a supporting role at best. This view is somewhat startling because it is entirely opposite to the conventional wisdom on this issue. The sources of the doubts about the correctness of this widespread belief are as follows. We know that for the entire period of Israel's existence between 1948 and the present public opinion polls find American Jewish support for Israel has been mostly over 90 percent.4 Only on one occasion, during the war in Lebanon, has it fallen between 80 and 90 percent. And it was not only a matter of simply favoring Israel. American Jews appeared ready to support the new state by contributing what they could.5 If one argues that it was American Jewish support that has produced the large U.S. assistance to Israel after 1970, one is duty-bound to explain why before 1970 equally high support had the opposite effect. Certainly the American Jewish community would have preferred the United States to help the State of Israel in the whole period; yet the United States did not. Some analysts confronted with the problem have argued that the shift in U.S. assistance from low to high was due to the fact that the United States did not need to provide arms in the earlier period. Before 1968

US Economic Aid and Military Transfers to Israel, 1950-1983

§

6000

£

5000

U> o

4000

N

3000

00

22 2000 c •ffi

c o °

1000

0

50

52

54

56

58

60

62

64

66

68

70

72

74

76

78

80

82

Year

Note: For tabular data used to construct graph see Tables 7.3 and 7.4 in Chapter 7.

84

AMERICAN PRESIDENTS AND ISRAEL

17

Israel could obtain arms on a cash-and-carry basis from France, England, and Germany. And Israel had cash because, after a bitter domestic political fight, it had accepted reparations from Germany for the Holocaust of European Jews in World War II. But the argument misses the point. What is relevant is that the U.S. government turned down both Israel's requests and the entreaties and pressures of American Jews. Israel had the cash to pay and was unhappy with having to buy elsewhere; Jewish community leaders tried with all their might to get the United States to change its position. If the community were so powerful, how could the U.S. government disregard their entreaties? Why was the Jewish community politically powerful after 1970 but not before? What happened to American Jews?6 It is commonly argued that the power of American Jewry is rooted in the fact that the Jewish electorate lives, for the most part, in states that are critical in presidential elections because of their large numbers of electoral votes: New York, California, New Jersey, Illinois and Florida. But then, Jews lived in these states throughout the period under discussion. Why did their residence bring them political power after 1970 and not before?7 Or take the frequent testimony that, somehow, the American Jewish community was energized by the unexpected victory of Israel in the 1967 Six Day War and that the massive increase in U.S. assistance in the seventies and eighties is a result of their efforts.8 Evidence does indicate that U.S. Jews were enthused by the victory and so was the public at large; The highest point of Israel's popularity with the American general public is immediately after that war. The inference that American Jewry became more supportive and more involved in pushing for favorable policies in regard to Israel after 1967 than they were before 1967, and that the United States increased assistance after 1970 as a function of this increase in support is not acceptable. How could American Jews have become more engaged when, from what information we have, over 90 percent of U.S. Jewry had indicated that they were in strong support of Israel well before 1967?9 After the 1967 war it was not American Jews that had become committed or tried harder. As noted, they had pulled as hard as they could all along. What change there was is found in the general public's greater support for Israel after its victory over the Arab states. The U.S. government, for its part, waited for some years before changing its position. And the change in that position was not moved by the rise in support of the general public or the

18

THE DOMESTIC SCENE

continued high support of the Jewish community. It had to do, rather, with President Nixon's decision during the 1973 war that the United States would not tolerate seeing client states armed by the Soviet Union win against an American client armed by the United States. The sequence of events makes fairly clear what the forces shaping that decision were. Between the Six Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973, the Soviets had poured arms into the region to buttress their allies. U.S. assistance to Israel lagged far behind Soviet assistance.10 Only when Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in 1973, the quick Israeli victory everyone expected proved a mirage and Israel urgently requested new arms, did the United States finally decide to move. There is a third proposition regarding the responsibility of Jewish pressure for the present political consensus to help Israel. This hypothesis suggests that a key to the generation of that consensus is the pro-Israel Washington legislative lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). This proposition is advanced very frequently and is widely believed. Because one hears so often the argument that U.S. support is in fact a function of AIPAC's doing, we should look at this argument in some detail. It is argued that, before 1974, AIPAC had been run by the founder of the organization, Albert Kenen, an able but "old-fashioned" and "low-key" lobbyist with connections to the congressional leadership, and that the laid-back nature of the lobbying operation was responsible for the low level of support the United States was giving. AIPAC changed its leadership, organization and strategy in 1974, when Kenen resigned in favor of Morris Amitay, an aggressive new executive director convinced of Israel's need for massive U.S. assistance; and Amitay was succeeded in 1979 by an equally able and aggressive congressional staffer, Thomas Dine, AIPAC's present executive director. Under their leadership, the lobbying operation ceased to be the low-profile effort it had been before 1974 and changed into the hard-hitting organization it is alleged to be today. The modus operandi of the "new" AIPAC is to have its political operatives mobilize the wide Jewish support required by the lobbyists to pressure and even intimidate elected officials into giving U.S. assistance to Israel. The high levels of U.S. assistance in the seventies and eighties is thus due to the lobby's reorganization and hard-hitting strategies. That, at least, is the way the story goes. Whether changes in organization can account for the changes in U.S. support for Israel from low to high levels is not self evident.

AMERICAN PRESIDENTS AND ISRAEL

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First of all, the low-profile operation of the Kenen era was carried on at a time when the hard-sell techniques that were to follow might not have produced results. Congressional business in the fifties and sixties was in the hands of a few congressional leaders who controlled the operation of Congress, and one got what one wanted by having access to them and gaining their support. It was not a time when individual members of Congress were as powerful in the legislative process or as vulnerable to pressure from their constituents as they are today. It was a period when successive administrations supported little or no assistance for Israel. It was a time, then, when it was far more likely that no matter how hard hitting the AIPAC organization or how mobilized the Jewish community might have been, their efforts might have proved counterproductive. Indeed, before the 1973 war and President Nixon's decision to help, it is highly unlikely that it would have been possible to obtain from the United States government the kind of support for Israel that the country received in the 1973 war. Nor would it have been possible to sustain over the years the high level of support achieved after the 1973 war unless successive presidents considered Israel an important asset in the U.S. overall strategy in the region, and, very importantly, if that policy had not led very quickly to a string of very critical U.S. foreign policy successes: for example, Egypt's switching sides; Israeli step-by-step retreats from the Sinai; Israel's retreat within a few yards of the antebellum lines on the Syrian front; and, at long last, after years of wrangling, the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. It should be clear that, in suggesting that the connection between AIPAC lobbying efforts and the high level of U.S. support for Israel is too facilely drawn, we need not involve ourselves with arguments over the competence, information, connections, dedication, hard work and selflessness of the lobbyists making up AIPAC and seeking to promote Israel's interests. Competent people and good organizations can fail if what they wish is really impossible in the political environment in which they have to operate. It may very well be that AIPAC carries on its lobbying operation very well and that the organization is the model other lobbying organizations seek to emulate. That view, incidentally, is not necessarily invalidated by the obvious fact that the evidence for and against AIPAC's power and performance is entirely anecdotal or downright gossip,11 and it is also not mutually exclusive with knowledgeable testimony suggesting that the AIPAC performance is carried on with smoke and mirrors. Nor is it invalidated by the evidence that the Jewish com-

20

THE DOMESTIC SCENE

munity is not as monolithic as it is alleged to be, and, though deeply sympathetic to Israel, is not supportive of some of Israel's government policy.12 Clearly, competent lobbying, ceteris paribus, should produce better results than mediocre lobbying efforts. Focusing on the excellence of AIPAC performance begs the question. Would levels of assistance have been lower if AIPAC had not changed its organization or had not even been there? Before one can accept the crediting of AIPAC with the massive rise in U.S. support for Israel, one should consider the fact that the U.S. change in policy in regard to Israel occurred before, not after, AIPAC was reorganized under Amitay's direction. Indeed the United States government's decision to go all out to help Israel was made, as I noted earlier, in the 1973 war when Israel, in desperate need of military supplies, was in a war for her life, and President Nixon decided that it made strategic sense for the United States not to let Syria and Egypt win with Russian help. We know a good deal about Nixon's decision to increase massively assistance to Israel in the 1973 war, why such a decision was made, who made it, and what role all supporting actors played.13 If the sequence of events was in fact as I have presented it, the suggestion that the AIPAC was determining, critical to, or even largely responsible for U.S. decisions to give assistance to Israel turns the reality upside down. It was not a better organized and hard-hitting AIPAC that caused those decisions. It was U.S. government decisions to sell arms to Israel and the U.S. readiness to continue to help that caused AIPAC to grow. The growth of American Jewish influence and the growth of AIPAC and the successes of their hard-hitting techniques are the result not the cause of that decision. To think of AIPAC as a very effective facilitator of policies which the U.S. government has wished carried out is probably correct. To think of AIPAC and its constituency as having power to formulate policies or as the creator of the critical political consensus on which such policies rest is another thing altogether. Once given a signal that their activities would be well received, pro-Israel Political Action Committees (PACs) have done all in their power to help the government's leadership support Israel. In this, as in other areas, it almost appears as if the government has turned to the private sector to help it do its job. One comes to the almost perverse conclusion that "the Jewish lobby" has shared the burden of the administration in recruiting and coordinating congressional and executive support, rendering the passage of legislation politi-

AMERICAN PRESIDENTS AND ISRAEL

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cally less costly. The point is that it is unlikely that assistance would be affected much were there no PACs to run interference for those making the relevant decisions. Mind you, the PACs are not very happy with this view. Their leaders believe themselves indispensable. As the representative of a principal pro-Israeli PAC put it, "We should like every one to think that this view is true. But as you and I know we [the particular office lobbying for pro-Israeli positions] are essential." It would be surprising if this gentleman thought otherwise. This interpretation is clearly at odds with the more accepted one stressing the power of the Jewish lobby. The reader may find the set of questions I have raised troubling because it is the opposite of so much that has been alleged about the relation between the U.S. Jewish community and assistance by the U.S. government to Israel, as well as the power of the Jewish lobby. Yet the questions asked of the evidence seem justified. Here an aside: The widespread belief in the power of the Jewish lobby is very much of a piece with the firmly held opinion that PACs, and specifically PACs' moneys, have great sway on governmental and particularly legislative decision making. Public officials, media and assorted pundits have asserted over and over again that this is the case. "Cash constituents," as one writer called them, were beating out the "constitutional constituents." 14 It is a plausible hypothesis; it makes very good copy ; and it feeds attitudinal preconceptions of the American public about politics and politicians. But to date, there is no proof that such a view is valid. Scientific researchers looked and looked for the strong connection between the two, but could only find the weakest of relationships between PACs' money and influence on legislation. 15 Such evidence, however, does not appear to have affected the popular view. The belief in the power of the Jewish lobby fits well with the beliefs about all PACs. One has to address another widely believed proposition. It goes something like this: the Jewish lobby, through its control of mass media, brainwashes both leaders and the general public to believe that assistance to Israel is in the national interest, and it is through this circuitous route that Jewish power is exercised. I think this proposition is very wide of the mark. Evidence is at best anecdotal. Supporters of Israel, also, argue that some newsmakers and reporters are prejudiced against their cause but provide no persuasive evidence. Until recently one wondered whether evidence one way or the other could be found.

22

THE DOMESTIC SCENE

In December of 1987, however, the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza revolted, and the revolt has continued. For months in 1988 television and print media have given the American public a decidedly negative picture of Israel's policy. The Israeli government and supporters of Israel in the United States have tried to rebut the bad publicity to very little avail. The December 1987 revolt has provided, perhaps, some of the evidence we have been looking for. Either American Jews do not control the media, as it is alleged, or, if they do, they still do not have the power to direct the media to be partial to Israel. For if American Jews control the news in regard to Israel, how is one to explain the terrible (though largely accurate) press Israel received for repressions in the West Bank and Gaza while infinitely larger and more savage repressions went on next door, hardly noticed simply because, in Lebanon, Arabs were being massacred by other Arabs. Polls about the revolt also suggest that the media do not succeed in brainwashing the public. In spite of the fact that the media have been so reproving of the Israelis' security policies in the occupied territories, and both elites and the general public have strongly disapproved of such policies, the U.S. public's sympathy for Israel has not been affected very much at all. I shall return to this point in chapter 2. My view that the American Jewish community's power is only a reflection of decisions top political leaders have made for reasons of their own is supported by the record of failure of the same American Jewish community's attempts in the 1930s and 1940s, just a few years earlier than the events we are discussing, to pressure the Roosevelt administration to save some of the European Jewry from extermination. Think of the facts of that situation. Jews as a community were members of the Democratic party and they not only supported President Roosevelt, they revered him. He was grateful for their loyalty and support. The President had a number of important Jewish advisers in close touch with him, and Mrs. Roosevelt, so influential in some areas, was greatly concerned with the plight of European Jewry. One could hardly imagine a better setting for a favorable decision on an attempt to save some European Jews. It seems reasonable to infer that if the Jewish community tried and had any power it should have had some success in getting the U.S. government to try. And the Jewish Community, though not fully united, tried desperately, over and again, to have something done. There was opposition to giving help, however. Opposed were the

AMERICAN PRESIDENTS AND ISRAEL

23

U.S. Department of State, the British government and Foreign Office, who were unwilling to let Jewish refugees into Palestine; the politically disinterested president; the Congress, which opposed the immigration of refugees given high U.S. unemployment; and a large number of non-Jews who refused to believe that extermination of European Jewry was actually going on. And, of course, anti-Semitism played a part. There were in the United States a number of overtly anti-Semitic groups, and a good deal of social anti-Semitism in Congress and the Department of State; President Roosevelt is alleged to have been concerned that strong measures to help would render him vulnerable to the slur that his "New Deal" was a "Jew Deal," and there was fear among some Jewish leaders of stimulating anti-Semitism by pressing too hard. Still, Jewish pressure was intense but the government did not move, though cosmetic action was taken to release political pressures. Top U.S. leaders thought that it was not in the interest of the U.S. government (as U.S. leaders defined that interest) to try seriously to help, and that settled the matter. The little that was done to save European Jews was done by the Jewish community.16 This brief discussion about pro-Israel lobbying requires an additional comment. Arab interests were also represented by lobbying efforts. And this was not only when oil prices were high and major corporations with Arab markets and sources of supply lobbied intensely for Arab interests. In the first ten or fifteen years after World War II, U.S. policy toward the Middle East was handled by the oil companies and their bankers: Top foreign policy makers thought this in the national interest. "Acheson had been perfectly frank about the oil companies' role. . . . 'American oil operations are, for all practical purposes, instruments of U.S. foreign policy toward [the Middle Eastern] countries.' Eisenhower and Dulles simply maintained the benign hands-off policy of the Truman Administration."17 But the reason for the success of such lobbying efforts was that political leaders were sure that pro-Arab forces desired what they themselves wanted. Acheson, for example, interceded with Truman on behalf of the oil companies, and McCloy did double-duty as a banker and as an unofficial emissary of the U.S. government to the Arab leaders of the Middle East. It was a time when the differences between public and private business were less sharply drawn than they are today. On the other hand, when U.S. political leaders began to see Israel as a way to stop the expansion of influence of Arab radical regimes

THE DOMESTIC SCENE

24

opposing U.S. interests, lobbying for pro-Arab positions in the ArabIsraeli dispute failed, just as pro-Israel lobbying efforts had failed to have much effect on U.S. foreign policies in the earlier period. In short, it is the U.S. top leaders that set directions. Let us restate the central point of our discussion. The total devotion to the Israeli cause shown by the American Jewish community may, it is true, make it much easier for policy makers, already convinced to back Israel for reasons of their own, to pursue a course favorable to Israeli interests,- such devotion is not, however, itself a deciding factor in moving the U.S. government toward, or keeping the U.S. government on course in, its policy of assistance to Israel.

THE NIXON ROLE

There is another observation adding to our discomfort with the proposition that the U.S. government decision to increase assistance to Israel to its present high levels was in response, at least largely, to pressure of the U.S. Jewish constituency. Think who was president when the decision to escalate assistance was actually made and carried out. That president was Richard Nixon. Is it really credible that Richard Nixon in raising assistance to Israel did so in response to pressure from Jewish voters or Washington lobbies speaking on behalf of Israel? One needs to consider direct as well as circumstantial evidence on this matter. It will be best to deal with the circumstances later in this book. Now let us examine direct information on the matter. We have the President's own testimony and, more important, a candid and lengthy testimony of his closest foreign policy adviser, Henry Kissinger. With the possible exception of Ronald Reagan, Nixon has done more to help Israel than any other president. Indeed, once Reagan is set aside, Nixon did more for Israel than all other presidents combined. And from the evidence, Nixon appears the least likely President of the United States to respond to the pressure of the Jewish community leaders. Jews were not, on the whole, supporters of the Republican party at the time of Nixon and were not supporters of Nixon. Their political home had been the liberal wing of the Democratic party, thoroughly obnoxious to that President. Nixon knew of the American Jewish Community's political aver-

AMERICAN PRESIDENTS AND ISRAEL

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sion to him and to his policies. And the American Jewish elites, of course, knew he knew. As a result, President Nixon believed that he owed nothing to the Jewish vote and that nothing he did would ever increase his support among Jews: The President was convinced that most leaders of the Jewish community had opposed him throughout his political career. The small percentage of Jews who voted for him, he would joke, had to be so crazy that they would probably stick with him even if he turned on Israel. He delighted in telling associates and visitors that the "Jewish lobby" had no effect on him. 18 Indeed, in private discussions with Kissinger, discussions whose privacy suggests that the President's remarks were not made with a view to public political gain, Nixon repeatedly pledged that Jewish political pressures would never influence his decisions regarding the Middle East: Nixon then listed the obstacles that had so far prevented a solution: Israel's intransigence, the Arabs' own refusal to bargain realistically, and our own preoccupation with other initiatives. These could no longer stand in the way of a permanent settlement. "U.S. political considerations," Nixon wrote to me [Kissinger] in euphemism for the Jewish vote, "will have absolutely no, repeat no, influence on our decisions in this regard. I want you to know that I am prepared to pressure the Israelis to the extent required, regardless of the domestic political consequences." [emphasis added]19 Clearly then, Nixon's domestic political situation was not pushing the President to listen to Jewish pressures. Why should he, if he did not like them, they had always opposed him politically, and there were no political costs at the time for doing otherwise? Were the President making policy in response to "domestic politics," he would have made the opposite decisions to the ones he made. An explanation for Nixon's policy must be found elsewhere, and Kissinger again points the way: For on almost all practical issues his [Nixon's] unsentimental geopolitical analysis finally led him to positions not so distant from ones others might take on the basis of ethnic politics.. . . [W]hen confronted with the realities of power in the Middle East—after much anguish and circuitous maneuvers—he would pursue, in the

26

THE DOMESTIC S C E N E

national interest, the same strategy: to reduce Soviet influence, weaken the position of the Arab radicals, encourage Arab moderates, and assure Israel's security.20 The above quote gives us, perhaps, a clue as to why Nixon changed U.S. policy in regard to assistance to Israel, and also why the presidents who succeeded him followed suit. It should be recalled that President Truman and many of his foreign policy advisers had worried that they would be saddled with defending the new Jewish enclave from hostile Arabs. Most of the opponents to U.S. recognition of Israel used this argument over and again. Isaacson and Thomas make the point: If the U.S. supported the creation of Israel, it would inevitably be drawn into a vicious war. All the top officials believed—wrongly as it turned out—that the Jews would not be able to go it alone, that they would need U.S. soldiers fighting alongside to survive. To Lovett, who carefully weighed the balance of resources and commitments . . . Israel was an ally too many. . . . It is easy to look at these arch wasps writing off Israel and sense more than a whiff of prejudice. [But it was not so.] Pragmatists all, they were quite bloodless about an issue that aroused such passion in others. As Forrestal, the most hard line, bluntly put it to Clark Clifford, who was pro-Israel: "You just don't understand. There are four hundred thousand Jews and forty million Arabs. Forty million Arabs are going to push four hundred thousand Jews into the sea. And that's all there is to it. Oil—that is the side we ought to be on."21 It took more than twenty years to change the original perceptions of Israel. Israeli military prowess was glimpsed in the war of 1956. The Six Day War turned the perception regarding Israel clearly around military competence and willingness to fight. Israeli force could have its uses. Nixon and Kissinger decided to help Israel win the war of 1973 and keep it in fighting trim. And the presidents who followed continued help for the same reasons. American Jewish leaders frantic for the United States to help (for Israel in 1973 was fighting for its life) were delighted with the decision and kept supporting it in every way. Constituents' and lobbyists' entreaties found the elected officials willing to listen sympathetically to proposals they themselves already favored. In short, the pressure of the Jewish com-

AMERICAN PRESIDENTS AND ISRAEL

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munity on the U.S. government and the support the government extended to Israel were coincidental but not causally related.

THE UTILITY OF A N ILLUSION

The record of foreign policy decisions with regard to the Middle East does not seem to support the conventional wisdom that the United States helps Israel because of the influence brought to bear on the executive branch by the leadership of the U.S. Jewish community. U.S. policy decisions with respect to Israel have, in the main, been made by presidents and presidential foreign policy elites both by themselves and for reasons entirely their own. When the United States did not see Israel as supporting U.S. interests in stemming the expansion of Soviet influence, it did not help Israel. This was certainly so in the Truman and Eisenhower years. Eisenhower shut the White House off from the leaders of the Jewish community, kept Israel at arms' length, and courted Arab states in the hope of recruiting them into an anti-Soviet coalition. The Kennedy and Johnson administrations warmed the chilly relations between the American Jewish leaders and the executive branch, but they did not increase assistance to Israel very much. When U.S. leaders, beginning with Nixon and Kissinger, decided that Israel could be an asset in the U.S. struggle with radical Arabs who they perceived as Soviet clients, they helped Israel. Jewish leaders and the Jewish community at large have been involved in a supporting role. How, then, is one to explain the widespread belief that the Jewish community has been a prime mover in the making of decisions? In large measure this misperception is due to the fact that the U.S. Jewish community and successive administrations for almost twenty years have wanted roughly the same thing. A second, and more important, factor is that all of the major contributors to the making of American policy in the Middle East—the administration, Congress, Arab elites, foreign policy bureaucrats dealing with Mideast affairs, Israeli leaders, American Jewish leaders, etc.—find it convenient to believe that it is so. It is commonplace to assert that what matters is not what is, but what people believe reality to be. It is true, of course, that the way people perceive reality is quite important, and to the degree that it shapes their behavior, it can actually influence the course of events. Thus, the belief that the Jewish community has the power to de-

28

THE DOMESTIC SCENE

termine U.S. foreign policy in a sense gives it that power: It represents a significant political resource. What is not fully appreciated, however, is that presidents and the presidential elites use that resource far better than does the Jewish community itself.22 The belief that the Jewish lobby (and I include not only the political operatives in Washington, but, also, the Jewish community as a whole) is very powerful has permitted top U.S. policy makers to use "Jewish influence" or "domestic politics" to explain the policies the Arabs do not like—policies that U.S. leaders see as working to U.S. advantage, policies that they would pursue regardless of Jewish opinion on the matter. When Arab leaders or officials of allies protest, U.S. officials need give only a helpless shrug, a regretful sigh, and explain how it is not the administration's fault, but that policy makers must operate within the constraints imposed by powerful domestic pressures molding congressional decisions. Presidents, and those who speak in their names, have followed this strategy time and time again. Congressmen employ this same device; it is not unknown for congressional supporters of aid to Israel to request that the "Jewish lobby" press for this or that decision in order to force their colleagues into taking action. Nor is it unknown for administration officials, when importuned by Jewish leaders on Israel's behalf, to take the occasion to exert their own pressure on the Jewish constituency in order to enlist their support in congressional fights. Thus Senator Jackson once introduced legislation linking the generating of trade advantages to the USSR with an easing of restrictions on emigration by Soviet Jews. The administration strongly felt that any such legislation would prove counterproductive, and Henry Kissinger sought to recruit American Jewish leaders to help him to induce Jackson to abandon the linkage. And the belief in the all-powerful (or, at least, very powerful) Jewish lobby, moreover, has been made to work the other way as well. Whenever policy makers choose to do things that Israel and its American supporters deem inimical to Israel, they can point to their record and say how terribly courageous they have been in pursuing this or that course of action in defiance of the power of special interests. Virtue is its own reward, of course, but it often brings other rewards as well. President Nixon provides us with an illustration of a blatant attempt to claim credit for having courage to confront headon "the powerful Jewish lobby." In the midst of the Watergate scandal, his political power dissolving, President Nixon fantasized that some quick, highly visible foreign policy successes might still save

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him. And he hoped against hope that he could bring to an end the Arab oil embargo and stop the oil crisis. There were moments when he lost control and acted on sudden manic impulses. One such occasion came when Nixon called in the Saudi Ambassador to assure him that should the Arabs end the embargo, he would in exchange arrange a permanent settlement of the Arab-Israeli dispute as quickly as possible: "The full prestige of my office is dedicated to that. You should know that that means I will catch it from some groups in this country" [emphasis added].23 The gesture was both demeaning and misleading. What courage did it take to oppose Jewish leaders? What political costs were there to be paid? Nixon had by his own admission few Jewish supporters, and he was a second-term President who could not run again. But he was a drowning man, sinking in the growing flood of Watergate, and this interview took place in fact immediately after the "Saturday night massacre." An enraged American Jewish Community was at this point the least of his worries. Presidential and other officials' allegations that it takes courage to stand up to the Jewish community should be taken with a grain of salt. I do not mean to imply that policy makers (or their staffs) are being duplicitous. The dynamic at work here is complicated. Singleissue lobbyists in the ideological areas, and lobbyists for Israel have been certainly no exception, have all the obnoxious qualities so often found in true believers. They are street-wise, play hardball, and can be intimidating to timid officials. No one who has done interviewing in the government on this matter could miss the pain and the bruised egos of so many of the interviewees. No wonder so many have come to accept the lobbyists' estimate of their own power. Be that as it may, one should note that Israeli leaders also benefit from faith in the might of the American Jewish lobby. It is clearly reassuring for them to believe, dependent as they are on U.S. support, that they have the backing of American Jewry, and their coreligionists in the patron country have the power to protect them against the ever-present threat of the withdrawal of U.S. assistance. The world is not a very safe place for Israel, as they themselves know only too well. But it seems a little bit safer if one believes that friends and relations in positions of great influence stand ready to help, should the need arise. Arab leaders, too, have found it useful to believe in the power of the Jewish lobby. While they disapprove of U.S. support for Israel, they also need the United States. This belief has made it easier for

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them to accept unpalatable American decisions if they can persuade themselves and their own constituencies that these actions have been imposed on the American Government against its will. The belief has served Arab leaders in two ways: On the one hand, it has given them an effective argument to use in countering demands from the more extreme elements of their constituencies for even greater confrontation with the United States; on the other, it has provided them with a powerful propaganda weapon to use against U.S. foreign policy makers, whom they can accuse of surrendering to Jewish pressure in the pursuit of policies directly contrary to the American national interest. U.S. opponents of aid to Israel also profited from the myth. Many have been lodged in the U.S. foreign policy and defense policy bureaucracies, have been charged with conducting U.S. relations with the Middle East, and have occupied pivotal positions from which to push their point of view. The myth made it plausible for them to argue that a given foreign policy of which they disapproved was merely a response to domestic pressure and, therefore, did not necessarily serve the best interest of the nation as a whole. This is a powerful instrument with which to delegitimize policies they opposed. Moreover, should they lose a policy debate, they could "explain" away their defeat to themselves and others as being the result of domestic politics and not the result of the inadequacy of their own proposals. Finally, the belief that they have power to influence U.S. foreign policy is understandably seductive to American Jewish leaders themselves. In a world where gaining entrance to the White House on any errand confers considerable status, it is perhaps too much to ask for Jewish leaders to have viewed their access to the White House as being of marginal importance in decisions bearing on the Middle East, or to see that decisions have not been limited by the power of the Jewish lobby in Middle East policy. But in the case of the Jewish leadership, the conception of Jewish influence on behalf of Israel goes much further and has an important consequence. The widespread belief in the Jewish community that what they do and say is critical in aiding Israel helps to keep that community together, a matter of major importance to American Jewish leaders.24 It comes down to this. One should not forget that to have power means to control someone else's behavior. Power is demonstrated when A gets B to do something B does not want to do and, unless power is applied, would not have done. Power has not been shown

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if B acts independently of A even though what it does is what B wishes done. This critical distinction appears forgotten when observers note the expansion of U.S. assistance to Israel and AIPAC's frantic pressure for such help and omit exploring whether the U.S. government would have done this regardless.

THE FEAR OF COMMUNIST EXPANSION

But really what one wants to know is why the United States does help Israel, and the reasons that are proposed but are found not to be the real cause of policy are far less interesting. We should like to advance the proposition that from the end of World War II the United States has been trying in a massive single-minded effort to forestall and repel feared Russian military expansion as well as the expansion of Soviet influence. The leaders of the first four administrations did not see that Israel could be of help in the Middle East region to the U.S. commitment to stop the expansion of the kind of Russian influence that derived from victories of Russian allies and/or clients. Nixon, in his second term, saw the gains that could be made through Israeli military power. He used Israel's victory successfully to advance the U.S. cause. As the Nixon/Kissinger success became clear, succeeding administrations followed suit and saw to it that Israel did not lack the tools with which to fight. The shift in American policy in treating Israel as an important strategic asset was probably due to the fact that after twenty years U.S. leaders had become convinced that Israel could fight and that if it won, contrary to what conventional wisdom thought, expansion of Soviet influence would stop cold, and indeed, be made to recede. Take first the administrations that did not consider Israelis an important factor in the struggle with the Soviet Union in the Middle East. Under Truman, the Soviet—United States competition did not extend to the region. The center of action against the Russians was in Europe and later in East Asia; the Middle East was a backwater. Truman worried lest the United States get caught in the obligation to defend the Jewish enclave against its neighbors. It took twenty years for the U.S. administration to understand that this estimate was totally wrong. Moreover the Russians also were on Israel's side. Indeed it was Eastern Europe that provided the arms the Israelis needed while the U.K. provided weapons to the Arabs. Ths State Department had convinced the President to embargo all arms to the

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region. When the Arabs rejected the UN-proposed partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish parts, attacked the Israelis and were then routed, President Truman accepted a fait accompli.15 The Eisenhower administration considered Israel a liability to U.S. plans in the region. Eisenhower and Dulles courted the Arab states in the hope of recruiting them into alliances designed to defend against the expansion of Russian influence. U.S. policy failed, however. As usual, there were many reasons. Most important, Nasser and other radical Arab leaders were deeply hostile and suspicious of the United States. There was also the competition between the United States and the British, the competition among Arab states, and divisions in the executive branch on which Arab coalition to support. All these contributed to the failure of U.S. policy. But policy toward Israel was clear. Israel was to be held at arms' length. American Jewish leaders were denied access to the White House. When in 1956 the British government, which was quite hostile to Israel, nevertheless joined Israel and the French to attack Nasser and recover the Suez canal which Nasser had nationalized, President Eisenhower stopped the invasion, made the British, French and Israelis retreat, and made the Israelis give up the Sinai conquered in the war. He appears to have come to regret his intervention. 26 Nasser, however, rebuffed U.S. overtures. The administration saw friendly governments overthrown by radical regimes bitterly hostile to the United States. One was to hear a good deal in the decades to come that if the Arab states moved toward the Soviet Union, it was because the United States had helped Israel. But that proposition, too, seems contradicted by the clear evidence that Arab states moved toward the Soviet Union before the United States ever began to help Israel in earnest. (See chapter 6.) One also hears a good deal that if only the United States favored the radical Arab states they would respond favorably. Those who make the argument forget that the policy was tried by President Eisenhower, and it brought disaster. In the two following administrations both Presidents Kennedy and Johnson improved very much the frosty relations President Eisenhower had had with U.S. Jewish (and Israeli) leaders. Both presidents sought to befriend the Arab states and Israel at one and the same time and sought to sell arms to friendly Arab states. But both the Kennedy and the Johnson administrations were absorbed by confrontations with communist expansion that were, however, not in the Middle East. The brief Kennedy administration saw major confrontations in Cuba, Berlin, and in Vietnam. Johnson sought to stem

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communist expansion in Vietnam. The Middle East was not a major focus of foreign policy concerns until the unexpected crisis that led to the 1967 Six Day War at the end of the Johnson administration. 27 Just before the outbreak of hostilities, Egypt's actions and words had become increasingly menacing. The Israelis, however, did not feel free to defend themselves without American encouragement or acquiescence. Mindful of what occurred to them in 1956 when they fought Egypt without obtaining at least the tacit agreement of the United States, the Israelis sent Abba Eban, then Foreign Minister, to Washington. The situation was deteriorating rapidly. Would the United States help lift the threat? Clearly the Israelis were hoping for U.S. action and guarantees. But the general public and Congress were against involvement, and the administration was split. The United States stood on the sidelines. It embargoed arms to the Middle East. It went through the motions of negotiations with European powers for concerted action to reopen the Gulf of Aqaba, which the U.S. government had promised it would keep open when it made the Israelis retreat in 1956. But it came to nothing. Eban went home. The Israelis struck. One of the long-term effects of the victory in the Six Day War was the reshuffling and expansion of the coalition of. Israel's supporters in the United States. Israel's victory won her the admiration of the U.S. general public—the picture of an Israeli David defeating an Arab Goliath took hold in the popular imagination—the military establishment, and the leadership of conservative opinion. The Pentagon, for its part, confirmed the estimate of Israeli military capabilities it had drawn during the Suez War of 1956, finding Israel a credible deterrent against the expansion of Soviet influence in the region; Israel began providing valuable intelligence on Soviet arms useful for the war in Vietnam. Finally, American conservatives found satisfaction in that, in one part of the world at least, "our" proxies had beaten "their" proxies—a view widely shared outside conservative circles as well. Arab states, enemies of the United States, were defeated, and their Soviet patrons thoroughly shamed. For U.S. Jews and Israel there were adverse consequences as well. Israel lost some support among American and European liberals opposed to the Vietnam war who regarded Israel as a close ally of the United States, whose success on the battlefield risked buttressing the militaristic tendencies of "American imperialism." 28 In the liberal view, at the time, a first step toward peace would have required that Israel return the territories and peoples it had conquered. This

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THE DOMESTIC SCENE

view was also the position of Arab elites who saw in it a means of gaining sympathy abroad as well as confirmation of their own suspicions of Western interference. American Jews certainly disagreed that returning territories unilaterally to win Arab goodwill would work, but found themselves cross-pressured between liberal forces, who had been allies in much of the Jewish political activity, and concern for Israel's safety. The war also engendered fantasies among the supporters of the combatants. Among Israelis and their supporters, the view gained acceptance that the Israelis could fight and win wars without paying the cost in lives that it is in the nature of wars to exact. Arab elites were permitted by Soviet help to deny reality: no recognition of Israel, no concessions, no negotiation. But the attempt to pry loose Arab radicals from their dependence on the USSR by using Israeli force might not succeed, and Nixon and Kissinger, as did all administrations before them, sought to befriend the Arab states directly. However, the error made by the Eisenhower administration was not to be repeated. The United States would help radical Arab states only if they changed their attitude toward the United States. But this was not to be. So long as Nasser lived, U.S. attempts to woo the Arab states would fail. After the 1967 war the Soviets began to rearm their Arab clients and to rebuild and upgrade their military capabilities. An actionreaction process had started. The Israelis, seeking to stop the attrition war on the Suez canal, began deep air raids into Egypt. The Soviets sent troops to man the missile systems and pilots to fly some of the planes. The Soviet answer was to increase the quality and number of weapons and to move them ever closer to the Canal in violation of an agreement proscribing their positioning in these locations. 29 The stage was set for the war of 1973. Up to the time of that war, the U.S. position had been conflicted. It had been hostile toward Israel in the 1956 war and on the sidelines in the war of 1967. Still, Israel had proved that it could fight and demonstrated that its military might could help in the case of Jordan and the Yemen war. Between the 1967 and 1973 wars, U.S. assistance to Israel had been grudging and had fallen far short of Russian help to Egypt and Syria. But when Egypt attacked on Yom Kippur day in 1973,30 Nixon and Kissinger decided to go all out in providing the assistance necessary for Israel to repulse the Syrian Egyptian attack. It was the position of the administration that the United States could not al-

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low Soviet clients armed by the U.S.S.R. to defeat a U.S. client armed by the United States. Were the radical Arab states to be victorious over Israel and gain concessions from it they would be beholden for their victory to the Soviet Union. Soviet influence would grow at U.S. expense. But if the Arab combatants were defeated they would have to face the fact that Soviet help would be likely to be always insufficient to achieve their goals; only the United States could help them achieve what they wanted.31 While the combatants fought on, the Soviet Union poured help to her clients and the United States to hers. The United States won hands down—her help was critical—and Israel won the war. The war was very costly in equipment to both sides. The level of assistance was raised to seven times what it had been the previous year. Levels were never to come down. Egypt switched sides. The United States dominated the diplomacy of the region. The Soviets were excluded from the Middle East peace process. It was a great victory for U.S. "diplomacy." At the end of the conflict, the push and pull over a peace treaty began. The process was to last through three administrations and an agreement was finally consummated at Camp David. The Arab leaders had turned to the United States for help and wanted their territories back. And the United States had to deliver. That was the key to all that followed. But asking the Israelis to withdraw was not easy. They had just been attacked without warning, had suffered many casualties, and had won. Now they were being asked to withdraw. It took four years, through three presidents, a lot of wrangling, delays, and gnashing of teeth, but withdraw they did. They had no choice—the United States used the carrot and the stick. Assistance was used, and threats were used.32 The Israelis began their withdrawal under the Nixon administration. They moved to the Mitla and Gidi passes in the Sinai. They also returned in the Golan Heights all but a few square meters of the territory they had conquered in the 1973 war. In the Ford administration they abandoned the passes in the Sinai, and in the Carter administration they agreed to return all of the Sinai to Egypt and offered some form of autonomy for the Palestinians on the West Bank. In the Reagan administration they withdrew from the Sinai. In none of these activities did the Soviets take part. They had broken diplomatic relations with Israel in 1967. They gambled that the sponsorship of the radical Arab states would give them a foothold in the Middle East.33 With Israel's victory in 1973 and their

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THE DOMESTIC SCENE

Arab clients turning to the United States, and with all parties anxious to exclude it, the Soviet Union was left no role to play. The United States was perceived as dominant in the region,- backing Israel appeared to have paid off for the United States. With the Reagan administration the view of Israel as an important asset in the conflict against the expansion of Soviet influence intensified. The war in Lebanon of 1982, where Israel went after the PLO and succeeded in destroying much of its military organization in that country, brought great tension between the United States and Israel.34 Soon, however, the underlying interests of the two countries reasserted themselves, and the two nations were closer than ever. And high levels of assistance from the United States continued.

THE MAKING OF DECISIONS

When we say that the "U.S. government" decided this or that it should be understood that a governmental decision is really a compromise among the dozen or even hundreds of actors in central or supporting roles having access to the decision-making process.35 The process of government decision-making, or any collective decision making for that matter, can best be characterized as a tug-of-war. What actually is "decided" depends on how far the actors were apart in their preferences, how much they cared for and were prepared to risk on the issue, and the power they had to make the result conform with what they wished to happen. This tug-of-war results in fact in a compromise where some may get nothing, others may get a little, a good deal, or all of what they want. U.S. decisions in the Middle East have been often contentious. Congress did not agree with the administration, and the administration was often bitterly divided, with the White House, the Departments of Defense and State, and the intelligence community taking different views of the situation. Pro-Israel and pro-Arab groups outside the government formed alliances with groups within the government whose preferences they shared. Some of these coalitions were in constant flux ; others collaborated year in and year out. In the Truman, Ford, Kennedy, and Johnson administrations and in Nixon's and Reagan's first terms there were bitter dissensions within the executive branch about what policy should be. The experience of the first and last administrations will serve as illustrations.

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The Truman administration was torn by dissension on the Palestinian question.36 Truman resented the time and the effort the conflict in Palestine required (although he was very interested in the fate of the remnants of European Jewry) and did not think that the creation of a state was necessary for that purpose. The struggle around the President was intense. He finally recognized the decision of the 1948 war when the Jews defeated the Arabs.37 Again, in the first term of the Reagan presidency there was bitter division between the State and Defense Departments about what should be done in the Arab—Israeli dispute. The Secretary of State saw Israel as a major asset in the playing out in the Mideast of the conflict between the superpowers. The Secretary of Defense's view was very similar to the one the Eisenhower administration had held thirty years earlier. Israel was not an asset. U.S. interests required close contact with Arab states; Israel should be forced to make concessions and should be kept at arms' length. The struggle went on bitterly during the early phase of the Lebanese war until Secretary Haig was replaced by George Shultz. The new Secretary of State sided with Secretary Weinberger at the beginning. The United States distanced itself from Israel and put intense pressure on Israel to withdraw. Israel was taking casualties. The war had been very unpopular and divisive. At one point, as the U.S. peace-keeping force was under fire, the United States asked whether Israel would delay her withdrawal. But it could not be done; Israel completed her withdrawal. The United States relied on promises of friendly Arab countries that Syria would withdraw as well.38 Syria helped local guerillas attack both Israeli and U.S. forces. And Syria did not withdraw. When a barrack of the U.S. Marine Corps, who were there as part of the international peace force, was blown up in Beirut, resulting in a huge number of fatalities, the United States also withdrew. The strategy had gotten the United States into trouble. As happened repeatedly in the past, relying on the promises of radical Arab states proved counterproductive. George Shultz became a very strong supporter of a pro-Israel policy. The U.S. returned to the Nixon-Kissinger policy. The two countries were soon closer than ever. Assistance was kept at a high level.

2 AMERICAN OPINION

T

is that the general public likes Israel and is willing to let the U.S. government support it. Poll data show that support is not limited to the Jewish community. It expresses the view of a broad section of the American population, of which Jews make up only 2.5 percent. And the government is happy to receive this assent for its policies. But evidence of an association between public support and governmental policies on Israel is not in and of itself a reliable guide in the actual relationship between the two. One cannot tell on the basis of the data here whether the government acts on popular wishes or popular wishes follow the government's own lead. I believe influence flows, in the main, from the top down, not from the bottom up as classic democratic theory—written by political philosophers who had never had the opportunity to observe mass democracies at work—would have us think. Still, even if we assume that it is leadHE F A C T

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ers who influence the opinion of mass publics and not the other way around, it does not mean that mass opinion is not important. The central problem of all mass politics is obtaining the consent of masses. Therefore, knowing what they think and feel is essential to political leaders. The decision-making process is essentially a great tug-of-war among the various elites forming public policy. In the ongoing debate over the proper American position with respect to the Arab-Israeli dispute, the elites involved are both in and out of government. There is the White House, of course, and Congress, but also the Departments of State and Defense, whose wishes may very often fail to coincide. And within the State Department itself, for example, the Bureau of Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs may advocate policies different from those expressed by the secretary of state or the Bureau for European Affairs. Then, too, there are diverse Jewish groups, non-Jewish fundamentalist religious denominations who have supported Israel, businesses tied for one reason or another to Arab interests, the media, and even individual editorial writers with strong views on the matter. The list of relevant actors is long indeed. But despite the involvement of nongovernmental forces, the struggle over policy is normally played out only within the upper reaches of the government itself, to which top government and nongovernment elites alone have access. On the other hand, especially in a democracy like ours, there is always the chance that, as in the case of the Vietnam War, the decision-making process may escape the direct control of the participating elites and spill over into the arena of mass debate. The ability to muster the support of mass public opinion therefore becomes a major political resource. This resource is not without its costs, however. Usually only a fraction of the public know or have any opinion about foreign policy questions. The "don't knows," the "undecideds" and those simply dropped altogether from the roll of respondents to opinion polls because they are completely unaware of the issue and cannot respond in any way often turn out to be more numerous than all of those coming down on one side or another. In the case of polls taken on the Arab-Israeli question, these "drop-outs" account for roughly less than half of the total. If these uncommitted groups could be mobilized to formulate and voice their views, they might conceivably alter the outcome entirely. But mobilizing this sector of public opinion proves terribly difficult, particularly when those involved lie at the bottom of the social pyramid. Participation in the political pro-

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cess does not occur in isolation, and those isolated from power by social and economic conditions do not generally participate in politics. The high rate of failure suffered by reformers is rooted precisely in the tremendous obstacles they have to overcome in order to mobilize those who resist mobilization. The problem is especially acute when foreign policy issues are involved, removed as they are from the immediate concerns of ordinary people. This state of affairs normally works in favor of those currently in power because it leaves them free to view this whole sector of the public as acquiescing in—if not actively supporting—the policies they adopt. It is this sector of the citizenry that has been dubbed "the silent majority." The informed reader will find nothing new in any of this; students of public opinion have repeatedly warned of the realities of the workings of mass democracies.21 In any event, because of the potential costs involved, all of the players in the struggle over foreign policy have an interest in following public opinion: The mapping of public opinion through polls affords both the various participants and neutral observers a glimpse of the likely political costs and benefits attached to advancing one view or another in foreign policy debate. And this inevitably shapes elite behavior, at least as concerns the best strategy to be pursued in pushing one's position. Thus, even if one assumed, as I do, that it is ultimately elites themselves who define public opinion, rather than public opinion that determines the decisions taken by elites, public opinion remains a force with which to be reckoned.

SYMPATHY FOR ARAB STATES AND ISRAEL

The forty-year period of conflict between Israel and the Arab states can be easily divided into three segments. The first stretches from 1948 to 1956, the year in which Israel joined Britain and France in launching an assault on Egypt. The second period is the decade sandwiched between the 1956 and 1967 wars, and the third runs from the Six Day War to the present.

The First Period, 1 9 4 8 - 1 9 5 6

This was a time when American attention was focused for the most part on Europe and Asia. The Middle East was a backwater in foreign

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AMERICAN OPINION

policy considerations, and we know less than we should like of American opinion toward Israel and the Arab states in this decade.2 What information we have from the fifties reveals that the U.S. public believed Israel and the Arab countries to be of importance, and worthy of collaboration, 3 but neither side was considered as important as other countries that were friends of the U.S. 4 We also know that, in a general way, the vast majority of the general public took no position on the continued Arab—Israel dispute. Those who expressed an opinion, however (about a third of those interviewed), blamed the Arab side substantially more than Israel for the continuing hostilities. The ratio of respondents who expressed an opinion rose to more than two-thirds of the total sample. These respondents, after the war of 1956 and the withdrawal of Israel from the Sinai, blamed Arabs more than Israel four to one. 5 In the ensuing decade, the American general public became much more involved with the Arab-Israeli dispute and Israel was to outdistance the Arab states substantially. And the advantage Israel enjoyed increased after the mid-sixties. One may well ask why, in this first period, support for the Arab states and Israel was on a par. These were the Truman and Eisenhower years. In the latter administration the Arab states were courted as desired allies against feared Russian expansion, while Israel was kept at some distance by one administration and rebuffed by the other. Truman was not indifferent to Israel, but, as we have seen, 6 his concern lay elsewhere, and Eisenhower, whose administration stretched between 1952 and 1960, was openly cool toward Israel.

The Second Period, 1956—1967 The ten years between the 1956 and 1967 wars included the end of the Eisenhower administration, Kennedy's brief tenure, and almost the entire Johnson administration. The Middle East was again put on the back burner. Thinking the American public had no interest in the region, pollsters did not bother surveying opinions on ArabIsraeli issues. Two surveys, ten years apart, compared opinions about Egypt and Israel, and Israel was strongly favored over Egypt.7 Israel had become the clear favorite. On the other hand, opinion in 1956 reflected the obvious disapproval of Israel's joining Britain and France in their attack on Egypt—a view shared by the Eisenhower administration—though the public disapproved of Egypt more than of Israel.

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The end of Eisenhower's Republican administration came in I960, as did a significant change in relations between the United States and Israel. The Kennedy and Johnson administrations, preoccupied as they were with the Soviet Union and Vietnam, did little on the Middle East. But, perhaps more importantly as regards domestic public opinion, both Presidents spoke warmly of the ties between the United States and Israel. This presidential rhetoric can be expected to have influenced public perceptions and may have been a major reason for the improvement in Israel's standing in a 1966 poll as compared with the one ten years earlier.

T h e Third Period, 1967—Present

Israel's stunning victory in the 1967 war deepened and accelerated trends that had been forming at least since the end of the Eisenhower administration. Public sympathy for Israel increased while the proportion of respondents indicating sympathy for the Arabs decreased from the already low levels registered before the war. There is general agreement that Israel's unexpected victory was a major factor in the surge in sympathy for it on the part of the general public. The difficulties experienced by the United States in its prosecution of the war in Vietnam probably helped in establishing general public support for Israel. In sharp contrast to the slow, bloody, fruitless war in Vietnam, the Israeli war—quick, decisive, with few Israeli casualties—was like an adolescent fantasy of war come true. The Arab radicals were routed, and the Russians who provisioned them put to shame. The Israeli victory helped American Jews in their efforts on behalf of Israel since it seems to have disposed the public at large to be more favorable toward Israel. As Figure 2 readily indicates, from 1967 to the present sympathy for Israel ranged between 33 and 64 percent; support for the Arab states, on the other hand, has ranged between 3 and 14 percent. The public's favor for Israel fluctuated but never vanished during changes in administration or following the ups and downs of Middle Eastern politics. Americans preferred Israel to the Arab states roughly between three and six to one. In only two out of twenty-five surveys, covering seventeen years, does the preference for Israel (among those who are not indifferent to or ignorant about this matter) dip to twoand-a-half to one.8 The low point in Israel's standing in early 1978 deserves a brief

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explanation. The end of 1977 and the beginning of 1978 marked the first steps in the negotiations for peace that were to come to fruition in the Camp David meeting and agreement the next year. Egypt and Israel were maneuvering for position. Egypt's proposal for peace involved the complete withdrawal by Israel from all Arab territories conquered in the 1967 war and a Palestinian entity in the West Bank and Gaza. Israel's position restricted negotiations for peace only to Egypt and autonomy for Palestinians in the West Bank. At the beginning of the meeting in January of 1978, Begin restated the Israeli position and Sadat broke off the negotiations, accusing Begin of proposing half measures not likely to lead to peace in the region.9 The U.S. government backed Sadat's view. The low score for Israel at the beginning of 1978 can be ascribed to the turmoil surrounding that failure in the negotiations. The contention in the negotiations was obviously due to the very different initial views of the two countries as to what constituted acceptable conditions for peace. But personalities and animosities played a role, and Begin, not surprisingly, was soundly defeated by Sadat in the competition for the American public's favor.10

Measures of American Sympathy Toward Israel and the Arab States

Year Note: For tabular data used to construct graph see Appendix B.4.

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Equally impressive are the numbers of respondents who had no opinion, favored neither side, or were left out of the calculations altogether because they could not give any response at all. Between 40 and 55 percent of the respondents had formulated no opinion or preferred neither side, and 10 to 20 percent of the sample were excluded because they had not heard of events in the Middle East and were not able to answer in any way. The fractions favoring Israel are often large pluralities, and the minorities favoring the Arab states prove on closer scrutiny to be even smaller proportions than they at first appear. We have dealt already with the problem of nonresponses, but a few more words here seem to be called for. Our angle of vision on the problem is how political leaders are likely to interpret nonresponses. To political leaders, the proportion of those who do not know, who are indifferent, or who have not heard of the problem, indicates that the political costs related to the issue are restricted to those who have an opinion. As for the rest, while they may not actively support policy, by their absence of opinion they passively accept it. One is immediately moved to ask why the Israelis were so heavily preferred while the Arabs were so much out of favor with Americans. The reasons for such likes and dislikes are obviously complicated; one can only speculate as to their origins. It is usual to point to the common culture binding Christians and Jews and to Israel's continuous courting of the U.S. government's favor. In spite of the fact that there has been no evidence of such control, sympathizers of the Arab cause have claimed that Jewish control over the American media has led to a systematic bias in the reporting of Middle Eastern news favoring Israel. However, they give no explanation of why such bias, if it exists, became effective only after the 1967 war and not before.11 What seems clear is that Israel's spectacular performance in the war was an important factor in gaining American support, which jumped once the public digested what had happened. Some will think it melancholy that Americans like Israel only, or at least primarily, because she can fight. In any event, pollsters cueing their respondents prefer the formulation "Israel is a small, courageous, democratic nation, which is trying to preserve its independence." The general public agrees with the statement 86 percent to 8 ; Jews 99 percent to l. 12 So far as it goes, the statement is largely true, but the reality extends much further. On the other hand, a portion of

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the Jews in Israel appear to have had a good deal of trouble with Israel's image as a kind of Sparta or a great gladiator fighting on in the hope of being manumitted. Pleasant or not, there seems to be a close connection between the likes and dislikes expressed by the American public and the ability to fight. Commonly accepted answers also suggest why the Arabs are so out of favor: The Moslem and the Western world are separated by a wide and deep cultural chasm, nor are American Arabs as politically organized as American Jews, with the result that they do a much poorer job of presenting "the Arab view." These at least are the reasons usually given. But more plausible is the view that public antipathy reflects the radical Arab states' long history of friendship with the USSR, the strident anti-American rhetoric of Arab revolutionary movements, the constant stream of terrorist acts, and the refusal of so many Arab friends for so long to identify too closely with the United States. Also at issue is the fact that successive administrations have wooed Arab friends—Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the gulf states, Jordan—to join the United States in security arrangements and been rebuffed; that Arab friends have cut oil production while raising oil prices—thereby precipitating inflation and recession in the United States; and that they then blackmailed the United States by embargoing oil to make the United States force Israel to surrender what the Arab states had lost to it on the field of battle. Moreover, the belief that Israel is the major source of problems in the Middle East is contradicted by Arab wars, revolutions, assassinations, hijackings, bombings, and Arabs massacring other Arabs. Were Arab states moved to remedy the situation and improve their image with the U.S. general public, better organization of ArabAmericans is not likely to be enough. The Moslem states, and Arab states among them, would need to stop fighting among themselves, be more friendly toward the United States and show greater understanding for American security interests, reject Soviet ties, tighten control on terrorist activities, and, perhaps as important as anything else, they would need to win a war. Egypt did all of these things: it stopped its constant revolutionary interference in the affairs of fellow Arab states; it became a friend of the United States,- and, in the 1973 war with Israel, though defeated, it proved that its army was a force to be reckoned with. Other Arab nations have begun to move in that direction. Even the PLO has begun to inch that way.

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C h a n g e s in S u p p o r t for t h e A r a b S t a t e s

But there is a footnote to our discussion of the American public's preference for Israel over the Arab states; for the period shown here one can discern a change in the public's attitude primarily toward Egypt, but also toward Saudi Arabia, and even Jordan. Sadat severed Egypt's ties with the radical Arab states and the USSR, sought to keep ties with moderate Arab states (but was rebuffed) and the United States, and signed a peace treaty with Israel. This appears to have had a strong positive effect on American public opinion. The surge of sympathy was also in large part fueled by the chorus of praise for Egypt's new policy, and for Sadat personally, sung by presidents, secretaries of state, and other important American officials during the remainder of the decade until the Egyptian leader's tragic assassination. The rise in American public support for Egypt is clear. In 1974, 26 percent of the respondents thought Egypt a friendly country and 57 percent thought Egypt unfriendly. In 1979, 67 percent thought Egypt friendly and 33 percent unfriendly. 13 For the same period, 75 percent thought Israel friendly and 11 percent unfriendly. Five years later the values were approximately the same: 79 percent of the respondents thought Israel friendly and 14 percent thought the country unfriendly. During this same period, public attitudes toward Saudi Arabia and Jordan improved relative to what they had been a few years earlier. By 1980, Harris found that something approaching half the American public (43%) found the Saudi leadership reasonable, only 25 percent regarded it as unreasonable, while 32 percent declared themselves unsure. And Jordan tagged behind. 14 It is worthy of note that although these changes indicated an increase of support for some of the friendly Arab states, Israel continued to be favored. For example, when people were asked to choose between Israel and Egypt, Israel was still chosen better than twoand-a-half to one.15

PUBLIC OPINION ON MAJOR ARAB-ISRAELI ISSUES

But sympathy is one thing; assistance is another. Granting general approval of Israel, does this mean that the American people were

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ready to make sacrifices for the Israeli cause and were willing to extend Israel substantial economic and military resources? Could the political leaders inclined to back Israel assume that Israel's opponents in the United States—supporters of Arab interest in the Departments of State, Defense, and Commerce, in the media, and among lobbyists for the oil companies and for industrial concerns doing business with Arab states—would find few allies in elite circles or in the general public? Or should they have assumed rather that public support for Israel is largely formal and that, if it came to a fight, only the Jewish community would be counted on to approve aid, leaving pro-Arab forces free to mobilize broad public backing for their view and, in so doing, allow them to throw major political obstacles in the way of aid to Israel? What were the limits of public support for Israel? Did it extend as far as a general readiness to intervene militarily in the region on Israel's behalf as the Soviet Union did in sending troops and military advisers to Syria and Egypt? Finally, where did the public stand on the return of Arab territories conquered by Israel in the 1967 war—lands that the Arab states want back?

The Oil Embargo

The oil embargo of 1973 can provide some insight into whether or not the American people were ready to undergo sacrifices on Israel's behalf. The reader will recall that as a result of the war of 1973— the so called Yom Kippur War—in which the Soviet Union supplied arms to the Arab states while the United States supplied arms to Israel, the oil-producing Arab states imposed an oil embargo on Western Europe, Japan and, most of all, the United States. The aim of the embargo was to force the United States into changing course in the region. All over the western world, oil prices,16 fuel shortages, and inflation rose rapidly. The citizens of western nations began queueing at the gas pumps. The entire industrial world was seriously affected. This case provides us with a natural test of the effective resolve behind the American people's expressions of sympathy for Israel. Both Gallup and Harris polls sought reaction from broad samplings of national opinion to some pointed questions. Now that it had to pay heavy costs for its sympathy for Israel and for its government's tangible support for the Israeli cause, was the American public having second thoughts? Moreover, in the light of Saudi assertions that

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the oil embargo could be ended if the United States abandoned its policy of support for Israel, did Americans now wish to diminish such support in order to ingratiate themselves with oil-producing Arab countries? The poll results were dramatic. Americans resisted Arab pressure and continued to endorse government support of Israel by 3 to 1, and have continued to do so by 2 and 3 to l. 17 The results of the Harris poll are substantiated by other data.18 The results are doubly impressive given that the oil embargo occurred at the end of the Vietnam War, when Americans were weary of military initiatives outside our borders. This was a time when Congress was curtailing executive power to act abroad. Yet President Nixon took decisive steps to resupply Israel fighting for its life with a massive amount of military equipment. And Congress as well as the public supported the action.

Assistance and the Return of Former Arab Territories

Military and Economic Assistance. Since 1973, Israel has become dependent for its survival on assistance from the United States. Did the general public back this assistance? Are there limits to the kind of assistance the public is prepared to see given, and does the public have preferences regarding the kind of assistance made available? And one must ask the same questions in regard to the assistance Arab states received as well. We should repeat our earlier word of caution; should we discover that there has been in fact mass support for government assistance policies, this would not mean that governing elites shape their policies in response to the public will. How much and what kind of assistance is extended are matters determined by decision makers themselves. The fact of mass assent to their policies merely means that, in reaching their decisions, they can count on reaping political benefits while avoiding the political costs involved in pursuing a policy that does not enjoy wide public support. 19 In the case of Israel, the American public has preferred giving Israel diplomatic and moral support to material help, but a majority backs even military and economic assistance. For example, in 1982, asked whether the United States should increase, decrease, or maintain at current levels moral and diplomatic support for Israel, 57 percent thought current levels should at least be maintained while 29 percent wanted a decrease, and 14 percent of those polled reg-

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istered "don't know." Clearly, don't-knows and supporters together make an imposing permissive vote.20 By contrast, according to another count, in answer to the question "What should the United States do in terms of economic and military assistance?" 9 percent wished to increase the level of assistance being rendered, 42 percent wished to continue as it was, 14 percent were unsure, while 39 percent wished the assistance decreased.21 The Harris polls show even higher support for economic and military assistance in the seventies and in 1980. One should evaluate U.S. public support for economic and military help to Israel keeping in kind that, as a general rule, the U.S. public, while making an exception for supplying arms to friendly countries, does not approve, by substantial margins, of giving or selling arms to other nations. 22 But there are definite limits to the kind of assistance the general public was willing to give: The line is clearly drawn at sending troops to defend Israel, even were it to be invaded by its neighbors and even if such forces were backed by communist nations. Clearly a key to Israel's popularity has been the fact that it has given ample evidence it can take care of itself. We should keep in mind that such limits are also present for other countries, although, again respondents appeared willing to defend a number of countries ahead of Israel.23 Public Support for Assistance to Arab States. One hears a good deal of public discussion as to whether the American people support aid to Israel, but only rarely asked is whether the American people support assistance to the Arab states. It is clear that, at least for the period covered by our data, the public has not been in favor of such help and has opposed any such assistance by huge margins. For example, in a 1973 Gallup poll that asked, "Do you think the U.S. should supply arms and material to the Arabs?" 2 percent answered yes, 85 percent answered no, and 13 percent had no opinion. In 1978, the "no" response was 72 percent and the "yes" response had increased to 16 percent. 24 The question was asked time and again in different ways, and the distribution of responses was very similar. 25 It is a matter of interest that when American arms sales to both Israel and Arab states were put by the administration of President Carter into one package that Congress was asked to vote up or down, opposition to arms to Arab states succeeded in turning the U.S. public against arms to Israel as well.26 Such public views of help to Arab states are an interesting confirmation that public opinion does not drive governmental policy

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decisions on assistance. Even though the public has consistently opposed assistance to Arab states, the U.S. government has extended much, much more assistance to Arab states than to Israel.27 Needless to say, the Arab community in the United States is not an influential domestic lobby for such aid. The only significant domestic backers of such aid are some of the governmental foreign policy elites and, of course, various leaders in the private sector who do business with the Arab states. The fact that, despite popular opposition to assistance for the Arab states, the United States continues to provide it illustrates our contention that such decisions are made by elites independently of the popular will, even in the case of Israel.

Return of Conquered Territories

The return of the territories conquered in the 1967 war—Jerusalem, the Sinai, the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights—is an issue over which Arab and Israeli interests have been in the sharpest conflict. That issue has many facets: the future of the territory as a whole, of Jerusalem, and of the West Bank and Gaza. Regarding the occupied territories, the American public has shown itself in various polls to believe by substantial majorities that Israel should keep whatever part of the land needed to assure its security. Fifty-nine percent of the respondents in a 1977 Gallup survey and 76 percent in a 1978 Harris survey favored the return of no more than a part of the territory; or to put it another way, only 16 percent and 9 percent, respectively, thought that all territory should be returned. It should be remembered that, coming in 1977 and 1978, these surveys immediately preceded the Camp David Accords and the restitution of the Sinai to Egypt. This was a time of bitter dispute over the occupied territories between not only the Israeli and Egyptian governments, but between the American and Israeli governments as well. American policy was that it should all be returned with only very slight modifications of the frontiers existing in 1967.28 The question of the restitution of the West Bank is inextricably connected with the form of political organization to be adopted by the Palestinians, if and when Israel releases control of the area. As one would expect, the positions taken by Israel and the PLO on this point have been diametrically opposed. Even those Israelis who have been ready to relinquish the West Bank have wished to maintain some sort of security control. The PLO, on the other hand, has de-

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manded an entirely separate and autonomous state. The division over the matter has been wide and bitter and the widespread uprising of the Arab inhabitants in the West Bank and Gaza in late 1987 and in 1988, as well as Israel's repression of the uprisings, gave an indication of the depth of the problem. The opinion of the American public appears fragmented. The public has felt that the Palestinians deserve a home of their own but seems concerned with Israel's security and suspicious of Arab intentions. For example, in one 1982 survey, 39 percent felt that Israel should agree to a homeland on occupied territory; 30 percent felt Israel should not agree, and 31 percent did not have an answer to the question.29 Asked whether the PLO was right or wrong in wanting to establish a Palestinian homeland in occupied territory, 34 percent replied that it was wrong, 18 percent that it was right, 11 percent that it was right but that the method was wrong, and 12 percent that they did not know. Twenty-five percent said that they had not paid enough attention to the matter to have any sort of opinion at all.30 So the American public may feel that the Palestinians deserve a home of their own and that a Palestinian state on occupied territory would offer a viable solution (72% to 11%), but only if the security of the state of Israel could be assured.31 Finally, there is the question of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, particularly East Jerusalem, is a major bone of contention in the dispute. In 1967, when Jordan declared war, Israel captured East Jerusalem, won the war, and made a unified Jerusalem its capital. Since then, Arab leaders from every side have pressed for East Jerusalem's return to Arab hands or, at the very least, to have the city put under international control. U.S. public opinion seems to be clearly on the side of keeping the whole of Jerusalem in Israeli hands.32 Whether the U.S. government will buck the public position will be, of course, an elite decision. How that decision goes will depend on which coalition has the power when the decision of support needs to be made. Most of the data in this chapter are for the period covered in this study, 1948-1983. But on the issue of the territories it seemed wise to bring our data up to the moment when this work was actually completed. As I have already noted in chapter 1, in December of 1987 the Palestinians in the territories revolted. The Israelis sought to suppress the revolt. Day after day U.S. television screens at the news hour were filled with images of youngsters throwing stones and fire bombs at half-tracks and jeeps, and patrols and soldiers responding with tear gas, shooting rubber and plastic bullets, chasing

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them down streets. By the nature of things, the ugliest scenes got on the evening news. And the media—which American Jews were supposed to control and bias in Israel's favor—were sharply disapproving of Israeli policy throughout the whole period. The situation, therefore, represents a natural test of an important proposition. Does the media brainwash U.S. leaders and mass publics in favor of Israel? One should get an answer by comparing data when news about Israel was very favorable with polls in 1988 when Israel received the worst possible press. If the charge is true and the media does brainwash the public, one should expect support for Israel to decrease during 1988 below all previous levels because of the very bad press Israeli policy received during that year. But if one looks at 1988 polls what one finds is that, although there is clearly disapproval of Israel's policies in the occupied territories, sympathies of the general public for Israel have shown a good deal of volatility notwithstanding the low points are still above levels often reached before. Sympathy for Palestinians has gone up, through they are still far below Israel. Arab states remain far behind. Let us look at the 1988 polls. In a Gallup poll of respondents who had followed Middle East events, 43 percent recorded themselves in sympathy with Israel, 20 percent in sympathy with Palestinian Arabs, 20 percent sympathized with both, and 7 percent had no opinion.33 Again, in a poll months later asking the same question, the results were as follows: Israel, 46 percent; Palestinians, 24 percent; both, 16 percent; don't-knows, 14 percent.34 One should note that it is the Palestinians, not the Arab states that are being compared with Israel. A Penn and Schoen survey also reports finding that 43 percent of the respondents sympathize with Israel, and 11 percent with "the Arabs." Forty-three percent sympathy levels represent a sharp decrease from exceptionally high levels in 1986 and 1987, but there is no evidence either that such low points are permanent or that one should expect further decreases to levels below average support Israel has received over the years. For example, sympathy for Israel in 1981, a very nonturbulent year, was 47 percent and for the Arabs was 11 percent. Again, on the critical issue of the return of the occupied territories public opinion appeared fragmented in 1988 as in 1982. In 1988 Gallup reports that, in a sample of informed respondents, 38 percent versus 32 percent favored an independent Palestinian nation, with 32 percent unsure. The Roper poll data of 1982 quoted above are almost identical.35 The proposition that the general public's sympathy for Israel is a result of brainwashing by the media is not supported by the evidence.

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Continued support for Israel does not mean that significant changes did not occur. Three things appear important: Jews and non-Jews disapprove of the Israeli government's policy in regard to the territories. A plurality of the general public (36 percent versus 29 percent) feel that the Israeli response to the revolt is too harsh. However, 43 percent of the public feels that the PLO is responsible for the unrest versus 16 percent who feel Israel is responsible, or the Arabs in the territories are responsible.36 Moreover, a majority (52 percent) of the general public appears ready for the United States to negotiate with the PLO. In contrast, the Jewish sample answered the same question 29 percent in favor versus 61 percent against.37 All this, of course, before American leaders did just that. Second, the Jewish community seems more restive and less quiescent to its leaders' guidance in regard to Israel. And, finally, there are sharp disagreements in regard to U.S. policy toward the Israel—Arab dispute between the American Jewish community and the Israeli government. 38

OPINIONS OF JEWS AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC

Do the Jewish public and the general public agree or disagree on the question of support to the state of Israel? We already know part of the answer. Jews are roughly %. percent of the total population. The pluralities and majorities of the American public that support positions favorable to Israel range from 35 to 80 percent. So the respondents cannot all be Jews. The way it is usually put is that support for Israel comes from "American Jews and other supporters of Israel," which makes it appear that Jews are the main source of such supports—a profoundly biased and untenable view. Poll data indicate that there is substantial agreement between American Jews and non-Jews on Middle East issues. It is a question of degree or, more precisely, of intensity of approval. Were there no agreement between Jewish and non-Jewish communities and were U.S. policy in the region not, as it is, what the general public wants but only what American Jews want, then, of course, we would have at least circumstantial support for the proposition that American foreign policy is being heavily influenced by political pressure from the Jewish community. But this is not the case: The major difference between American Jewish and non-Jewish communities is that the former are far more committed to pro-Israeli positions.39

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Take the question of the return of the occupied territories. In one Harris study, respondents were given a series of statements and were asked to evaluate them. First, Israel's intentions with regard to the occupied territories: "Israel is trying to keep from having to give up territory and make concessions until it is reasonably sure that the Arabs really want to negotiate a peace settlement." The general public agreed with the Israeli position 66 percent to 13, and the American Jewish public 85 percent to 8. Second, "If the PLO would recognize the right of Israel to exist, instead of pledging to destroy Israel, then they should be able to join the peace talks about the future of the West Bank." The response of the Jewish and non-Jewish samples to this question may be seen as particularly revealing: The general public agreed 66 percent to 13 while Jewish respondents agreed by a much slimmer, though still comfortable, majority, 53 percent to 34. Third, on whether Israel should give back all the territory it gained from the 1967 war, both the general public and the Jewish public disagreed, the former 55 to 33 percent while the latter disagreed 91 to 5 percent. 40 The same essential agreement emerges with reference to the ticklish issue of the West Bank. The Jewish public, by a substantial majority, 69 to 20 percent, and the general public, 46 to 31 percent, agreed to "having the Israelis take over permanent control of the West Bank, increasing . . . settlements . . . but giving Palestinians full rights as citizens." Again, both publics oppose the creation of a Palestinian state, with police but no military force, in the absence of a guarantee for Israeli security. The general public did so by a thin plurality of 38 to 35 percent and the Jewish community by a substantial majority, 55 to 27 percent. Finally, both groups opposed the solution that the U.S. government has repeatedly favored, making almost all of the West Bank part of Jordan. The general public opposed this proposal 39 to 27 percent and the Jewish constituency 65 to 17 percent. 41 As regards Jerusalem, agreement between the two publics was substantial. Both agreed, by similar majorities—the general public 63 to 17 percent, the Jewish sample 66 to 21 percent—to the establishment of a new system of government in Jerusalem, assuring both Jewish and Arab representation, each of the two peoples having a borough of its own, with Israel retaining control of the city as a whole. They both opposed placing Jerusalem under international control—the general public 52 to 26, the Jewish public 72 to 14. And both groups opposed the return of East Jerusalem to the Arabs— the general public 56 to 22, and the Jewish public 82 to 7.42

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However, there are issues on which the two publics opted for opposite outcomes. It is these cases that offer the best opportunity of determining whether or not government policies conform to Jewish wishes. There are not many such cases, and the disagreements are about hypothetical situations, which were presented by the poll takers to probe what people really felt. I shall report the poll findings and compare them with the corresponding policy positions adopted by the U.S. government. 1. The general public was ready to accept, 45 to 32 percent, and Jews opposed by a majority of 60 to 25 the idea of an autonomous Palestinian state on the West Bank with full voting and citizenship rights for its people and both police and military forces, even assuming as part of the arrangement that Israel's security is guaranteed by the United States and NATO. The U.S. government has never offered such guarantees, and has opposed the creation of a Palestinian state with military powers. 2. The Jewish public opposed 80 to 12 percent, and the general public favored 44 to 37 percent the U.S. government's pressuring Israel by threatening to withhold military and economic assistance if the latter proves so unbending as to imperil the chances for peace.43 The U.S. government has indeed pressured Israel on very numerous occasions by threatening to withhold assistance. 3. The general public disagreed 48 to 36 percent, and the Jewish sample agreed 56 percent to 27, with the statement, "If it looked as though Israel were going to be overrun by the Arabs in another war, the U.S. should be willing to send troops to support Israel."44 There has been no occasion to use U.S. forces. But when, just before the outbreak of the 1967 war, the Israelis were asked to set aside any intention of fighting and they in turn asked the United States to guarantee it would intervene if they were attacked, the White House refused. 4. In response to a statement asserting that, by refusing to come up with a plan for giving back parts of the West Bank in order that the Palestinians might have a homeland, Israel makes peace impossible in the Middle East, the general public agreed with the statement 50 to 26 percent; the Jewish community disagreed 59 to 26 percent. For twenty years, this has been the view of successive U.S. governments. It was the view of Ford and Kissinger, and it was certainly the view of Carter, Brzezinski, and Vance. It was initially the view of Reagan, Weinberger, and Schultz, and likely will reappear again in future governments.

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5. When it is asserted that Israel only makes peace concessions when the United States puts pressure on it, the general public agrees 46 to 30 percent, the Jewish public disagreed 66 to 25 percent. It seems fair to say that the decision makers determining American foreign policy in successive administrations since 1967 would readily agree with this statement. 6. Both the general public, by 39 to 27 percent, and the Jewish community, by 65 to 17 percent, opposed the plan to make all or most of the West Bank part of Jordan, which already houses a majority of the Palestinians and which controlled the West Bank before the 1967 war. There can be no questions but that this is the solution preferred by the U.S. government. Such examples should suffice. U.S. government policy is not driven by the expressed preferences of the American Jewish community. In cases when the Jewish and general publics disagree, the views of the government appear much closer to the views of the general public than to those of American Jews. On the other hand, one should note that, in a number of cases, the policies of the government appear to differ from the preferences of both those of the general public and of the Jewish community, adding to our suspicion that the views of the public, whether Jewish or non-Jewish, do not determine policy. Most important, the American public by and large agrees that Israel should assure its security before returning the territory conquered in the 1967 war. But there is a clear limit to the general population's willingness to support its Israeli ally; strong majorities oppose the use of American troops to defend Israel.

JEWISH BACKING OF ISRAEL

The findings that American Jews support Israel and U.S.-Israeli policy in the Middle East much more strongly than the general public require some explanation. How can one account for such a difference? For an answer we must go back to our point at the beginning of this chapter that, in foreign policy, elites shape the opinions of the masses. The flow of influence moves from the top down not from the bottom up. Thus, the approval of Israel by the general public has been deeply affected by what U.S. elites have said and done, and the very strong approval of the Jewish public was at least in part

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a function of the direction given by its leaders. What made U.S. Jewish elites so incredibly successful in generating support for Israel from American Jewish mass publics? Some hypotheses, though entirely plausible, do not appear to be correct. For example, that as a result of the Nazi Holocaust, Jews outside Israel, American Jews among them, feel terribly insecure,that to a people painfully aware of their individual and collective vulnerability—in a century that is clearly marked as the age of the refugee45—the knowledge of the existence of a refuge that would take them in no questions asked, should one's faith in civilization and the goodwill of other people prove in error, is terribly important. This proposition is rejected by the testimony of American Jews that they are perfectly safe where they are, that America is different from other countries, and that their future in America is bright. And the facts of their lives support such views.46 Or take the hypothesis that American Jews support Israel because they benefit from their coreligionists' gladiator image. That because of proven Israeli fighting prowess and victories against the odds, the image Jews have of themselves and that non-Jews have of Jews as the long-suffering, cringing, subservient, frightened, and overly cerebral people may now be entering into a lengthy process of transformation,- and that the resulting view may ease Jewish participation in the wider community. Such an image has earned Israeli Jews respect and admiration. But there are clear costs as well as benefits attached to that image for American Jews. Divesting themselves of their old image of the frightened minority is not easy, at least for the older generations. American Jews, after all, are dependent on the goodwill of the population among whom they live for the quality of their lives. And Israeli actions may expose American Jews to their own society's disapproval as they clearly did in the Suez Canal War of 1956, and, very profoundly, in the Lebanon war of 1982, and again in the revolt in Gaza and the West Bank at the end of 1987 and the beginning of 1988. But if the above plausible hypotheses are not entirely valid, how is one to account for the American Jewry's fervid support for Israel? One part of the answer is that Jewish masses were predisposed to mobilization on this issue by their elites because of their searing experience in witnessing the Holocaust of European Jewry, their knowledge of their leaders' efforts to save their coreligionists from the Nazis, and the memory of the frustrations at the indifference of Western (and Soviet) governments at the plight of European Jews.

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They were aware that the little that was done to save European Jews was done by the American Jewish community in spite of the government's indifference and opposition. Immediately after World War II a consensus already existed that the American Jewish community should do all in its power to help in so far as it was possible the remnants of Jewry outside of the United States. And the consensus was reinforced by the terrible discovery at the end of the war of the senseless massacre of millions of people. Such predisposition to respond to any attempt to mobilize the Jewish mass on behalf of Israel was in part also prepared by fundamental experiences of integration into American society. The story of Jewish immigrants into the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries is not much different from the experience during the same period of other European villagers' integration into the socioeconomically advanced American society.47 The mass of Jewish immigrants in the United States had come from the villages and ghettoes of Eastern (and Western) Europe. The first and second generations of immigrants were kept together in the urban ghettoes of America by ethnicity, language, and religion. Their new home, however, offered attractive opportunities to those who wanted to leave the ghetto, and successive generations soon ventured out in large numbers to become part of the broader society. It was a difficult journey, at least at first. Psychological and physical abandonment of their world brought, inevitably, guilt, fears about the reception in the new environment, and problems of identity so frequently found in the socially mobile. The absorption of the newcomers was slow, spasmodic and difficult. Integration took many forms. Still, the increasing numbers seeking to flee the social, economic and psychological ghettoes latched on to secular education and to economic and political participation in the American society. Some Jewish elites in Europe had already tried to forge a political channel out of traditional society, and the isolation imposed by the confining bonds of custom and religion, through the Zionist movement, with its secular roots and dreams of building a modern state in Palestine. But Zionism, with its urging of migration to Palestine, had had little effective appeal to Jewish masses in Europe, and even less in America. In any event, in the United States the drive to integrate was strong. Jews crowded on the liberal landings of the political system, attracted by the liberal call for tolerance and acceptance, which meant to them, insecure in their new environment, "be tolerant and admit me."

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But integration and assimilation threatened the Jewish community with extinction, a veritable nightmare for its leadership. Everything that could be done was tried but the hemorrhaging continued.48 Israel provided a way out. First of all, the "pro-Israel movement" was not entirely secular. Jews who had remained religiously and socially observant could and did participate. It was also a convenient means for fully integrated Jews who had jettisoned Jewish religious and social traditions but who felt themselves Jewish and wished to express it. Identification with an Israel under siege was particularly satisfying and also permitted involvement in U.S. foreign policies in a critical theater of U.S. opposition to the Soviet Union. Most important, contrary to political participation on behalf of liberal programs and policies that were part and parcel of the integration of the activists, support for Israel reaffirmed the separate political identity of the activists and the community they represented. Finally, the pro-Israel movement, with its psychological identification with Israel, permitted American Jews to remain safe and at home. The masses then were predisposed to be mobilized on behalf of Israel, but it was not at all inevitable that the mobilization should become a political reality. It was Jewish elites who made it so. The contribution of Jewish elites was thus threefold. The leadership mobilized and transformed the strong mass support for Israel into support for U.S. policy of assistance, pleaded Israel's case to the U.S. government, and helped preserve the prized separate political identity by pointing it up to Jewish and non-Jewish publics. Their activity was obviously pro bono pubblico, but, of course, their actions strengthened the secular bonds of the community they led and reasserted their own leadership. Most important, Jewish leaders turned to their cause the very separate political identity that the mobilization of mass on behalf of Israel had created by insisting that such identity reinforced the tie between members of the community and the United States because support for Israel was in the American interest. Jewish publics readily accepted this view. They were to be confirmed in this belief by the U.S. government policy of assistance. The Jewish elites' struggle on behalf of Israel's interests had an important consequence. The Jewish leadership was an important participant in the large liberal elite coalition that was in turn an important actor in the tug-of-war over foreign policy. It was liberal tendency to push for accommodation and compromise everywhere the USSR, the United States and their clients confronted one another. Liberal attacks on policies supporting confrontations with leftist

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movements suspected by the United States to be sponsored by the USSR (all around the world) added to the domestic political costs of the U.S. foreign policy and were, therefore, highly resented by the powerful backers of a policy of extended deterrence of the threatened Soviet expansion. Recall Jeane Kirkpatrick's charge at the 1984 Republican convention—"they [the liberals] always blame America first"—and the thunderous applause that followed. But in regard to the Middle East, political alignment differed: American Jewish elites pleaded for U.S. material support and a tough stand against the radical Arab states and, also, a firm posture with the Soviet Union in regard to its treatment of its Jewish minority. The call for firmness conflicted with the liberal call for a posture of compromise and accommodation with the radical Arab states' position and their defense of Palestinian claims and with their own positions in non-Middle East issues. During the Vietnam War the contradiction in the position of the U.S. Jewish leadership in regard to U.S. foreign policy had become increasingly evident. President Johnson described the matter graphically—as he was accustomed to do—to Foreign Minister Eban on the eve of the 1967 war: "A bunch of rabbis came here one day in 1967 to tell me that I ought not to send a single screwdriver to Vietnam, but push all our aircraft carriers through the straits of Tiran to help Israel."49 The President's irritation revealed his world view. Israel deserved to be helped because it was a victim of Soviet aggression, but so was South Vietnam. How could one honestly favor help for one but not the other? It was also the view of most of his successors and, incidentally, the view of Israeli leaders. When President Nixon decided that major gains would accrue to the United States in its rivalry with the Soviet Union in the Middle East and, that, therefore, massive help was justified, the contradiction in the American Jewish elites' espousal of the hawkish position in the Middle East and the liberal position elsewhere became more glaring. American Jewish elites needed to bring their schizoid stand on foreign policy into line. Some Jewish elites began to assume a more conservative position in security policy. As some of the American Jewish elites increasingly edged themselves over to the right and pointed Jewish mass public in the same direction, their value to foreign policy elites increased and so did their status and power. Had the community abandoned its liberal persuasion in foreign policy, the political costs for the support of the confrontational foreign policy backing up the containment of the Soviet Union should have

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decreased as well. But are Jewish mass publics going in the more conservative direction? It is not at all certain that Jewish mass public followed that part of the Jewish leadership urging the abandonment of the liberal tradition. There are at least some signs that, indeed, they would rebel if asked to leave their liberal commitments. 50 If so, Jewish elites moving in that direction have left their constituency behind. And, now, if the current Soviet-United States rapprochement continues they may find themselves doubly isolated.

3 CONGRESS AND AID TO ISRAEL

I

F THE executive appears to be in favor of assistance to Israel, the Congress appears even more so. It certainly requires no effort at all for the executive to ask Congress to help Israel, or to increase the amount of assistance already granted, because Congress is always ready to oblige. Indeed it is alleged that Congress forces the executive branch to do more than it would otherwise do. The relationshp between Congress and the American Jewish community in regard to Israel is the very one undergirding the critical hypotheses we are exploring. Congress is supposed to be most vulnerable to pressures from Jewish sources. Thus the answer to the question, "are the pressures of U.S. Jews a decisive or even a very important factor in shaping congressional behavior toward Israel?" should go very far in nailing down what we want to know. Most important, also, the data on Congress are precisely the kind that will

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permit us to apply analytic techniques we could not apply in previous discussions. Whence, then, comes this congressional willingness to help Israel? To what extent is this assessment of the making of U.S. policy toward Israel correct? These questions deserve answers. U.S. policy toward the Middle East is of major importance, for the Middle East is critical to world peace. Moreover, insights on U.S. decision making in the case of Israel may reveal much about American foreign policy in general. A Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, now deceased, told a story about an Israeli official who had come to the Pentagon with a list of weapons his country wished to buy. According to General Brown: It's [Jewish influence in this country] so strong you wouldn't believe [sic] now. We have had the Israelis coming to us for equipment. We say we can't possibly get the Congress to support a program like that. They say, "Don't worry about Congress. We'll take care of the Congress." Now this is somebody from another country, but they can do it. They own, you know, the banks in this country, the newspapers . . . you just look at where the Jewish money is in this country.1 This story has been repeated to this author by other people, assuring him it happened to their boss, or friend, always someone else. It is a good story. And given such testimony one suspects it may be apocryphal. The statement reveals in their crudest form certain commonly held and, in the main, wholly groundless assumptions about the extensive (and pernicious) influence American Jews exert in Congress and about the extent to which congressional support for Israel is the product of that influence.

JEWS AND CONGRESSIONAL SUPPORT FOR AID TO ISRAEL

The usual explanation of congressional support for aid to Israel runs as follows. The American Jewish community uses two major political levers with which to influence congressional attitudes and action toward Israel or, for that matter, on other issues of concern to them, such as Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union. These levers are votes and money.2 Though they are not the only resources available to special interests seeking to apply pressure on the Amer-

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ican political system, they are the most powerful and American Jewry is supposed to have both at its disposal. Jewish Votes and Senatorial Support for Israel

Conventional wisdom has it that Jewish votes hold a degree of sway over congressional decisions greater than one would expect: Jewish concerns are not just one reason why Congress regularly adapts proIsraeli policies; they are a major, and even decisive, factor behind congressional support for Israel. But is this true? I believe the statement is misleading. Jewish support is, of course, welcomed, but is it a decisive influence in the way Congressmen and -women vote? One should note that the question is not whether Jewish votes and financial contributions to candidates in congressional elections affect these senators or representatives who receive substantial contributions from Jewish sources or have large Jewish constituencies, but, rather, the question is how disproportionate is the effect of the votes and the money of the Jewish community in winning the support of congressional majorities for the Israeli cause. To obtain an answer to this question, an empirical analysis of the available data was carried out. And it is my view that the data do not indicate what the common wisdom says they do. A number of points are in order. (1) Analysis of the behavior of the members of the House was not possible because no official data on the size of Jewish constituencies exist for representatives' districts.3 The analysis reported on below is limited to the Senate because information on size of Jewish populations by state was readily available. One should note that in the foreign policy field the Senate is the more prominent of the two chambers and, therefore, a test limited to the Senate is as telling as one involving the Congress as a whole. (2) Our measure for Senate support of Israel was the senators' voting record on matters relating to Israel. Forty-three bills were considered. Obviously, if a bill before the Senate had little bearing on the concerns of the Israeli Government or more directly on the preferences of the American lobbyists for Jewish causes, a senator's vote for (or against) is no evidence of Israeli electoral influence or the lack of it. To make sure that the legislative acts selected for this test were, in fact, the appropriate ones, I consulted a knowledgeable member of a major Jewish lobby and a U.S. Senate staffer who followed legislation on the Middle East for the period

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65

under consideration. 4 (3) States were ranked by the size of the Jewish constituencies and a ten-point scale was created. (4) The period 19691982 was used for the analysis of the effects of constituency size. The starting date was 1969, because that was the year assistance to Israel began to rise. If a relationship genuinely existed between Jewish votes and Senate decisions, surely it would show up after that date. The closing date was 1982, because all other series used in this study ended that year or the following year. On the other hand, the analysis of the relation between Jewish financial contributions for elections to the Senate from Jewish sources covered the period 1977— 1982. The period of analysis is shorter because the Federal Election Commission data on financial contributions are not available before the 1977-1978 election cycle and, as we have already noted, 1983 is the end of every other series used in this work. (5) Finally, because of the turnover in the senatorial population, over 170 senators had an opportunity to vote on bills affecting Israel during the period 19691982. And 135 had an opportunity to vote on bills during 1977— 1982, the time for which data on financial contributions were available.5

Size of Jewish Constituencies and Senatorial Favor

Our desire to know what relation exists between the size of Jewish constituencies and senatorial voting is greatly helped by the geographic distribution of the Jewish population. The U.S. Jewish population is very small—by 1982 it was a shade under 6 million, or 2.5 percent of the U.S. total—and the distribution of that population is highly skewed. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have Jewish populations of between 1 and 10.6 percent. Thirty-three states have less than 1 percent Jewish populations. 6 The skewedness of the distribution provided a point of departure in showing what effect the Jewish electorate has on senatorial support for Israel. What was done was to compare in effect the voting record of senators from states with relatively "large" Jewish populations (Jews representing at least 2 percent in the population of the state) with the voting record of senators who have few Jewish constituents and, therefore, determine whether the two sets of senators behave sufficiently differently to suggest that Jewish voters are a determining factor in senatorial support for aid to Israel. The result of the analysis of variance (ANOVA) probing the re-

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lation between size of Jewish constituency and senators' stands on legislative matters related to Israel is revealing. (See table 3.1.) When Jewish constituencies exceed 2 percent of the total populations, their numbers do seem to make a clear difference in the frequency with which senators support pro-Israel positions. Senators with Jewish constituencies between 2 and 3 percent support pro-Israel positions 79 percent of the time, those with Jewish constituencies larger than 3 percent support pro-Israel positions as frequently as 90 percent of the time and higher. Of course, of the 170 Senators in our sample, only 36 senators (or roughly 1 in 5) have constituencies larger than 2 percent. What has been found is what conventional wisdom has said all along. The Jewish lobby is powerful at the margins, where it counts. A minority of senators, 1 in 5, vulnerable to Jewish pressure and, therefore, strongly supportive of Israel, adds assurance that pro-Israel majorities will almost always be there when needed. Yet the fact that so many senators, without Jews in their constituencies, also support Israel tells us that something is going on in the political dynamic that is being missed with the present spec-

TABLE 3.1 Size of Jewish Constituencies and Senatorial Support, 1969—1982 Percent Jewish Constituency

Mean Support

Number of Senators

St.

Dev.

6

63.1 65.8 78.6 91.5 92.3 98.0 93.0

114 22 9 9 10 3 3

28.8 26.0 20.6 10.6 6.8 3.2 4.2

Total

68.6

170

27.9

NOTE: The Senators included in this analysis were all those who cast "Yes" or "No" on at least four Israel-related bills in the 1969-1982 period. For each Senator the "pro-Israel" vote was calculated by dividing the number of votes he or she cast in Israel's favor by the total number of "Yes" or "No" votes cast on Israel-related measures and multiplying by 100. Eta-squared = .15 p < .001 level

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67

ification of the model. If one looks at the votes of the 136 senators from states where Jews are less than 2 percent of the total population, one finds that such senators also strongly support pro-Israel positions. Of the 136 senators in this category, 114 have 1 percent or less Jews in their constituency, and, on the average, favor Israeli positions a shade more than 64 percent of the time, and the 22 senators from states where Jewish constituencies ranged in size between 1 and 2 percent favor Israel slightly less than 66 percent of the time. A strong majority (81) of these senators from states with small or negligible Jewish constituencies voted far more frequently than average in support of pro-Israel positions. It is precisely the group of 81 senators who, over time, have provided the bulk of the votes for the powerful majorities supporting Israeli interests in Congress. That being the case, one should use caution in arguing that fear of Jewish retribution at the polls is the, or, at least, a driving force moving the Senate to support Israel. What is obviously troubling is the fact that if one wishes to claim that the reason senators from states with "large" Jewish populations favor Israel is because they fear that acting otherwise would bring them retribution at the polls by angry Jewish constituents, how does one explain the fact that the majority of senators from states with Jewish constituencies so small as to pose no conceivable electoral threat also favor Israel by very strong majorities? And if Jewish pressures are not a factor in the case of their support, is it possible that the same thing is also true in those states where larger Jewish constituencies are present? We can evaluate our information in yet another way. It is clear from the table that there is a good deal of variance in senatorial support in cases where Jewish constituencies are "small" but very little variance where Jewish constituencies are large.7 Where Jewish constituencies are small, the fact that senators differ in their support of Israeli interests suggests that other factors—for example, party, or ideology, or foreign policy preferences, etc.—may play a critical role in the way senators decide matters of interest to Israel. One can see this very clearly if one chooses states where Jewish constituencies are less than two percent and then holds the size of Jewish constituency completely constant by looking at senatorial behavior within a state. A few examples will illustrate the point. In Arizona, with 1.7 percent Jews in the population, Senator Fannin voted on 22 occasions and took pro-Israel positions 22 percent of the time, Senator Goldwater voted on 31 occasions and favored Israel 35 per-

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cent of the time, while Senator De Concini voted 22 times and was recorded in favor of pro-Israel positions 77 percent of the time. Or take the case of Alabama, which has a Jewish constituency of 0.2 percent. During the period covered by this analysis Senator Sparkman voted on 21 measures favoring Israeli interests 85 percent of the time, while Senator Allen voted on 26 measures and favored Israel's interests 46 percent of the time. Or take the range of support from the three Montana senators in our sample. Senator Baucus voted on 15 bills and supported the Israeli position 94 percent of the time, Senator Metcalf voted on 20 measures and favored pro-Israel positions 50 percent of the time, while Senator Mansfield, the former democratic leader in the Senate, voted on 22 bills and supported the pro-Israeli position 9 percent of the time. The list of such illustrations can be made long indeed. Clearly in the case of senators with tiny Jewish constituencies it is not convincing to argue that their legislative support for Israel is due to their fear that, if they acted otherwise, they would be targets of Jewish retribution at the polls. Given the strong majority of senators in this category who vote in favor of pro-Israel positions the numbers leave little doubt: Jews or no Jews in their constituencies, senators favor support for Israel. As I noted earlier, such evidence clearly indicates that there is something else going on in the dynamic of support for Israel that should be addressed. And I shall do this later in this chapter. Two additional concerns should be addressed at this point. First, some proponents of the view that the members of Congress favor Israel for fear of Jewish retribution at the polls argue that, even in states with tiny Jewish constituencies, their influence is magnified because (1) they are actively involved in politics and, therefore, know ways of gaining access to the corridors of power, (2) some of them are personal friends of Congress and (3) they alone care and record a preference on the issue and, therefore, have an impact on the result. In critical cases, alerted by the Jewish lobby in Washington, so it is said, the few Jews in the senator's home state swing into action to force the senator to vote their way. Thus, faced with a determined if Lilliputian group of pro-Israeli voters against the great mass of voters taking no interest in the question whatever, the senator gives in to the only pressure there is. But this argument simply will not wash. It assumes that the senator who disagrees with the measure championed by pro-Israeli supporters in his or her home state, is not a powerful political actor in his or her own right, and is also totally

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unable to mobilize support against the position advocated by so small a minority. But if such assumptions are valid, it becomes somewhat of a mystery how the senator managed to get elected in the first place. Moreover it is not correct to assume, as those who believe in the existence of the very powerful Jewish lobby clearly do, that the voting minority has no backing on the part of the majority. In fact, as we have seen in our discussions of American public opinion, large pluralities and majorities of the general public also support pro-Israeli positions. And this more than anything explains why the activists get their way and why mobilizing political support to stop the backers of Israel is so costly. Finally one should not forget that members of Congress have opinions too. They may follow the "minority" because they agree with it. A second point should also be noted. The argument is frequently made that the size of the Jewish constituency is irrelevant because, even when Jewish constituencies are tiny, its members can exercise great power. Is it not true, so the argument goes, that Jewish votes can spell the difference between victory and defeat in close elections? That the Jewish half or quarter percent of the total vote may be all that is needed for one candidate to defeat the other? The candidates themselves know it, and this is why they fear Jewish displeasure. How many times has the reader heard the leaders of "special sectors of the mass publics," steel workers, say, or farmers, blacks, pro-lifers, or even Jews, claim that the winner owed his or her election to their clients. And, on occasion, members of Congress or their supporters have, in defeat, blamed the Jewish lobby for their troubles. (Remember Representative Findley and Senator Percy of Illinois.) Granted that Jewish votes represent in most cases a mere straw in the burden the candidate for office must carry, is it not true that this straw, in some situations, can break the camel's back? But in such situations the challenger or the incumbent is already in trouble, because he or she has already angered too many voters on other issues. Consider the case of Senator Percy, for example. It has been alleged that the wide opposition ranged against him in 1984 included Jewish groups, incensed by his positions on the Palestinian question. But the Senator was clearly in trouble with Illinois voters in the election of 1978, the one before the election he lost. That time he barely squeaked by ; in 1984, he simply couldn't. One is reminded of the words of E. E. Schattschneider, one of the giants of the study of American politics:

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[Sjomething ought to be said about the logical fallacy of the straw that broke the camel's back. The fable is that the camel was able to bear up under the weight of 999,999 straws but that his back was broken by the millionth straw. This venerable fallacy ignores the obvious truth that each of the million straws contributed equally to the breaking of the camel's back. Unfortunately, this kind of logic has been perpetuated in the literature of pressure politics.8

Jewish Money and Senate Support for Israel

It can be protested that, so far, we have set up a straw man because everyone knows how few Jews there are and that the source of their power is not their number; it is their money. Money is the name of the game. The mention of money as a cause, or at least as a facilitator, in the resolution of policy disputes will strike a responsive chord in any student of politics. Money certainly signals to other politicians that a candidate is serious and should be treated seriously. In view of all of the recent talk about the influences of Political Action Committees on public affairs, the model should be quite familiar. Rich special interests proffer money to congressmen and -women desperate to fund their operations, particularly their election campaign. Such offerings buy, for special interest, access to those in position to perform good offices in the legislative process. Members of Congress take the contributions, lend their arguments an attentive ear, and then favor the legislation that special interests want. According to this model, then, the power of the Jewish lobby is ultimately rooted not in votes but in money. Money is better than votes. Money is in every way a more flexible political resource than votes, not the least because, where votes remain tied to the particular district in which they are cast, money moves freely across district and state borders. Jewish cash from New York and Los Angeles funds politicians in Wyoming, Missouri, Connecticut or wherever. If one is genuinely committed to the seeking of elective office, the way to start is to go to the source of political money, New York, where, as everybody knows, Jewish money is all-important. There is an almost endless number of political war stories about Jewish money funneled into this or that election campaign or nomination drive with disastrous results for whoever falls foul of Jewish interests. Or so, at least, the stories go. Now, conventional wisdom often seems plausible enough, but is

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it actually correct in this case? One obvious question has to do with whether Jews are in fact, as conventional wisdom suggests, the most abundant source of campaign contributions. If Jewish sources prove unwilling to finance a given candidate, is he or she really unable to turn elsewhere for funds? In an interview with an experienced and very able administrative assistant of a senator from a state with a Jewish population of less than one percent, this author was told of an attempt by an ex-state official of that state, himself a Jew, to unseat an incumbent known to be supportive of Jewish concerns. The challenger could find no donors in the Jewish community and gave up the challenge. One wonders why he did that, why he could find no support elsewhere. Where was union, and corporate, and other moneys? Surely Jewish money represents only a small fraction of all the money available for such purposes. A candidate is lost only if, having been turned down by Jewish sources, he or she is also turned down by everybody else. Clearly, the proposition according to which Jewish money shapes congressional action in Middle East affairs needs testing. What relation, if any, exists between financial contributions to electoral campaigns from Jewish sources and the Senate voting record on Israel-related bills? The analysis matched individual and PAC contributions against senators' voting records on measures of importance to Israel. One should note that, in the brief period of our analysis, PACs were just beginning to penetrate the political system and, therefore, the size of total contributions was largely influenced by contributions from individuals. With few exceptions the size of Jewish constituencies was critical. The more Jews in the state, the larger one would expect would be the pool of financial contributions from Jewish sources. The empirical analysis is revealing. The independent variable here is the proportion of contributions from Jewish sources to total contributions a senator received. Proportions are far more telling than absolute amounts. After all, if a senator receives a small amount in absolute terms, but that small amount is a large portion of all he or she receives, the Jewish contribution looms larger than it would if the amount from Jewish sources were large but only a small portion of all he or she receives from other sources. The way the proportion of contributions from Jewish sources to total receipts affects the way the senators voted is shown in table 3.2. As before we find that there are three groups of senators. Fiftythree senators, or almost half of the total, receive 2 percent or less

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of their total receipts from Jewish sources, and these senators vote on average 51.5 percent in favor of pro-Israel positions. A second set of 36 senators receive between 2 and 5 percent of their total receipts from Jewish sources and support pro-Israel positions almost 76 percent of the time. We consider support below 2 percent as negligible. We view contributions between 2 and 5 percent as medium. It should be noted that together these two categories represent the majority (89 senators) of the 130 senators in our sample. A third group of senators (41), less than one-third of the total, receives a very substantial fraction of their funding (over 5 percent) from Jewish sources and favors Israel between 83 and 93 percent of the time. From the results of this analysis there can be little doubt that above a threshold, one high enough, though, too exclude almost half of the senators in our sample, there appears a very strong association between levels of funding from Jewish sources and levels of senatorial support for Israel. The data appear quite clear. Yet the proper interpretation of such findings remains uncertain. If financial contributions are, indeed, a decisive factor in determining how senators vote, and this is precisely what the allegations imply they are, how is one to account for the fact that a large number

TABLE 3.2 Percent of Financial Contributions from Jewish Sources and Senatorial Support for Pro-Israel Measures, 1977-1982 Percent of Total Contributions from Jewish Sources

Number of Recipients

Average Support

Variance

15

53 36 23 8 10

51.5% 69.2 84.3 87.3 94.8

29.8 24.3 18.6 23.4 4.2

Total

130

67.7

29.1

NOTE: Pro-Israeli vote was calculated as described in table 3.1 using the same sample of senators. Campaign contributions from Jewish sources were also estimated as described in the note in appendix A.2. For the results of the ANOVA, where only the votes cast in the 1977-1982 period were used in the calculation of pro-Israel support, see appendix A.2. Eta-squared = .28. p < .001.

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73

of senators who receive only a small share of their total receipts from Jewish sources also vote in support of measures favorable to Israel a majority of the time? I am supported in my hesitations about how to interpret these results also because, as already mentioned (see chapter 1), the scientific literature indicates the effect of PAC moneys on congressional voting behavior to be quite weak. Rigorous systematic evidence simply does not support the popular belief that PAC moneys have bought, for special interests, the votes necessary to pass their measures. The perception and the reality are simply poles apart. One must caution, therefore, against the easy conclusion that the reason for the high level of support among the beneficiaries of large financial contributions was the moneys received from Jewish sources. The inference certainly is plausible, but the presence of an association does not indicate which factor is the cause and which the effect. The proposition suggesting influence moving from ever larger amounts of money from Jewish sources to ever higher levels of support for an important preference of the donors, though very plausible, is not necessarily the correct interpretation of the dynamic of what is going on. The common inference that senators who receive money from Jewish sources vote for bills favorable to Israel because of the financial support they received should be treated with great caution; the opposite inference can be defended equally well, if not better. It is far more likely that conventional wisdom has got it backward: money goes to those who have in the past already taken and defended positions that future contributors approve of. The money senators receive does not, then, account for their voting behavior. Money is not being used here to change a senator's mind; it reflects the fact that a senator's mind has already been favorably made up. Financial support is the result, not the cause, of what senators do. But why, one may ask, would pro-Israeli PACs and individuals make contributions to people already predisposed in their favor? Why carry coal to Newcastle? In order to insure that those who defend their interests stay in power. A loss of such a supporter is disastrous. And if the senator who happens to be a strong supporter of a cause a potential contributor supports happens also to be a member, or, even better, the chairman of a committee or subcommittee critical to the success of that cause in Congress, then his or her price is indeed beyond that of rubies. 9 To attract real money a senator must already be a true defender of the faith. The aim of financial contributions is, therefore, to help

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the senator keep his or her position, and the more powerful the position he or she occupies in Congress, the more money will be funneled his or her way. One or two examples will help to make the point. Far more important for our task here, the samples give us the hint of what we need to do to push the analysis one more step and break the black box open. No knowledgeable reader will be surprised to learn that Senator Henry Jackson of the state of Washington received very large support from Jewish sources. Our data say that Jackson received 24.9% of his funding from Jewish sources.10 Jackson was a very senior senator. A member of the Armed Services Committee, he was both a domestic liberal and a hawk in foreign affairs (a not infrequent combination in the Democratic party); he was also tough on Russia, a champion of the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate; and a great defender of Israeli interests, voting 96 percent of the time in favor of pro-Israeli positions. One should note, incidentally, that Jackson was a major player in foreign policy issues, particularly in relations with the USSR. And the issue of Jewish emigration offered him a lever on successive administrations' policy toward the Soviet Union. It is difficult to see how Jackson's political persona could have been more attractive to the Jewish political community. No wonder they gave him unstinting financial support. Or take the case of former Idaho Senator, Frank Church, who also received substantial funding from Jewish sources. Senator Church's funding from Jewish sources was 22.5 percent.11 Church's political profile was almost ideal—he was a Democrat, an internationalist, a flaming liberal, a strong supporter of Israel (he voted in favor of the Israeli position on bills 96 percent of the time), and the second ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. Let me review. Our results to date are obviously incomplete and to some extent contradictory. The size of Jewish constituency and/ or campaign contributions appear strongly connected with senatorial support for Israel. On the other hand, a substantial group of senators also support Israel, even though they receive little support from Jewish sources. Could it be that their reasons for supporting proIsrael positions may also be the ones motivating the support of senators who receive help from Jewish sources and that such help does not play the role everyone assumes? If one thinks a moment about the high recipients of pro-Israel support, one is struck by the fact that they are, almost all of them, devoted internationalists. Is it possible that the level of internation-

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alism of the senators is a key to the majorities that so consistently support Israel's interests in the Senate? The hypothesis I wish to propose, then, is that an internationalist ideology is a major key to senatorial behavior in foreign affairs. Thus senators, on average, support Israel as highly as they do because they are internationalists. Their world view tells them the United States should help countries in need to help themselves. And Israel helps herself. The American Jewish constituency is, on the whole, very internationalist also, and that is why they support the senators they do. Oh yes, money talks, but what it says might not be at all what the politically uninitiated think they hear, but something more like the opposite.

JEWISH SUPPORT, INTERNATIONALISM, AND SENATORIAL VOTES

The hypothesis advanced in the previous section goes so much against strongly held views that I shall go into what was done to test its validity in some detail.12 The procedure to demonstrate that the key to a senator's support of Israel was the senator's internationalism, rather than fear of Jewish constituents or dependence on financial contributions from Jewish sources, was straightforward. An index of internationalism was constructed by taking the percentage of prointernationalist votes cast by all senators during a six-year period (1977-1982) on relevant bills. From 1977 to 1982 data were available for financial campaign contributions along with constituency size. The roll call votes in question were those cast on all amendments of bills13 dealing with economic assistance to developing countries (other than Israel), contributions to international organizations, and issues of international human rights. The hypothesis would be considered to have been sustained if a senator's votes on such issues should prove a far better predictor of senatorial support for Israel than the size of Jewish constituency in the senator's state or the amount of money the senator received from Jewish and/or pro-Israel sources. The hypothesis would be considered rejected if senators who did not support such issues voted to support assistance to Israel. Two analyses are presented. First, the analysis of the effects of financial contributions and size of Jewish constituency on senatorial support of Israel. In this first analysis the index of internationalism is not included. 14

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The results of this analysis in a way repeats what we have already seen in the analyses of variance (see Table 3.3). The results show the coefficients are significant and very large and therefore predict that every percent increase in the explanatory variables of financial contributions and constituency size would be associated with very large increases in senatorial support. But we, of course, have argued all along that the model is underspecified and that the size of the coefficients is a result of colinearity with the really important factors that are missing from the model. In this regard one should consider it telling that in spite of the widely accepted argument, that it is Jewish votes and money that drive senatorial support, so large an amount of the variance remains unexplained. When we respecify the model, by introducing among the explanatory variables the degree of internationalism of senators voting on assistance to Israel, results suggest that this change is indeed critical.15 (See table 3.4.) Results of the analysis clearly support the hypothesis that it is an internationalist ideology, and only in a minor way the size of the Jewish constituencies or contributions from Jewish and pro-Israel sources, that is responsible for the support Israel receives in the U.S. Senate. Explained variance (R2) jumps dramatically from .22, in the previous analysis, to .65 in the second. Most important, the coefficients are all significant and reveal that the explanatory variable "internationalism" soaks up much of the illusory effect of financial contributions or size of constituencies 16

TABLE 3.3 Effects of Campaign Contributions from Jewish and/or pro-Israel Sources and Size of Jewish Constituencies on Senatorial Support of Israel Variable

Coefficient

Standard Error

Partial R

Constant In ($ + l)a % Jewish*

3 7.7 2.4* 5.5*

6.7 .66 1.20

.31 .37

R2 ln % 'p

a

b

= .22 Standard error = 25.9, N = 130. ($ + 1| = In (contribution from Jewish and/or pro-Israeli sources + 1). Jewish = percentage of senator's constituency that is Jewish. < .001, one-tailed.

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that we found in the results of the previous analysis. What the coefficient for financial contributions tells us is that increases in the size of such contributions bring only a small amount of increase in senatorial support. Clearly if you have 0 contribution, you should expect no increases in support. But a $5,000 contribution is estimated to bring only a 5.5 percent increase in support, and the maximum contributions received by less than a handful of senators can be expected to provide at the most only an increase in support of 10 percent. The effect of constituency size is larger but still very small. An increase in size of 1 percent of Jews in a senator's constituency is predicted to be associated with 1.8 percent increase in support of Israel. But 75 percent of all states have less than 1.6 percent Jews in their population, and in their case, the presence of Jews can make at the most a trivial difference of 2.9 percent in their senators' support of Israel. And only 7 states have Jewish constituencies ranging between 3 and 10 percent. Internationalism, on the other hand, is quite closely connected with propensities to support Israel. Indeed, every percentage point increase in the percentage of votes cast in favor of an internationalist position is estimated to be associated with one percentage increase of pro-Israel votes.17 And the degree of senators' internationalism ranges between 21 percent and 92 percent,18 a very large

TABLE 3.4 Effects of Degree of Internationalism, Campaign Contributions from Jewish and/or Pro-Israel Sources, and Size of Jewish Constituencies on Senatorial Support of Israel Variable

Coefficient

Constant In ($ + l) a % Jewish b % Internationalist 0

-5.4 .80* 1.85* 1.08*

Standard 5.6 .46 .88 .09

Error

Partial

.15 .18 .75

R 2 = .66, standard error = 17.2, N = 130. "In ($+1] = In (contributions from Jewish and/or pro Israeli sources+). b% Jewish = percentage of senator's constituency that is Jewish (on 0 - 1 0 0 scale). c % Internationalist = percentage of pro-internationalist votes cast. '.01 < p < .05, one-tailed. *p < .0001, one-tailed.

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difference compared with the very small differences attributable to the effects of campaign contributions and constituency size. All such evidence should dispose conclusively of the conventional wisdom that the Senate, and, indeed, Congress, support Israel the way they do because senators are frightened of Jewish retribution at the polls, or because they are dependent on financial support from Jewish or pro-Israeli sources. Conventional wisdom has turned reality upside down. The flow of influence moves the other way. Internationalist senators vote to help Israel, as they vote to help all countries they view as needing assistance. Jews share an internationalist ideology, and Jewish support in votes and moneys comes to senators who are internationalists. One footnote to our discussion is in order. Our internationalist index originally included two components. One was the internationalist index described earlier; the other component dealt with security concerns. The items included in that component were military support for other countries and also support for defense budget items. A security component seemed theoretically justified because security considerations were clearly preeminent in support for assistance to Israel by the executive branch. Surely the same motive was at least part of the reason for the strong support for assistance to Israel in Congress. The analysis, however, showed this was not the case. (See table 3.5.) The variable for security proved a bad predictor of senators who would (or would not) vote for Israel. It was a puzzle. We knew the executive to be moved to assist Israel for strategic reasons. Support for executive policies in Congress, however, was found among internationalists, and it was this coalition between a security-conscious executive and internationalists in Congress that has given Israel the clout it has had.

CONGRESSIONAL PARTIALITY FOR THE ISRAELI CAUSE

Congressional partiality toward Israel is said to be highlighted by the fact that while Congress has consistently opposed foreign aid to all countries, it has consistently backed assistance for Israel. But this is not entirely correct. To begin with, during the period from roughly 1948 to 1970, Congress did not particularly favor aid to Israel. Recall that under Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson, American help to Israel

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was not high, particularly in comparison with what the United States gave to other countries in those same years. U.S. aid to Israel began to rise in Nixon's first term, soared in the second term of the Nixon administration, and has continued at high levels ever since. Between 1970 and the present Congress has enthusiastically supported help for Israel while reducing the assistance that the executive branch has sought for other countries. Why?

Congress and Foreign Aid

Before attempting to explain congressional support for aid to Israel we must first understand congressional attitudes toward foreign aid in general. The evidence we shall present is from a study by M. Feuerwerger that deals with the House of Representatives. Given the evidence presented earlier regarding the Senate, we think the views expressed by House members would be shared by Congress as a whole. Why has Congress consistently opposed foreign aid, in general reducing it wherever possible? The answer is simple and straightforward. Congress has had the impression that assistance to

TABLE 3.5 Effects of Senatorial Internationalism, Security Concerns, Campaign Contributions, Size of Jewish Constituencies on Senatorial Support of Israel Variable Constant In ($ + l) a % Jewish b % International 1 % Security" 1

Coefficient -23.5 .85* 1.7* 1.2** .21*

Standard 13.5 .45 .85 .13 .12

Error

Partial

.19 .24 .65 .15

R 2 = .66, N = 130 "Log.($ + 1] = In. (Contributions form Jewish and/or pro-Israeli sources + 1.) b% Jewish = percentage of a senator's constituency that is Jewish. c(% Internationalist) = percentage of pro-internationalist votes cast. d(% security] = percentage of votes in favor of international military assistance. *.01 < p < .05, one-tailed **p < .0001, one-tailed

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the developing world has never worked and will not work. Congress believes that most such aid is wasted, leaving the recipients no better off than before because those who received it are simply not competent to make use of the resources given or loaned them. This is much less a statement about personalities—though Congress obviously knows that much of the aid, military as well as economic, has ended up in the bank accounts and posh real estate holdings of the leaders of developing countries—than it is a judgment about the capacity of a government. According to one California Republican: Foreign aid hasn't worked. We had a noble aim in foreign aid in the post-World War II period—rebuilding Europe. It worked. But in the 1950s, and 1960s we began pouring money into developing nations well beyond their capacity to absorb it, and the programs failed. Military assistance is not much better.19 A border state Democrat is quoted as saying: I feel the entire foreign aid program is waste. My aim would be to kill it and start it all over again. . . . I hate those striped-pants boys at the State Department . . . the waste is unbelievable. No, what we've got to do is rip it apart and start all over again.20 There is some reason to believe that the assistance given through the Marshall Plan to Europe and Japan actually made the sort of difference it was intended to make.21 But, with the exception of some selected programs, is there foundation to the belief that aid to developing countries has done much or any good at all? The peoples in the underdeveloped or developing world (on the average) did not seem to live longer, be less sick or more productive, fight better, and so on. One can argue about such views, objecting, perhaps, that the situation faced by recipients is so desperate that simply maintaining the status quo is itself a minor triumph. The fact that some countries appeared no better off after receiving aid does not prove that they would not have been much worse off without the aid. Be that as it may, the fact remains that many in Congress believe that foreign programs are a non-starter, and there is a good deal of evidence that this view is not entirely incorrect. 22

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Congress and Israel

Why, then, does Congress tend to be so supportive of aid to Israel? To begin with, for the period of time covered by the Feuerwerger study, substantial majorities in the House did appear to believe that, in the case of Israel, aid can indeed make a difference in the right direction. Let us be clear. The bulk of the aid Israel has received is military, and the differences this military aid has made have been clearly visible to all observers. Americans saw the superiority of their military technology displayed as Israeli pilots in U.S. planes shot Egyptian and Syrian pilots in Russian planes out of the skies. Moreover, America's leaders saw America's geopolitical position improved when Arab states complained that the Soviet equipment they received was inferior to the U.S. equipment in Israeli hands. In short, America got a worldwide demonstration of the fact that it paid to be on the American side.23 Regardless whether one agrees with this congressional assessment of the situation, what is important is that Congress has believed it to be true. One should note that Israel's economic performance has been nowhere near as "satisfactory" as its performance in combat. For a good part of the seventies and early eighties Israel's budgetary policies have been wildly inflationary and, in the past years of the period under review, Israel has had to ask the United States to bail it out. But Congress has shown considerable understanding of Israel's difficulties. One has the impression that Congress has seen Israel's economic problems as more the result of the fact that its economy is on a perennial war footing than the result of incompetence. 24 And though Israel's balance sheets leave much to be desired, Israelis have indeed managed to "make the deserts bloom," while there is none of the squalor, the hopelessness, the helplessness, and the social injustice so glaring in the rest of the developing world. Two illustrations of opinions in the House on this congressional perspective make the point: I favor aid to any country like Israel that pulls itself up by its own bootstraps. . . . The Jews are hardworking. . . . They came into Palestine and made it into a garden.25 This statement, quoted in Feuerwerger, is from a border-state Democrat who worked against a foreign aid bill, but still favored help to Israel. Or consider this statement by a southern Democrat:

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[Israel] is one of the few nations in the world that knows how to use foreign aid. We have tried so many programs in so many nations that have been woefully unsuccessful, but our programs in Israel have generally succeeded.26 The conclusion is obvious. Congress supports aid to Israel at least in part because it believes that, unlike aid to other developing countries, economic aid to Israel does at least some good for Israel's people while military aid does a lot of good for America's technological and power image.

Executive-Congressional Competition

Competition between Congress and the administration is another major source of conflict in the making of foreign policy. Chapter 1 noted that in foreign affairs, it is the president who finally holds the power, and that Congress plays a subordinate role. But Congress still gives its consent to presidential appointments and still holds the purse strings in debates over appropriations. One should bear in mind, however, that much of the wheeling and dealing of international politics takes the form of diplomatic activity conducted largely by the foreign-policy bureaucracy. Much of this activity is protected from congressional scrutiny and interference, at least when neither money nor appointments are involved. When the United States talks with the nations of the Middle East, the agents of diplomatic activity are the foreign policy bureaucracies or the members of the president's inner circle. Congress is kept informed of developments, but is not immediately involved. Still Congress cannot be treated as a spectator in matters where money is involved. Money decisions are in fact the one area in which Congress can enter the field of foreign policy: Whenever money is involved, Congress can exact a political price in exchange for giving its consent to presidential wishes. Money has, moreover, become increasingly important in U.S. foreign policy. The United States has increasingly adopted an interventionist foreign policy in the hope of changing or reinforcing balances of power in all regions of the world, and this has entailed a rapidly expanding transfer of resources from the United States to other countries. As a direct consequence, congressional influence on foreign policy has grown apace. This does not mean, as has often been said, that Congress sets

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the level of U.S. help to Israel. It should not be forgotten that it is the executive branch that initiates the drawing up of the budget, and it is only once the budget has been drawn up that Congress gets really dealt into the game. The case of assistance to Israel is no exception. On the other hand, it is undoubtedly true that Congress has found a number of ways to stretch the assistance the United States has given Israel. For example, Israel, along with a small number of other countries—Egypt, Greece, Somalia, Sudan and Turkey—has been permitted, during the time period covered by this study, to stretch the payment of loans over thirty years, with repayment of the principal to begin ten years after the loan was granted. Congress has also permitted Israel (as well as Egypt and Turkey) to contract for weapons and pay for them over the years needed to produce the arms rather than to set aside the entire amount of funds when the contract is signed as most other nations had to do. As a result, many more weapons can be purchased. In addition, Israel has been permitted to use a small fraction of U.S. assistance funds to buy directly from U.S. firms, and to spend a small fraction of U.S. assistance funds to purchase arms from Israel's own producers, rather than U.S. suppliers. Use of such weapons, however, also required U.S. approval. The most important way to stretch U.S. assistance has been U.S. forgiveness of loans. Between 1950 and 1973 no loans were forgiven.27 Between 1974 and 1983, 40.1% were forgiven. Since 1984, after the period of this study, all loans to Israel were, in effect, turned into grants.28 Even so, the debts contracted in the past are still a terrible burden. But it is important to keep in mind that both Congress and the administration played a role in easing Israel's burden. Congress was not the initiator of such easements but only improved on what the executive did. For example, when the administration in 1983 proposed to forgive $500 million of $1.7 billion worth of military sales, Congress increased the amount to $750 million. 29 And it has, over the years, increased appropriations for Israel more than it has reduced them. But the occasions when Congress has overriden the executive—the times when "Congress has had its will" as people in the foreign policy bureaucracy refer to those occasions when Congress revises upward requests for aid to the Israelis—are not all they seem. For one thing, during the period covered by this study, the aggregate increases have amounted to something between five and ten percent. 30 Moreover, on more than one occasion, realizing that

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Congress would demand more aid than the White House proposed, the latter requested less than it wanted, secure in the knowledge that Congress would find the request inadequate and correct it upward. Oftentimes, also, assistance to Israel is increased to balance transfer of resources to Arab states to avoid weakening Israel's position. One consequence of such maneuvers is the appearance that the president is responding to congressional pressure in giving aid, that the president seeks to keep a lid on such aid, and that Congress is bent on removing it. But there is more. In the foreign policy arena generally, Congress is chiefly a nay-sayer: From 1945 to the present day its mission is to restrain an interventionist bureaucracy, increasingly viewed as squandering resources in Utopian schemes aimed at bailing out hopeless foreign economies, shoring up disastrous military adventures, or pushing for enormously expensive defense schemes that impose unjustifiable sacrifices on their constituents. But the case of Israel, appears to be one of two (the other one is the Afghani guerillas) in which Congress has turned the tables on the executive, with the latter appearing, at least until the second term of the Reagan administration, as more of the nay-sayer despite the fact that it is the executive who initiates foreign-aid requests and that foreign aid to Israel is, first and last, an executive program. In the case of Israel, Congress plays a positive foreign policy role. Congress is in a perfect political position both before and after the executive makes its requests. It can demand that aid be increased, scolding bureaucrats and political appointees for dragging their feet, and, in so doing, claim political credit for supporting Israel, while savoring the pleasure of driving the bureaucracy to distraction. In sum, then, competition between the executive and legislative branches over the conduct of foreign affairs is an important source of pressure for congressional backing for Israel. There is yet another part to the explanation of congressional support for Israel. At least officially, Israel expresses effusive gratitude both to the United States as a whole and to Congress in particular for the help they receive even though there are political payoffs in Israel for those politicians who claim their independence of U.S. influence. Like other Lilliputians in the U.S. international order, Israel nourishes the fantasy of being autonomous. Mr. Begin, for example, got great political mileage out of his acts of insubordination and tirades against the United States. By and large, though, Israeli leadership seems to bend the knee to the United States whenever they

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have to. Of course, other recipients of substantial U.S. help are ready to do the same. However, many of the others are not exactly the kind of friends members of Congress can earn political capital bragging about. In the words of one interviewee, the situation with Israel is much the same as it was with Europe in the era of the Marshall Plan. The resources given appear to be put to good use, the recipients are appropriately grateful and appear, within the realm of the possible, committed to American interests. There remains one final component in the explanation of congressional support for aid to Israel. The majority of the members of Congress who choose to back Israel know in advance either that they can reap political profit from it or at least that there will be no political price to pay. They have not only the backing of American Jews (2.5 percent of the population) but that of majorities, or at least large pluralities, of the general public and elites alike. As one congressman put it: "You can make a lot of points with some audiences by being for Israel, but you can't make any points with anybody by being against Israel."31 The forces that shape the United States helping Israel are not the lobbying efforts of the Jewish community, though everyone appears to believe, falsely as I have argued, that they are. Answers, if any, are to be found elsewhere.

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a last point we must explore. We have referred, again and again, to the fact that in the U.S. government, both in the executive and in Congress, there was a predisposition to help Israel. This justification had two components. On the part of the executive, support was granted in large part because Israel was viewed as helping to stem the expansion of Soviet influence in the Middle East. Stopping the communist expansion has been the order of the day in U.S. foreign policy for over forty years. On Congress' part, if one relies on what the members of Congress say when asked, there has been the distinct attitude, for a long time, that Israel was the kind of country that should be helped, because Israelis did not waste resources and used well those they were given. Executive support was the critical element, however. Only when the executive began strongly favoring Israel did help rise and remain at high levels. But the source of the high-level, critical, political consensus that H E R E IS

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led the executive branch to favor help to Israel came from the same source as the widely held consensus that drove U.S. attempts to stop any expansion of Soviet influence anywhere. T o say that U.S. leaders decided as they did because they needed to stop Soviet attempts to expand their influence, or that the national interest demanded it, is to evade answering what we wish to know. In politics, decisions are taken because those in power want the results such decisions produce. If one changed the composition of the actors in ruling coalitions, the new decision makers might well decide "the national interest" required something altogether different than what their predecessors thought. In other words, the perception that a particular policy, foreign or domestic, is in the national interest, as the saying goes, is in the eye of the beholder. Thus, in order to answer the questions we have posed, we must first answer such questions as who is in power, how did they get there, and how did they manage to stay on? Answers to such questions shall give us clues to the reasons for policy directions. Such discussions, of course, aie about "domestic politics," but a set of "domestic politics" worlds apart from the lobbying efforts thought until now to be responsible for U.S. policy in the Arab-Israel dispute. In short we have been looking for domestic influences on U.S. policy of assistance to Israel in the wrong places. George Kennan, writing in 1976, put the question as follows: [T]he image of the Soviet Union as primarily a military challenge was now widely accepted. And for reasons that warrant more scholarly investigation than they have received, ihe resulting fixation acquired a curious hypnotic power over the professional political community. A certain show of bristling vigilance in the face of a supposed external clanger seems to have an indispensable place in the American political personality; and for this in the early 1950s, with Hitler now out of the way, the exaggerated image of the menacing Kremlin, thirsting and plotting for world domination, came in handy. There was, in any case, not a single administration in Washington, from that of Harry Truman on down, which, confronted with the charge of being "soft on communism," however meaningless the phrase or weak the evidence, would not run for cover and take protective action. There is, also, a second critical question that demands an answer. Why did assistance escalate at the time it did? The suggestion I made earlier (see chapter 1), that the U.S. leaders had become convinced

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that Israel could fight and, therefore, is the kind of client state one would be smart to back, does not really address the timing issue. A major effort will be made to phrase such hypotheses in as empirically testable a form as possible, but the tests themselves are part of a future research agenda. The tale we are about to tell in answer to both questions we have posed is, as it always is in all fundamental changes in foreign policy directions, a story of bitter struggles among elites fighting over resources.

THE SOURCE OF THE INTERVENTIONIST POLITICAL CONSENSUS The First Fifty Years: Isolationists Win

The first hypothesis is really the more important of the two. The roots of the experience that was to generate (after World War II) the predisposition of U.S. elites to become entangled politically and militarily by helping allies went back a long way, to the end of the 19th century, to the bitter, relentless, protracted strife among American elites as to whether the United States should build a colonial empire, make large investments to build up its military forces, and/or join in security arrangements with other countries. At that time the idea was rejected. There was to be no empire, no political entanglements and no investments in military forces. The internationalist/ interventionist elites favoring political expansion and large military investments lost. From the first there was unanimity, however, in favor of U.S. economic expansion, believed a requirement for continued growth at home. The American sense of international order would be based on economic ties without the distasteful political and military components of empire and international security arrangements. Force was to be used, as America had always done, in self-defense or in defense of American economic interests abroad. After the interruption in World War I of the policy of military and political noncommitment, the isolationist elites seized control and kept it until World War II. Inevitably they lost their hold on American foreign affairs once again during the war. After that war the fight over political alliances and military investment began anew and the outcome was reversed.

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The Second Fifty Years: The Fear of Isolationism

World War II, like World War I before it, was a moment when the internationalists controlled the levers of economic and political power in American foreign affairs. As before the war, there was a consensus among U.S. leaders that economic expansion should be continued, and American leaders made this very plain. 2 There was no consensus, however, on the nature and levels of military or political commitments. The period after the war began in fear of the isolationist past. Would that past be repeated? Would the United States again withdraw from active political participation in world affairs or would it, this time, assume the political and economic burdens of the leader of the free world? In 1945, this meant the entire world except the Soviet Union and the six countries of Eastern Europe. For the leaders of that epoch, it was not at all certain that the United States would not choose to retreat again into political isolation. We now know that the fears of a return to the isolationism of the prewar period were to prove as chimeric as the concurrent fears of a postwar return of economic depression and unemployment. To a major sector of the elites, those who had been recruited to guide the United States through the war, the idea of American retreat was frightening. Their concern was for their nation and for peace, to be sure, but it was also, perhaps, more personal. They were now the recognized leaders of the world. They had managed the war, the peace, allies, a prostrate world, and were governing the defeated populations. World adulation irradiated them. Americans knew the answers; Americans were omnipotent; American know-how was best; Americans alone decided where they could go; Americans were welcome anytime, anywhere; and American passports opened all doors. No need to ask permission of the host country before one came. Mi casa es su casa. It was a heady period. But what of the future? Would all this disappear? Would isolationism reassert itself? As noted, the evidence was unclear,- some international commitments had been made as the war wound down. Some things were retried. A modified political league, the United Nations, was put in place, and this time, the United States joined the organization. Along with the other combatants, the United States also accepted the responsibility of occupying vanquished Germany, and it insisted that U.S. forces alone were to occupy Japan. The United States launched the Marshall Plan not only to help European powers recover, but to

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achieve aims that were political as well as economic. The infusion of economic resources were intended to help the exhausted political economies of Europe resist attacks from the communist and other left-wing parties against the established governments. The United States was far more powerful in 1945 than it had been in 1918. America's allies were visibly weaker, exhausted by six years of fighting, their political empires beginning to crumble. Most important, the American popular mood appeared to be receptive to an active political role by the United States in international affairs to match the crushing economic preeminence of the United States. On the other side of the ledger, the military occupation of defeated nations were limited commitments. Even the Marshall Plan was not conclusive evidence of a fundamental political commitment to Europe and world security. Economic help had always been the American tradition even in periods of isolationism. Moreover, unless Western Europe recovered in the immediate future, there would be no markets for American products and American capital. Above all, after World War II, the military forces had been largely disbanded, and military budgets slashed from $280 billion in 1946, to $80 billion in 1948. The internationalists were split. A sector of the elites with a substantial and articulate following was arguing that a lasting peace could result only from negotiation and accommodation with the Soviets; extensive alliances and a buildup of military power were not essential, indeed might prove counterproductive. After all, if the superpowers agreed, who would dare to disturb their peace? The UN had been built on that assumption.

The Issues and the Options

One must resist the temptation to rely on hindsight and believe that the U.S. assumption of world leadership, as we have come to know it today, was inevitable. Clearly, critical divisions existed among U.S. elites immediately after World War II. There were great uncertainties in two key areas: international political commitments and investment in military power. The fight over these two issues was intertwined with the issue of United States—Soviet relations. The United States was by far the most powerful nation in the world. It simply towered over every other nation in socioeconomic terms. Though sharply reduced, U.S. military might was still considerable. It was the only nuclear power, and its conventional mil-

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itary capabilities could always be rebuilt. The world remembered well her role as the arsenal for the Allies in World War II. Almost every nation in the industrial world, particularly the non-communist world, was dependent on the United States for economic help, for markets, and for support. It also towered over the Soviet Union. U.S. economic resources, a key determinant of international power, were four times those of the Soviet Union. 3 The USSR was unquestionably the second in power in the world. Along with its Eastern European satellites it was the only country not open to penetration by American economic power,- it had a considerable military arsenal, and was insulated from American pressures. International peace and stability, therefore, was possible in only two ways: Either by American-Soviet condominium through Soviet-American agreement; or, if that was not desirable or possible, by American containment of the Soviet Union. Immediately after World War II, Soviet actions alarmed and agitated all those interested in American foreign affairs of the period. Imposing Soviet control over each Eastern European country, they liberated East Germany, crushed resistance within Poland, they subverted the quasi-free government of Czechoslovakia, sought to expel the allies from Berlin in 1948 and supported willy-nilly the Yugoslav position over Trieste. They also permitted the newly established communist governments of Eastern Europe to support the guerrilla movement in Greece. Such difficulties were responsible for the initial souring of Soviet-American relations. 4 From the standpoint of the U.S. world political strategy, how was one to interpret such events? Were they signs that the Soviets were expanding their influence and searching for the right moment and the right place to attack us or our closest friends and topple the U.S. international order? Or were the Soviets actually acting defensively and consolidating their perimeter, by creating their own sphere of influence and conceding us ours?

The Major Coalitions: Maximalists, Minimalists, and Utopian/Idealists

Was agreement with the Russians in regard to peace and security achievable? The official response was to be bitterly fought over for a number of years. Two major struggles were carried on among three major coalitions of elites: First, a civilian elite in positions of re-

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sponsibility for foreign affairs, and lodged in the public, educational and private sectors, saw the Soviet Union's deepening control of Eastern Europe and refusal to cooperate with the West on the new political organization of the world as very threatening and worrisome. These elites wished to face down the Russians and stop them. But this coalition of elites was itself divided into two groups. We shall call them maximalists and minimalists. 5 These two groups disagreed on the scope and nature of the Soviet threat and, even more profoundly, disagreed on how to meet this threat. The maximalists pushed for a major investment in military might and political alliances to contain the Soviet Union. (They were the direct descendants of the leaders who backed a policy of political expansion early in the century and had been defeated.) The minimalists, as their designation implies, wished to minimize U.S. political and military investments. Examined up close, policy decisions are always struggles among groups of elites over the mobilization, control and disposition of resources. In the tug-of-war between maximalists and minimalists, the overt issue was the size and type of resources that the United States would invest in creating its new international order, an issue that was also inextricably connected to the matter of who would control the resources in question. This second question was, perhaps, even more important, to some of the participants, than the first: If resources were large, major political, economic, and military investments, they would need to be generated, controlled, and dispensed by a different elite than if the resources to be invested were small. A small investment would be controlled by those who directed the diplomacy of the nation, but a large investment would be controlled by a much wider group of politico-military and economic leaders. The third and opposing coalition was composed of elites I have called Utopian/idealists. These terms simply refer to the views of certain leadership echelons who depended heavily on the hope that after a terrible war, leaders wish for peace above all else, and would sacrifice not only their own, but their country's immediate interests as well to gain the friendship and goodwill of those in power in other countries. They also believed that countries considered adversaries could be influenced by reasoning and reassuring behavior on our part. They perceived the major problem as rigidity and overreaction on the part of the U.S. leadership, in which the United States helped make agreement and peace impossible by fueling the Soviet Union's deep suspicions and fears that Western moves were intended to iso-

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late them and bring them to heel. It was their view that the Soviets were difficult to deal with, to be sure. But that was understandable, given their experience with foreign invaders, particularly Germans, who had cost their nations more than 45 million lives in the last two world wars.6 What was needed, they assumed, was reassurance that collaboration with the United States and the West would not place the Soviet Union at increased peril. Once reassured of the peaceful nature of the West's intentions, the Russians could be brought around to cooperate with the United States. Peace and security could thus be achieved by negotiation if the United States would go halfway in meeting legitimate Russian concerns. Therefore, to arm and to forge military alliances against the Soviet Union was the wrong way to go.7 Henry Wallace led this coalition. The coalitions were fluid. Minimalists and maximalists, particularly, moved back and forth as new events unfolded and new issues arose. It was not unusual—indeed it was quite frequent—for an individual to have a foot in both camps. For instance, the newly created Defense Department was pretty much in the minimalist coalition. The military were fiscal conservatives, and the Joint Chiefs wanted military commitments scaled down to the level of military resources. But this very position moved them to favor building up the German military and integrating it in the NATO defense structure, a maximalist position. Another example was President Harry Truman, who clearly took a minimalist position on defense out of concern that high defense expenditures would result in inflation but who, on the other hand, was highly suspicious of Soviet expansionist intentions and whose estimates of Soviet aims put him in the maximalist camp.

The Preferences of the Actors

Each of the coalitions presented a different view of what was to be done. I have already noted the utopian/idealists' position. The minimalists took the position that it was necessary to contain the Russians, who would be impervious to blandishments and idealistic calls for cooperation,- so such an approach, the minimalists argued, would be wasted effort. Soviet leaders would place the concrete interests of the Soviet Union over ideology. Negotiation would be possible only on concrete issues where the interests of both the United States and the USSR intersected. The moves toward containment would

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consist of strengthening the industrial economies of Western Europe and Japan, as the United States was doing in the Marshall Plan, and enabling these nations themselves to resist communist penetration and attack, and pursuing policies that would separate the communist countries from the Soviet Union. Tito had defied and broken with the Soviet Union. And though China had fallen to the communists, the USSR and China would find it difficult to maintain good relations. U.S. diplomacy should do what it could to separate them. The United States, according to the minimalist view, should also favor a broad distribution of power in the world, since such diversity would help in keeping Russian designs in check. Claims that the Soviet Union was preparing to expand had not borne out. They did not attack Tito when he defected, nor did they help the Chinese communists—indeed, they counseled the Chinese leadership against the communist takeover in China. The minimalists argued that one should respond directly and in kind only when vital interests were affected. To respond in kind to every aggressive act of the Soviet Union would give the adversary all initiative and choice as to where and when to engage American security resources. Most important, minimalists thought that further Soviet expansion, particularly in Western Europe, was only a very remote possibility and that any large-scale military preparation for such an eventuality would be both unnecessary and, most likely, counterproductive. The maximalists took the opposite position. They agreed with the minimalists that the Soviet Union had to be contained, but containment for the maximalists had a very different meaning. The USSR was assumed to be militarily an expansionist power. This had to be the starting point for all American security strategy. The installation of a satellite system in Eastern Europe was a harbinger of things to come, they argued. The Russians were building up their strength. True, the USSR was weaker now, Soviet GNP was one quarter of that of the United States, and the Soviet Union was behind in industrial production, but their higher rate of investment in industry and armaments, particularly atomic power, made it inevitable that the USSR would overtake the United States in military power in the immediate future. There could be no question as to the Russians' aggressive intentions,- their own ideology mandated it and was an excellent source of information on what they wished to do. It should also not be forgotten, the maximalists claimed, that the Soviet Union also had all the advantages a dictatorial system gave an

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aggressor.8 When the USSR did pass the United States in military power, as the maximalists predicted would happen, when their resources were sufficient for any attack to have a chance of success, the United States would be in great danger. The USSR had to be confronted and contained; encroachments anywhere had to be resisted. The United States should do no less than needed to beat the Russians back wherever or whenever they attacked, otherwise, American intent to resist would lose credibility and our friends would begin to desert.9 Most important of all, maximalist leaders directly attacked the problem of the gap between available resources and the need for a major investment in military might. This, it will be recalled, was a major reason for the minimalists to push for restraint. The maximalists opened up a Pandora's box, claiming that there could be plenty for both guns and butter. Their prescription had been part of Keynesian economics for over a decade: Don't reduce investment; expand the pool of available resources by stimulating the economy. They had borrowed that idea from the Council of Economic Advisers that had used the argument for the financing of domestic programs, and it had been one of the commandments of state builders since the beginning of the nation-state: Build up the economic wealth of your nation in order to sustain increased military expenditures. The maximalists won the debate and their advice was followed; the U.S. economy was stimulated, and defense spending grew to the desired levels. And it has continued. The economy has grown and grown and the costs of defense and of the international order have kept apace. The welfare and the warfare state became one. Both camps were basing a good deal of their arguments on the slimmest of evidence. Neither camp possessed hard evidence whether the Soviet Union intended to expand; yet, they reached firmly opposite conclusions. It should be noted that the bits of hard evidence on capabilities that were available supported the minimalist and contradicted the maximalist view. Intelligence throughout this period indicated that the Soviet Union had no current plans and was making no preparation to attack.

The Maximalists Win

The struggle among these three groups raged between 1945 and 1950. In the first eighteen months after the war, the Utopians seem to have

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held the high ground in the battle. Their early standing can be easily understood in view of their message—and that of their opponents— to a nation and a world weary of war. The realist coalition (maximalists and minimalists) began its rally with the famous reply that George Kennan, then in Moscow, gave to an inquiry from Washington as to why the Russians were acting with such "inexplicable" hostility toward American calls for cooperation. His answer became the core of the minimalists' thesis, and it was primarily his views presented here that constituted the minimalist program. Kennan's message to his superiors was the first major reasoned statement of the entire realist group, when he asserted that the present policy of the United States, with its vague generalities and idealistic calls, would not work. A much tougher stand was required, one that aimed at containing the Russians. His views were widely circulated and immediately adopted, their acceptance catapulting the author to prominence. Kennan reports to have been surprised by his success. Why, after having been ignored for so long, were his views so instantly accepted? "If none of my previous literary efforts had seemed to evoke even the faintest tinkle from the bell at which they were aimed . . . this one, to my astonishment, struck it squarely and set it vibrating with a resonance that was not to die down for many months." 10 In retrospect, the answer appears plain. Immediately after the war, when the horrors were still fresh in mind and the desires of all were that the horrors should not be repeated, international cooperation was a popular promise. In such circumstances, the realists' critique was not immediately credible among American leaders and masses. However, when international cooperation seemed to be more difficult to achieve than had been expected and the Russians acted with what the government interpreted as hostility, Kennan provided a timely explanation for what had otherwise appeared inexplicable. The explanation matched the views of the realist coalition, and the coalition had found in Kennan someone to articulate a major part of their view. The Kennan telegram was the legitimization of the realist position, explaining that the Soviet Union acted as it did because it was a ruthless, dictatorial system, impervious to the idealistic goals of the West. It permitted the realist camp to make a stand. N o wonder Kennan's view was immediately adopted, interpreted and expanded upon to serve his captors' needs.11 The election of 1948, when Truman defeated Dewey and Wallace, marked the turning point in the three-way battle on foreign policy.

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Henry Wallace was defeated. The electorate refused to accept the view that the United States was responsible—even in part—for helping create tensions; it was the other side who was at fault. The election made it clear that, at least in the electoral arena, there was little or no support for the position that a more understanding posture on the part of the United States toward Soviet feelings of insecurity would have the eventual result of seeing the USSR beginning to trust us and collaborate with us in creating a new structure for peace. There would be no acquiescing in (and certainly no approval of) the actions of the USSR in Eastern Europe, no extending aid to the Soviet Union or bending over backwards to reassure the USSR of our good intentions. The end of the road for the Utopians also marked the beginning of the end for the minimalist faction of the realist coalition. The political climate had changed visibly. Given what appeared at the time as a string of major victories for the Russians (the fall of China; the Soviet explosion of a hydrogen bomb; the clamorous trial and conviction of Alger Hiss, a member of the foreign policy establishment, for espionage), the idea of containment, minimalist style, with economic help, patient lengthy negotiation and restrained action, lost its credibility with an impatient public and an even more impatient leadership. After 1948, the political climate had become increasingly hostile to arguments about security that questioned the assumption that the Soviet Union was a military expansionist power, or that challenged the notion that all other communist powers were Soviet satellites mindlessly doing Stalin's bidding. The stage was set for high ideological drama with Senator Joseph McCarthy playing the leading role. Soviet excesses did not need to be proven; communist "successes" could only result from Americans betraying their country. In the ensuing terror, minimalists were forced onto the defensive for not being tough enough on communism. Assessments of the Russian threat were extremely effective in creating the climate necessary for the triumph of the maximalist view. There is no reason to doubt that the claims, in a general way, were believed by those who made them. Such estimates of the danger from Soviet intentions were reinforced by the pleas of a stream of European leaders frightened of Russian behavior and intentions and pleading for U.S. commitments to help. But there is no doubt also that it did not escape the maximalist leaders that, given the gaps in good intelligence, preparing for the worst would achieve a

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double purpose: On the one hand, expecting the worst has always been considered prudent policy; while the subsequent paranoia would, on the other, make the nation more willing to pay for the arms and the international political order led by the United States and directed by the foreign policy elites. This worst-case scenario approach would be used time and again in future years by those who wanted to insure the United States' active involvement in world affairs, through the development and preservation of the American international order. In speaking of the policy paper that prepared the way for the adoption of the maximalist views as official policy and urged an American military buildup (the famous NSC/68), Dean Acheson commented, "The purpose of NSC/68 . . . was to so bludgeon the mass mind of 'top government' that not only could the President make a decision but that the decision could be carried out." 12 Without such bludgeoning, the portion of the top government (and the many elites at all levels across this country) that did not agree might not consent to commit the resources necessary for the United States to continue as the unquestioned world leader—or, at least for the time being, as the leader of the free world. This world view was to influence strongly at all levels elite thinking throughout the country. It took advantage of predispositions imbedded in the political culture, creating the foreign policy culture that still operates today. NSC/68 relegated the negotiation for a settlement of fundamental foreign policy differences to a time when the Soviet system had changed—in effect, it ruled out negotiation for any other purpose than capitulation. Negotiation for fundamental settlements could be possible only in the distant future. In the foreseeable future negotiations would only demonstrate Soviet intransigence and serve, therefore, to legitimize the arms buildup the maximalists were seeking.13 Two events stand out as having tipped the scale decisively in favor of giving the maximalists control of the field. One was the decimation of those policy makers in and out of government who disagreed with certain maximalist premises—the politico-military buildup of Western Europe, the division of Germany, the view of the Chinese communists as stooges of Moscow, the vision of international communism as a Russian plot. One could go on and on. The decimation was led by Senator McCarthy of Wisconsin and Parnell Thomas of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. The former was to die of alcoholism,- the other eventually went to jail for fraud. Had the views of their victims prevailed, American

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involvement in the operation of the international system may well have developed along different lines: more negotiations, less politico-military commitment, less expectations, perhaps. We shall never know. McCarthyism is now viewed as a vulgar, know-nothing populist movement, and one supposes it was. But it successfully intimidated those who disagreed with the maximalist view, hounding some opponents into retirement, others into exile, and still others into isolation. The maximalists stood by and saw their opponents being destroyed. But then McCarthy, careening across the political landscape, overstepped his bounds by attacking the Army, one of the very instruments the maximalist elites wanted to reinforce. After that, the days of McCarthyism were numbered. By the time the movement was stopped, however, the opponents to politico-military commitments had been eradicated from both policy making or advisory positions in government. They have never been allowed back. So, one reason why the fundamental approach of American policy to build up U.S. defenses and help with arms and economic resources those willing to fight Soviet allies has been questioned only at the margins, and why the fundamental assumptions of that policy have been left untouched, is that those who disagreed with them were no longer present in visible positions in sufficient numbers to be heard. When they surfaced, they were beaten back or co-opted. It is because of this that the original generation of leaders have been able to ensure that the next generation of leaders would "keep the faith." The second event that established the preeminence of the maximalists was North Korea's invasion of South Korea. It was taken as a matter of course that the North Koreans had done this at the instigation of the Russians. This, in turn, was interpreted as a clearcut demonstration of Soviet intentions. They were trying to expand, and they had to be resisted. They did not understand anything but force, and unless the aggressors were taught a lesson, there eventually would have to be a world war to stop them. America had to resist the attack, because it was the only nation in a position to do so. Not to resist would signify appeasement and everyone knew where that would lead—witness Chamberlain at Munich. The Korean War, then, proved the maximalists right, dissolving the hesitation of the fiscal conservatives concerned with vastly expanded defense expenditures. Perhaps the maximalists would have won even if the Korean War had not occurred, perhaps not. But their victory was made easier with Russian and North Korean help.

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Maximalists within the American foreign policy community had found the way to mobilize America for world leadership. In order to have the American people willing to make such sacrifices, one had to have an acceptable and accepted reason, one of proven efficacy: a call to sacrifice in a situation of clear and present danger. Elites everywhere have known and used this powerful device: the English, the Russians, and the Americans in World War II, the North Vietnamese, the Israelis, and the Mujahdin in Afghanistan—the list is endless. But normally, these appeals are successful only in the midst of war, where no one has to demonstrate that the danger is clear and real. In the case of the United States discussed here, the call was issued in times of peace and great security. Nevertheless, its advocates managed to turn it into the single most important issue on the foreign policy agenda. The specifics have changed, but the fear of communist expansion has remained the most important item on the agenda dealing with the security of this nation almost to this day. 14 Again, part of the resources were to support those whose fights were congruent with the U.S. vision of international order. The important result of the struggle over U.S. foreign policy is plain to see. In the first half of this century, the model that would best account for U.S. behavior in foreign affairs was as follows: American Foreign Policy = Diplomatic Support of Economic Expansion + Humanitarian/Economic help (no Military or Political Overhead Costs). After World War II the model explaining American foreign policy changed radically. Now, American Foreign Policy = Diplomatic Support of Economic Expansion + International Humanitarian/Economic help + Expansion of Political Commitments + Major Investments in Military Power. Whenever possible major security investments would make it possible for U.S. elites to deal from strength with the Soviet Union, or its clients. If one is called to judge the competence of a political elite, an important aspect of their performance for the last forty years is their capacity to mobilize, control, and dispense resources. Of course, capacity is not the only factor, and "capacity for what?" is itself an important question. Nevertheless capacity alone is a critical criterion, and from this narrow point of view, the performance of the

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maximalist elites—the "hawks" as they are sometimes called—their success in mobilizing resources, keeping control, and socializing their successors in their own beliefs, is a major achievement—regardless of what one feels about their vision of the world.

THE TIMING OF U.S. ASSISTANCE TO ISRAEL

Let us now turn to the second question raised at the beginning of this chapter. Why is it that the United States changed its mind in relation to Israel at the point it did? Why is it that President Nixon and Henry Kissinger were finally persuaded in Nixon's second term that Israel should become a member of the set of countries the United States was willing to help but, in Nixon's first term, had rendered assistance unwillingly and at the relatively low level of previous administrations? Our earlier answer to this question was that assistance to Israel began when the United States had become convinced that Israel's adversaries were Soviet clients and, very importantly, that Israel could fight and was therefore a useful client to have in the Middle East. Israel's military prowess was, clearly, an essential component of the explanation but insufficient as a reason why help was extended when it was. After all, the U.S. defense leaders had had the opportunity to observe Israel defeat its opponents in three wars. There had been the war of 1948. In that war U.S. leaders had been seriously worried that the United States would be put under pressure to send U.S. troops to protect Israel from her Arab neighbors. That was one of the reasons so many U.S. leaders gave when they opposed any solution that was objected to by the Arab side. There were also the wars of 1956 and 1967; both produced quick and clamorous Israeli victories. U.S. intelligence had probably begun tracking Israel's military capability after the war of 1956. Clearly U.S. defense officials had a large amount of evidence of how Israel would perform in the field of battle, even before 1967. One telling example of how much the U.S. Defense Chiefs really knew was the fact that, when asked by President Johnson, just before the initiation of hostilities in 1967, what would happen if war broke out, the Chiefs forecast to the day how long it would take for the Israelis to defeat the Arab forces. One can come to no other conclusion than that the U.S. Chiefs of Staff knew every detail of Israel's capability even before the 1967 war. Yet it took the United States years to respond effectively to

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Western European and Warsaw Pact help to the front line Arab states. Moreover the U.S. decision to help Israel came at the nadir of the performance of Israel's military capabilities, in the midst of the Yom Kippur War of 1973 when Syrians and Egyptians were giving the Israelis some very bad moments, even though Israel ultimately crushed them both. If military power had been the sole criterion, the period to have done so was before 1973 when Israel's military position was thought by all concerned to be invulnerable. To decide to help when Israel had stumbled would appear puzzling. The factors affecting the timing of the decision of U.S. leaders can be gleaned from a brief history of events preceding the conflict. Some of these events should be familiar. In the fifties and sixties U.S. policy in the Middle East, as well as everywhere else, had been to mobilize support against feared Soviet expansion in the form of regional pro-Western defense pacts. The attempt to persuade Arab states to join in security arrangements with the United States was at its height in the Eisenhower tenure, continued through the Sixties, and failed because of competition between Western powers, profound anticolonial feelings of Arab elites, and, most importantly, the bitter internecine struggles among leaders of Arab states. In any event, the radical Arab states could not be convinced to side with the United States in its competition with the Soviet Union. Indeed, some were successful in playing one great power against the other. Nixon and Kissinger abandoned this policy and developed another way. The essence of the policy the U.S. leaders succeeded in initiating was to maneuver the Arab states into siding with the United States for protection against Israel. What made this possible, of course, was the fact that if Israel defeated her Arab adversaries the Arab leaders had to face the reality that massive Soviet support was still insufficient to protect them in their confrontation with Israel. The only country that could protect them was the United States, because only the United States could "restrain Israel," or have Israel return Arab territories lost in Arab-Israeli wars. It was power politics based on a very different appreciation of the forces that would shape the Middle East. The politics in the executive branch decided to a large extent the timing for the new policies toward the Mideast. The initiators of the policy, President Nixon and Henry Kissinger, did not turn to the Middle East until the end of Nixon's first term. Before that time the White House was totally absorbed in extricating the United States from Vietnam. Moreover, the President had assigned chief respon-

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sibility for the Middle East to the Department of State, and Secretary of State Rodgers, an old friend of the President, jealously guarded his responsibilities. Rodgers' repeated failures in his initiatives to reduce mounting dangers in the crisis assured his departure. Finally the White House took over and changed direction. It was their good fortune that this takeover coincided with President Sadat's decision to shift Egypt to the American side to get his territory back. Sadat's move proved there were major political gains for a policy supporting Israel.

CONCLUSION

Kennan's query as to why the American elite regarded the Russian threat as "primarily a military challenge," why the resulting "fixation acquiring a curious hypnotic power over the professional political community," can now be answered. The view that the USSR was a military threat was a major political resource for those in the elite ready to commit to a major investment in military defense and political commitments. The nature of the threat had to be military. Given the American belief system, a political and ideological threat by itself would not have justified the huge overhead costs that the establishment and maintenance of the American international order required. Were the military threat not there, the American military and political investment might not have been approved and several trillions in costs for the maintenance of the American international order would never have been incurred. Control of American international affairs would be in different hands, possibly in the hands of the elites who fought for control and lost after World War II, possibly in the hands of isolationist elites who had been in control before World War II. It might have been a different world. I have presented some hypotheses as to how the political environment was established out of which a clear predisposition of the U.S. government to help Israel was born and has been supported to the present time. And the source for it all has been the deep-seated commitment of the United States to stem the expansion of Soviet influence. These political and military investments had been the bone of contention among U.S. leaders from the beginning of the 20th century. Those who proposed them had been defeated over and again until World War II. After World War II the battle had been joined again, and the results had been reversed. The platform on which the

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new politico-economic elite, who was to direct U.S. foreign policy for the next fifty years, won power was simple. There would be guns and butter; our allies would be put back on their economic and military feet. The United States would become again, as in the World War, the arsenal of democracy. The resources made available for security investments would make it possible for the United States to negotiate only from strength with the USSR and her allies. Israel would enable the United States to deal from strength with Soviet clients in the Middle East. In the Middle East the moment came when President Sadat decided to come to the U.S. side, and President Nixon and Kissinger, having extricated the country from Vietnam, were ready to seize the opportunity. A new political consensus on the Mideast policy was put in place. Let us now see how U.S. leaders' vision played itself out in the international arena and in the Mideast.

THE EXTERNAL SCENE

INTRODUCTION

I

part 2 at the point we left off in the first part. The efforts of the Jewish community may have eased the burden of the political costs the government paid in helping Israel, and had these efforts stopped, with the international scene unchanged, the political costs any administration would have paid in giving Israel assistance would have risen and might even have risen dramatically; the level of assistance, however, would have changed very little if at all. Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, U.S. leaders were not strong-armed into helping Israel. Rather, they followed a vision of world order developed in the massive shift from U.S. isolationism to containment of Soviet influence everywhere possible. The Mideast was a critical arena wherein the policy of containment was to be played out. There would be three U.S. strategic goals: 1. The United States must prevent any expansion of Soviet inSHALL BEGIN

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fluence. This was by far the most important. One should note in passing that it was never really clear what U.S. leaders feared would happen in the Middle East if Soviet influence had expanded: Would Arab governments under Soviet influence cut off our access to oil? Would the USSR have used an increase of her influence in the region to have Arabs raise their oil prices and threaten Western economies even more than Arab governments, while allied with the United States, had done when they had the chance? Would the Soviets move troops pellmell? One could go on and on. Perhaps a considered answer to all these questions would be "yes." Perhaps U.S. fears were greatly exaggerated. It is hard to prove one way or the other. Readers will have views of their own and will come to their own conclusions. 2. Access to Mideast oil supplies must be preserved. 3. Stability must be maintained, but only if goals 1 and 2 were being achieved. After considerable debate U.S. leaders concluded that Israel could become an asset in U.S. strategy. How did aid to Israel fit with U.S. leaders' critical goals in the region? A more complete answer to this question must lie in an examination of the strategic environment in the Middle East. Critical to our satisfying this fundamental interest is the overall picture of American military and economic transfers of resources to other nations. Also key information, if one is to interpret the history of American assistance to Israel, is how much military and economic assistance Middle East states have received from other quarters and particularly from the Soviet Union. In light of Israel's conflict-ridden history, it is important to find out how much assistance Israel's opponents, particularly the front line Arab states, have received from the Soviet Union, Eastern and Western Europe, and from the United States itself. Such transfers permit us to see whether U.S. help to Israel is a special case (as it is alleged to be) or whether it is part of some wider pattern in American foreign affairs. These facts may give us some idea of what, if anything, the United States is getting for its money. Why has U.S. assistance escalated, and can the United States control Israeli behavior? Or is it true, as is often alleged, that Israel does as it pleases whenever it chooses?

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THE ACTORS AND THEIR CONCERNS

Before launching on our exploration of the international environment it may be useful for the reader, long interested in U.S. foreign policy but new to the Middle East, to have some pzecis on actors and foreign policies in the Middle East. At first reading of the extensive record of international dealings in the region, every participant appears to have exploited every other, mistrusted every other, and weighed each conflict differently, never readily revealing the true sources of its fears or the real targets of its anger.1 Experts attuned to the codes used by the elites in the Middle East to signal each other about changes in their preferences and positions argue endlessly about the "real meaning" of events in the region. It was customary to think of the Arab-Israeli conflict as the only major source of strife in the Middle East, at least until the beginning of the IranIraq war, but from the nineteen-forties to the eighties there have been at least four major conflicts in the Middle East. In addition to the Arab—Israeli conflict, there has been the tension between moderate and radical Arab states, there has been the tension between fundamentalist and nonfundamentalist forces that was focused for a decade on the struggle between Iran and Iraq (and both of these are potentially the most destabilizing), there has been the bitter struggle among the radical elites for control, and, finally, there has been the struggle between the United States and the USSR: the USSR seeking an important role in the Middle East, and the United States seeking to shut it out. Each conflict has affected and exacerbated the other three, but it is incorrect to assume that a solution to one would have made solutions to the others easier. Certainly, if ArabIsraeli strife had been resolved, the other three conflicts would have continued. It is even possible that they would have worsened. There have been six sets of major actors in these conflicts: the two superpowers; the moderate Arab states, all American allies and, with the exception of Egypt, all autocratic and for the most part feudal systems; Israel, the most socially and politico-economically advanced and the most militarily powerful nation in the region; the radical regimes, all Russian allies except for Iran, which is a bitter foe of both superpowers; and the Palestinians, until recently entirely dependent on the radical Arab regimes and the Soviet Union, but now shifting to the side of the United States. There are many supporting actors but these are the principals.

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1. The Moderate Arab States. "Moderate" in the Mideast does not mean temperate or restrained but antiradical, dependent on America for security, and, perhaps, also, less anti-Israel. The "moderate" countries are the feudal, rickety principalities in the Persian Gulf, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and, in North Africa, Egypt,2 Tunisia and Morocco. The critical concern of feudal monarchs is the radical Arab regimes, for the radicalism of their neighbors may prove contagious. 3 Second and third on the scale of their worries have been probably the superpower rivalry in the region and the quarrel with Israel. The United States has been, from the first, the major supporter of moderate Arab states. Incredibly, the other source of support for Arab moderates has been the state of Israel itself. Particularly because it carried U.S. backing, Israeli military power has helped restrain radical Arab regimes that might otherwise have come to the assistance of revolutionaries. 4 This support has not been officially admitted by Arab princes who, notwithstanding, privately recognized the reality even if they could not acknowledge it openly.5 At the same time, the conflict between Israel and the Arab states posed a substantial danger to feudal elites. Wars demand efforts that feudal societies find difficult to sustain, being secure only when mobilization is low. 6 2. Radical Regimes. The radical Arab regimes are of two types, the radical Islamic (e.g., Iran) and the radical politico-secular regimes (e.g., Iraq, Syria, S. Yemen, Algeria, and Lybia). The main foreign policy goals of radical Arab regimes have been rooted in: (1) their endless competition with each other and the moderate states for dominance in the region; (2) fomenting opposition, revolt, and revolution in the lands governed by feudal princes; (3) opposition to the United States, whose influence in the region, as we have already noted, is a major obstacle to radical designs; and (4) the destruction of Israel. These objectives have reflected the internal and external needs of the radical regimes. Their call for revolt against feudal elites for "sins" against Islam and the "Arab nation" have won adherents among the Muslim masses and modern elites alike both at home and abroad. Anti-American sentiment and calls for reform have served over much of the period considered in this work the radical regimes' competition with each other for leadership of the Arab world at large. Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Iran have all competed at one time or another for regional hegemony, and a combination of revolutionary politics and militant anti-Americanism have brought weapons and other aid from the USSR, support of domestic

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elites across the political spectrum, and have received sympathy in European countries, East and West.7 3. The PLO. The Palestine Liberation Organization has been the politico-military arm of the Palestinians and an umbrella organization that is comprised of many factions largely independent of central leadership. There has been a good deal of tension within the leadership of the organization, particularly between the main groups and some of the very extreme factions. For most of its life, the PLO was a guerrilla organization engaged in terrorist activities. The resources of the PLO have come for the most part from Palestinians, the Arab oil states, and the Warsaw Pact nations. It might help the reader to have a chronology8 of the life of the organization from its creation in Cairo in 1964, to the day of December 14, 1988, when President Reagan, on recommendation from Secretary Schultz, directed the Department of State to start substantive discussions with the PLO leadership. (1965) (1969) (1970)

(1971) (1972) (1973)

(1975) (1982) (1983) (1985) (1987)

Arafat formed the guerilla group of A1 Fatah. The Palestine National Council elects Mr. Arafat Chairman of the PLO executive committee. Jordan fights off attempt by PLO to overthrow monarchy and chases PLO out of the country. Arafat transfers base to Lebanon,- Begins series of plane hijackings. Black September, a Palestinian group, assassinates Prime Minister Wasfi Tal of Jordan. Black September murders 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Syria and Egypt attack Israel in October. In November the Arab League declares the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. U.S. policy will not recognize or negotiate with the PLO until the PLO recognizes Israels' right to exist and accepts resolutions 242 and 338. Israel invades Lebanon to crush PLO. PLO leaves Lebanon and disperses fighters through Arab world. Syria expels Arafat from Lebanon after a Syrianbacked mutiny of PLO guerillas. PLO terrorists hijack yacht and kill 3 Israelis; hijack ship Achille Lauro and kill an American Jew. The Intifada begins in December.

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There can be no question that the Palestinians are all strong supporters of the PLO. But there are deep divisions in the PLO's Palestinian constituency, which comprise two very different populations. One set of Palestinians are the refugees, living in camps scattered throughout the Middle East, in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and other nations. 9 The other set of Palestinians are the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza10 who have wanted to rid themselves of Israeli occupation, which represents for them a double burden. Israelis discriminated in many ways against Arab West Bankers in economic, social, and political life, and this discrimination has been deep and pervasive. Moreover the Israelis have taken over not only chunks of the occupied territory that are relatively small but also the area where onethird of the Arab population resides. The political effect of this Jewish migration into the West Bank is bound to be reflected in a final settlement of the West Bank issue. The different circumstances separating the refugees from the inhabitants of the territories have led to differences in interests and preferences that will be difficult to reconcile in the negotiation of a settlement. So long as the military power of the organization was rooted in the guerrilla forces drawn from the ranks of the refugees, PLO strategy had to promise the destruction of the state of Israel. Otherwise how could the refugees return to their homes? But terrorist and military operations resulted in failure. Since the Intifada the source of power of the organization is the population in the territories. And such power has been effective. It makes sense to think that their interests will now be heavily favored. There are three additional principal actors so well known to the readers of this book with their interest in U.S. foreign policy that we can be extremely brief. 4. Israel has been by far the most effective of U.S. client states, and though it does not like being labeled an American client, the label is unquestionably accurate. Israel has proven itself more powerful than all of its neighbors combined. Though this comes usually as a surprise, the major source of the nation's power has not been the assistance received from the United States as some argue, but the high capability of its political system to mobilize to an unparalleled degree the human and material resources in its small socioeconomic base. Due primarily to this great internal capability, the assistance made available has been very cost-effective to the United States and very crucial to Israel, and Israeli leaders live in constant

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dread that the United States may one day decide to sacrifice Israel's vital interests in order to achieve other important policy goals in the Middle East or elsewhere. 5. Another principal is the Soviet Union. The USSR cannot help but be concerned with the affairs of a turbulent and volatile region on its border, so closely tied to the United States and so rich in resources essential to the industrial world. It should be recalled that the USSR was a strong supporter of Israel when the state was born. But as Arab radicals opposed the U.S. influence as a continuation of colonial relations, the USSR moved to the side of the radicals. In 1967 the Soviets broke relations with Israel and took up championing the Arab cause in earnest. It was a major blunder. Israeli victories with the backing of the United States have been critical in excluding the USSR from playing a major role in the settling of the Arab—Israeli dispute. The USSR is now seeking a reentry into the process. This will require reestablishing diplomatic ties with Israel. For twenty years, the United States has sought to continue to exclude the Soviet Union from the peace process; there is some doubt now that the greater amity between the superpowers will lead to a change in this policy. 6. The United States has been throughout an important actor in the region. American economic power was important in the region even before World War II, but it was not until some ten or more years after World War II that American influence supplanted that of Britain and France. The transfer was inevitable: Colonialism was dying, and European nations no longer had the resources required to prolong their control over the region; while they bitterly resented the transfer, as they do to this day, there was nothing they could do to prevent it. Indeed many of the differences between France, Italy, and Britain on U.S. policies in the Middle East stem from their resentment over their loss of control of the Middle East and North Africa to the United States. Taking the side of the Arab states and against Israel has been a way of showing their independence of and antagonism toward the United States. The struggles over U.S. policy to achieve U.S. goals are the subject of the second part of this book.

5 AMERICAN FOREIGN ASSISTANCE

I

government and media circles, the amount of American assistance passed on to Israel has become an object of concern, particularly since the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Reports of the large amount of rapid increases given in the seventies and early eighties provoked expressions of thinly concealed disapproval and pointed doubts about the fundamental wisdom of such help. In the past five or six years, there have been many, many public comments that express "alarm" and raise "questions" about what is being done. For example, here is a quote from the "Op Ed" page of the New York Times: N BOTH

We must recognize that the real problem facing the United States in the Middle East is not crazed terrorists driving stolen vans [a suicidal attempt to dynamite the embassy of Beirut had been just successful for a second time] but the widening gulf between America and the Arabs. We must begin to take steps to bridge that gulf

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by acting more like the impartial arbiter we have traditionally sought to be. The remedy is clear, even if the medicine is hard to swallow.1 "Remedy," "medicine," and "impartial arbiter," as used here, are code words for putting pressure on Israel by cutting assistance. And what is really "hard to swallow" are the apparent political costs in opposing American Jews. Or take the views expressed by the prestigious General Accounting Office (GAO):2 The continuity of the U.S.-Israeli relationship is a key tenet of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Israel is a stable democracy and the region's strongest military power, and is considered by the U.S. to be a strategic asset in the Eastern Mediterranean against a Soviet threat. Nonetheless, some problems have surfaced regarding the relationship as the United States has attempted to reconcile its commitment to Israel with its other commitments and interests in the Middle East. Meanwhile, U.S. assistance programs for the defense of Israel have steadily increased and each U.S. President has restated strong support for Israel. On the size of aid:3 U.S. military assistance to Israel exceeds assistance to any other country and continues to rise . . . And on the rapidity of the increase:4 U.S. military assistance to Israel totaled more than 1.4 billion for fiscal years 1950 through 1973. In fiscal year 1983, the military assistance [was] $1.7 billion in grants and loans. Again, the New York Times, on the occasion of Shimon Peres, new Prime Minister of Israel on his October 1984 visit to ask for increased aid: Administration officials said that an increase from 2.6 billion to more than $4 billion in economic and military aid would amount to an extraordinary 50 percent rise in assistance to a country that already has been the largest beneficiary of American assistance, not only this year but throughout the history of the foreign aid program. . . . Over the years since it gained independence in 1948, Israel has received $28 billion in United States aid, most of it since 1973.5

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Finally, Zbiegniew Brzezinski, President Carter's national security adviser, quotes Ezer Weizman, the former defense minister of Israel: Some 20 percent of our [Israeli] defense system is maintained by the American taxpayer, to the yearly time of a billion dollars in military aid to Israel. [And Brzezinski adds:] This does not include, of course, U.S. economic assistance, which amounted to around $10 billion since 1973, almost $3,000 for each Israeli citizen, an unprecedented level of aid to a single and not a particularly poor country.6 Occasionally, as in the case of this London Economist article, attacks on U.S. assistance to Israel have been vicious. The passage below is from a story entitled "Plenty for Some" and is about the 1987 and 1988 requests for foreign assistance and the fact that Congress can be expected to trim such requests. Having [however] introduced, or even increasing, the disproportionate chunk—. . . $5 billion or 40% of the current aid budget— that is earmarked for Israel and Egypt. . . . Aid for Israel (Egypt's portion tags along in harness) is considered politically sacrosanct: the administration's tentative attempt to tinker, very gently, with it have come to nothing. At the end of the column there was a photograph of an extremely emaciated African woman squatting and stirring the contents of a pot with the caption, "Too bad she is not an Israeli." 7 Usually such observations are accompanied by suggestions that U.S. partiality toward Israel conflicts with our relationship with many Arab states. Deep resentment resulting from United States' support of Israel, would, it is alleged, subside if the United States became more evenhanded in our ties with the Arab countries in the region. In short, what is being advised in all of this is the notion that the United States should have favored Israel less and the Arab states more. But, are the Israelis the largest recipients of American aid as so many attest? Whether they are depends upon what one considers and counts as "aid to Israel," and what the United States has given as "aid" to other countries. The question concerns what constitutes "aid"—as the United States defines it—and how journalists, politicians, and bureaucrats report it. As we shall see, foreign assistance is an elaborate game of numbers, involving not only hidden costs

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and budgetary balancing acts, one that entails not just monetary expense, but matters of military and geopolitical policy as well. The result is a change in perspective, as we shift our viewpoint from what the official story says the United States provides as a donor nation to what we actually transfer in realistic terms.

DONOR AND RECIPIENTS: T H E OFFICIAL S T O R Y

All the statements cited previously and all the discussion of U.S. foreign assistance are based, inevitably, on official U.S. government data on American foreign aid. It is a fact that over very many years, the United States has given a great deal of aid to a large number of countries. Tables 5.1 and 5.2 provide the official accounts. Table 5.1 shows totals of economic and military assistance provided by the United States to other governments since the end of World War II.8 But while the outlays reported are very large, they still massively underestimate the actual investment the United States has made in the international order it has attempted to design since 1945.9 Let us now look at the official statement of how U.S. aid has been distributed. "Who got what" will offer the first clue as to what influences the United States responds to in helping other nations and what major criteria are used in distributing significant amounts of American help to our friends. Table 5.2 presents the official record of the ten countries who received the largest amounts of American

TABLE 5.1 American Foreign Aid, 1946-1983 (1982 U.S. $ billion) Total economic and military assistance, 1946-83" Total other U.S. loans and grantsb

$613.7 102.6

Grant Total

$716.3

"Economic assistance includes: Agency for International Development, Food for Peace, and Other Economic Assistance (Loans, Peace Corps, Narcotics, other]. Military Assistance includes: Military Assistance Program (MAP) Grants, Foreign Military Credit Financing, International Military Education and Training (IMET) Program, transfers from Excess Stocks, and other grants. For a complete description see Agency for International Development, U.S. Overseas Loans and Grants, 1983. b Other U.S. loans and grants include: Export-Import Bank Loans and Other Loans and Credits. For a complete description see above.

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assistance between 1946 and 1983. These are the nations that interest us the most. It appears from the data in Table 5.2 that the main (though not the sole) criterion the United States used in deciding which countries receive aid is whether a potential recipient was threatened by communist expansion, either from external intervention, internal subversion, or both. And Israel is the second highest recipient of American aid. But the distortions that result from the information given in Table 5.2 are monumental. As we have already noted, the data in tables 5.1 and 5.2 underestimate totals and misrepresent the actual distribution of assistance the United States has provided other countries. This is due to the ways in which the government defines—and, therefore, reports—the giving of foreign aid. The official data may be of some help to economists, but if one were to use these figures for the purpose of understanding international politics in the Middle East, Europe, or anywhere else, the numbers would be terribly misleading. Even the most untrained eye will note immediately that there are huge discrepancies between tables 5.1 and 5.2 and the next two tables we shall present. For example, where were the costs of the assistance to Vietnam? The $54.6 billion (in table 5.2) represents only what the United States gave the government of South Vietnam to spend; it does not include the amounts the United States itself spent to carry on the war in Vietnam. These expenditures were huge.

TABLE 5.2 The Ten Largest Recipients of American Aid, 1946-1983 (1982 U.S. $ billion) South Vietnam Israel France South Korea United Kingdom India Turkey Italy West Germany Greece SOURCE: See note to table 5.1.

$54.6 36.2 33.6 33.6 33.1 25.7 21.8 20.2 18.6 18.0

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A very conservative estimate of the costs of the Vietnam War indicates that the ten years of fighting in Vietnam cost the United States $324 billion [1982 dollars] to support the United States' own military effort in that war. Where is one to find the $324 billion in table 5.1 or table 5.2? This is also the case for South Korea.10 Surely, such expenditures should be properly considered as foreign assistance or "aid" to South Vietnam and South Korea. What were U.S. troops doing but helping governments that on their own were unable to resist or repulse the communist forces attacking them? Why should not all the help we gave associated with these endeavors be counted as assistance? Of course, it should be, but it is surprising that no one has ever questioned the appropriateness of including such information. Let us look at what is perhaps the biggest ticket item of American defense expenditures. How are we to treat American expenditures on behalf of NATO? Should not American expenditure to bolster European defenses against the USSR be counted as aid? And if it is not aid, what is it? Obviously, the European situation is altogether different from that of Korea and Vietnam in that European nations are not politically crippled or under open military attack. Indeed, the European members of NATO are some of the most advanced nations, all having economically, socially, and politically effective systems. Within living memory, some of them were the Great Powers—only no longer because next to countries like the United States, the USSR, and China, they are too small. Divided into sovereign states, European countries are comparatively weak. Would the United States have had to make the kind of expenditures it does to maintain its own troops and equipment if European resources had been believed sufficient by all concerned—Americans and Europeans alike— to deter the Russians? But whether it is NATO or the American forces in Vietnam and Korea, the expenditures needed to maintain these men and material are not part of the official definition of "aid." Thus, the way in which "aid" numbers are compiled is very misleading, at least for people interested in politics and power rather than economics, because they do not reflect the actual transfer of resources to support these countries and their defense. Clearly, these numbers need correction. The question is how.

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WHAT SHOULD BE CONSIDERED "HELP"?

As the above suggests, the data concerning official estimates of aid and the more realistic—to our minds, at least—calculations of U.S. assistance abroad are vastly different. It is our view that official estimates—and conventional wisdom—distort not only the facts of how much the United States actually gives, but also, obscure the motivations that underlie U.S. foreign policy. We will discuss the "hows" and "whys" of official aid estimates later in this chapter, but suffice it for the moment to say that the differences between these estimates and what I believe the United States actually spends in foreign assistance are an essential part of the story behind United States—Israeli and, not so coincidentally, United States-Arab policy. Given the broad nature of my dissatisfactions, I will attempt here to establish more precisely the points of contention. By necessity, much of what follows involves talking about the kinds of numbers used in the determination of aid. While such stuff does not always make for exciting reading, I beg the reader's patience, as the argument presented here is critical to understanding the conclusions drawn in the following chapters. So, what actually is foreign assistance and how are its size and composition to be estimated? First, three problems need be addressed. 1. Much assistance is omitted because it cannot be quantified and measured. 2. There is also a good deal of distortion due to the omission of assistance paid for by the recipient. 3. A lot of assistance goes uncounted because it is expended directly by the donor on behalf the recipient.

Nonmaterial Assistance

It is a serious distortion of the foreign assistance record that, inevitably, foreign assistance accounts omit help to other countries that cannot be readily quantified, omit transfers from private organizations, and omit any indication of the costs and benefits each transfer of resources means both to donor and recipient. The fact is that foreign assistance records deal solely with material resources, so they

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do not account for assistance that is not of a material nature. Advice, moral support, information, diplomatic protection, etc. are as important—and, on occasion, more important—than material help. Nonmaterial assistance is quite often the best assistance to give— inexpensive to the donor and of greatest value to recipients. Take three instances of American help to three countries in the Middle East: Israel, Egypt, and Syria. On these occasions the United States extended diplomatic protection to these countries but scarcely any material resources changed hands. Without American recognition and support at its birth, Israel might not have survived, especially in view of British opposition. It required initially little effort from the United States to guarantee early life to the Israeli State. In the Yom Kippur War in 1973, when the Israelis had crossed the Suez Canal, encircled the Egyptian third army, kicked open the road to Cairo, advanced on the Syrian front to within 20 miles of Damascus, and were poised to knock both Egypt and Syria out of the war, the United States stopped the Israelis, prevented the destruction of the trapped Egyptian army, and engineered a cease-fire, thereby saving the Syrians and the Egyptians from losing face and having to surrender.11 Or take still another example. In the middle of that same war, Israel fighting on two fronts found it had miscalculated and had run out of arms.12 Israel's leadership appealed to the U.S. government for help, and President Nixon authorized the transfer of new arms to Israel. Secretary Kissinger labored hard to make this operation a success. The dollar value of the arms is reported in the data in the following chapter, but their value to the Israelis will not be part of any foreign assistance record. Are these not all cases of American foreign assistance? And if they are not, what are they? There is, of course, no way to easily transform this information so that it yields itself to rigorous and systematic treatment. Neither the "inputs" nor the "outputs" of this type of help can be easily expressed in quantitative terms, and this intangible quality may have been responsible for its omission from the record of foreign assistance in the past. There is nothing that can be done about such omissions; we can only note that this very important component (as well as others) is missing from the record and that we cannot convey the complete story. There is another major omission we would like to note in regard to the subject of foreign assistance as a whole: When one talks of foreign assistance, there is almost always an unspoken assumption that it is only the recipient who benefits from the transfer. We al-

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ways look at assistance through the eyes of donors. We should keep in mind, however, that "assistance" is never "freely given." The strings may or may not be visible, but they are always there. This is particularly true in cases where military assistance is involved. Unless the assistance has taken the form of a sale, we usually do not think the recipients have paid in some way for what they have gotten. Certainly, where security is involved, recipient governments are expected to match foreign resources with resources of their own, and they usually do. Even when they are totally incapable of making any real effort to achieve the goals for which they receive military aid, they must show a willingness to expose their people's lives and property to great destruction. Loud laments from donors about how much it costs to help clients fight often fail to include what recipients contribute to match the assistance received. Take, for example, the U.S. subsidies to NATO. That subsidy is clearly assistance. And it is huge. If one looks at the portion West Germany receives, the amount is mind-boggling. But if one considers for a moment what would have happened to the German territory and population if, God forbid, the Warsaw Pact Countries had invaded it, one understands immediately the collateral Germany puts at risk in exchange for the military aid it receives. And, again, in two cases where American aid was expended to fight communism overtly, both South Korea and Indochina suffered incredible destruction of life and property in the course of the wars fought on their soil—South Vietnam paying with its very life. Israel has fought three wars in the last twenty years. Twice its life hung in the balance. In a way international assistance always involves a sale, regardless of whether or not any money changes hands. Thus, another part of the foreign assistance story that is always lost is what the donor gains for the assistance it gives. Sometimes the donor gets reimbursed in spades. Consider the way in which the Israelis, at Nixon's behest, were forced not to humiliate the Egyptians and the Syrians at the close of the Yom Kippur War; or the Israeli resolution to transfer U.S. arms to Iran at least in part to curry favor with the Reagan White House. Assistance Paid For by the Recipient

The reason why material assistance enjoys the prominence it does in discussions of foreign aid is that it lends itself to measurement

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and comparison. One can know how much one country has given or received from another country. But then, how and what one counts is obviously critical. And there are major distortions in the way it is done. The most important of these is the fact that in dealing with foreign help it is usual to focus solely on the costs of such help to the donor and overlook the value of the help itself to the recipient, (i.e., what has actually been transferred to the recipient). Yet, in power politics that is precisely what is important. Analysts often confuse two very different pieces of information. One concerns the capabilities a donor transfers to a recipient. By "capabilities" we mean the economic, military, diplomatic, or political resources transferred from one nation to another because government orders it or expressly permits the transfer, rather than by the push of market forces. The government of the donor decides upon such transfers because it is in its own interest to do so. Those transferred capabilities (i.e., what the recipient receives) are foreign assistance. And the easiest way to measure the size of the assistance is to use the economic value of the goods and services being transferred. That is the measure I will use. The second piece of information in the discussion of foreign assistance is the cost to the donor of transferring the capabilities to another country. The easiest measure of these costs is the value of the commodities that have been transferred and that have not been paid for by the recipient; this is the subsidy that one country gives another. That subsidy is foreign aid. The portion of foreign aid which is subsidy varies widely. All the assistance given may represent a subsidy, as in the case of grants, or it may be almost totally absent, as in the case of sales. Very important, then: Foreign assistance may not always involve foreign aid but foreign aid always involves foreign assistance. Both assistance and costs are important, to be used only for their appropriate purpose, and are not to be confused. If one is interested in analyses of power (or what are called in the trade, national capabilities), it is the value of transferred capabilities (i.e., the value of goods and services that have been transferred) and not their cost that is critical to count. If one is interested to estimate the subsidy that one country has given another, what one is interested in is the numbers detailing foreign aid. The problem with analyses of the ArabIsraeli dispute is the fact that they have focused exclusively on issues of costs or subsidies and have entirely excluded the reality of foreign assistance to the region.

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A third factor in any discussion of foreign assistance is the value of such assistance once it is in the hands of the donor. In helping other countries a central question always is, can the recipient use the help? In this and in subsequent chapters we shall deal mostly with foreign assistance and shall use as a measure of the transfers the value of the goods and services being transferred. When a subsidy is also involved, I shall give the values of foreign aid. In the next chapter, I shall illustrate changes in value of assistance in the hands of recipients in the Mid East. Concerning the indices I propose to use to measure these three concepts, one can say that, though they miss a great deal, they perform reasonably well and are the best available. But the reader should keep in mind that that is all they are: a trace of a phenomenon that we cannot observe in its totality. Now a very important point: I perceive American foreign assistance as the price the United States has felt it has to pay to help realize its conception of international order. As the dominant country in the non-Communist world, the United States was and is faced with critical decisions on how to help other non-Communist nations maintain the international order, particularly in the field of security. For some of these nations, sending military resources was not enough, for they are too small (e.g., the West European nations in NATO), or too poor (e.g., Pakistan), or inefficient (e.g., South Vietnam) to defend themselves. In other cases, simply sending arms is sufficient to achieve U.S. goals—the Israelis and the Saudis are cases in point. The Israelis, given the tools, can take care of themselves even in the worst attacks, while sending arms to the Saudis is sufficient, at least as long as they are not attacked—though if that were to happen, who knows what the United States would do. It is clear that the expenditures involved in foreign assistance (i.e., in helping different members of the non-Communist world) vary profoundly. Costs are highest on those occasions where the United States must intervene directly, when U.S. leaders believe that U.S. vital interests require it. Thus they are highest in such cases as South Vietnam, Korea, and NATO. Where the problems can be met indirectly, the United States only sends arms, and the level of assistance decreases dramatically. Recipients are made to pay for assistance according to their means: Those who can pay part (e.g., Israel has been made to pay for roughly half the assistance she has received) are made to do so; those who can pay full price (e.g., the Shah of Iran or Saudi Arabia) have been made to do so. If one were to write a

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rule to explain American practice in exacting payment for foreign assistance, one would write something close to the famous Communist dictum, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

The Sale of Arms

In view of the role that paid-for military assistance plays in the power politics of the Middle East, which is what we are examining here, let me make a special point of arms sales. A major distortion in our perception of foreign help stems from the omission of foreign military sales from the foreign assistance account. Weapons systems and other military supplies have been the biggest ticket item of the commodities the U.S. government has sent to other countries. The same is true for the Soviet Union. And transfers of weapons and military supplies are almost entirely in the form of sales. For all the reasons I have already given I shall include sales in foreign assistance when I am doing analyses of power in subsequent chapters. Let the reader who still thinks my view unwarranted consider the answer to this question: When the U.S. foreign policy elites, and all other elites as well, review the arms traffic to the Mideast would they be interested in what arms have been transferred to the region or who paid the bill? Take two examples. The USSR gives or sells arms to Syria. What would the Israeli or the American government be interested in: what arms (i.e., assistance) Syria has received, or the fact that Syria paid for that assistance with its own, or Saudi, money, or could not pay at all and so the Soviet Union subsidized the transfer? Or take another example. When the USSR or Syria witnessed the United States granting or selling jet fighters to Israel, what would the governments of these countries consider important, the arms Israel acquires or the nature of the transaction, e.g., sales vs. grants? What will affect the politics or the military balance—Israel's ability to project military power in the region or whether it did or did not pay for the fighters? To me the answers to these questions are self-evident. The analyst, searching for answers to power questions, must calculate the value of what is given, not costs to the donor. The reader may still be of a different opinion, but now knows why I argue as I do. One or two observations about what it means to omit arms sales from foreign assistance schedules are in order.

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The omission implies an "economic" view of international politics—it suggests that the only thing that matters in such transactions is whether the seller has or has not subsidized the transfer. In other words, one might take the view that the sales of arms should be perceived, at the core, as merely economic transactions like any other, driven by motives of profits and loss and economic market forces; in other words, as if the conditions of the international sales of F-16s, F-15s, and F-5s were similar to those of the sale of Mercedes Benz cars or Rossignol skis, Scotch whiskey or Sony television sets, agricultural produce or clothing. But this view borders on the grotesque. Of course, economic considerations are important. Leaders do work for their country's arms businesses, for sales are beneficial to a country's balance of payments.13 But to consider that, in the case of the superpowers at least, foreign policy elites are moved in allowing sales of arms to be made primarily because of economic considerations is to distort reality beyond recognition. For the U.S. political considerations dominate every major arms transfer. The United States sells arms only to friends. And, even in their case, the United States does not sell all the weapons, or the kinds of arms, the buyers want or can pay for, because every sale is hedged and modified to fit U.S. foreign policy requirements. And the United States has sought to have some voice in sales by Western European enterprises to those portions of the Middle East and North Africa friendly to the United States. Political gains are primary; economic gains are added benefits. (The Soviet Union does much the same thing in Eastern Europe.) Of course, exactly the reverse is true for business leaders. For them geopolitical gains or losses are secondary. Once a deal is in the works business leaders will lobby for their products, do whatever they can— sometimes to the point of violating the law—to capitalize on whatever agreement is made between the United States and the buyer, but they are never principal actors in the drama. It is quite clear that the representatives of the weapons manufacturers and the large numbers of arms merchants are only interested in their revenues. But their financial interest is not to be confused with the political motives and calculations of foreign policy elites buying and selling arms. U.S. leaders who push recipients to buy American are not representatives of private business but the other way around. In the case of U.S. assistance to Middle Eastern countries, geopolitical advantages (real or imagined) of tying client to supplier is

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what motivates foreign policy elites to permit such sales. Large sales of arms establish relations between the politico-military leaders of the two nations. The client will need to come back for ammunition, spare parts, and maintenance; it will need to have the donor's military train its soldiers. Sales of arms represent the only concrete political connection between the United States and countries demanding protection but resisting visible commitments to the United States, such as military alliances or U.S. bases on their soil. Arms sales give U.S. leaders the feeling that they have influence with their clients. Take the Saudi case. The Saudis wanted American technology and protection. The Saudis are cash rich. They do not produce their own weapons but buy both arms and maintenance—for full price. As a client country for U.S. producers, they are a customer made in heaven. The Saudis have bought twice the value of arms sold and given to Israel. Why they have done so is a complicated story, rooted in the tug-of-war within the ruling family, their need to keep the military happy, and their need for reassurance that the United States would protect them, rather than due to any real threat or addition to real security for the kingdom or their rulers. The Saudis never fought a war, and, wisely, have always sought to talk or buy themselves out of real or imagined trouble. Backers of sales to the Saudis always argue that the United States must sell to preempt others from doing so. Of course, after the United States sells arms, the Saudis turn right around and buy from others. So do other Arab oil states. And most of them subsidize Arab radical states' purchases of arms from the Soviet Union. 14 What influence the United States gains by its sale of arms to oil states is a matter of debate. What is not debatable is that, for U.S. leaders, political considerations dominate the scene,- economic issues have secondary importance. The case of Israel also offers us evidence of the political nature of arms sales. There are numerous examples of Israeli leaders coming hat in hand to Washington, over the first two-thirds of the period covered by this book, to beg for permission to buy planes, tanks, and other weapons systems only to be turned down, delayed or to find their requests tied to demands for political concessions. No one acquainted with these tales would think of them as anecdotes describing a perverse form of economic exchange. Let us be very clear. The bitter tug-of-war over arms sales to the Middle East is over political resources; issues of jobs, revenue for

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arms suppliers, the recycling of petro dollars, and so on are very important matters to those affected but do not drive decisions.

Hidden Foreign A s s i s t a n c e

One final point. I have already mentioned at the beginning of this discussion that there is a good deal of foreign assistance hidden in the U.S. budget. When the United States expends resources on behalf of another country but does not transfer these resources to that country's government, such expenditures have not been counted as foreign assistance. Thus, the costs incurred in the wars in Korea and Vietnam are not included in the official U.S. foreign assistance inventories. What is included is the small fraction of the total that was actually transferred to the governments of South Vietnam and South Korea. In both cases, aid and assistance are of course the same. The fact that such aid is not called aid, does not change the fact that it is, when the U.S. supplies soldiers as well as arms and material because the recipient, with an inept and corrupt government, could not do the job itself even if given the resources. I do not think, however, that there is anyone who would support the view that these expenditures of lives, money, and materiel were not U.S. foreign aid simply because the United States held the onus of nonmonetary expenses incurred and the recipients were unable to resist their attackers on their own. Much the same holds true of the U.S. contribution to NATO. For the individual European government members of the alliance are, for the most part, strong, vigorous, and modern. If the Western European NATO members had been united, they collectively would have been more populous and far richer than the USSR and would be very likely in a position to stand up to the Soviets on their own. But those dozen independent states were weaker and needed the U.S. subsidy to make up for the shortfall. In other words, the United States has subsidized the independence of European actions not only from the Soviet Union but from one another. How can one consider the U.S. contribution to NATO as being anything other than aid? These, too, should be included in our revision of the record of foreign aid and foreign assistance. 15

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REVISED ESTIMATES OF U.S. FOREIGN ASSISTANCE

It should now be clear that if the points made above are valid, then the original official totals found in table 5.1 ought to be much higher and the distributions in table 5.2 substantially different. Tables 5.3 and 5.4 reflect these corrections of the official data and utilize the simple criterion that all resources transferred to help other countries should be considered aid to those countries, regardless of whether the donor or the recipient spent the resources for the established purpose. They also include sales of arms, because such transfers, even though they are paid for by the recipient, represent assistance the recipient country has received and used. Table 5.3 totally changes the picture presented in table 5.1 When one considers as assistance all that the United States has spent for the benefit of other governments, the total assistance bill is not 700 billion dollars, as the official record of aid suggests, but probably in

TABLE 5.3 Revised Estimates of Foreign Assistance, 1948-1983 (1982 U.S. $ billion) Official Account of U.S. Foreign Aid: Economic Other U.S. Military Sales3

400.7 102.6 203.9

Expenditures: Foreign Wars Vietnam South Korea

324.4 63.5b

Expenditures: NATOa U.S. troops deployed in Europe Subtotal

818.5 1,913.6

3

Expenditures: NATO Early reinforcements for troops deployed in Europe TOTAL

1,196.9 3,110.5

'See appendix C.l, 2, and 3; appendix D.l. b Costs of maintaining American troops in South Korea over the years following the Korean War are not available. Estimates for both the Korean and Vietnamese wars are conservative. Other studies have put the costs of the Korean War at over $150 billion and the war in Vietnam at over $600 billion. See M. T. Haggard, U.S. Expenditures in Indochina and Korea, C.R.S., pp. 9 and 14. For sources for other data in the table, see appendix C.

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THE EXTERNAL SCENE

excess of three trillion dollars—between four and five times the official figure. In the last forty years, the United States has transferred to other countries the equivalent of between one-half and two-thirds of a year's gross national product—an incredible figure. Regardless of whether I have erred substantially by underestimating or overestimating such totals—and I might have, in light of the fact that the series of NATO expenditures is largely incomplete16 and I have had to interpolate for considerable periods—the amount of the U.S. contribution to NATO should be found to be very large indeed. Looking at these rough estimates of expenditures, one begins to realize that the amount of assistance bestowed on Israel is perhaps not so shocking to those who are responsible for determining such help as it is to the rest of us. As table 5.3 indicates, the help Israel has received ranges between I2 and 2i percent (depending on whether one insists on excluding or including the costs for early reinforcements for NATO) of the value of all resources the United States has transferred to other countries. I am not suggesting that the help Israel receives is small; given the size of the totals, small percentages do end up representing very large absolute numbers. The point is that the help given Israel is a tiny fraction of the total "help" the United States gives out to buttress the security structure of its international order.17 One wonders whether those who fight against it are really concerned with saving money. Two comments in regard to U.S. expenditures for NATO are in order. As already noted, the $800 billion to $2 trillion, depending on what one thinks NATO expenditures to have been, represent the overhead costs for the political and security structure of the American international order. It should be kept in mind that such investments bring huge economic and—what is far more important— political returns. Defenders of the North Atlantic Treaty have argued over the years, and argue still, that Western Europe is still the richest prize in the United States-USSR competition. Think, they have argued, of the importance of European markets and products to American economic enterprise. Would these markets have been as secure if a substantial U.S. investment were not made in the political security infrastructure?18 They found it difficult to imagine what the world would be like if America were in an "even more tenuous" position vis-à-vis Western Europe than it enjoys. If the pool of resources represented by Europe were denied to the United States, its international order, as we have suggested, would have been in jeopardy, and

AMERICAN FOREIGN ASSISTANCE

131

the argument about savings merely an illusion, for what was spent to support NATO would have had to be spent on defense requirements in a world where the Europeans would have been perhaps less committed to the maintenance of the U.S. international order. After all, unless it would be possible to do away entirely with the American forces that would have been withdrawn from Europe, there would be no savings; increased domestic forces to maintain order would incur roughly the same costs as those maintained abroad. Moreover, American troops in Europe tied down Soviet defense forces that the USSR could otherwise have deployed in such places as Afghanistan and along the border with China. Lastly, an American withdrawal or even a reduction of forces might cause Europeans to seek safety in a neutrality between the superpowers. Were Western Europe not on "our side," the U.S. position would not have been very different from the actual position of the USSR throughout much of this period. The proponents' case for NATO suggests that it would be instructive to look at the USSR in this period to get a vague idea of what isolation for a super power really might have been like. We have discussed why U.S. leaders have been so predisposed to assist NATO and so concerned at the prospects of European neutrality. The Soviet Union saw itself surrounded by hostile countries—not the least of which are among the Eastern European bloc. It felt embattled, desperate to protect herself. The Soviet defense budget, we now know, was between 15 and 25 percent of the Soviet GNP; ours was a small fraction of that. Perhaps this is too dark a picture, but the image of "Fortress America" represented a nightmare American leaders have been determined to keep from becoming a reality. This is the view held by the elites running U.S. foreign policy who have defended the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance. I'm not sure that the views backing NATO are really valid, but we know why they are held. Be that as it may, it remains a fact that in absolute and relative terms the overhead costs of the U.S. international order are very high, and efforts to reduce overhead expenditures are bound to become more frequent in years to come. We have, then, finally established the context, the frame for the issues central to this book; namely, why the United States helps Israel as well as why the United States helps Israel to the extent it does. There is a tendency to look at the assistance given Israel in absolute numbers—$36.2 billion remains a great deal of money. But in the context of our overall foreign assistance investment over the past forty years, what we are actually considering is something along

132

THE EXTERNAL SCENE

the lines of l | to 21 percent of the $1.9 to $3.1 trillion the United States has spent on behalf of its international order. And in this context we can put forward the more general question regarding how the American elites have persuaded the American public to contribute such generous amounts to the economic and security needs of other nations.

THE FORTUNATE RECIPIENTS

We now turn to the way in which these more realistic totals are distributed. Table 5.4 lists the ten nations that are the largest recipients of American assistance. The list includes both arms sales and whatever the United States itself spends on behalf of another country. The ten largest recipients of American assistance received about 46 percent of the total given to the entire world from World War II to 1983. The largest part of assistance received—28 percent—went to the members of the European military alliance.19 Most of the NATO assistance (over 80 percent) has gone, in turn, to the largest nations in the NATO alliance—Germany, England, and Italy. The aid for the military alliance and the aid these nations received under the Marshall Plan20 were all clearly initiated to help prevent the expansion of Soviet influence into Western Europe. All of the European nations that were to become the core of the NATO alliance received support because they were viewed, at the time the aid programs were initiated, as vulnerable to penetration by communist forces or indigenous communist movements. Only Great Britain can be said to have received aid initially in spite of the fact that Britain was not perceived as being endangered by increased communist influence. One might note in passing that (if one can pinpoint what difference this help actually made) the policy of seeking to help European societies defeat indigenous communist movements in Western Europe has been a tremendous success. For the past decade the communist movements in Spain, France, and Portugal have been clearly dying. While the party in Italy is still strong, it has been clearly weakened: it has had to change radically and it is still an uncertainty whether that party also will succeed in saving itself.21 What did not go to NATO allies has been received by three small countries: South Vietnam, South Korea, and Israel. It is immediately clear that these nations were among the principal beneficiaries of

133

AMERICAN FOREIGN ASSISTANCE

American largesse because they were the principal combatants and battlegrounds in wars against direct and indirect communist expansion. Tables 5.3 and 5.4 differ in their composition and in the ranking and intervals separating the recipients. When the huge expenditures for the maintenance of American forces in Europe, Vietnam, and Korea are included in the expenditures for foreign aid, Israel, while still among the ten highest recipients, has dropped from the second to the seventh position in a field of ten. Between 1946 and 1983, Germany received 17 times more assistance than Israel, South Vietnam 10 times more, Korea over 2.5 times more, the UK 2.7 times more, Italy 1.25 times more, and Saudi Arabia received 1.66 times more assistance than did Israel. One wonders whether all of these recipients know how much assistance they themselves have received from the United States. But then again, underlying their complaints might very well be an annoyance with U.S. dominance of a region that was once under their control and their desire to propitiate their Arab oil suppliers. Both tables 5.2 and 5.4 make the same point; table 5.4 makes it much more strongly. The primary criterion for the dispensing of U.S.

TABLE 5.4 Ten Largest Recipients of U.S. Assistance Corrected Aid Figures, 1946-1983 (1982 U.S. $ billion) West Germany South V i e t n a m U.K. South Korea Saudi Arabia Italy Israel Spain India Turkey

$620.4 379.0 101.9 96.9 60.9* 45.2 36.2 30.8 25.6 23.5

NOTE: For all West European countries in the table the values for each include expenditures for NATO, U.S. economic assistance, and U.S. military sales. Values for South Vietnam and South Korea include U.S. economic and military grants, U.S. military sales, and money spent directly by the United States to defray the costs of each war. The value for Israel includes U.S. economic and military assistance which includes U.S. military sales. For sources see appendix C.l, 2, 3, appendix D.l. 'The value for Saudi Arabia is entirely for sales.

134

THE EXTERNAL SCENE

foreign assistance in the time period considered in this book, 19461983, has been to fight, and help others resist or actively fight against, communist expansion. We do not mean to imply that fighting communist expansion is the only reason the United States gives substantial aid to other countries. There are other reasons for America's help: compassion for populations struck by disasters and help toward economic development, to name but two. However, U.S. economic help is clearly much less than help given in the form of arms. The essential effort in U.S. foreign aid and foreign assistance policy has been twofold: to prevent the Soviet Union's influence or control from penetrating new areas, and to force it to recede from wherever it has taken hold. All other factors seem to have a secondary role in the U.S. decision making process regarding helping other nations. Finally, the data we have presented also highlight the fact that costs skyrocket whenever American troops form a component of the defense system. The comparison of what it cost to use American troops to hold back communist expansion in South East Asia over a nine-year period (1964-1973) in the Vietnam War and what it cost to keep a smaller force in Europe for a comparable period is quite instructive. Support for American troops in the Vietnam War were estimated at $324 billion in 1982 dollars. Expenditures for the maintenance of some 350,000 American troops in Europe for an equivalent period (1974-1982) came to $224 billion.22 The estimated costs for the Korean War, again for support of the American effort with lower troop strengths, were estimated at 63 billion 1982 dollars for three years. One can only conclude that American soldiers are very expensive compared to other soldiers. And this matter of costs may be a clue in the puzzle over why the United States helps Israel.

6 AID TO THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE MAGHREB

I

be clear to the reader by this point that, throughout the period under review, U.S. foreign policy has been devoted to— some might say even compulsively preoccupied with—stopping the spread of Soviet influence, and its accompanying allegiance to Moscow, wherever it could. The official data regarding U.S. foreign aid distribution over the past forty years suggest this strongly; the revised data demonstrate that the United States has followed this doctrine to an almost dogmatic degree throughout the world—be it in postwar Europe, the wars in Korea and Southeast Asia, or in the Middle East. If the data found in the previous chapter show nothing else, they do express in bold relief the actions underlying U.S. foreign policy since World War n. The distribution of assistance, placing Israel in the context of that foreign policy and its ideology, tells us clearly that Israel was not treated differently from the rest of the world in T SHOULD

136

THE EXTERNAL SCENE

terms of American foreign policy. Those who have testified that Israel has been uniquely favored have not considered the record I have presented. Now we must bring the image into sharper focus and look at the assistance given Israel in terms of the rest of the Middle East. And we must look at the U.S. assistance distributed in the region in relation to the assistance that others—from Western Europe and the Warsaw Pact alike—have provided. We have been prone to look at that assistance out of the Middle Eastern context. For that purpose, we need to examine a number of aspects of the assistance extended to the Arab states and Israel by all donors. The most important comparison is, obviously, the one between Israel and the front line Arab states and, also, those Arab states we know to be the bankers and suppliers of arms to the combatants. Beyond that we should look at the help Israel and the Arab states received in some detail. Such information should give the reader a good view of the trafficking of arms and economic assistance in the Mideast and why, also, U.S. leaders have acted as they did. Finally we should discuss what has been the effect of all the assistance: What has it changed? What did the donors get for their money? Three points are in order. First, because I have concentrated entirely on governmental assistance, I have omitted the amounts Israel has received from private sources. Because most of the private contributions were not taxed, the amount of tax forgiven can be properly considered as government assistance to Israel. These amounts were very small, and I did not bother calculating them. Second, the reader should be aware that the Arab states have received more assistance than I report here. U.S. estimates of other countries' transfers, particularly Western Europe and Warsaw Pact weapons the Arab states have received, are known to be underestimations. Libya for example has received much more than I have presented here. That country received very substantial arms transfers before the beginning of our series. The Warsaw Pact and European nations have also given substantially more than the data I shall present indicate; However, reliable estimates of this additional assistance are simply not available at present and so I have left them out of my calculations. Only the United States publishes freely the value of her military transfers. Even data on the United States' own transfers, however, are not complete. As I noted in chapter 1, it has been reported, for example, that through much of the fifties U.S. elites managed secretly to funnel vast sums to the oil companies

AID TO THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE MAGHREB

137

and the Arab states, and these transfers are not recorded anywhere as foreign aid.1 Third, in preparing the data presented here, I have used arms sales agreements, rather than sales deliveries, as the indicator of military assistance. Obviously, data on arms deliveries would be preferable, for they would indicate what the recipient has received year-by-year. But arms deliveries are much more uncertain and volatile figures, and, most important, much harder to obtain for Warsaw Pact and Western European sources. Arms sales agreements, it is true, do not tell what the recipient has received year-by-year as data on deliveries would. Supplier delays in delivery are not uncommon, and three-year delays have been known to occur. Experts in the business of arms transfer say that the United States is probably the greatest laggard in making deliveries, and, even in this case, delays longer than about four years are very rare. Eventually, agreements are kept and deliveries are made. In other words, by the time the reader reads this book the stock of arms described here will have reached their destination.

ASSISTANCE TO THE PRINCIPALS IN THE ARAB-ISRAELI DISPUTE

I shall begin by comparing military assistance. Economic assistance will be considered separately. For our purposes the relevant comparison is between what the Arab states actually field in arms against Israel and their most important financial backers received in military assistance and the military assistance Israel received. When wars were fought by the two sides, a critical factor in the outcomes was obviously the access to military help each of the warring sides had at their disposal. Table 6.1 presents the military data. Clearly it is not the pairwise comparison that is the most telling, for Israel has been facing a coalition of enemies, which at a minimum include states that have actually carried on wars against Israel and their most significant financial and arms backers. The front line states have been at one time or another Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt, and the financial backers and arms suppliers Saudi Arabia and Libya. And if one compares what Israel received in terms of military assistance and what the coalition of her Arab opponents had available to them (in the same stretch of time), one sees clearly that the advantage of the coalition of Arab states was 6 to 1, not bad odds if one is preparing for military confrontation. That comparison in-

138

THE EXTERNAL SCENE

eludes the military resources available to Saudi Arabia and Libyia, which have never fought directly with Israel but provided the front line states with arms and financial help. For any realistic comparison it is important for the reader to appreciate that the resources available to Arab combatants have been far larger than the military help that they themselves, and even their immediate backers, received. Indeed, our limiting ourselves to considering only Saudi Arabia and Libya as members of the wider Arab coalition opposing Israel underestimates the membership of that coalition. There is a good deal of evidence that any arms given any Arab state should be considered, at least in part, as potentially available to countries actually combating Israel. For the period covered in this work the politics of the Middle East have been such that all Arab states—revolutionary states or feudal monarchies, Soviet or U.S. clients—had not relinquished their commitment to common enmity toward Israel. Only Egypt, since 1979 and the Camp David agreement, could be considered an exception to the rule. I think that there is substance to the argument that anything given any Arab nation has been, at the margin, and the margin was wide, a threat to Israeli security. Henry Kissinger gives one a sense of the extent to which Arab countries helped one another in the fight against Israel: "[T]here were [disturbing reports [before the 1973 (Yom Kippur) war] that Arab

TABLE 6.1 Military Assistance to the Principals in the Arab-Israel Conflict, 1950-1983 (1982 U.S. $ billion) RECIPIENTS

Donors

Egypt

Iraq

West Europe" Warsaw Pact" U.S.

5.0 10.8 5.1

9.6 21.8 .2

Totals

20.9

31.6

Saudi Israel Jordan Libyac Syria Arabiac

Totals

24.3

3.5 .3 2.4

2.5b 14.8 .7

1.1 21.5 1.1

60.9

24.20 69.20 94.70

26.8

6.2

18.0

23.7

60.9

188.10

2.5 —

—

'U.S. government estimates. b The data series for Western European sales to Libya begins in 1970. Libya, in fact, received substantial military equipment before that date, form Western Europe and the Warsaw pact, and, therefore, the values for Libya represent underestimations. 'Included because a major source of funds for combatants.

AID TO THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE MAGHREB

139

arms were being moved around the area: Libyan and Saudi planes to Egypt, Moroccan and other troops to Syria. We still considered this psychological warfare, however, rather than serious preparations for war." 2 There is no way to calculate what part of the assistance given the other Arab states would in fact reach those countries actually fighting Israel, and I have excluded such assistance from the comparison. One should note that if one excludes from the comparison even Saudi Arabia and Libya and any other country that did no actual fighting against Israel, and looks solely at what the Arab combatants received in military assistance, the advantage of the Arab coalition is reduced from 6 to 3 to 1, still a very substantial advantage. Moreover, if one goes a step further and compares the assistance Israel received with what each of the major countries (Iraq, Syria, and Egypt) fighting Israel received, one finds that Iraq received $31.6 billion or 17 percent more than Israel, Syria received $23.7 billion, or 11 percent less than Israel, and Egypt, the biggest and most important of the Arab states, received $20.6 billion or 23 percent less than Israel; thus the average each of the Aiab nations received was $25.4 billion or only 1.4 billion less than Israel had received. How could one possibly argue that, in the military help given to the major actors in the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Arab side was shortchanged and that the flow of military resources from the United States to Israel had biased the outcomes of the military struggles in the latter's favor? From the data above it is clear that, so far as assistance was concerned, it was Israel that was always far behind. It should not surprise us, therefore, that U.S. leaders, seeing the results of all arms trafficking to the Mideast, should have responded positively to Israel's calls for help. Furthermore, one can give a very straightforward explanation why the United States gave Egypt relatively less military help than the Soviet Union was making available to Egypt when that country was a Soviet client. The fact is that most of the assistance Egypt needed after her peace with Israel was economic. I shall return to this point shortly. Let us now compare the economic help received by Israel and the same set of countries in the Arab coalition. Table 6.2 presents the values on economic assistance. It should be clear from the above data that the United States is the major provider of economic assistance to any of the actors in the Arab-Israeli dispute and that the chief beneficiaries of U.S. lar-

140

THE EXTERNAL SCENE

gesse are Egypt, Israel and Jordan. This need not surprise us, in view of the fact that these nations are the United States' major allies in the region. Saudi Arabia, of course, is also an ally but, given her immense financial wealth, it would not be expected that this country too would have asked for or received much economic (as opposed to military) assistance. The reasons why Libya, Syria, and Iraq received so little economic assistance is twofold. Iraq and Libya have substantial revenues from their oil holdings, and, equally a factor, all three are radical states that have been overt enemies of United States interests in the region. Western European subsidy to Israel and the substantial amount of U.S. economic assistance to Egypt require a word of comment. The $10.9 billion Israel received from Europe represents German reparations for the Holocaust of European Jews.3 It is a onetime payment spread over a large number of years. Some have argued that such resources should not be counted as assistance; it is certainly help that Israeli Jews paid for very dearly. Still, according to our definition of assistance, these moneys belong in this accounting. Also, I have already suggested why, probably, Egypt has received far more economic than military assistance from the United States. The composition of total assistance Israel and Egypt received from the U.S. appears tailored to the different needs and ability to pay of the two countries (See Tables 6.1 and 6.2). Egypt received far more economic than military assistance, while the opposite is true for Israel. The

TABLE 6.2 Economic Assistance to the Principals in the Arab-Israel Conflict, 1950-1983 (1982 U.S. $ billion) RECIPIENTS

Saudi Syria Arabia

Donors

Egypt

Iraq

Israel

Jordan

Libya

West Europe Warsaw pact U.S.*

— — 13.4

— — .143

10.9 — 10.2

— — 3.0

— — .660

— — 1.0

— — 1.6

10.9 — 28.4

Total

13.4

.143

21.1

3.0

.660

1.0

1.6

39.3

'See notes to table 6.1.

Total

AID TO THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE MAGHREB

141

United States became Egypt's patron after serious threat to Egypt from external aggression had passed and while there was an increasing need for help to prop up components of an economy groaning under a profound disequilibrium between population growth and productivity. On the other hand, for Israel danger from external aggression could not be excluded after the peace treaty with Egypt; Iraq and Syria were still sworn enemies. In the case of Israel, the greater need was for military assistance.

AN EVEN-HANDED POLICY

The assistance totals received by combatants do not show how assistance has unfolded over time, and the latter information is also an important part of the story and will serve, at least in a general way, to identify what share of the total amount of help given to the region has been deflected to the fighting of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Let us turn, then, to a more detailed look at what Israel and the Arab states received, and let us begin by reviewing what help the United States has given Israel for the period covered in this work. The data in table 6.3 will tell what part of the assistance has been a subsidy (i.e., what we have called aid) and what part of the assistance Israel paid for (i.e., the arms or economic assistance that have been paid for with loans to be repaid with interest). Table 6.3 confirms that U.S. help to Israel really began in earnest in 1971; before that point U.S. help to Israel was low relative to what the United States had given other countries. I have suggested earlier that the fact that American help did not begin in earnest until the early seventies is the first indication that American Jews were not likely to be found to be a prime force behind U.S. assistance decisions. Jewish commitment to Israel has been a constant from the beginning. If the American government changed its mind about giving assistance to Israel (as it did), it is not logical to attribute the change to Jewish pressure. Something else must have played the deciding role, something having to do with the changing of the United States' own vision of what its policy in the Middle East ought to be. The breakdowns in the data of the American contributions tell another important part of the story. Roughly one-half of U.S. help to Israel is composed of a $19.5 billion subsidy—that is, resources that Israel need not pay for at all. It is the kind of transfer of resources we have defined as foreign aid. Such subsidies comprised 68

TABLE 6.3 Military and Economic Assistance to Israel, 1952-1983 (1982 U.S. $ billion) WEST EUROPE ASSISTANCE

U.S. A S S I S T A N C E 3

Economic Loans 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 TQ 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 Total

— — —

102.2 113.0 67.5 51.2 116.3 122.9 86.4 181.4 162.6 89.9 119.9 95.6 14.2 128.3 85.3 91.2 118.8 111.6 117.0 —

14.0 375.8 44.9 373.7 368.8 337.7 303.3 — —

—

Grants .3 295.7 249.6 250.7 72.7 50.1 59.2 34.2 32.5 39.4 53.1 20.6 17.0 13.4 13.4 2.4 1.6 1.2 1.4 .9 .6 104.5 99.2 92.6 561.2 745.7 78.5 726.7 725.7 668.8 610.2 810.0 806.0 756.0

Military Loans

Grants

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

1.2 1.5 —

— — —

38.0 38.0 —

34.4 240.1 18.0 61.9 200.9 67.2 1,166.3 622.2 602.7 1,751.0 326.0 1,177.4 157.0 741.5 691.0 3,439.9 581.2 954.2 850.0 914.9

3,893.5 7,995.1 14,676.5

— — — — — — — — — — — —

2,672.7 163.0 1,177.4 157.0 741.5 691.0 1,656.3 581.1 530.1 550.0 722.3

Total .3 295.7 249.6 250.7 174.9 163.1 126.7 185.4 150.0 163.8 139.5 240.0 217.6 103.3 167.7 338.1 33.8 191.4 287.6 159.3 1,285.7 838.3 818.9 4,516.3 1,064.2 3,476.3 437.4 2,583.4 2,476.5 6,102.7 2,075.8 2,294.3 2,206.0 2,393.1

9,642.4 36,207.4

Economic

Military

—

—

—

—

26.9 62.3 82.5 142.2 200.9 211.1 285.7 333.3 396.7 404.5 401.6 307.9 293.9 318.2 355.0 325.9 456.1 491.9 604.5 518.0 584.4 492.5 519.2 —

— — — — —

811.2 — — — — — —

106.5 400.3 334.4 260.0 156.8 42.8 51.8 58.8 44.5 39.2 74.1 —

561.8 560.2 543.8 461.3 441.9 35.3 0.0

9.6 0.0 0.0 37.1 0.0 25.8 0.0

10,948.9

2,452.9

'The values for U.S. assistance to Israel are the ones provided by the Agency for International Development. They include both loans and grants. The AID data for transfers of military resources are substantially larger than those indicated for Foreign Military Sales (FMS) agreements. The value for the period 1948-1983 is $17 billion. Aid data include expenditures for the construction of the new air fields to replace those lost to Egypt on the return of the Sinai, as well as a number of expenditures which would not appear in FMS data. See a report by the controller General GAO 1ID 83-587, June 4, 1983.

AID TO THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE MAGHREB

143

percent of the economic assistance received and 32 percent of the military assistance. The remainder of U.S. help or, roughly, $16.5 billion dollars, represented assistance in the form of loans to purchase arms or carry on some economic program. Loans were, of course, fully repayable both as to principal and interest on the moneys received: 32 percent of economic assistance and 68 percent of the arms received were financed by loans. One can sympathize with the Israeli irritation at those who deny that arms sales to Saudi Arabia represent U.S. assistance to that country, but have no difficulty in regarding sales of arms to Israel or, for that matter to Egypt, as a U.S. subsidy. U.S. assistance is the critical part but definitely not the whole story of assistance Israel received. As Table 6.3 shows, Western Europe helped in two ways. Germany, France, and England sold Israel some $2.5 billion worth of arms. The arms sales began in 1954 but year-by-year values were not available until 1966; Table 6.3 presents the total for that period. Purchases decreased rapidly after that war, reached negligible amounts in the 1970s and terminated altogether at the end of the decade. The values of these sales are not large but they came at a time when U.S. help was low and, therefore, assistance from Europe, though small, was important. The economic help, as the reader already knows, represents German reparations for the Holocaust. I shall let the reader decide whether this assistance had been paid for or should be considered a subsidy.

U.S., Western Europe, and Warsaw Pact Assistance to Arab States

I should begin by repeating my warning that my estimate of economic and military assistance to the Arab world is incomplete, and therefore, an underestimation. Data on economic assistance from either the Warsaw Pact nations or Western Europe are not readily available, and data on military assistance are limited to Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Libya. These, again, are the front line states. We know that economic assistance from the Warsaw Pact and Western Europe is negligible but that military assistance from these two sources to some 13 Arab countries could be significant. What are available are the year-by-year values for military assistance to the front line states for which totals have already been presented. Only the United States publishes the data of its transfers of resources, and even in the case of the United States there are gaps, particularly in the early years. I have noted earlier that American oil companies

144

THE EXTERNAL SCENE

obtained transfers, amounting to very substantial sums, to the oil countries in the Middle East and that such transfers have gone unrecorded.

Military Assistance to Arab States

The data we have on military assistance, though incomplete, are impressive. (See table 6.4.) The worth of all military assistance from all sources to members of the Arab coalition fighting Israel, that is, the front line states plus Saudi Arabia and Libya who were the fighters' primary backers, amounted to $150 billion; and the worth of military assistance to all Arab states amounted to $182 billion. There can be no doubt that the lion's share of the arms going to the region have gone to countries involved in the Arab—Israeli conflict. It is interesting to note that Europe and the Warsaw Pact nations together have given roughly 30 percent more assistance to members of the coalition of front line states than the United States gave the same nations. Again Western European assistance to Israel amounted to 14 percent of what European countries made available to the front line Arab states. The data here only confirm the picture we saw forming in Tables 6.1 and 6.2. One cannot possibly argue that Arab states were put at a disadvantage in their fight with Israel because their patrons refused to help them. And it bears repeating that a good deal of the military assistance received by Arab states from Western Europe and the Warsaw Pact nations have gone unrecorded. But though the picture is incomplete, it does suggest why U.S. leaders, aware as they were of the pools of arms resulting from arms trafficking to the region, found it important to help Israel when that country asked for assistance.

Economic Assistance to Arab States

Let us now turn to economic transfers. As the data in Table 6.5 reveal, economic assistance to the Middle East has been the United States. Western Europe and the Soviet data on governmental economic transfers are not readily available. Some points stand out. First, as one would expect, Arab countries that were either oil-rich or bitter opponents of the United States did not receive much economic assistance from the United States. Sec-

TABLE 6 . 4 U.S., Western European, and Warsaw Pact Military Assistance, to Arab Front Line States and Primary Backers/ 1 9 5 3 - 1 9 8 3 (1982 US $ million) U.S.

WARSAW PACT ASSISTANCE

1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 Totals

265.4 738.1 278.6 530.3 223.5 558.5 739.4 863.0 779.0 334.2 300.5 399.4 800.7 681.3 555.4 1,836.9 1,262.2 1,990.9 5,331.1 3,295.2 3,218.7 2,260.6 3,685.3 4,532.8 7,701.7 5,491.6 5,942.4 5,775.0 4,271.1 4,490.2 69,133.0

WEST EUROPE ASSISTANCE

Front Line States and Primary Backers

Others

13.3 62.0 82.7 33.6 32.1 31.1 39.2 133.5 391.2 572.9 697.0 985.4 866.4 2,055.2 2,523.3 2,390.0 3,389.8 3,615.2

8.9 0.0 42.7 11.1 54.4 77.8 11.9 6.6 9.4 13.7 29.9 6.3 1,125.0 27.3 367.2 114.5 41.5 244.1 66.7 672.9 2,737.3 2,935.2 9,480.1 12,120.1 2,883.0 3,549.5 9,393.1 5,764.7 2,398.7 7,374.6 2,605.9

0.7 0.0 0.9 0.5 0.4 3.8 7.4 0.7 1.5 0.6 5.6 217.8 257.3 419.7 200.7 548.7 319.2 761.2 911.1 4,147.2 6,195.1 2,909.9 3,170.9 2,172.4 768.6 852.5 2,998.3 597.3 2,479.3 1,993.8

18,215.1

64,174.1

31,943.1

— — — — —

301.2b •— — —

•— — —

a The time series for U.S. assistance to Arab states include only values for FMS agreements. It does not include $11 billion in loans and grants reported by AID. The reason for omitting such data is that a large portion of such loans and grants is used for the purchase of arms from the U.S. In a sense, therefore, in the comparison above the data for Israel are not strictly comparable with the FMS data used for the Arab states. 'Total for 1953-1959.

TABLE 6.5 U.S. E c o n o m i c Assistance to Arab States, 1 9 4 7 - 1 9 8 3 (1982 U S $ million) Country

Aid

Algeria Bahrein Egypt Iraq Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Morocco Oman Saudi Arabia South Yemen Sudan Syria Tunisia Yemen

1,136.6 3.7 12,392.6 143.7 3,040.6 0.0 548.9 660.6 2,659.0 49.7 87.1 317.5 1,038.2 1,039.7 2,326.5 6.3

Total

25,441.7

SOURCE: U.S. Aid, Overseas Loans and Grants. Appendix C.l.

TABLE 6.6 Total Estimated Assistance to All Participants In the Arab Israel Conflict, 1 9 4 8 - 1 9 8 3 (1982 U.S. $ million) RECIPIENTS DONORS

Israel

Arab States

U.S. Western Europe Warsaw Pact

$36,181" 13,402 b —

121,718 d 17,903° 68,867 c

49,583

208,488

Total

SOURCE: For all sources, see appendix D. 'Includes $24.3 billion in military and $11.9 billion in economic assistance. The $36.2 billion assistance cited above includes more than FM sales. The numbers used for U.S. assistance inflate the help received by Israel. 'includes $10.9 billion in German reparations to holocaust victims. c Only military sales. d $95 billion are military sales and $26 billion economic assistance.

AID TO THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE MAGHREB

147

ond, U.S. economic assistance was channeled to those who have had important roles in the U.S. strategic plans, with 65 percent of the economic help given to the region going to Egypt and Israel in almost equal measure. When one considers both the military and the economic assistance the United States has extended to Arab countries in the Middle East, particularly in view of what Arab states were receiving from other sources, it is hard to see how one can consider the United States not even-handed in its policy of assistance to Mideast countries. The call for even-handedness, as used regarding the ArabIsraeli dispute, has clearly had little to do with the conception of fairness it is supposed to convey. It has been a code word that is supposed to signal that the United States should force Israel to give the Arab states back their territories or reduce support for Israel sufficiently to enable the Arab front line states, with the military and financial support of the Soviet Union, to defeat Israel militarily.

THE EFFECTS OF ECONOMIC AND MILITARY "ASSISTANCE"

There is something very distressing in the data I have presented. All sides have transferred to the Middle East more than the $250 billion worth of resources. Some 15 percent of this wealth has been economic assistance while the remaining 85 percent has been spent on military resources. See table 6.6; these numbers tell the story of the Middle East. Why? What have the donors been trying to accomplish? What did the donors want or get for their money? Did they get 100 cents worth of value on every dollar? Did they get 50 cents, 25 cents, or anything at all? The totals are incredibly large. But what is even more astounding is that there is no way to tell at present, other than in the most general way, whether the donors have anything that might resemble a return on their investment. Since most of the assistance is military, we shall briefly discuss military help.

Is t h e R e c i p i e n t S t r e n g t h e n e d ?

The question brings us to our final step in our discussion of foreign assistance. To this point we have considered the cost of assistance to the donor as well as the value of the resources being transferred.

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THE EXTERNAL SCENE

We must now consider what is the value of the resources in the hands of the recipient. In the last analysis this is the value that matters most to the beneficiary. First a number of observations. From the point of view of the donor, there are only two possible reasons for giving military assistance to another country. The obvious one is to render the recipient militarily stronger. That is the overt rationale for military help. Yet the evidence is conclusive that if that were the aim of the military assistance extended in the Mideast in the period reviewed in this work, in most cases it has not been achieved. This should not surprise. Arms transfers make a difference only when the recipients are able to absorb such help. Absorption of military help is directly dependent on the level of development of the recipient. In the case of the developing world, military help (as is also the case with much of the economic help that is given) cannot be absorbed. Rigorous analyses of the power of the combating sides in the 1967 war and in the 1973 war between the Arabs and the Israelis have shown that the help they received contributed in proportion to their own society's capacity to put such resources to good useIn short, the Soviets saw most of their largesse wasted while the portion of the American help that went to Israel was used effectively. And if the American goal was to strengthen Israel and the Soviet goal was to strengthen the Arab nations, then the Soviets did not get very much for their money while the Americans did. The Arab states lost both the wars and a good measure of the equipment the Soviets had transferred to them, while the Israelis captured and resold the equipment on the world market. In a sense the U.S. got more for its assistance because Israel was strengthened by the supplies it received. Indeed, the argument will be made later that this is the rare case where help, particularly military help, when put to the test, has achieved American foreign policy goals. One can take the analysis further than just to say that the more developed the society the greater its ability to use the help it receives. We can say that the ability to use military resources is almost wholly dependent on the degree of development of the political system. Politically capable governments will use military resources from other countries to advantage. We should also add that by political capability we mean a government's own capacity to mobilize resources from its own society. If a government is unable to mobilize indigenous resources, it will not be able to put to use resources from abroad.5

AID TO THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE MAGHREB

149

But, of course, there is no need to do sophisticated analyses to see that although the Arab states have received much more external resources than Israel, the results have been monotonously the same. In every major confrontation where the two sets of combatants have fought directly, the Arab states have lost. 6 Therefore, the help Arabs received did not alter the initial distribution of power among combatants. We are not suggesting that military help is meaningless. Weapons do make a difference; they escalate the costs that all combatants have to pay. More Israeli and Arab soldiers have died, and probably will die, because of the weapons purchases, and since Israel cannot afford the loss of lives the way the more populous Arab states can, this will make a difference in the long run. Moreover, recipient governments, unless they are enormously rich, can exhaust themselves financially by buying arms. Here again, also the Arab states have had an enormous advantage due to the fact that, though those who have done the actual fighting are poor, they have had very wealthy backers. Two illustrations will help make the point. There is the competition between Saudi Arabia and Israel, both friends of the United States. The Saudis are enormously rich and have large-scale financial reserves. They are constantly in the market to buy sophisticated weapons, though they have never fought a war. Indeed, the American authorities may have serious misgivings about whether Saudi Arabia can use the arms it buys. Still, the United States sells major weapons systems to the Saudis because it is afraid of losing their friendship. But their purchase of arms drives the Israelis to a frenzy—not all of it unjustified. As mentioned, arms in Saudi hands can find their way into the states that are actually doing the fighting. Israel then feels obligated to compete, but it does not have the resources that Saudi Arabia does. It is clear that Israel is spending itself into bankruptcy in the arms competition. Much of the assistance the United States has given Israel has been initiated as loans with which to buy U.S. equipment and the interest on those loans has put significant pressure on Israel's finances. To relieve the stress on the Israeli economy, many of the loans have been forgiven, and since 1984, the United States has chosen to give grants rather than loans with which to buy arms. This observation leads to another: Throughout the period under review, Israel has been in an arms race with a number of other Arab states. For Israel, there could be no financial respite; it needs to be concerned not only with assistance supplied by the USSR to Syria,

150

THE EXTERNAL SCENE

Iraq, or Libya, but also with its potential adversaries supplied by the United States, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. So it has been on a constant treadmill. When the USSR finished resupplying Syria, the United States began to resupply Saudi Arabia and then Jordan and Egypt and back again. Israel feels itself in a position of having to compete with each such resupply, and it is clearly impossible for the Israelis to win this competition. If they try, the Arab states will defeat them without ever winning on the battlefield. Let us return to our main point: The core of a country's strength is not military hardware but, rather, its level of economic and political "development." We can be more precise. Political capacity to mobilize and use resources is the key to an effective military effort. Military power, especially in a sustained military action, cannot exist without an effective political structure. The primary reason why the Arab states have not been able to reap sufficient benefits from the huge amount of military assistance they have received is that their governmental systems could not make use of such resources as well as Israel. The above discussion leads us to our second point. What happens to the value of foreign assistance after it reaches the recipient? We can answer that question a little more precisely than we have done to date. The capability of the recipient governments to use resources they receive may inflate or deflate the value of such transfers. A very capable government may increase the value of every dollar of assistance to many times its original value. An ineffective government will decrease such value. The increase or decrease in value of the assistance received can be obtained by adjusting the value of assistance at the point of transfer with the index of relative political capacity (RPC) of the recipient governments. That index is a ratio derived from a procedure that permits the analyst to estimate how well a government performs in obtaining resources it needs, by comparing its performance to that of all other governments in the same economic circumstances. If the performance of a government is average it is assigned the value of 1 ; if better than average it is given values greater than one ; and if a government's performance in obtaining revenues falls behind the performance of governments in similar socioeconomic circumstances it is given values less than 1. This procedure has been validated in estimating governmental capacity and the strengths of nations in the Middle East.7 The results of such calculations are shown in table 6.7. The reader should be alerted that the RPC values are averages over a long list

151

AID TO THE MIDDLE EAST AND THE MAQHREB

of yearly observations and, therefore; should be considered no more than very rough approximations. Still the values shown provide us with an idea of levels of capacity reached by the various countries. The adjustments confirm our intuition. Israel maximized substantially the value of U.S. assistance. This is what backers of Israel in the U.S. Congress cited as their reason for their support of assistance to that country. The performance of the Arab front-line states is mixed. Egypt's governmental performance is average, Iraq does slightly better, Syria and Jordan do worse. Thus if one now compares what Israel has been doing with its assistance from the United States, and the front-line Arab states have been able to generate with assistance they received, it is clear that Israel has done very well indeed, almost doubling the value of assistance received. Taken together the front-line Arab states have lost some of the resources they received but the assistance they received was so much larger that they still hold an advantage. The discounted value of assistance of the front-line states is still 96 billions, while the value of Israel's assistance is 84 billions. The huge gap we saw and commented on earlier in this chapter has been substantially reduced. It comes down to this. It is misleading to think of foreign assistance in terms of what giving help has cost the donor. As significant, I would argue far more significant, is the value of the resources that

TABLE 6.7 Total Assistance Adjusted for Political Capacity of Recipient Governments, Israel, and Front-Line Arab States

Country

Egypt Israel Iraq Jordan Syria

Index of Relative Political Capacity'

1.0 1.8 1.2 0.8 0.7

(1982 X X X X X

Assistanceb U.S. $

34.3 49.6 31.6 9.2 23.6

billion)

Adjusted Totals

34.3 84.3 37.9 7.3 16.5

"The relative political capacity values (RPCs| were calculated by Marina Arbetman, who generously made the data available to me. ^Assistance totals obtained by summing economic and military assistance. See tables 6.1 and 6.2.

152

THE EXTERNAL SCENE

have been transferred to the recipient and, equally important, the value of the transfers that the recipient could put to use. The fact that in discussions of international military and economic transfers to the Middle East such evaluations have been totally overlooked should give us food for thought.

D

REASONS FOR GIVING ASSISTANCE

at last to the consideration of the central issues of

W this book—why the United States has helped Israel in the first place and why the level of assistance has increased to the extent E ARRIVE

it has over the years. Up to this point, we have been concerned with the myths that proliferate about the United States-Israeli relationship, that at once feed upon and fuel the inherent biases and prejudices that make United States-Israeli relations such an emotional issue. We have gone to great lengths to recount the history of American foreign policy and assistance since World War II so as to establish a sense of the context in which we must view United States-Israeli relations if we are to perceive them dispassionately. And finally, we have come to look more closely at the curious history of the Middle East in the light of the assistance transferred there not only by the United States but by Western Europe and the Eastern bloc as well.

154

THE EXTERNAL SCENE

And many of our conclusions thus far have been negatively framed. We know now that United States-Israeli policy has not been framed by the media or the American Jewish community. We know that while Israel ranks among the top ten recipients of U.S. assistance over the past thirty-five years, its portion of the U.S. foreign assistance pie is a very small slice indeed. And when this is juxtaposed with American assistance to Israel's Arab foes, we find that the Israelis are not quite making out like bandits as we have been led to believe. But we have also found that American assistance provided the Israelis has been, unlike other such ventures in our recent history, an unqualified "success" because, at least in this one instance, the United States has been dealing with a client that has been capable of absorbing and putting to use what the United States has been able to give. But if aid is to be seen as an investment, a transaction, then what has the United States gained from helping Israel? I have touched upon this question in the first part of this book. That is the essential question I plan to answer fully in this chapter.

WHY ASSISTANCE HAS BEEN GIVEN

Giving help generally means that the donor has certain expectations, certain needs. We already have some sense of the overall goals of U.S. foreign aid and assistance. But what about the specific U.S. needs in the Middle East? I have already noted the United States' major interests in the Middle East to have been, and to be still, access to oil supplies; a reasonable political and military stability in the region; and the exclusion of Soviet influence from the Middle East—or, at least, the reduction of Soviet capacity to interfere. All of these aims are related, but if a choice had to be made, I think that stability would be considered less important to U.S. interests than the other two. I shall consider first the United States' concern with order and access to oil supplies. In the period under review, and also afterwards, the United States has sought to guarantee its own and its allies' access to oil by seeing that friendly forces in oil-producing countries remain securely in power. The double-sided aspect of that security should be kept in mind: Protection of friendly regimes against attacks by their own people—such as occurred in Egypt in 1952, Iran in 1979, and Iraq in July of 1958—was and is difficult and would have involved enormous international and domestic political costs

R E A S O N S FOR GIVING A S S I S T A N C E

15S

to the United States. American protection is most easily extended to those governments under attack who can resist domestic revolutionaries but need assistance to stop foreign help to the rebels, particularly if help to the rebels takes the form of a foreign invasion. It is possible that Israeli forces might have come in handy to the United States in situations that require intervention but where the United States itself would have found it difficult to act, even though inevitably, there have been and remain to be certain limitations on U.S. control of Israel. The United States has found it easier to stop Israel from doing what it wished than to make it do something it found risky or not in keeping with its own strategic program. Israel could be brought to act more easily if the Israelis could see intervention on their part as a means of relieving a clear threat to their own safety. Such decisions were more likely to be made because Israel has been ruled by "hawks" and would have proven more difficult had Israeli "doves" dominated decisions of peace and war. One could go on and on. As is the case with the United States, Israel would have found it easier to extend help to a beleaguered Arab state if the danger were perceived as coming from outside aggression. It is precisely in such an eventuality that the presence of Israeli military power has been most important, as in what happened when the PLO tried to unseat King Hussein in 1970. At that time, the King could deal with the revolt of the Palestinians; his forces fought very well but might have been overwhelmed by the armies of Syria and the soldiers of Iraq coming to the aid of the PLO. In that ease, the King could not or did not wish to ask openly for Israeli help, even though he did make discreet inquiries. Had he done so more openly, even while under attack from the Palestinians trying to dethrone him, he would have been accused by radical regimes of having sold out the Palestinian cause and sought the protection of a dire foe. As it turned out, he was saved from having to ask for such help by Syrian moves that were inimical to Israeli security interests. So the Israelis, after checking with the United States, mobilized their forces, and Syrian tanks stopped crossing the Syrian-Jordanian border. King Hussein weathered the storm. The Israelis were also critical in destroying much of the politicomilitary power of the PLO in the 1982 Lebanese invasion. True, the Arab states protested, but it is also significant that they did not help the PLO in its hour of need. There are American leaders who thought that, their protests notwithstanding, moderate Arab elites were not

156

THE EXTERNAL SCENE

unhappy to see the power of the PLO severely reduced. And this fact did not escape some of the leaders of the PLO themselves. There is still another example. Before Nasser's defeat in 1967, the Egyptian radical leaders had been sponsoring a war in Yemen. The Saudis were backing the other side and were very worried about the consequences of an Egyptian victory for their own security. The United States was also very concerned about the situation. Egypt's defeat in the Six Day War, however, brought the threat to the Saudis to an end. Finally there is the sale of U.S. arms to Iran. There is no question that the eagerness with which Israel met U.S. requests to act as a conduit for such arms was due to its view that its own strategic interests would be helped by doing so. Israeli forces also represented the only local element of defense in the region should the Soviets have chosen direct or (what is more likely) indirect intervention in the Middle East. While such an eventuality may appear remote, it has been clearly an ongoing concern to American political leaders and military planners. Their constant warnings over many years of a possible Soviet lunge to the Persian Gulf and the oil fields suggests how seriously they took such perceived threats. And were the Soviet Union, its clients, allies, or any other state to invade the countries of the Gulf, the Israeli forces— roughly 200 thousand strong (and expandable to much greater numbers), reputedly the best and most reliable troops in the Middle East— would have provided the strongest local opposition to the invasion if (and the "if" is very real) they were to be used. The objection to using them of course would come from Arabs reluctant to be helped by their hated adversary, but much would have depended on how desperate for help the victims of such an invasion would have been. It is true that Jordan, under attack from Syria, seemed ready to ask for help. But as I have already noted, Israel might not have been willing to do the job unless it were sure that the United States would provide moral and material support and that Israel's own security would gain from the intervention by its forces. What is the Israeli military force really worth to the United States? One way to answer would be to estimate what it would have cost the United States to replace Israeli military power. One can only guess. No Arab army can present such a defense and so would not prove an adequate substitute for the Israelis. An American force of similar size would be expensive to maintain. Though it is difficult to estimate the costs of supporting Amer-

REASONS FOR GIVING ASSISTANCE

157

ican soldiers abroad with any precision, one interesting estimate was that each American soldier abroad cost the United States about $10,000 per year, while support for a soldier recruited from the recipient nation costs one twentieth as much, or $500.' Or we can go about the problem in another way. We know what it cost the United States to keep an American army very roughly two and three times the size of the Israeli army of 165,000 to 200,000 in Europe or Vietnam. The Vietnam operation cost roughly 30 billion 1982 dollars per year. The United States spent $26.3 billion directly for 355,633 troops stationed in Europe in 1980, at a cost of $73,953 per soldier. Applying this to a group the size of the Israeli armed forces, it would cost the United States approximately $12.2 billion per year in support. 2 Or one can extrapolate the costs of the maneuvers of the American Rapid Deployment Force in the Egyptian desert. The costs of the ten-day exercise of the RDF in November of 1980 was reported as $25 million for 1400 U.S. soldiers, or $1,785 per soldier per day.3 One comes to the conclusion that replacing the kind of military power that Israel provides would cost many times what we spend on Israeli aid. It should also be noted that the policy of using American troops abroad is now coming under increasing scrutiny by policy makers. A significant, though seldom mentioned, reason for this is that the use of American troops in occupation or combat forces in situations other than full-scale war is the most ruinous financial and political component of American military policy abroad. Did Israel need all the help the United States gave her? Israel says it did. Clearly the Israelis wanted all they could get, needed or not. Israeli arguments have been persuasive to the American government because American leaders wished to keep Israel strong. The argument that the Israelis made is that their security was and is, in large part, a function of what their adversaries are receiving from the communist world, Western Europe, and the United States. As we have seen, communist and Western arms transfers to Israel's adversaries are substantially larger than anything Israel received (see tables 6.6 and 6.7 and Appendix D). Israel's critical military advantage comes from its far superior socioeconomic and politico-military organization, 4 an edge that really has only too recently been easily measurable and this, in the past, has made it difficult for the donor to define precisely when assistance reached the point of diminishing returns. On the other hand, thoughts of reducing help always raise the fear of weakening an ally, one whom we want to be strong in case

158

THE EXTERNAL SCENE

need should arise. There is no clear unambiguous way of knowing when reductions in assistance begin cutting into muscle, and American leaders wished to avoid the situation where Israelis might not be willing or able to act when the United States might need them. Thus, it was easier for Israel to argue persuasively that it was becoming increasingly vulnerable because it found itself in clear and present danger from its neighbors and was losing the arms race against them. It was, finally, difficult to know at what point Israel's anxieties outran its dangers.5 Why the United States has given help to the Israeli state in such generous amounts, then, has reflected the wish of American foreign policy leaders to have a reliable ally in the Middle East. Having a client that can fight is a rare blessing for a superpower. Assistance to Israel is seen as a kind of premium on an insurance policy, in case we need Israeli military force to deter Arab radicals from toppling the feudal systems and to throw an additional obstacle before Soviet strategic designs, if there were any, on the Gulf states and their oil fields. One can argue that the latter fear was a hallucination; some of the Arab leaders do. It is not our purpose here to argue the merits of American views, only that they were held and have as much substance as our fear of Soviet attack against Western Europe—an anxiety that the United States spends some 33 percent or more of its military budget to alleviate. Given such a view, American investment in Israeli forces has made far more sense than other military assistance in the region. The rest, for the most part, have appeared attempts to soothe the bruised egos of Arab leaders, though policy makers deny that this is so.

WHY U.S. ASSISTANCE TO ISRAEL ESCALATED

The answer we have given suggests the central reason the United States would have wanted to give Israel a large amount of aid, but it offers no hint of what has led the United States to increase that aid dramatically, particularly since 1971. Again, the answer centers on what the United States has stood to gain by raising the ante. Assistance escalated for three reasons: 1. The first reason for the escalation of American aid is straightforward in terms of U.S. foreign policy: The USSR armed Israel's radical opponents. Inevitably, the United States has been sensitive to what the Soviets have done. If the Soviets increased their aid and

REASONS FOR GIVING ASSISTANCE

159

assistance to their Arab allies, the Israelis had a plausible reason to ask the United States to rectify the balance again by increasing their own military help. One does not need sophisticated analyses to see that the initiation of American aid in the region trailed Soviet assistance both in amount and time. 6 The Soviet Union really had very little choice but to increase its giving of arms. T o refrain from doing so would have meant accepting defeat at the hands of the United States and its dependents. For example, in 1967, the Egyptians and the Syrians, then both dependents of the Soviet Union, had lost a major war in humiliating fashion. The losers wanted to rebuild their military power and asked the Soviets to rearm them. It was an expensive request, but to turn it down would have meant losing what influence they had with their clients. Again, in 1973, the Syrians and the Egyptians, though they fought gallantly, lost again, giving up both territory and much of their equipment. Once more the Syrians turned to the Soviet Union to cover their losses, this time demanding more and better arms. The USSR was spared having to reprovision Egypt continuously after the Yom Kippur War, because that country changed sides. There can be no question that the USSR considered that particular saving a foreign policy calamity of the first order. Again, in the 1982 Lebanese war, threatened on their flank by Soviet antiballistic missiles—the famous, or infamous, SAMS—in the hands of the Syrians, the Israelis swooped down, took out the missiles and decimated the Syrian air force without suffering any losses. The Syrians not only asked the Soviets to make up what they had lost, but apparently had the nerve to make it known that the reason they had been so soundly trounced was that the weapons the Soviet Union had given them were not comparable to the excellent weapons given to the Israelis by the United States. N o w it is widely recognized that the U.S. equipment used in that war was better, but such differences cannot account fully for the Syrian defeat. Even so, the USSR again accepted the blame and made up for the losses, this time giving the Syrians far more advanced systems. Indeed, they sent their own soldiers to Syria to man the missiles. How else could they have responded than to have acceded to the demands made by the Syrians? They could not tell their Arab client that the reason for their loss was their own ineptitude in fighting. Expressing such views publicly would have cost them what dwindling influence they had. They were in the impossible position of having to shoulder the blame for their clients' defeats.

160

THE EXTERNAL SCENE

How tenuous the Soviet foothold really was in the region is revealed in a number of incidents. For example, in the year before the 1973 war, the Egyptians expelled the Soviets out of concern that the USSR, who feared and might have even opposed the opening of hostilities, would hinder Egyptian plans to begin the war. The Egyptians expelled the Russians in spite of the fact that the USSR was, at the time, their only international backer and significant arms supplier. Thus, of all the USSR's choices, the least bad was consenting to upgrade and increase their flow of arms. It was a matter, in Soviet eyes, of choosing between several evils. It should also be noted that the USSR has had to rely more on arms transfers to gain influence than the United States does, because arms and raw materials have been the only Soviet products that other peoples have wanted. In the 1950s and 1960s the USSR had vast influence because of its ideology and because of its status as a model of rapid growth for developing countries. No more. For a very long time now only in arms and raw materials have the Soviets had a good deal of comparative advantage, and they have competed where they could.7 2. The second reason for increases in U.S. aid to Israel is a variation of the first, but it is even more important. The United States itself supplied Arab states with large quantities of arms. Whatever we may think or feel about it, the sale of arms is clearly the major instrument the superpowers have used to exercise influence in the developing nations. Arms are what the elites of recipient countries wanted most, since in their view, arms are one of the primary ingredients in guaranteeing their retention of privilege and power. Each time the Israelis objected that the arms given by the United States to Arab nations would find themselves, in case of war, in the hands of the countries fighting to destroy Israel, the United States informed the Israelis that it could not deny arms to its Arab friends, that the arms in question did not really change the balance of power, and that they permitted the recycling of petro-dollars. In any event, they said the Israelis should calm down, as they also would receive a share of the arms to be given out; their position via-a-vis their adversaries would be maintained. It is clear that the current situation was tailor-made for U.S. policy makers in the bureaucracy who disapproved of the apparent U.S. "partiality" toward Israel. All they needed to do was suggest or acquiesce to requests from the Arab states for more arms, following which pro-Israeli supporters battled the administration. The admin-

R E A S O N S FOR GIVING A S S I S T A N C E

161

istration got angry at the Israelis, and on it went. Congress was glad to become the arena where a major foreign policy decision was made. If the requests were resisted, the "pro-Arab" forces had "demonstrated" once again how partial to Israel U.S. policy in the Middle East actually was. Most of the time, however, forces opposing the decision could not stop assistance being approved. Arms were sold to this and that Arab state, but getting the decision through required a concurrent commitment that arms should also be sold to Israel. In short, a major reason U.S. aid to Israel increased is that the United States gave assistance to Arab countries, but the United States was afraid to weaken Israel and extend assistance to her as well. 3. There is yet a third and decidedly important reason why the United States escalated its help. Large increases in military and economic help was the quid pro quo the U.S. government used to persuade Israel's government to go along with policies that were terribly difficult for Israel to swallow. This practice began after the Yom Kippur War. When Israel beat the Arabs in 1973, and the Arabs turned to the United States for help, the United States made the Israelis give back what territories they had won in that war and then, in the years that followed, give back some of the territories they had won in the 1967 war. Each major Israeli withdrawal was rewarded with large increments in assistance.

E S C A L A T I O N O F A M E R I C A N AID

Let us look at the increase in U.S. aid to Israel in more detail. Between 1948 and 1985 there have been four stages of escalation in American assistance to the region. Between 1948 (the birth of the Israeli state) and 1967, U.S. governmental aid to Israel was a tiny fraction of U.S. foreign assistance. The first escalation came in 19671972, the second in 1973-1974, the third in 1980-1981, and the fourth in 1985-1986. The $5 billion aid package of 1979, following the Camp David Accords, appears to have been a onetime occurrence. What follows are thumbnail sketches of the pressures for American aid to increase at each point. Let us repeat the main point. Between 1948 and 1968, U.S. aid to Israel came largely from private, tax-exempt Jewish contributions. The arms transferred in this period were in the form of sales.8 During that period Israel's major source of support was Western Europe, with U.S. help amounting to roughly one-half of the help re-

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ceived from other countries. Resources came primarily from reparations the German government was paying Israel as compensation for the Jews killed in the Holocaust. 9 And there was assistance from France almost entirely in the form of sales. The French government was fighting Arab revolutionary movements in all of its colonies in North Africa—in Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria, where over a million French colonists were then living. The new Egyptian regime under Nasser was hosting rebels and providing weapons to the revolutionaries. It appears to have been French strategy to help Israel so as to keep the Egyptian government occupied elsewhere. It was, in part, a cash-and-carry business, and the Israelis had cash. It was a popular policy in France where radical Arabs were thoroughly disliked. But after France agreed to leave North Africa, President de Gaulle sought to reestablish closer ties with the Arab states, Israeli access to French arms was curtailed, and military help was now proffered to the Arabs. The switch followed the clamorous Israeli victory in the 1967 war.

The 1967-1972 Escalation: Soviet Aid

The first escalation of American aid took place between the 1967 and 1973 wars. Some $2.7 billion (constant 1982 dollars) mostly in the form of arms sales were given over to Israel in that period. The motive for that escalation was very simply a response to a Soviet outpouring of arms to "the front line Arab states" amounting to some $11.2 billion (1982 dollars), or almost four times the hesitant and halting military help of $2.7 billion that the United States committed to Israel during the same period. (For details, see Appendix D.) Most important, the Soviet Union was transferring the most sophisticated arms in its arsenal: surface-to-air missiles (SAM-3) that it had not given any other ally, not even Vietnam. And, even more alarming to the United States, the USSR was sending its own soldiers (some 10,000) to use the equipment because the Egyptian forces were not competent to do so.10 We have already noted that the Arab defeat had given the USSR its chance to act as their defender. The USSR sent so much military help that both the Johnson and Nixon administrations, which were quite reluctant, were persuaded that a response on the part of the United States was necessary.

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T h e 1973—1976 E s c a l a t i o n : Soviet A i d a n d P e a c e N e g o t i a t i o n s

The second escalation came after the 1973 war, when American aid to Israel in 1974 was much larger than the total amount over the preceding four years. (Two increases actually took place, one in 1974 and the second in 1976.) The increases set the pattern for the next dozen years. This reflected a revolutionary approach to the giving of assistance. American assistance ceased to be totally reactive— solely a response to what the Russians did—and became, instead, a tool to achieve American goals in the region. There are many parts to the explanation of why this was so. First, the large increase in U.S. assistance was due to the enormous cost in equipment and men to both sides of the 1973 war. The USSR (for the Arab side) and the United States (for the Israelis) both poured in equipment to replace the substantial losses in the field so that their respective sides could continue to fight. U.S. aid outmatched that of the Soviet Union in overwhelming fashion. American leaders were quite proud of their feat, with good reason. All governments witnessing what the United States could do for an ally were impressed. The major reason for American military support during the war was emphasized and repeated by both Secretary of State Kissinger and President Nixon: We could not afford to have Soviet allies, armed with Soviet weapons, beat an American ally armed with American weapons. Otherwise, Arab states would get the idea that they could achieve their purposes with Soviet help. But having replaced the losses of the war, why did the United States continue to help at the new increased level? The answer becomes apparent if one looks at what happened after the 1973 war.11 Syria and Egypt, the real Israeli antagonists in that war (as they had been in the Six Day War of 1967), were again the real losers, both militarily and in lost territory. Each was rescued by a cease-fire, and each turned to the United States to recoup their territorial losses. And in both cases, the United States, acting as an intermediary, obtained Israeli withdrawals. Both Egypt and Syria reduced Soviet influence in their countries. Peace between Egypt and Israel was achieved several years later, Egypt agreeing to a permanent peace in return for all the territory Nasser had lost in the 1967 war. The new border between Israel and Syria, negotiated by the Secretary of State, very closely resembled the 1973 antebellum line and has remained inviolate since then.

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Most American foreign policy aims had been achieved. When the Israelis defeated Egypt and Syria in the 1973 war, the Arab front line states moved away from the USSR and closer to the United States, in spite of the fact that the Soviet Union had been their only important international friend and arms supplier, and despite the fact that U.S. arms supplies had been critical in helping Israel win that war. Arab moves and Soviet losses were hailed a major triumph for American diplomacy. The reasons for this "unexpected" result should be appreciated; they were the key to American strategy in the Mideast for a quarter of a century. I have mentioned them before. If Arab leaders were defeated in spite of Soviet help, they were forced to face the fact that Soviet aid was not enough to enable them to achieve their goals of defeating Israel and rearranging the political map of the Middle East. The Soviet Union could, of course, have forced the Israelis to do anything it wished had Israel stood alone. But, in view of American support, this would have required a Soviet willingness to confront the United States directly, which the Soviet Union has been clearly unwilling to do. Indeed, it is Soviet unwillingness to confront the United States that persuaded Sadat, even before he began the 1973 war, that an alliance with the Soviet Union would not permit him to recover the Sinai that Nasser had lost in 1967.12 In the early 1970s, humiliating Arab defeats and losses of territory had undermined their leaders domestically and internationally, putting them under pressure to redress the situation in the briefest time possible and on the least onerous terms possible. Because the USSR could not help them, there was only one way to go. To bring a halt to the fighting and to get back the territory they lost, the Arab states had to turn to the United States, the only country that could influence Israeli actions in this regard. Clearly, as long as the American ally could beat Soviet allies, American had the clear advantage in the region. But to exploit this advantage was not easy. America had leverage only as long as, and to the extent that, radical and moderate Arab states wanted something very badly that they could only get from the United States. In this case, they wanted to recover territories they had lost in wars with Israel. Alone, they were hardly strong enough to do it. Even with Soviet assistance, the Arab states were unable to recover the lost land, though they needed to be sure there were no other ways to get what they wanted before they turned to the United States. Their defeats demonstrated there were none.

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That was the first key to American success. But even the United States could not give the Arabs all they wanted, because it could not risk weakening Israel or undermining its confidence or its loyalty. The United States could, however, midwife a settlement in which the Arab states got most of what they wanted. Only the United States could influence the Israelis to give back the territory they had won. By acting as an intermediary for the radical Arab states, the United States could hope to reduce Soviet influence in those countries, and, ideally, get them to desert the USSR and come over to the American side. Also, the United States could hope to ease the Arabs out of the fantasy that Israel could be destroyed. Now, to the second key to American success. The United States could deliver the consent of the Israelis to peace terms,- that was the good news. But the United States could not deliver the Arabs. The only hold the United States had over the radical states was their desire to regain their lost territory. If that desire were satisfied without making the concessions and changes necessary to begin a major shift in their own policy directions, the Arabs would have no incentive to abandon their alliance with the Soviet Union and avoid conflict with the traditional Arab states and, certainly, no incentive at all to recognize Israel. That has been the heart of the problem from the start. It seems incredible that so many American policy makers and analysts believed, and still do, that the American problem in any settlement engineered by the United States was how to get the Israelis to agree. What could the Israelis have done, and what could the Israelis do even today, but agree to the terms that satisfy the United States? We shall return to this point shortly. From the American point of view, the only successful overall strategy was to obtain an Arab commitment to reduce Soviet influence in their countries and to seek accommodation with Israel before theii lost possessions were given [or promised to be given) back. The reason the United States was so successful in mediating the Egyptian-Israeli negotiation was that President Sadat had decided, even before negotiations started—indeed, apparently even before he initiated the 1973 war—that he wanted to sever his ties with the Soviet Union and ally to the United States. Incredibly, Sadat remained firm in his decision while he was still fighting with Israel. He had become convinced (correctly, this author thinks) that the USSR was not an effective partner in realizing Arab goals and that the USSR would not press and win from the United States support for the Arab point of view in a resolution to the Arab-Israeli issue.

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Additionally, Sadat was far more prepared to make peace with the Israelis if he could get back the territory Nasser had lost in the 1967 war. The quid pro quo was bolder than any other Arab leader dared to propose either before or since. There were good reasons for this. Egypt's size and importance in the region permitted Egyptian leaders to behave in ways that others could not match, so it was difficult for radical Arab elites to follow Egypt's example. Up to 1973, most of them had made political careers promising Israel's destruction. Moreover, weak as they were, Arab leaders were afraid, with good reason, that once Israel was assured of peace, it would not return to them all that it had taken. Finally, Middle Eastern politics are some of the most brutal in the world. Arab leaders risked assassination if they indicated that they might support accommodation with Israel. When Sadat moved toward peace, calls for his assassination came from Iraq, Syria, and the PLO. And he was killed. Abdullah, King of Jordan, was killed. Bashir Gemayel, President Designate of Lebanon, was killed. The list of assassinations of those even suspected of defecting is long. There have been both gains and costs for the United States in becoming an intermediary. The radical states involved have toned down their anti-American stances. Successful mediation by the United States has resulted in a greater measure of stability in the area, showed up the Soviet Union as powerless to act and thus irrelevant to the achievement of Arab goals, and led Arab states, however haltingly, to distance themselves from the Soviet Union. But American success with the Arabs has been (and will be) expensive. Arab states switching to the American side sought and will continue to seek to replace help they received from the Soviet Union. The new patron will have to begin supplying its new allies with arms. While Soviet help has been mostly military, American aid has been both military and economic. But after the Arabs consent to change their ways, the United States must also deliver some form of Israeli agreement. On this point, there is no question about the outcome. The only question is the price the Israelis will exact for withdrawing from their buffer zone. That is the point. Making the Israelis withdraw has been and will be hardly cost-free. In 1973, the Israelis had fought a very frightening and costly war and did not think much of a request to withdraw even as they were defeating their enemy. Forcing the Israelis to retreat would, if nothing else, certainly have affected Israel's loyalty toward its patron. The American task in these negotiations was

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probably as difficult as was the Soviet task to persuade the North Vietnamese to move out of Kampuchea. The American argument for withdrawal had great power with Israeli leaders. At its core, it was as follows. Israeli concern about security was legitimate, for giving up a buffer would diminish Israel's chances of prevailing should war return. What Israel had to realize was that real security was to be found in its neighbors' willingness to live in peace and the return of the conquered territory was the means to that end. "Territory-for-peace" has been the major formula in the attempt to solve the Arab-Israeli dispute. Another essential component in the equation was assistance. The Israelis worried that after they returned the territories that gave them the advantages of "natural" defenses in case of war, the Arabs might renege on their promises and Israel would find itself at greater risk. Aid made the territory-for-peace exchange more attractive because it appeared to compensate for the security lost in giving up territory with the security gained in more and better arms. Thus, there was an escalation of U.S. arms to Israel. The Israelis had (and have) no choice. They must give in, since they are American clients and the United States holds all the trumps. The notion that Israel thwarted or can thwart in the future the will of the United States is absurd. The Israeli scream when the U.S. government puts pressure on it is an expression of real pain, but Israel knows it cannot resist. Where the United States found it impossible to force Israel to make concessions was the occasions on which the Arab side made very vague statements that, if they could get all they wanted, they then might be ready to bargain over Israel's right to exist. It was difficult for the U.S. government to justify a policy that would force Israel to give the Arab states most or all they wanted simply to entice Arabs to begin to bargain. After all, the United States has had every interest in keeping Israel strong as a bulwark against the expansion of Soviet influence through its proxies. Forcing Israel to make concessions without an acceptable quid pio quo might have weakened it and, equally important, might have weakened its loyalty to the United States. But the Israelis had no choice but to agree to terms if the other side were clearly and reliably conceding the right to destroy them. It has not been, and is not, only pressure from the United States that brings Israel to acquiesce to American demands. Israeli leaders have been aware of the contradiction in their own position. This, after all, has been Israel's own position for decades, and were the

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Arab states to agree, the Israelis would be held to their word. Kissinger tells of an exchange with Golda Meir that makes the point. It is worth quoting. It is the end of the 1973 war, and the Israelis, helped by American arms, are again victorious over the combined attack of Syria and Egypt. Golda's first question when we sat down in a back room concerned not the war but her nightmare for the future: Was there a secret U.S.-Soviet deal to impose the 1967 borders? When I denied this forcefully, she asked whether there was a deal to impose any other frontiers. . . . [S]he exemplified the enormous insecurity inherent in Israel's geographic and demographic position and its total dependence on the United States.. . . Yet now the almost palpable relief at the war's end gave rise to acute uneasiness about its implications. For twenty-five years, Israeli diplomacy had striven for direct negotiations. Now that this achievement was at hand, Golda was nearly overwhelmed by the realization, still mercifully obscure to her colleagues, that the agenda for these negotiations would face Israel with the awesome dilemmas it had avoided for too long. . . . [Wjould the direct negotiations be confined to implementing a return to the 1967 borders, or would Israel have the right to put forward its own interpretation of [Resolution] 242?13 Either way, one subject of direct negotiations would have to be Israeli withdrawal. Once negotiations began, the Israelis would have few if any degrees of freedom. They would fight desperately on minor points because they knew they could not resist on major ones. They also knew that the American side was only repeating the position the Israelis had taken from the time they had conquered Arab lands. The Israelis had claimed for twenty years that they did not want conquests, they only wanted peace. It sounded good, and it gave them the high moral ground. But of course, it was easy to say that when the Arab states were adamant and wished Israeli destruction. In such a context, it seemed possible to claim one only wanted peace but still keep the territory. That position failed, however, when Sadat's Egypt promised peace and asked for its territory back. Once real negotiation started, all there was to talk about was Israeli withdrawal. Israelis wrung their hands and gnashed their teeth during the many years that the negotiation with Egypt and Syria was effectively pursued, because they understood that in the logic of the situation—if the Arabs promises of peace were believable—the only thing to discuss in negotiations was their withdrawal.

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The process played itself out in 1974, in 1975, and in 1979, the year of the Camp David Accords. Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty. The agreement outlined a sequence of Israeli withdrawals from all Egyptian territory occupied as a result of Egyptian defeats in the 1967 and 1973 wars. Part of the agreement included the United States giving both Egypt and Israel substantial amounts of aid. The first major increase in U.S. aid beyond the replacement of 1973 war losses is associated with a first withdrawal in 1974 from the Sinai and a second withdrawal in 1975. Israel's share in fiscal year 1976 was 2l times the amount of aid given in the preceding year. The political dynamics that led to the increase were the same as those described for the period immediately after the 1973 war. Essentially, the Israelis were giving up the rest of the territory they had conquered from Egypt in return for a promise that both parties would coexist in peace. Now there was no going back: The Israelis had received more assurances, when Sadat made his dramatic and magnificent trip to Jerusalem, that Egypt truly wanted peace. As part of the Camp David Accord, the Israeli aid—Egypt received an almost equivalent amount—included a major share of additional military assistance clearly designed to reassure the Israelis that what security they were losing in giving up the desert as a buffer, they would make up, to the extent possible, by the acquisition of new and additional arms. The difficulties in the Camp David negotiations offer additional insight into the correctness of the interpretation presented here. Discussions between the United States and Israel at Camp David were acerbic. The explanation usually given for these difficulties has involved personalities, antipathies, general tension, maneuvering for advantage from different modes of negotiations, and so on. All such behavior has been described in detail elsewhere.14 But the substantive reason for such difficulties has not usually been stressed. Egypt had made up its mind to gain peace and was getting its territory in exchange, but Sadat needed more. He wanted, in effect, for the Israelis to make some gesture that they would give up territory that "belonged" to Arab states that were as yet unwilling to make peace with the Israelis. Sadat wanted evidence that he had helped the Arab cause, not just Egypt's interests. Some statement, or better still, some behavior that indicated that the Israelis recognized the need to withdraw from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was what he needed. Were the Israelis willing to return that territory for peace, the proper answer would have been, "We shall give it back, or most of it back, when Jordan and Syria, and particularly the former, sign peace

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with us." But the Israelis were not willing. In part, the reason was the Begin government's wish to keep all or most of the territory of the West Bank. In taking that position, the Israelis contravened the expectation that Israel would return territory for peace (UN Resolution 242). The Begin government advanced an argument incredible to non-Israeli, as well as to many Israeli, eyes. It claimed, essentially, that the West Bank was Judea and Samaria, the ancient cradle of the Jewish nation, and that, therefore, it could not be given back. The fact that today Arabs living in the areas outnumber Israelis 20 and more to 1 and wanted an end to Israel's control of the area was not mentioned. This position of Israel's is completely divorced from reality. (It was a sign of things to come.) And there is another point. In pressuring the Israelis for some gesture in word and deed that they were ready to negotiate exchanges of territory for peace in the West Bank and Gaza, the United States was trying to protect its new ally, Sadat, who was now in real trouble with other Arab states. Arabs were accusing Sadat of making peace and leaving the other radical Arabs in the lurch. Without Egypt on their side, it would be difficult to keep up even the illusion that Israel could be beaten. The charge was true, but Sadat desperately sought to obscure the reality and needed evidence that would lend some substance to his argument that the Palestinians had also gained by what he had done. If only his agreement with the Israelis contained some promise that territory would be given back or that the Israeli settlements on the West Bank would be stopped, his claim that he had protected the interests of the Palestinians, and that what he had done was in the interest of the "Arab cause," and not just in Egypt's interests, might be viewed as having some credibility.15 Even with that promise, his claim was not likely to be believed by radical Arab leaders. But the American negotiators wanted to buttress Sadat in any way they could. He was their best hope among the Arabs, and he could not be allowed to fail. The United States also sought reassurance—as if they needed it—that the Israelis would continue trading territory for peace. In demanding this of Israel the American negotiators overlooked the fact that the strategy they were pursuing in the case of Jordan and Syria was actually having the reverse affect from what was bringing them success with Egypt. It was unrealistic to expect that the process of peace would begin with promises of territorial concessions from Israel to other Arab states still committed to destroying her and pillorying Egypt precisely for the peace overtures she had

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made to their proclaimed enemy. Syria; Jordan, and the PLO were not committed to peace. Syria did not want it. Jordan did, but was too threatened by the radical Arabs to say so, while the PLO needed Israel's destruction to make room for the refugees on their return home. Since the Arabs believed that Israeli settlement on the West Bank was a way of ensuring that the area would not be given back, stopping the establishment of these settlements reduced whatever urgency the Arab governments felt in entering into negotiations with the Israelis. Israeli concessions before actual bargaining began would become, inevitably, the point of departure for any negotiations—if and when they started—and would encourage the radical Arabs to raise the ante. It seemed a great deal for Israel to pay so that Sadat could delude himself into thinking that what he had done was really in the interest—as he wished to see their interest—of other Arab nations. The Israelis in the end exchanged letters of agreement that contained first steps for dealing with the West Bank and Gaza. But discussions of this agreement, not surprisingly, were to become stalemated, as Egypt and Israel had very different interpretations of what the agreement they had reached meant. Lastly, the Camp David Accord is considered the Carter administration's greatest foreign policy achievement, and it is. But it should be clear that it completed a process begun by Sadat, Nixon, and Kissinger after the war of 1973. The problem for the United States as an intermediary in the Arab-Israeli conflict was the fact that the United States controlled one of the disputants—Israel—but not the other—the Arabs. The only way it could be certain of having its strategy of territory-for-peace work was to ensure that the Arabs were publicly and truly committed to peace and then sit down to a negotiation where it would press Israel to give back what it had taken. Those were the criteria for Kissinger's negotiations, and these were clearly the circumstances that motivated Egypt. Indeed, the key to the success of the Camp David negotiations was Sadat 's realization that the only way to get his territory back was to shift to the side of the United States and make peace with Israel. In other words, in that particular negotiation the "Arab side" did want to make peace; all one needed to do was to deliver the Israelis. But on the matter of the West Bank, Jordan and Syria did not want to make peace. To press Israel to make concessions in advance of agreement by the Arabs would have led to the opposite of what the United States wanted. The Carter team never seemed to have understood that as-

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pect of the dilemma. The strategy was abandoned in certain aspects of the Camp David negotiations, as we have indicated. It had been abandoned for a time in Lebanon. It came back at the center of American policy under Shultz and Reagan.

Escalation, 1981—1985: Lebanon and Renewed Peace Negotiation

After 1974, U.S. assistance to Israel remained high. As we stated earlier, there were many reasons for such continued large support: to compensate Israel for losses of equipment and economic dislocations suffered in the 1973 war; to reward it for agreeing to abandon the Sinai and its facilities there to Egypt (Egypt, also, was reequipped with U.S. arms), to keep pace with the rising cost of arms; and most important of all, because of the help the Arab states were receiving from West Europe, the Warsaw Pact nations and the United States. The reason for United States/USSR sales of arms to Arab clients and Israel was again the fact that arms were the admission price to the good graces of all countries in the Middle East. This was clearly the case with the large U.S. assistance package to Egypt and Israel in the Camp David agreement. The escalations in this period were also connected with Israel's invasion of Lebanon. We shall deal with this last war separately. The final escalation is for the years 1984-85, a time beyond the period covered in this book, but a brief consideration will help our understanding of the problem. Such an increase, again, has been substantial. And, again, the reasons for increased need were many. During almost the entire tenure of the Begin government, the Israelis, by common acknowledgment, had been living beyond their means, racking up an incredible inflation rate and the highest foreign per capita debt up to that period. One should note that living beyond one's means in this context included both guns and butter, but expenditures for defense were still the key. Many loans had been forgiven, yet by 1984 Israel's servicing of outstanding debt amounted to over $800 million a year.16 This military "extravagance" was due in large part to trying to keep up with what the Eastern bloc, the Western Europeans, and the United States were giving the Arab nations. The general increase in the cost of arms also figured in this dilemma. But expenditures on defense were not the only factor that got the Israeli economy into the pitiable state it was in, requiring her to go

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begging for new help from Washington.17 Consumption of goods and services for civilian life was also a factor. With 40 percent of the GNP going to defense, the nondefense sectors of the economy were inevitably slighted, and needs for manufactured goods for the civilian sector were met through imports. With consumption increasing due to governmental monetary and wage policies, trade deficits ballooned. International trade conditions also were disadvantageous. Israeli exports to its European markets were paid for with European currencies, while imports (particularly oil), which Israel needed ever since returning Egypt's oil fields in the Sinai, were paid for with dollars. The problem almost got out of control, since such fiscal policies were clearly folly. There is, of course, nothing new in a government seeking support by easing the economic life of its population. "Buy now, pay later" has long been a way by which the elites in the public as well as the private sector have tried to avoid having their constituencies face facts. But in the case of Israel such irresponsible behavior of elites can be accounted for by a difficulty other elites don't often face. Israel's population was only 3.5 million. The citizenry has faced five wars since 1948, and in proportion to their population, their casualties have often been high. Privations have been serious. Tension and uncertainties are constant, and opportunities elsewhere are attractive. Given the hawkish position of the Begin government adding to all these troubles, it is not unreasonable to think that the government sought to avoid difficulties for their people in their economic way of life. Were economic belt-tightening and unemployment added to the other difficulties of Israeli existence, would not the Israelis, having had enough, simply leave? What then? Perhaps such anxieties were unfounded, but they did exist.

T h e War in Lebanon, 1982

The reasons why the United States has continued to help Israel in spite of differences that come up time and again in the relations of the two countries can be seen in the Lebanese war of 1982. Many American leaders and the general public were scornful and angry at the Israeli action, and it was a period of great tension. And yet, within a year, the two governments seemed to be closer than ever. Why the rapprochement? From the Israeli point of view, the war turned out to be highly

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costly with its sole "achievement" the crippling of much of the PLO military organization. Perhaps there was also another "gain." By the spectacular air victory over the Syrian air force and the destruction of the SAM missiles in the Bekaa valley, Israel recaptured, for a brief time, the feeling that it could produce military magic, as it had done in the 1967 war. But the war was costly in Israeli lives and international standing, created dissension in the army and the nation, and, most important, Defense Minister Sharon's grand design of putting the Christian Phalange in control of Lebanon and signing a peace treaty with them, to match the treaty with Egypt, proved an incredible blunder. Why the United States failed to rein in Israel and allowed the war to begin in the first place will be taken up in the next chapter. Here I am concerned with what occurred when the United States finally stopped Israel and made her retreat. At that point the United States expected: (1) the new Christian President of Lebanon Amin Gemayel (brother of the assassinated President Designate Bashir Gemayel) to be totally dependent on the United States for help to organize the country and establish his authority, and (2) the Arab moderate states to be pleased by the U.S. action of making Israel withdraw (for they had been demanding for weeks that this be done) and, therefore, return the United States to their good graces, leading the moderate Arab states to influence Syria to withdraw its own army from Lebanon. The Arab moderate states, principally Saudi Arabia, had acted on occasion as intermediaries and, also on occasion, provided escort service to U.S. intermediaries in dealings with Syria. Syria had promised it would withdraw. In short, with a new Christian government dependent on the United States, with both Syria and Israel out of Lebanon, with the United States again in the favor of the moderate Arab States, U.S. foreign policy leaders saw the U.S. position in the region as greatly strengthened. These were the expectations. Putting a good deal of distance between the United States and Israel seemed the prudent thing to do. Israel was in bad odor. The massacres of Palestinian civilians by the Christian Phalange created an international firestorm against Begin and Sharon. There was a good deal of animosity against Israel in the communications, liberal, and foreign policy communities in the United States demanding these two truculent leaders be brought to heel. But U.S. expectations were not realized. The Israelis withdrew; that much went according to plan. But Syria did not withdraw as it

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had been expected to do. Syria used the Lebanese Moslem militias as proxies to fight its adversaries. The militias fought the Christian Government until the new President of Lebanon lost all authority; attacked the retreating Israelis who, unwilling to take additional casualties, hastened their retreat; attacked the U.S. soldiers of the international peacekeeping force introduced into Beirut first to protect the evacuation of the PLO, and then to keep the peace and prod the Israelis out of Beirut after the Sabra and Shatila massacres. A terrorist attack on a Marine Corps barrack killed 200 U.S. Marines and the United States also left. U.S. policy had permitted Syria to rearm and protect pro-Syrian Moslem forces using civilian populations as a protecting cover in their attacks on both U.S. and Israeli soldiers. Once its own soldiers were under attack, the U.S. government was rightly concerned that if the Israeli forces evacuated positions occupied after being pushed out of Beirut these points would be taken over by hostile Moslem militias. The United States would have liked Israel to delay its retreat in order to protect the right flank of the American forces. But the hawkish coalition governing Israel had been weakened, and it was no longer politically possible for Israeli troops to remain in place. None of the American moves designed to ingratiate the United States to the Lebanese and other Arab states had the desired effect. One recalls Henry Kissinger being questioned on a talk show about ways one could persuade Syria to stop supporting the militias attacking U.S. soldiers, and Kissinger seemingly pained by the naivete of the question replied: "Negotiations [were] useless unless the distribution of forces on the ground [was] changed first." Of course, Syria could have been made to respond to pressure. Syria had stopped stalling and evacuated her troops from Beirut concurrently with the PLO after the Israelis bombed the city. When the United States sided against Israel it also lost the big stick to make Syria mind. The Secretary of Defense had led the coalition that accepted the promises of moderate Arab leaders, opposed the use of the United States' own force and helped drive Israeli forces out. With its opponents on the run, Syria would not withdraw. She took on the United States and, incredibly, unbelievably in the eyes of all observers, pushed the United States out of the area. Syria had triumphed. But it was a victory that entailed serious, if possibly temporary, costs to the "Arab cause" through the remaining Reagan years. The view that it was primarily the Israelis who were intransigent, that it was the Israelis who used force, that the moderate Arab states

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would be able to convince the radicals to accommodate to peace, that the radicals in order to keep the peace would not press an advantage were they to gain one, was tested once again and found wanting. The American Secretary of State, George Shultz, also believing American intermediaries and Saudi assurances about Syrian intentions, had also backed the policy and had been proven wrong.18 He learned the lesson. He understood that the promises of radical Arab States would not be kept unless strong pressure was applied, and that the major source of such pressure was the fear of Israeli arms. If Israel was rendered unable to act, U.S. leverage in the region decreased substantially. It was this realization that led to a return to close relations between the two nations. One should also note that the Secretary of Defense, who worked tirelessly to get the Israelis out, argued against the use of U.S. force, and supported reliance on the goodwill of the Syrians and the Arab moderates, did not learn the lesson. Indeed, many did not. But with the Secretary of State again in Israel's corner, and the President's strong general sympathy for that country, a rapprochement was quickly brought about. The aftermath of the Lebanon war saw the United States revert to the Kissinger strategy. When in 1985 and 1986 the Arab moderate leaders came to the United States suggesting that the time had come to reopen negotiation over the West Bank and Gaza, the United States declined to intervene until the parties were ready to negotiate seriously and directly with the Israeli government. The Nixon-Kissinger strategy was back on track. One final comment. After the shock of the war had worn off, there appeared on Jordan's side a new willingness to begin discussion of a settlement of the occupied territories. King Hussein's newfound determination was largely due to the weakening of the PLO by the expulsion of the Arafat PLO forces from Lebanon. That put a strain on the tie between the PLO leadership and the Palestinian refugee population and forced the PLO to be far more heavily dependent on the Palestinian populations in the West Bank and Gaza. These, as we have noted, have had a burning concern to get rid of the Israeli occupation but have had less interest in appeals for the destruction of Israel, though many voices among them call for such destruction. Moreover, Assad of Syria had split the PLO in gaining control of one wing and trying to destroy the Arafat wing it did not control. Arafat, for a time, appeared less constrained by Assad's hostility to a settlement with the Israelis. It is precisely to make the most of this opportunity that the King of Jordan tried to initiate

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talks with the Israelis. His move was a difficult one. At the height of the PLO's power, the leaders of all Arab countries had given the PLO the right to represent the Palestinians. Jordan had raged at the decision. But Hussein had been frightened to move without PLO approval for over a decade, fearing he would be attacked by all radical forces in the region. Now, with the PLO seriously weakened and in need to produce results for the West Bankers, the PLO, for a time, seemed almost to agree that it might be all right for Jordan and the PLO to collaborate and for Jordan to spearhead the negotiations. But it was not to be. Israeli withdrawal, unless negotiated by the United States and then imposed on Israel, as the Arab leaders and their supporters always demanded, required talks between Israel and the Arabs. Hussein tried to have Arafat commit that the PLO recognize Israel's right to exist so that negotiations could be started. At the last moment Arafat refused. King Hussein, then, broke with the PLO and carried on a bitter struggle with Arafat for control of the Palestinians in the territories. There was no question, really, where the Palestinians stood. All polls showed them with Arafat. But Israel and Jordan would not accept it until the Intifada broke out.

T h e "Intifada," 1 9 8 7 -

With the Intifada, as the Palestinians called the 1987, 1988 and 1989 rioting in the occupied territories, the tug-of-war between Israel and the Arabs took an unexpected turn. But much remained the same. Palestinians skillfully used the riots in an attempt to corner Israel and the United States into talking with the PLO. Talking with the PLO would of course imply recognition of that organization. Discussions with the PLO over their demand for a Palestinian state would soften resistance to this demand in advance of negotiations. And all this in advance of the PLO recognizing Israel's right to exist, present boundaries, and abandonment of the use of terror. The riots assured that Israel's feet would be kept to the fire. All eyes turned to the Israeli government. Would Israel now make concessions? Would they agree to a Palestinian state?19 This had been the way before. Whenever hostilities between the two sides erupted in open conflict, the approach had always been to ask the United States to force Israel to negotiate. It was assumed that the difficulty was rooted in Israel's unwillingness to return the

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conquered lands. Of course keeping the territories was what major leaders of the Likud hoped to do, and would do if they could. But they could not. In the final analysis the United States could control Israeli decisions. The United States could make Israel negotiate but could not force the Palestinians to testify publicly and unequivocally that Israel had the right to exist and renounce terrorism against her. Barring that admission it would be contrary to U.S. interests to force Israel's capitulation. The lesson had not been learned. Finally the PLO leadership came around and did just that. The United States began to talk to the PLO directly.

CONCLUSION

The United States, then, has two major reasons for helping Israel. First was the U.S. fear of communist expansion either directly or through proxies. The U.S. leadership at least since the Nixon administration has felt the need for a reliable fighting force in the Middle East to obstruct such expansion. Second, Israeli arms have proven themselves to be an important instrument to pry loose Soviet Arab allies from their ties with the Soviet Union. When the Israelis defeated radical Arab states in war, conditions were created for these countries to turn to the United States for help and distance themselves from the Soviet Union. There are several reasons why this was so. Only the United States could provide protection for these countries by restraining the Israelis. Equally important, defeat in war made it clear that help from the USSR was not likely to bring the return of the territory lost to Israel. Only the United States seems to have sufficient influence with Israel to make it give back at least part of what it has conquered. The quid pro quo of U.S. intervention on behalf of the Arab side was their disentangling themselves from coalitions hostile to the United States. To get the Israelis to withdraw, and soothe some very acute Israeli anxieties, the United States gave the Israelis arms. It was a crude trade-off of security by arms in exchange for security by buffer-zone. The essence of the U.S. argument to Israel on such occasions was and is that the United States realizes that Israel is taking a risk, but such risks are an inevitable part of the process of convincing its adversaries that Israel wants to live in peace. The reader will recall Warren Austin's alleged exhortation cited at the beginning of this book. In summary then, two processes propelled increases in arms

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transfers to the Middle East and to Israel. On the Arab side, Arab states asked the USSR for arms as they both prepared to fight and replaced losses at the war's end. These requests involved upgrading both the quantity and the sophistication of the weapons supplied. On the American side, there have been three different factors promoting escalation: (1) The United States has given aid to Israel to keep it strong, and, therefore, replaces what equipment is lost in war. (2) The United States has increased the level of assistance to compensate the Israelis, at least in part, for any loss of security from "voluntarily" relinquishing territory they have conquered in war. (3) the United States is pushed into giving more help to Israel when it decides also to give arms to the Arab states. It is this help to Arab states that has been the most important factor in increasing the amount of assistance to Israel.

8 PATRON AND CLIENT: A MATTER OF CONTROL

I

to consider still another mythology regarding the relationship between the United States and Israel, this one having to do with the apparent lack of control that the United States as patron holds over Israel as client. While we have already touched upon this issue in light of certain specifics—cases wherein, for example, Israel has complied with American concession demands and received compensatory aid in return—what we are considering here are the basic "dynamics," if you will, of this patron-client relationship. The presupposition behind this is that Israel should be doing as the United States bids, and proponents of the mythology presented here say Israelis clearly do not. It is not my purpose here to argue what Israel should or should not do, but to examine what the Israelis have done, and to view their actions in light of the U.S. policy in the Middle East. And having done that, can we then say that the NOW C O M E

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charge is true, that Israel does pretty much as it pleases, often in glaring—even arrogant—contradiction of American wishes? That Israel is, in effect, beyond American control? There are three purported manifestations of American inability to control its Lilliputian client: First, the Israelis are permitted to be stubborn and unyielding in negotiations. Perhaps far more galling to American leaders is their allegation that American friends of Israel, both Jewish and non-Jewish, have attacked American leaders whenever they advance policies that may be advantageous to the United States but contrary to the interests of Israel. But most important, of course, is the charge that when Israel moved against American interests in the region, the United States has not and could not control Israeli behavior and stop them from hampering U.S. strategies in the Middle East.

THE SETTING FOR NEGOTIATION

There seem to be two reasons why Israeli leaders negotiating over security matters appear enormously difficult and tediously punctilious. The first is that they know their country lives on the brink of disaster with little or no room for missteps. Security concessions made at the negotiating table may prove fatal if the surrounding powers renege on their half of the bargain. The suspicion and prudence exercised in their dealings with the Arab world requires no explanation. How they deal with the United States, their sole important international friend, is another matter. How could the Israelis be sure that the United States would not put friendship with Arab elites above Israel's security? Over and over one hears the complaint that the Israelis are obsessive in their search for assurances that the United States will protect their legitimate security concerns in any agreements made with the Arab states. Once in hand, however, these assurances have never seemed enough. U.S. promises of support are no guarantee. While the Israelis consider the United States a very reliable ally, they also know that American assistance is worthless unless they are able to help themselves. What can promises mean if the United States weakened Israel's ability to protect itself? After all, what did promises mean to South Vietnam, to the Shah of Iran, or to Lebanon? And how would the United States define the "legitimate" security interests of the Israelis? Did "legitimate" in this sense mean the same to Vance

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and Carter as it meant to Nixon and Kissinger or Reagan and Shultz? What if the Caspar Weinbergers were to gain the ear of the president in relation to the Middle East? Those who shape American foreign policy have not wanted to sap Israel's strength and, over the long run, they have tried to be careful. But, of course, the Israelis know that, in the short run, the United States could bargain away interests that the Israelis themselves consider important. Doubts and questions, then, always pervaded Israeli perceptions of American intentions. It should be kept in mind that, through much of the period covered in this book, the Israelis were constantly being asked to negotiate, to be sensitive to the feelings of people who insist on their right to destroy Israel. It must be galling for Israeli leaders to be told to emulate the courage of Egypt and Sadat. But Egypt, under Sadat, was negotiating advantages, not making concessions. It is equally galling to Palestinians today to be asked to be sensitive to Israeli security concerns. Of course, the Israelis have been concerned about Arab states' military might, not the Palestinians. For Israel, every negotiation initially involved the issue of whether it should be allowed to exist at all. Israel has been under the constant threat of being forced to make the ultimate concession. And once that question was shelved, the substance of all negotiations has inevitably involved Israeli retreat and concessions. They have given up what they actually have in exchange for a series of promises that may— or may not—be kept. Henry Kissinger has suggested that there is also a much more mundane reason for the tedious and irritating obstinacy that characterizes the Israeli way of negotiation. The Israeli cabinet is a coalition of leaders from competing parties who chart each move in negotiations and preserve the record as potential ammunition to use in their own internecine warfare. Nothing is more lethal to Israeli politicians than to be charged with softness in taking positions on security questions with Arab states. Nothing is more difficult to justify to the electorate than compromises made to leaders of countries insistent on their right to destroy Israel. Israeli leaders and negotiators must demonstrate, therefore, that they have tried everything in the book to secure any possible advantage that was there to be had (American negotiators should find this problem familiar; they faced the same pressures when negotiating over security matters with the Soviet Union.) Covering themselves by exhausting their interlocutors, then, is the safest way of doing business and still remain-

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ing in power. The reasons we have presented are more than likely part of the explanation for the "difficult" behavior of the Israelis. But are the Israelis more difficult than anyone else would be in similar cirucmstances?

THE ISRAELI "NEGOTIATING STYLE"

The above "explanations" do not deal with the charge that Israelis have been uncompromising and unresponsive to the United States in negotiations, and that Israel's stubborness has been unjustified and has adversely affected American interests in the Middle East. This criticism is often used to argue that Israel is an impossible ally to deal with, that the United States should limit its relationship with the Israelis or even stop helping them altogether. It is undoubtedly the feeling that lay behind Caspar Weinberger's outburst regarding Israel's annexation of the strategic territory of the Golan Heights: "How long do we have to go on bribing Israel. . . . If there is no real cost to the Israelis, we'll never be able to stop any of their actions." 1 Here is the judgment of Henry Kissinger regarding Israeli negotiating style: I was now being directly exposed for the first time to Israeli negotiating tactics. In the combination of single-minded persistence and convoluted tactics the Israelis preserve in their interlocutor only those last vestiges of sanity and coherence needed to sign the final document. These are strong words. Have the Israelis been more stubborn than negotiators in their position usually are? Or, to put it differently, has their behavior been "unreasonable," given the situation? But how is one to establish the norm of "reasonable" behavior? Stubbornness, even fanatical stubbornness, is not always an unreasonable attitude. Take the behavior of other friends and allies. Have Israel's leaders been more stubborn in their dealings with the United States than, say, the French? Have the Israelis been any worse at stonewalling American demands than the Japanese? One must ask the same questions in evaluating judgments about individuals. Was Golda Meir "tougher" in negotiations over the Sinai or the Golan Heights than Margaret Thatcher was over the Falklands? Was Begin more "difficult" on the West Bank than Le Due

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Tho was on Vietnam or Assad of Syria was on Israeli withdrawal? Two illustrations, one of Israel's Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, the other of Golda Meir negotiating with U.S. leaders, will help in making our point. The two were alleged to be the most rigid and difficult of Israeli negotiators. The vignette that follows is of Menachem Begin, in his time the bête noir of American leaders concerned with Middle East politics, accompanied by an Israeli negotiating team supposedly impervious to pressure from the United States. The scene is an unproductive visit by Menachem Begin to Washington. The Carter administration wanted Begin to agree to the principle of withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. Begin resisted. Zbiegniew Brzezinski describes the meeting. The President sat down, gave Begin one of his icy smiles and proceeded in very firm tones to state the following: "I am discouraged about the prospects for the future. I will have to make a report to members of the Congress on our position and yours, and I am going to tell you what I am going to say to them so that you can correct me. My view is that you are not willing to stop expansion or the creation of new settlement; you are not willing to give up the settlements in the Sinai; you will not accept UN protection for the Sinai settlements; you will not politically withdraw from the West Bank; you are not willing to accept UN 242 on all its fronts; and you are not willing to let the Arabs choose between three different alternatives after the end of the five-year transition arrangements for the West Bank." When he finished, the Israelis looked absolutely shaken. Begin was sitting across from Carter, with a stony expression on his face but looking rather ashen. Dayan leaned back several times in his chair and put his hand to his head, looking obviously pained and very nervous. Dinitz [the Israeli ambassador to the U.S.] gave me the impression of being in a state of shock.2 Hardly a portrayal of tough, inflexible negotiators; they sound more scared than tough. Another case of Menachem Begin acting out of character of the tough, unyielding negotiator is reported by Zbiegniew Brzezinski. Begin and Brzezinski were walking together at Camp David and discussing Israeli settlements in the Sinai. Carter and Sadat wanted them removed, but the Israelis were resisting: At one point in our walk, [Begin] exclaimed: "My right eye will fall out, my right hand will fall off before I ever agree to the dis-

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mantling of a single Jewish settlement." I thought of this later when Begin agreed to the Sinai deal, which included the dismantling of the Israeli settlements. It reconfirmed my view that Begin can be both pressured and enticed.3 And there is even more powerful testimony that suggests that far from being insensitive to American wishes, the Israelis are actually terrified. Israeli obstinacy is simply a way of attempting to maintain a semblance of independence from a patron on whom Israel depends for survival. Kissinger's report of a meeting with Golda Meir is an excellent illustration of this point. The occasion was the end of the 1973 war. Israel had won it with American help. The issue was Israeli withdrawal and concessions. Meir was both anguished and defiant. Kissinger's commentary is profoundly perceptive and poignant: Golda was railing not against America's strategy but against a new, more complicated, reality: We did not start the war, yet . . . Madame Prime Minister, we are faced with a very tragic situation. You did not start the war, but you face a need for wise decisions to protect the survival of Israel. This is what you face. This is my honest judgment as a friend. MEIR (her voice shaking): You're saying we have no choice. KISSINGER: We face the international situation that I described to you. MEIR: You're saying we have to accept the judgment of the U.S. . . . We have to accept your judgment? Even on our own affairs? On what is best for us? KISSINGER: We all have to accept the judgment of other nations. We're deferring to your judgment. MEIR:

KISSINGER:

Golda's apprehension was that if she once accepted our judgment of what was best—even if we were right—this would whet the appetite for even further Israeli concessions. So she went to the other extreme and insisted that Israel need not take into account the view of any other nation—an autonomy and luxury enjoyed not even by the superpowers.4 Mr. Kissinger's comment deals at heart with the logic of patron and client relations. Israel's stubbornness scarcely indicates indifference to American wishes,- despite appearances to the contrary, Israeli resistance—the wringing of hands, the gnashing of teeth—is, and can only be theater. True, the Israelis feel their lines deeply, but that

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does not affect the reality of world affairs. They don't have the power or the choice; surely the U.S. leaders who get so angry at the Israelis must have known as much. One need only recall the very same Begin livid with anger at being told that the United States was going to punish Israel from having annexed the Golan Heights. The punishment was withholding $300 million in arms sales and the suspending of a strategic agreement Israel wanted badly. Begin, in whiteknuckled anger, shouted at the United States ambassador who brought him the news. Spiegel relates how, "In addition to stating that the United States had no moral right, in light of its behavior in Vietnam, to punish or preach to Israel, [Begin exclaimed] "Are we a vassal state of yours? Are we a banana republic?" 5 The prime minister's anger was proportional to his impotence. One final point: It is seldom mentioned—Kissinger is the only policy maker to state its explicitly—that Israeli obduracy and apparent intransigence are of good benefit to the United States. The United States knows that the end result of any negotiation between the United States and Israel is never in doubt. If the matter is important, the United States gets what it wants. But it certaintly has not been in the interests of the United States to be put in a position where it ends up shouldering Arab problems in winning concessions from Israel unless such concessions were also in U.S. interests. But this would inevitably be the case were it self-evident that the Israelis will simply do all the United States demands. In such circumstances negotiations between Arabs and Israelis would become negotiations between the Arabs and the United States, with the United States being asked to have the Israelis do the Arabs' bidding and being blamed should Israel refuse. Kissinger is worth quoting: Israel's obstinacy, maddening as it can be, serves the purposes of both our countries best. A subservient client would soon face an accumulation of ever-growing pressures. It would tempt Israel's neighbors to escalate their demands. It would saddle us with the opprobrium for every deadlock.6 And again, If Israel submits without a struggle—never mind the substance— the United States may come to think of it as a docile client and God knows what we might take in our hands to impose.7 Israelis in negotiations over issues dividing the Arabs and Israelis— the Sinai, for example, the West Bank, or the Golan Heights—is a

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powerful resource in the political battle between the parties. If the Israelis could be made to appear as the obstacles to peace, the Arabs gained an advantage. Opponents of the Israeli position have been perfectly aware of the substantive meaninglessness of such charges, but they have been also aware of the importance of such ammunition in the battles over policy.

THE ISSUE OF U.S. CONTROL OVER ISRAEL

Israel's stubborn style is really a red herring; an issue in the conflict of appearances, not in the confrontation of substance. Diplomacy, of course, has often been obsessed more with how things seem than with how they are, and the Arab-Israeli conflict is certainly one in which public relations have been as important as the military effort itself. Nevertheless, the important questions are not whether the Israelis have been stubborn or ill-mannered, or even whether some American leaders disliked them but, rather, does the United States control its small client? Does the United States manage the behavior of Israel and shape it to fit American interests? Israel is not a proverbial dog on a leash: Even a superpower cannot exercise complete control over an able and effective client. So the issues must be put more precisely: First, does the United States use its assistance to Israel effectively as an instrument of control? And second, have American efforts to control Israel been successful in altering the way in which Israel treats its neighbors in the Middle East?

A i d a s a n Instrument of C o n t r o l

The answer to the first question is clear enough. Foreign policy leaders in the United States did and do in fact use American aid to Israel as a device to make the Israelis toe the line. Assistance is never "free," and since Israel has been always in need of tanks, weapons carriers, planes and ammunition, pleasing American leaders has been, for them, a full-time job. Most of the time, nothing need be said. But when there are disagreements over security, American leaders have withdrawn the carrot and brought out the stick. The memoirs of American leaders are replete with instances in which they, angry at some move of the Israelis, have threatened to withhold—and, indeed, have withheld—aid and assistance and restored it when the

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Israelis met American wishes. There are many examples of this dynamic. On the occasion of Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, Secretary of State Haig tells the story: In this instance, the President decided that the cost would be a suspension of the U.S.-Israeli agreement on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) establishing limited strategic cooperation between the two countries, which had been concluded only two weeks before. He also suspended some $300 million in potential benefits to Israel through arms sales. Begin had set great store in the MOU; . . . Lewis [the U.S. Ambassador to Israel] had told Begin that resumption of the MOU talks would depend on progress on the autonomy talks [talks on the West Bank] and the situation in Lebanon.8 American leaders under Nixon also used aid as a lever to obtain concessions. During Nixon's first term, in dicussions over a possible change in the stalemate between Egypt and Israel, both Nixon and Henry Kissinger hinted to Rabin (the then Israeli ambassador) and Israeli President Shazar that "military assistance could be used as leverage to encourage increased Israeli diplomatic flexibility." 9 Secretary of State Rogers in a new initiative "hinted that Israel would not receive further Phantom jets without concessions on the interim settlement, while the Soviets increased their assistance to the Egyptians." 10 During Jimmy Carter's administration the fight was over a sale of F-15 jets to the Saudis and F-SE fighters to Egypt, and the Israelis, as one would expect, were opposed. Here is a sketch of the maneuvering around this piece of the aid package: We had hoped to delay this matter while going forward with our peace strategy, but Saudi demands for the planes, as well as Egyptian insecurity about their defense relationship with the United States, compelled us to make the public announcement in midFebruary. In addition, we had some intelligence suggesting that unless we went ahead, the Saudis would buy French planes, with predictable consequences of strengthening the Saudi-French political relationship at the expense of the U.S. one. Nonetheless, we did tell the Saudis in late February that we would like to delay this matter, and their reaction was most adverse. In any case, we settled in late January on . . . combining the proposed plane transfers for all three countries into a single package, making it known that we would not permit the omission of any one country by a congressional veto. The strategy was designed to paralyze the

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powerful Israeli lobby on the Hill. . . . Privately, I urged the President not to give more planes to the Saudis and Egyptians together than the Israelis, but the President, increasingly irritated by Begin's provocations on the settlements, on his own decided to increase the number of planes to Egypt to a total of fifty. I suspect that his relationship with Sadat influenced his decision.11 These quotes tell it all—the bitter bias, the bureaucratic means of infighting and subversion of policy, the completely political nature of arms sales, U.S. assistance to Arab states as a catalyst for assistance to Israel, the silliness of the belief that decisions about arms sales are made anywhere but at the highest level of the executive branch. The record also indicates, however, that American leaders seldom carry out "punishments" of Israel for very long. Observers have suggested that this stems from anxiety regarding possible retribution at the hands of the U.S. Jewish electorate, but the evidence in the first part of this book indicates that this popular belief is wrong. In fact it has been U.S. security interests that restrain American leaders from making good on their threats. In short, the United States stayed its hand because of a concern that withholding too much assistance for too long might weaken Israel's allegiance and resolve, and it has been in the interests of the United States to keep Israel loyal and strong. The few cases in which "insiders" have revealed the ways of Presidential decision making support this interpretation. For example, the Israelis had bombed the Iraqi atomic reactor, destroying it. The Israelis had been terrified that one of their most bitter enemies would have nuclear weapons. Iran, as it turned out, owed Israel a strong vote of thanks. But the act was, of course, unacceptable. The incident provides a full range of insights into all aspects of the use of aid and the bureaucratic infighting that takes place in the use of such resources to shape policy. Here again is an account from Alexander Haig: Some of the President's advisers urged that he take strong, even punitive measures against Israel. I argued that, while some action must be taken to show American disapproval, our strategic interests would not be served by policies that humiliated and weakened Israel. The President's deep natural sympathy for Israel and his understanding that she depended on American friendship came into play also. In the end, the President decided to delay the shipment of four F-16 aircraft (the type used in the raid) to Israel.

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Weinberger revealed this action to the press before it had been officially communicated to the Israeli government. If any further exacerbation of the situation were possible, this accomplished it.12 It is interesting to note that on those occasions when the threat has been carried out, the effect has been immediate. One final story: France had sold a large number of planes to Libya. That country then had no need of the arms and could not absorb them. There was great concern in Israel that such planes, therefore, would find their way to Egypt or Syria. Soon after the sale, President Pompidou of France came to the United States on an official visit, and he was faced with demonstrations by pro-Israel supporters. Pompidou was angry and deeply offended. Nixon was livid and cancelled the transfer of American planes Israel had purchased from the United States. However, Nixon soon rescinded his order, because the interruption was not in the interest of the United States.

AMERICAN CONTROL OF ISRAEL

Now to the most important question of all. Does the United States successfully control Israel's important international behavior? Yes, the record amply demonstrates that the United States controls in good measure Israel's behavior toward its neighboring countries. Consider each of the conflicts Israel has had with its neighbors.

The 1956 Suez Crisis and War

The first example of U.S. control occurs as early as 1957, when the United States forced the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Sinai and the return of the entire region to Egypt. On that occasion, the British and the French had colluded with Israel to attack Egypt over land, while they were mounting their attacks from the sea. The Europeans were seeking to use Israel in an effort to regain the Suez Canal, which Gamal Abdel Nasser had nationalized and removed from British control. President Eisenhower made Israel, Britain, and France withdraw. The invasion had been undertaken without American approval. Eisenhower did not think that Egyptian actions "merited" an invasion, and was worried what effect the fighting would have on Western interests in the region. Also important, Eisenhower hoped to make Egypt an American ally.

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T h e 1967 S i x - D a y W a r

In 1967, the Israelis once again conquered the Sinai, but this time, the United States did not force Israel to withdraw. This was by no means a sign of inability to control Israel. Rather, it stemmed from the breakdown of United States-Egyptian relations. After the United States had rebuffed Egypt's request for help in building the Aswan dam, Egypt became "nonaligned" and turned to the Soviet Union for economic and military aid. The Egyptian desertion from the ranks of American friends is a reminder of what clients can do in the assistance game if their patron's demands are not to their liking. But the 1967 war also shows how long a shadow the United States actually casts on any security decision Israel makes. Egypt had closed the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping. This was an act of war. Secretary of States Dulles had promised in 1956 that the United States would not let this happen, but the United States was not really ready to fulfill that promise. Before the war began, the Israelis, mindful of what had happened to them ten years earlier in the Suez War tried to get a hint of what they would be allowed to do to defend themselves. If they simply waited for the United States to act, as the United States said officially it wanted them to do, what then? If things worsened, as was likely, would the United States guarantee Israeli security? The United States would not commit itself, nor would it take responsibility if a fight erupted. The U.S. message in such circumstances for twenty years has been the same: If you decide to fight, you go it alone. The United States took her time exploring common action with other nations who were even less prone than the United States to act. Powerful groups within the bureaucracies of State and Defense were dead set against the use of any force. The United States remained noncommittal, always urging restraint.13 Israel sat and waited as the danger increased. Despite his private and public protestations that he would not be the first to use force, Nasser expected to recover and emerge victorious after Israel struck the first blow. Meanwhile, the vice presidential visit [Nasser had offered to discuss his action and offered to send his vice president to Washington) could attain by diplomacy what might be lost in war. The offer of dialogue [stood] in sharp contrast to Nasser's provocative statements. On 28 May he asserted at a press conference,

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"Israel's existence in itself is an aggression"; the next day he was telling his national assembly, "If we are able to restore conditions to what they were before 1956, God will merely help and urge us to restore the situation to what it was in 1948 (prolonged applause)."14 Nasser's aim was clear: If at all possible, Israel was to be destroyed. Syria, Jordan, and Iraq joined Egypt in a unified command. Until June 5 Israel waited; still, the United States could not make up its mind. Finally, the Israelis attacked. They had waited a week as the crisis developed to find out what the United States wanted them to do. How can it be argued that the United States had no control and no influence in the most critical Israeli security decisions? Why else did the Israelis wait except for fear that if they attacked without at least appearing to ask permission or to ask for help, the events of 1956 might repeat themselves, and they might be humiliated and forced, once again, to give up their winnings?

The 1973 "Yom Kippur" War In 1973, it was the Syrians and the Egyptians who attacked first. It is interesting that Golda Meir tried to put resonsibility for Israel's failing to preempt, as she had done in 1967, on U.S. warnings not to act first. In a message to Kissinger at the beginning of the war she writes inter alia "You know the reasons why we took no preemptive action. Our failure to take action is the reason for our situation now. If I had given the Chief of Staff authority to preempt as he had recommended, some hours before the attack began, there is no doubt that our situation would now be different." 15 This was nonsense. The United States was not to blame. Both the Israelis and the Americans had been caught napping. But it is true that Kissinger, as every leader before and after, had told the Israelis that if they attacked, the United States could wash its hands of helping them and even might turn against them. United States actions in 1956 had not been forgotten. Nevertheless, the Israelis not only held onto the Sinai but crossed into Egypt, threatening to march into Cairo and Suez City and destroy the Egyptian Third army trapped in the Sinai, at which point the United States forced the Israelis to back away and spare the en-

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circled Egyptian Third Army, despite Israel's eagerness to avenge the losses it had incurred in the Egyptian attack. Ultimately, this time the Israelis were made to return all of the Sinai to Egypt. This time the United States exercised its control over Israel because Egypt had been returning to the American fold during Sadat's presidency. The United States was also instrumental in persuading the Israelis to relinquish territory on the Syrian frontier,- the Syrians had turned to the Americans as mediators and had also made a show of independence from the Soviet Union. The United States responded to these overtures from both Egypt and Syria by persuading Israel to give up the territory it had gained in the 1973 war on the Syrian front. Persuasion was successful because there were benefits for Israel in acceding to American requests.

T h e 1982 W a r In L e b a n o n

It is the general view that in the war in Lebanon the Israelis defied U.S. requests to stop its invasion and that the United States showed itself unable to bring its client under control. What were the circumstances of U.S. helplessness? It is worth going into this case in some detail. Israel claimed that the attack on Lebanon was started to clear away PLO guerillas from the northern Israeli border, but it soon became obvious that Israel's real aim was to destroy the PLO military organization, put in control of Lebanon a government dominated by the Christian Phalange, and then sign a peace treaty with their new Lebanese ally. Ariel Sharon, Israel's Defense Minister, had presented some of these ideas to appalled audiences in the Departments of State and Defense in the months preceding the invasion. One would wonder why such information about plans that the Israelis knew would worry the United States were told to the United States were it not for the simple reason that the Israelis did not dare make such a move without at least informing the American government of what they wanted to do. On those occasions Secretary of State Haig made clear that in the U.S. view Israeli responses to acts of aggression were justified only so long as they remained strictly proportionate to the provocation. This was not what the Israeli government had in mind, but it had to bide its time. Several months later a Palestinian assassin mortally wounded Israel's Ambassador to England,16 Israel invaded Lebanon, overtook the limited targets they had said

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were their goals in the war, and rolled on to Beirut where it trapped the PLO leadership and military force. The Israeli advance was quick though some PLO and Syrian units fought with tenacity. On the way the Israelis destroyed the famed SAM missiles the Syrians had put in the Bekaa valley and decimated the Syrian air force that had risen to defend them without, in turn, suffering a single loss of their own. The Syrians were deeply humiliated and blamed the quality of the Soviet arms for their defeat. The Soviets were livid. It appeared that a separation between the two might develop. The Israeli army trapped the PLO leadership and army in Beirut and besieged the city. Two things stopped the Israelis from entering at first: the fear of U.S. wrath and the fear of casualities in the operation. 17 The attack on Lebanon and the PLO provoked the expected outcry from all the Arab and European governments and inflamed liberal opinion and some sectors of the foreign policy bureaucracy in the United States. Condemnation of Israel rapidly became fashionable. One frequently heard the question in liberal gatherings, "Why are we helping Israel?" and the speaker would look meaningfully at his or her interlocutor. Most important the invasion created deep divisions among American leaders. In a pattern that was to become familiar in future years, Secretary of State Alexander Haig was not insensitive to U.S. gains in the Israeli action. Mr. Haig's support was based on calculations I have outlined earlier; the Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger, opposed it vehemently. President Reagan was publicly uncommitted but, on the other hand, his usual sympathy for Israel was well known. As we evaluate this case two critical items should be kept in mind. First the most hawkish political coalition leading Israel since the birth of that country had found it essential to inform the United States of what they intended to do to test the waters regarding whether the United States would retaliate against them for their action, and had postponed their attack time and again, waiting for a convenient excuse. Second, and most important, it was the bitter differences among U.S. leaders, particularly between Secretaries Weinberger and Haig, and their pulling in different directions, that garbled U.S. signals to Israel and gave the particularly hawkish and truculent Israeli leadership in power at the time the freedom of action that was interpreted as defiance of U.S. instructions. The opposition to the Israeli invasion on the part of the American leaders came from fear that the moderate Arabs would move away from the United States if we backed Israel in its invasion. The

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key to the solution of the problem, the proponents of this view argued, would be forcing Israel to stop its siege and bombardment of Beirut and to withdraw. Only then would the United States return to the good graces of the moderate Arab states. And if only the Israelis turned back, the Syrians, who were occupying half of Lebanon, would also withdraw. It seemed a plausible scenario; intermediaries and American mediators who had been shuttling between the two sides testified that Syria had promised to do so. Saudi Arabia intimated the same thing. On the other hand, Alexander Haig, who was still Secretary of State during the initial weeks of the invasion, followed "the Kissinger strategy." Haig was very aware that the adversaries of Israel in that war were not friends of the United States. Syria was and is a dependent of the USSR. The PLO throughout the period covered in this work has been a revolutionary organization supported by the Soviet Union, frightening to Arab moderate states. A Lebanon dependent on Syria did not strengthen the American position in the region. (This has been amply borne out since.) Although the United States had not approved American interests were clearly served by the Israeli attack. Haig also took the view that those who worried about moderate Arab leaders' opinions never questioned, as others did, whether what such leaders said for public consumption was what they really wanted. The Secretary took for granted that moderate Arabs hated Israel, but also believed that they viewed the PLO as the greater threat. And this view was not wrong. It is significant that, with the exception of Syria (who through its help captured control of one wing of the organization and has been ever since a mortal enemy of Arafat), no Arab country moved a finger to help the PLO. Thus Haig saw the chance that Israeli military pressure might achieve both the expulsion of the PLO from Beirut and Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. Were Syrian and Israeli forces to leave, the United States position in Lebanon and in the Middle East would be greatly enhanced since President Gemayel of Lebanon acknowledged himself entirely dependent on the United States. Viewed in this way, it was in the interest of the United States not to obstruct the Israelis at least until they had accomplished what they set out to do. But the U.S. Secretary of State had been weakened politically by his role in the Falklands war, his position in the controversy with European allies over the gas pipeline from the Soviet Union, from repeated bureucratic clashes over control of foreign policy, and other matters. Haig's position had become so badly compromised that in the end,

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with the Israelis besieging the PLO in Beirut, he was forced to resign. The fundamental point is clear. So long as the U.S. leadership was split the Israeli leaders were free to respond to those voices they agreed with. When Haig was replaced at State by George Schultz who for a time, agreed that the United States needed to make Israel retreat and evacuate the PLO safety from Beirut as a gesture toward the Arab world, that is what happened. The President was, in fact, prevailed upon to send a small force as part of an international peacekeeping force to help keep peace in Beirut and cover the PLO's retreat. It is worthy of note that the direct U.S. involvement in the crisis pushed the Soviet Union and the Syrians to patch up their differences over the Syrian losses in their air confrontation with the Israelis and the opportunity to exploit the split between them was lost. Negotiations over the departure of the PLO were quite lengthy. U.S. efforts to restrain the Israelis, coupled with the Israelis own fear of casualties in a military venture over which domestic Israeli opinion was deeply divided, emboldened Arafat, who began delaying the PLO's departure from Beirut.18 The stalemate, drawn out over a number of weeks, was finally broken by relentless bombing of the Moslem portion of the city and pressure on the ground. There was a major American outcry. The onslaught succeeded in forcing both the PLO and the Syrian troops out of Beirut. With the PLO gone, the peacekeeping force of U.S., French, Italian, and British troops that had come to cover the exit left as well.19 The President Designate of Lebanon was assassinated by a Syrian Lebanese agent.20 Israel took the opportunity to send its forces into West Beirut in order to seize control of the situation. It was at this point that the Israelis let the Phalange militias into the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, where the Phalangists committed indiscriminate slaughter of civilians. A firestorm of criticism both in Israel and the outside world broke out against Sharon and Begin. The multinational peacekeeping force returned to Beirut. Israel instituted a commission of inquiry. Sharon was forced to resign. Official U.S. government preferences were clear. The new government of Lebanon was to be a U.S. client: In exchange, the United States promised to furnish whatever support is needed. Both the Syrians and the Israelis were to leave Lebanon. Israeli-Lebanese relations were to be worked out at a later date. Meanwhile the Syrians promised they would do as requested, once Israel left, and the administration believed them. The problem was to get Israel out. Prodded by the United States, the Israelis began withdrawing. 21

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Ironically, by that time the fantasies about Lebanon and Syria had begun to dissipate. American soldiers and the Lebanese Christian Government were attacked by Lebanese Moslem forces with support and guidance from Syria, and the attacks were taking their toll. By then, the United States wished the Israelis would have stayed to protect their flank. When 200 Marines of the peacekeeping force were killed in a terrorist attack, the United States left.

Sabra and Shatila

The massacres of Sabra and Shatila require a special comment. Those massacres perpetrated by the Christian Phalange militia aroused in Israel and abroad a major onslaught against the Israeli government, weakened it, and provided potent ammunition in the struggle to make Israel retreat. The accusers argued that the Israeli government bore responsibility for the killings, for the Israelis should have known what could happen. The essentials of the case are these: The Israeli leaders, particularly Defense Minister Sharon, suspected the presence of a large number of PLO guerillas hidden in the camps to avoid evacuation, and also of a large cache of arms, and wanted them out at all costs.22 The Lebanese army refused to search for PLO guerillas in the camps. Allowing the Phalange to enter the camps and ferret out the PLO was thought to deal with many problems at once. The Phalange, who had been so important in persuading the Israeli leaders and particularly Sharon to start the invasion, in spite of many promises, had contributed almost nothing to the prosecution of the war. Getting them to deal with the PLO still hidden in the camps was thought to be one way to make some contribution to the fighting. The decision to let the Phalange into the camps also avoided the danger of any further Israeli casualties in any fighting that might ensue. Incredibly, the Israeli leaders also hoped that having the Phalange, rather than Israeli soldiers, enter the camps would avoid U.S. anger at Sharon for breaking Israel's word that the Israeli army would not enter West Beirut (which it had done when Bashir Gemayel, the President Designate and an ally of the Israelis, had been assassinated). The key to understanding Israel's role in the entire affair is to realize Israel's most important leaders' fundamental attitudes and priorities. Ferreting out the PLO they thought hidden in the camps was far more important to them than the safety of Palestinian lives in the camps. The decision to let the Phalange into the camps obviously disre-

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garded the obvious risk to civilians, given the Phalange and Palestinian track record of barbarous behavior toward one another in the past.23 But then it appears that safeguarding Palestinian lives was simply not important to the Israeli leaders of the time. The bestiality of the Sabra and Shatila killings and Israeli leadership's clear share of responsibility in it is one part of the affair but there is another important side to the story. The moral indignation in the industrial world in response to the massacres was quickly siezed by the anti-Begin forces in Israel and the United States as a political resource that could be used to undo the political coalition that had led Israel into the attack on Lebanon. Using moral outrage to fight policies one disagrees with is old hat. Everywhere (including Israel), many leaders, incensed by a given set of abuses of power, seem curiously able to live with even greater outrages when perpetrated by people they like for goals they agree with. As noted, the President of Lebanon was not even touched by the affair even though he, his closest aides, his military organization, and his political party were implicated. Elite opinion in Europe remained passive in the face of much larger massacres in Lebanon of Moslems by Christians and Christians by Moslems or the massacres of the Palestinians in the very same camps of Sabra and Shatila—this time not by Christians but by Shiite Moslems fighting to prevent the Palestinians from regaining the power they had over them before the Israeli invasion. The Israeli leaders showed themselves embattled and embittered at the double standard being used, but one wonders at this reaction. A double standard is always used. Outrages at the carnage and sufferings of masses is used by elites whenever an opportunity presents itself to undermine other elites and defeat their policies. So in this case, the elites opposed to Begin outmaneuvered him and destroyed his coalition. Let us return to the main point. A straightforward hypothesis cannot be resisted. The United States controls Israeli actions when their opponents are friends of the United States, but American leaders give Israel more latitude of action when Israel's enemies are unfriendly to the United States as well. Israel disregarded the United States in only one case, Suez in 1956. She was severely punished. She never disregarded the United States again. In no case has she ignored an unambiguous American directive. Reduced to these bare essentials, the record does not support the view that Israel is a client "out of control." In short, then, the United States has used its relationship with

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Israel as a means to control its client. When American leaders crack the whip, Israel responds and the Israeli show of resistance has been just that—a show. The real constraint on American leaders has been their fear of weakening an important ally. The Israelis have known this and play upon this concern to great advantage. And Israeli resistance to the United States has been very useful in strengthening the U.S. hand in negotiations in the Middle East. But there has been no question in either the patron's or the client's mind who is in control. When it comes to important questions, Israel does as she is told.

PATRON-CLIENT CONTROL

Some observations are appropriate at this point. American frustration over Israel's invasion of Lebanon goes to the heart of the rules governing international military patron—client relations. The proposition describing the rules governing such relations is that, roughly, the greater a military client's ability to fight (i.e., the more useful the client), the more freedom the patron will give it to carry out its own interests. How can it be otherwise? When a great power depends on others for the execution of parts of its security policy, the success of the policy will depend entirely on the warring ability of the client. Clients who can fight are rare and highly prized; hence Israel's highly preferred position in American strategy. True the Israelis occasionally run roughshod over some American preferences, but American leaders consider it preferable to keep Israel loyal by not seeking too much control rather than to risk a serious rupture by being too critical of a client believed essential to more important American goals in the region. One may judge such a decision by the United States to be prudent, unprincipled, or merely narrowly expedient. But it appears to account for the vacillations in American behavior. What has been discussed in the foregoing applies, of course, not only to Unites States—Israeli relations but to most patron-client relations. One could just as easily have used the relations between the USSR and North Vietnam as an example. North Vietnam can fight, and the Soviet Union aided North Vietnam in the Vietnam War, just as it has supported the North Vietnamese effort to destroy the Khmer Rouge who are China's ally in Cambodia. In fact, the USSR has spent some enormous sums each day for years to aid North Vietnam. Like

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Israel, North Vietman is not a compliant dependent; the Vietnamese have often frustrated Soviet will. Yet the Soviets have continued to supply their client with arms and other necessities. Why risk losing their influence with the North Vietnamese and the "benefits" they have reaped form this connection? The North Vietnamese defeated and humiliated the United States, something the USSR itself had not dared to attempt. North Vietnam also conquered most of Indochina and brought it into the Soviet sphere of influence. How could the Soviets chance losing their influence over such a client? Even when military clients cannot fight, quite often, patrons, particularly the Soviet Union and the United States, are loath to stop help lest they lose whatever foothold they have in the client's region. Consider the relations of the United States with South Vietnam and of the USSR with Syria. South Vietnam could not fight effectively and neither could Syria. Even so, the United States-South Vietnamese alliance cost the United States roughy fifty thousand lives and many billions of dollars a year for ten years. It is ironic that the United States is accused of not sticking by friends in need. The U.S. stuck fast indeed and conceded South Vietnam only when the costs, especially in political terms, had grown to unacceptable proportions. The Syrian case mirrors that of South Vietnam. When the Syrians turned to the USSR for help, the Soviets supplied them handsomely—even in comparison with the high standards set by the United States and its allies. But every time the Syrians went into combat with the Israelis, they lost both the fight and the equipment they had obtained from the Soviets. In the last of these exchanges, the Lebanese invasion, the Syrians were once again badly beaten and blamed their loss on the quality of the equipment provided by the USSR. The Syrians charged Soviet weapons were not as good as the arms that the U.S. had supplied to Israel. The Soviet Union, of course, knew otherwise.24 It also knew, as did everyone else, that if there were to be another war, Syria would again lose it, along with a large supply of Soviet military equipment. Moreover, the Soviet Union has been terrified that its client might involve it in a confrontation with the United States. But the USSR nonetheless had to make "amends" for the "insufficiencies" of its aid by giving Syria another round of far more expansive and sophisticated equipment. What is more, because the Syrian military was not competent to use the more sophisticated systems, the Soviets took the additional risk of sending their own soldiers to man the weapons. What else could they

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do? Relinquish an ally to the United States? When all choices are bad, one chooses the least obnoxious and prays that the worst will not happen. Perhaps the Syrians will posture and not fight. Perhaps another country will intervene and prevent the Syrians from being so badly beaten. One can certainly add to the examples I have given. It comes to this. The view that the United States did not or could not control Israel, as those who do not agree with American policy favoring Israel have constantly charged, is simply not credible. The facts are that the "obstinacy" of Israeli leaders in security negotiations is not acceptable evidence that the Israelis thwart American interests in the region. There is no solid evidence that would lead one to conclude that Israeli leaders have been more obstinate or more difficult than the leaders of other nations when called upon to make concessions to adversaries in matters threatening the security of their nations. In vital matters, the United States has reined in Israel when it has been in American interests to do so. The truth is that the United States gains—or expects to gain—substantial benefits from having Israel as an ally and has not been ready to endanger that relationship just because Israel may have ignored American preferences now and then in nonvital matters. Conversely, Israel is very clearly aware of the advantages of being a client of the United States. As a result, Israel has conformed to American wishes in all important respects, even though Israeli leaders have sometimes considered American demands inimical to Israel's security.

9 THE LOGIC OF U.S. AID TO ISRAEL

I

T is time to finish. The considered answer to the central question in this book is already evident. No need for a lengthy summary; only some principal observations are in order.

STRATEGIC CONSIDERATIONS FOR U.S. HELP TO ISRAEL

U.S. assistance to Israel has been an essential component of the maximalist strategy that has sought to repulse any expansion, through proxies, of Soviet power and influence in the Middle East. U.S. assistance has been meant to raise the effectiveness of Israel's military power as an obstacle to such expansion. This investment has proved its value. It helped block expansion of radical Arab states threatening the security of Israel and that of moderate Arab states who are U.S. allies and the source of oil.

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This U.S. resolve, that all must be done, whatever the cost, to oppose the expansion of Soviet-communist influence wherever and whenever it occurs, was shaped immediately after World War II. To that end, major political and economic investments of resources were needed to build political ties and military power. It was argued that the United States had to pay the costs of being the leader of the "free world." Only the United States had such resources; only the United States could stop the Soviets. Opposing points of view—that the new investments were not necessary; that it was certainly not necessary to repulse every Soviet move; that U.S. commitments should be pared down to cover its vital interests only; that Europe, once helped back on its feet, could take care of itself with U.S. diplomatic support only; that the Soviet Union's expansion, if any, would be short-lived, both because of severe limitations in its own resources and dissension within the ranks of communist countries—were defeated. Correct or not, the constant cry of alarm "The Russians are coming" has been from the first the major reason why the American government and people have allowed immense expenditure of resources for the defense of the U.S. international order. Assistance to Israel fit snugly into this fundamental view of the United States' role abroad. U.S. assistance to Israel appears to U.S. leaders to be in the U.S. interests for three reasons: 1. No better alternative was readily available. Because the United States had and still has no Arab ally with the political and military power of Israel there is, therefore, no viable alternative to that country. Moreover, even if the United States wished to go to the huge expense of replacing Israeli military power with its own, no Arab country would have permitted such a force to be quartered within its borders. 2. Israel's assistance has been cost-effective—indeed, given the situation, cheap at the price. It may seem incredible to think of expenditures in the billions of dollars as inexpensive, but once one gets used to the thinking underpinning the economics of defense, assistance for Israel appears very efficient—the United States has received a lot for what it has invested—given U.S. policy to block Soviet expansion through proxies and to protect moderate Arab states. Those who disapproved of assistance to Israel charged that the help Israel received was too large. The charge implied that what Israel received has been way out of line and much larger than what other allies got for performing comparable services for the United States.

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The charge was based on calculations that took into account moie the form than the reality of U.S. help. Such calculations missed, therefore, the fact that, in reality, assistance to Israel amounted to only a tiny fraction of the total resources the United States really has spent to help countries which, in turn, helped defend its international order. Indeed, almost all of the countries considered critical in the formal and informal alliances against communist expansion received larger assistance than Israel had. For example, West Germany received—as its share of the U.S. NATO contribution—about 17 times the assistance to Israel, and South Vietnam received 10 times the assistance Israel received. Moreover, so far as the Middle East is concerned, if one looks at the resources that flowed to the region, the United States and the rest of the world favored the Arab states and not the Israelis. For each dollar's worth of arms that Israel received, the Arab states received nine dollars' worth. Arab countries that provided at least some military assistance in fighting Israel received from both Western and communist sources between 3 and 4 times the arms that Israel received; the three Arab countries—Egypt, Syria, and Iraq—that were the major combatants against Israel received together double the assistance Israel received. Saudi Arabia, a major source of support for combatants, received almost 66 percent more arms than Israel. In short, Israel has received but a fraction of the amounts its adversaries have received over the years. None of this changes the fact that in absolute terms the cost of the arms transferred to Arab states was low, because Arab oil countries could pay for the arms received with their petro-dollars, while for the most part the cost of military and economic assistance to Israel, as well as to each of the other major recipients of such help, was high. But one should be clear that those who rail against assistance to Israel play on the public's dismay at the costs of U.S. preparedness to oppose every direct or indirect move that might have led to expansion of Soviet influence and power. Some will argue that treating sales of arms as "help" for the recipient, as I have done, is a distortion. For, in the case of sales, it did not cost the donor anything to transfer the resources to the recipient. But the cost to the donor (i.e., foreign aid) is one thing, and the benefit to the recipient is another. The concept of foreign assistance as used in this work is the value of the goods and services the recipient receives, and foreign aid is that portion of the assistance paid for by the donor. In the case of the Arab states, foreign assistance or the military benefits they received from all sources has been

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very high, and foreign aid has been relatively low. In the case of Israel the aid (or costs to the U.S.) received has been about half of the assistance Israel received. But it is the assistance, not foreign aid, that is important in explaining U.S. decisions in the Middle East. Certainly, the dynamic of the arms race in the Middle East (and elsewhere) is fueled by the arms actually transferred to recipients, not by who has paid for them. When the United States (or the Warsaw Pact, or Western Europe) sells arms to Arab states, Israel reacts by seeking to impede the sale and, failing in that, requesting that additional arms be sold or given to it to redress the military balance; the United States, in turn, then, also sells or gives arms to Israel. It is absurd to argue that what was important in the transactions were the subsidies, not the arms transfers. When one looks beneath the forms into the reality of assistance to the Middle East, one wonders at the suggestions that U.S. policy in the Middle East would be more even-handed if more assistance were to go to Arab countries and less to Israel. The Arab countries have received much more military assistance than Israel received. And this in spite of the fact that the Arab countries that have received huge amounts of U.S. assistance have expected the United States to defend them, but they have carefully avoided aligning themselves openly with the United States or allowing the United States the bases and facilities required to defend them, and have ceased to bankroll the radical states. It is not clear whether those who proffer the advice to tilt toward the Arab position are suggesting that what the United States ought to do is to make available arms and economic help to the only Arab countries not receiving any assistance from the United States, that is, the radical Arab countries that oppose the United States. Courting the Arab radicals did not work when it was tried. Should the United States tilt toward Arab radicals, moderate Arab states, opponents of the radicals and friends of the United States would panic. The anger of Jordan and Egypt and the turmoil in Saudi Arabia over U.S. covert sales of arms to Iran offers an illustration of this point. It is difficult to come to any conclusion other than that, in the context of the politics of the Middle East, "even-handedness" has been a code word, implying the United States should have curtailed assistance to the Israelis to the point that Arab countries, with Soviet help, could have hoped to defeat them. 3. There is a final and most important benefit the United States receives as a result of its help to Israel, which is that the use of

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Israeli military power has served to pry loose radical Arabs from their ties with the Soviet Union. Top U.S. leaders have been well aware of the benefits in question. That dynamic worked as follows. When Arabs and Israelis fought wars and the Arab states were defeated in spite of generous Soviet help, Arab leaders had to face the fact that Soviet assistance might never be sufficient to get them back the lost territories. Only the United States could influence Israel to return the territories that the Arab radical leaders had lost in 1967, and had tried, and failed, to recapture by force. The Arab states then turned to the United States for help. U.S. involvement advertised that the United States, not the Soviet Union, held the key to the solution of the Arab-Israeli dispute. It paid to be a friend of the United States. Requests for U.S. help meant, inevitably, a distancing of some of the Arab radicals from the USSR, thus a potential loss of allies for the Soviet Union, and the gaining of allies for the United States. The winning of new allies and the causing of defections in the opposing coalition was what competition with the USSR has been, and for some time will be, all about. The point is that it has been Israeli military victories over radical Arab states that has made this possible. But if the United States was to be successful, the United States had to "deliver" Israel's consent to return the conquered territories. At one level, in those negotiations, the United States held all the trumps. Israel was and is totally dependent on the United States and this dependence meant that giving in to the United States could be considered a foregone conclusion. Yet the United States was not entirely free to deliver to the Arabs all they wanted. It was not in U.S. interests to see Israel alienated or weakened. Though territories (with minor adjustment) would need to be returned, Israelis would need to receive some compensation and assurance of support in the form of additional arms for the risks they were taking. Thus, when the United States approached Israel with talk of cease-fires and return of territories and Israeli leaders raised a hue and cry that they were for peace but "giving back territory meant endangering Israel's very life," the United States sympathized, at least in part, with some of the arguments made, and to soothe some of the anxieties of its client, offered additional help so that Israel would not need to rely only on Arab good intentions for its security. But Israel too was at least ambivalent about U.S. demands that it make concessions to Arab states. The alternatives were clear. No matter how sincere the Arab promises, Israel inevitably took a chance

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with its very life in giving back the buffers it had erected between itself and its enemies. If its adversaries ever reneged on their agreement, Israel would be in serious jeopardy. On the other hand, if there was to be peace, there was no way to avoid taking this chance. Over the years Israel had taken the position that it did "not want conquests of new territory." It wanted peace, and its waging of war and the resulting conquests were in self-defense. Its political and military leaders, and its people all asserted this. Though such belief was shaken temporarily during the Lebanese invasion in 1982, Israelis could make the claim that they only wanted peace, and could continue to keep the territories too, as long as their Arab enemies publicly proclaimed their intention to destroy Israel. But if their Arab neighbors were serious about wanting peace, all that would be left to discuss would be how the return of the territory would be brought about, and what additional arms were needed, just in case. The "revolt of the stones or the Intifada" does not change at all the dynamic of getting the two parties together. Totally indefensible is the charge that Israel has been out of U.S. control. Ironically, both friends and foes of Israel make this argument. Opponents argue that Israel is out of control and should be reined by stopping assistance. The argument is a transparent attempt to defeat a policy they do not like. Supporters of Israel, not surprisingly, turn the argument upside-down, asserting that stopping assistance will not work, Israel cannot be controlled, and therefore the United States should not try to curtail support. The evidence suggests both arguments are quite wrong. Israel has not been out of U.S. control, far from it, and evidence shows quite clearly that "punishment" obtains results. Its efforts at trying to ingratiate itself with U.S. leaders and to avoid, if at all possible, incurring U.S. displeasure are clear even in cases involving its own security. There is an endless number of examples one can give. Recall the freeing of the Arab prisoners as an exchange for the Americans taken hostage on a T W A airliner, or the Iran arms sales. As those examples also show, pleasing the U.S. government may have been a complex and dangerous undertaking. The United States had an official policy of not negotiating on terrorists' demands and did not want to ask Israel publicly to free Arab prisoners in exchange for Americans taken hostage in the T W A hijacking. The United States wanted Israel to do it on its own. T o complicate matters, the Israelis also had a " f i r m " policy of not dealing with terrorists, wanted to avoid appearing to capitulate to terrorists' demands, and wanted to

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shift the responsibility to the United States to ask them. It was all theater in the worst of taste. There was a brief and bitter tug-of-war. The United States kept saying it would not ask. Israel released the hostages. But it is Israel's behavior in the cases where Israel's own vital interests were involved, where the United States took a position different from Israel's own preferences, that provide the critical evidence we are after. Israel withdrew from territories it had conquered in three wars—in the Suez, Yom Kippur, and Lebanese wars—because the United States was determined that it should. In all these cases the governments of the defeated countries were actual or potential friends of the United States. Backers of the "Israel out of control" thesis argue that at least two of these withdrawals were not in response to U.S. wishes but rather to Soviet threats; but, the claim is not credible. It amounts to a suggestion that the United States could not, but the USSR could, control Israel. On the other hand, because the two radical regimes of Syria and Egypt were firmly lined up with the Soviet Union, Israel was not made to withdraw from the territory it had conquered after the 1967 war. The United States had no reason to believe that forcing Israel to withdraw was in its interests at the time. In short, if the Arab states were seriously intent on trading peace for a return of their territory that Israel won in the 1967 war, Israel had no option but to agree. This does not mean that negotiations were not difficult. The Israelis defended themselves by seeking to extract the greatest possible guarantees that the promises of peace would be kept, and also, used the opportunity to obtain all possible additional assistance to guarantee its security. The process was exhausting and agonizing to the negotiators. But the end result was clear to both Israel and the United States. In a sense Israel's resistance, other than for the purpose of getting the greatest possible amount of new arms, was "theater." To believe otherwise is to believe in magic. One final point. One of the results of U.S. mediation has been a massive escalation in the level of assistance the United States was expected to make to the region. The Arab radical states that have come over to the United States lose Soviet assistance and expect the new patron to make it up. To the U.S. policy makers leading the competition between the superpowers, the new allies represented "a major victory" for U.S. diplomacy and "a major defeat" for the diplomacy of the Soviet Union. The opportunity to funnel in one's assistance and preempt the other power from doing so was and is

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considered a victory, cheap at the price. At the same time, the United States increased assistance to Israel to reassure it that the United States was its reliable ally and that it need not be dependent solely on Arabs' promises.

DOMESTIC FACTORS

To think that the U.S. government policy, particularly in terms of its assistance in arms and money for Israel, has been due to the U.S. leaders' surrender to pressures of U.S. Jewish votes, money, and organization is not supported by the evidence. When U.S. presidents did not think it was in the interests of the United States to support Israel, they did not. When they thought that courting Arab friends to the exclusion of close ties with Israel was in the U.S. interest, they did just that. It is in large part because this policy failed utterly that successive administrations, searching for alternatives, cautiously developed a policy by which the United States would court not only Arab states but Israel as well, a policy which has been pursued uninterruptedly from the early sixties. "Jews and Arabs have not quite gotten together," but certainly the United States has kept on trying to make them do so. Only in Nixon's administration did the United States begin to take advantage of Israel's military might to interfere with the expansion of radical regimes and to seek to pry such regimes loose from their ties with the Soviet Union, and only then did U.S. assistance escalate. But why would that particular President, who had few Jewish supporters and little to gain from meeting Jewish preferences, have given in to Jewish pressures? Were American Jews a deciding factor in the making of U.S. policy, there would have been a good deal more assistance for Israel in the administrations of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson than there was. On the other hand, once Nixon and successive administrations decided that it was in the interests of the United States to help Israel remain in fighting trim American Jews did all in their power to support such policies. But to think of them now as a fundamental, or even a major, cause of this policy is to miss reality by a country mile. Much the same dynamic is repeated in Congress. It was not Jewish importunities or Jewish votes or money—though members of Congress across party and region could have been expected to welcome Jewish financial and electoral support—that set congressional

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preferences for U.S. policy in the Middle East. In general terms, Congress has believed, as presidents have, that assistance to Israel has in the main paid good dividends for the United States, while the rest of U.S. foreign aid to the developing world, as a rule, has not; that military assistance to Israel has proved its worth in the wars fought by Israel; that economic aid has been deserved, in spite of the many economic difficulties Israel has had during and after the turn of this decade because the Israelis have "made the deserts bloom"; that Israel worked hard for what it got. There is no substance to the conventional wisdom that Congress has supported Israel because its members have been frightened by Jewish votes and dependent on their money; were that the case, the legislators who received minimal or no electoral or financial support from the Jewish community should also have been expected not to support Israel in any substantial way, and yet they did. The relationship between strong support Israel receives from legislators and the substantial financial and electoral support these legislators receive from American Jews is a classic case of a spurious correlation. The two variables are related only through a third factor that causes both. Legislators have supported Israel as they have supported helping all countries they perceived as beleaguered and in need of military or economic assistance. How do we know this? We know it because these same legislators have done so repeatedly in cases where other countries needed help and in which Israel was not involved. The legislators in question were internationalists, as were, on the whole, American Jews, who supported legislators who shared their values. Everyone who has worked on U.S. foreign policy in the Arab—Israeli dispute has heard and read endless war stories about Jews' and AIPAC's influence on Congress. They are widespread and believed. But any knowledgeable researcher knows that anecdotal evidence is not acceptable to prove a point. Rigorous and systematic evidence on this point leads to the opposite conclusion. The reality is polarized from the usual view that has the votes and money of U.S. Jews driving legislators to support Israel. Again, the argument that a tiny minority of Jewish activists have had their way for decades against the better judgment of the elected officials because the rest of the constituency does not care, does not stand up under close observation. Occasionally this is certainly possible. But it is not credible that a few activists could win over and over again if they did not have the support of many others and of members of Congress. And this is precisely what the national public

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211

opinion polls indicate: the non-Jewish majority, though nowhere as involved as the activists or as supportive as the Jewish community, have been by large pluralities and majorities quite supportive of Israel, while the Arab states have had few supporters, and that is probably why the activists have appeared to be as powerful as they have. One should note finally that the low amount of support the Arab cause and states have had with the general public has been attributed to differences in political organizations and in religious and cultural heritages. These probably do play some role. But there have been far more obvious reasons. One need only mention the strident anti-Americanism of Arab radicals, the unwillingness of Arab states to be closely identified with the United States, the grotesque fratricidal struggles among Arab Middle East elites, the terrorist activities constantly in the news for twenty years, and repeated Arab defeats by a country the size of the Bronx. It all comes down to this: Large majorities in Congress have been of the view that it has been in the national interest to help Israel help itself, and their support for Israel has been reinforced because what they already wanted to do was also politically profitable. The questions framed in the introduction—what mix of domestic and international forces have been critical in U.S. support for Israel—must be answered. Strategic security considerations were critical, and lobbying efforts by American Jewry and their PACs played only a minimal supporting role. By supporting role I mean that such pressures reduced the political costs to the leaders who made decisions and facilitated the carrying out of the central thrust of U.S. policy. I also mean that were there to have been no Jewish pressures—were the Jewish community less organized and less dedicated—the probability is that decisions would have been politically more costly than were decisions to support other U.S. client states, but they would have been much the same. Rebus sic stantitbus in the Middle East, patterns of U.S. assistance would not have been significantly different. The meaning of the above answers is reinterpreted, however, by the hypothesis that though the influence of the lobbying efforts of U.S. Jewry have been exaggerated beyond any reality, a domestic political factor very influential on U.S. decisions to help Israel was the critical political consensus in the U.S. top government to help any country fighting Soviet moves to expand. This U.S. readiness was a direct consequence of the logic of United States-Soviet competition driving U.S. foreign policy since the late forties.

212

THE EXTERNAL SCENE

That logic assumed that it was the task of the United States to stop Soviet expansion. This assumption was voiced in the famous "we shall pay any price, bear any burden" pledge of JFK's inaugural address. The Soviet Union's adversaries would be our friends and would be helped in their own battle with common enemies. The logic of extended containment of the Soviet Union had been put firmly in place in a bitter political battle over many years that shook the American body politic to its roots. This American experience should not surprise. Fundamental changes in foreign policy direction in any nation is often accompanied by a major struggle and turnover among relevant elites. The losers of the struggle are proscribed, and winners remain in power so long as the political costs of their policies are smaller than their gains and, also, so long as they can socialize new leaders. Upon review it is now considered that, perhaps, the U.S. politico-military and economic mobilization geared up to hold back the expected Soviet tide was an overreaction if one evaluates the threat in a less excited frame of mind.1 The matter, clearly, should give us food for thought. The victors of that massive political battle felt the United States should make the politico-military commitments required to defend a U.S. international order after the war. They have remained in power from that day to ours. If one is searching for the domestic factors that made the difference in helping Israel obtain U.S. assistance, one should look at who the victors in that political battle were, how they came to and stayed in power, and how their world view influenced the pattern of U.S. foreign help. There we shall find the reasons why the proponents of U.S. help to Israel were so successful, and also why, in the eyes of the American elites, the investments paid off. To be sure these were domestic politics, but entirely different from the lobbying efforts usually discussed. If one understands the nature of the dynamics propelling U.S. policy of extended containment of the Soviet Union, the Israeli case has fit snugly into overall American strategy, and has been an important component of the scaffolding of the U.S. international order. Assistance to Israel has been cost-effective, and more important, in view of what American leaders judged American interests to be, it has brought success.

EPILOGUE

O

14, 1988, the U.S. government took the kind of action that strongly supports the central thesis of this book. Secretary George Shultz announced that the PLO (with the U.S. doing some last minute coaching)1 had finally agreed to U.S. demands, had recognized Israel's right to exist, had accepted UN resolutions 242 and 338, and had renounced terrorism. The United States had agreed to begin talking directly to the PLO. There had been intense pressure from within the Arab world and the Soviet Union on Arafat to make the declarations the United States was demanding. There was joy in the Arab camp, consternation in Israel.2 The Israeli government should not have been surprised. It had been told by Kissinger over two decades ago, in 1973, immediately after the Yom Kippur War, when U.S. strong support for Israel had started, how and when U.S. policy might be altered. It is worth quoting now: N DECEMBER

214

EPILOGUE

I had told the Ambassador Yitzhak Rabin that so long as the American policy was simply to frustrate Arab reliance on Soviet support, American and Israeli policies would be identical. But once Arab disillusionment was complete, and once Arab states began to turn to us in a spirit of cooperation, differences in perspectives and tactics might well emerge. The moment was now approaching, at least as far as Egypt was concerned.3 It could not have been made more explicit. It happened once again, almost fifteen years later, in the case of the PLO. Secretary Shultz's announcement in December was followed by the new Secretary of State Baker's speech to AIPAC. The U.S. administration pinpointed the United States' long-standing preferences in the region: "For Israel now is the time to lay aside once and for all, the unrealistic vision of a greater Israel [Israel would need to withdraw from the territories). . . . For Palestinians, such an outcome will mean an end to the illusion of control of all of Palestine.4 There ought not to be a Palestinian state that might become a staging area against Israel, and more likely, against Jordan. What will the many witnesses who testified so doggedly that U.S. policy was a captive of the powerful American Jewish Community and their lobby have to say now about what has happened? How will they account for the fact that U.S. leaders, alleged not to have "the political courage" to stand up to the Jewish community, all at once, without any notice, got their courage back? And why did the Jewish community take it lying down? There was no revolt, no outcry. What happened to the famed power of AIPAC to control Congress and the U.S. top government decision-making regarding Israel? It is not likely that they will admit that their widely believed testimony, repeated over the years, was so much moonshine. With hindsight one can see clearly the trail of events signaling the shift in the Arab world toward meeting U.S. demands. Egypt and Jordan had recognized the need for accommodation with Israel long ago. Arab princes had been cautiously moving in the same direction. After much uncertainty and contradiction, the Arafat wing of the Palestinian movement haltingly and fearfully picked its way toward agreeing with U.S. requests.5 More than half of Israel had agreed for a long time that negotiations and restitution of the territories should be pursued. The Labor party leadership had taken one initiative after another.6 How wrong were those who opposed U.S. policy toward the PLO

EPILOGUE

215

in trivializing U.S. demands that the PLO accept publicly, and clearly, the UN resolutions, by implying U.S. insistence on such testimony, "saying the magic little words," to be no more than a demeaning, meaningless ritual imposed on the PLO leaders.7 The key to success was the United States hanging tough in its demands on the PLO and the other radicals. Saying the words required a shift in the distribution of power within the PLO. It forced a showdown between the more and less extremist portions of the organization. It revealed the more extremist to have lost their veto power. It forced facing the fact that restitution of territory lost in the 1967 war would only come in exchange for peace and turning away from radical causes and reliance on the Soviet Union. The U.S. task of moving the two sides toward one another was clearly helped considerably by the unexpected revolt of the Palestinians in the territories against Israel's occupation. The Intifada spawned local leaders8 who pressed the PLO leaders in Tunis for less rethoric and more results. But if results had to be achieved, the PLO line had to be changed. Also, clearly the daily strife in the territories pressed hard on Israel the need to deal with the issue of the future of the territories. The revolt renders concessions on both sides possible sooner than expected. With the Arab states out on the sidelines and out of the fray after being defeated in their own attempt to dominate Palestine, the conflict between Israel and the Arab nation returned to a struggle between Israel and Palestinians over the land of Palestine. One has gone back in time almost to the situation at the birth of the State of Israel. Palestinian activists and other Arab actors say how they are ready for a two-state solution now, after four wars and forty years spent by them trying to destroy the UN 1947 decision to divide Palestine between Jews and Arabs into two states. What an incredible waste of lives and wealth these four decades of struggle have been. Avi Shlaim tells of an exchange between Sassoon, a young Israeli diplomat, and King Abdullah of Jordan. Arab rulers despised Abdullah because he wanted to absorb Arab Palestine, that they wanted themselves and, more important, because he wanted to make peace with Israel. Sassoon said he wanted to ask two questions . . . "Why do you want peace with Israel?" . . . Without a moment's hesitation Abdullah replied: "I want peace not because I have become a Zionist or care for Israel's welfare, but because it is in the interest

216

EPILOGUE

of my people. I am convinced that if we do not have peace with you, there will be another war, and another war, and another war, and another war, and we would lose. Hence it is in the supreme interest of the Arab nation to make peace with you. [Sassoon asks his second question.] "If you want peace for the sake of your people, why do you run ahead of your people? Why don't you wait for the Palestinians to come to you and ask you to make peace so that you will be seen to be acting in response to their wishes and public appeals?" [The King's Prime Minister Samir Rifai explained] that as an absolute ruler . . . Abdullah decide(d] what was good for his people.9 One can only wonder at the prescience of the Bedouin King. All other Arab leaders also knew. Yet they waged their wars. Sasson however missed an important point; when the Palestinians would come to ask for peace they would be doing so directly. One wonders whether Abdullah knew as much.

What of the Tie between the U.S. and Israel?

U.S. and Israeli interests have been congruent for a long time but they are clearly not the same. U.S. assistance should not be expected to continue in the same fashion if the following new conditions should arise: 1. If the USSR ceases to be perceived (and to act) as an expansionist power by top U.S. foreign policy elites, and/or the same elites cease to perceive the United States as obligated to repulse every action of the USSR that might lead to an extension of Russians influence and power. Both of these are now possibilities, though the changes in question are likely to take a longer period of time than usually believed. Our tale of the forging of a foreign policy consensus should suggest the reasons why. 2. If radical Arab regimes should abandon their radical orientation and cease aggression toward Israel and threatening the moderate Arab states, allies of the U.S., by force or subversion. This has occurred in the case of Egypt. 3. If an Arab ally of the United States should become economically and politically modern and militarily powerful and, therefore, offer the United States a serious alternative to Israel. This is very unlikely. The religious fundamentalism, spreading in the Middle East,

EPILOGUE

217

appears a movement in the opposite direction. Without national development, importing arms is window dressing. Should any of these changes come to pass the policy of assistance to Israel would be affected. One would expect it would be seriously reduced. There is one caveat, however. Should present Arab friends turn away from the United States due to domestic changes or to European initiatives seeking to recapture influence in the region at U.S. expense, Israel's utility to the United States as an outpost in the region would rise again and support for Israel would, then, not decrease. These are possibilities. One final point. Would Israel survive if U.S. assistance were to be seriously reduced? U.S. assistance is certainly critical if Israel is to fight coalitions of Arab states well supplied by the rest of the world. But Israel's Achilles' heel is not, in the long run, a lack of weapons but the smallness of its population size. Its hunger for immigrants is well known. While it dreams of new Israeli citizens drawn from the pools of Jews in the diaspora, Israel appears blind to the unwillingness of such migrants to come.10 It is profoundly ironic that in this, the most vital of Israel's vital interests, the real threats do not come from Arabs. The hands-down winner in the competition for Jewish migrants now permitted to emigrate from the Soviet Union is the United States. This should send an illumining signal about Zionism, human aspirations, the United States, and the difference between refugees and migrants free to choose. The second threat comes from Israel's long irresoluteness and deep ambivalence toward Arab Palestinians and, as a consequence, its wasting of human resources within Palestine, and its own borders, simply because they happen to be Arabs.11 It is heartrending but not surprising to see in Israel, as everywhere else, the constant evidence that it is easier to give up one's life for one's country than to give up one's prejudices for it.

APPENDIX A

F

of data were required for the analyses of variance which appear in chapter 3, which sought to assess the influence of Jewish constituency size and Jewish PAC and individual campaign contributions on senatorial roll call votes on measures of importance to Israel. The data include: OUR SETS

Bills Included in the Roll Call Analyses (Chapter 3)

A. A list of 44 bills appearing before the Senate in the period 19691982 that were judged to be of particular interest to Israel. The selection of the bills used was greatly helped by the advice of a member of an important "Jewish PAC" and a member of the Senate staff who had paid particular attention to foreign aid legislation for the period under review in this study. Both of these colleagues asked

220

APPENDIX A

not to have their advice attributed. The list of the bills included in the analysis follows. 9/1/70 11/23/71 6/23/72 7/31/72 12/17/73 12/20/73 12/20/73 12/20/73 12/20/73 12/20/73 9/30/74 10/01/74 3/19/75 6/06/75 6/06/75 10/09/75 2/18/76 2/18/76 3/23/76 4/28/76 6/30/76 9/10/76 9/28/76 5/5/77 6/15/77 8/5/77 10/19/77 5/15/78 7/26/78 9/22/78

To amend HR 17123 Y = 7, N = 87 To amend HR 11731 Y = 82, N = 14 To amend S 3390 Y = 54, N = 21 To amend HR 15495 Y = 76, N = 9 To amend HR 11771 Y = 62, N = 25 To table an amendment to HR 11088 Y = 62, N = 12 To table an amendment to HR 11088 Y = 49, N = 25 To table an amendment to HR 11088 Y = 62, N = 12 To table an amendment to HR 11088 Y = 61, N = 14 To pass HR 11088 Y = 66, N = 9 To table an amendment to an amendment to HJ Res 1131 Y = 75, N = 5 To amend H J R 1131 Y = 65, N = 26 To pass HR 4592 Y = 57, N = 40 To table an amendment to S 920 Y = 32, N = 59 To amend S 920 Y = 68, N = 22 To pass HJR 638 Y = 70, N = 18 To amend S 2662 Y = 8, N = 79 To pass S 2662 Y = 60, N = 30 To pass HR 12203 Y = 52, N = 31 To agree to the Conference Report on S 2662 Y = 51, N = 35 To amend HR 10612 Y = 35, N = 55 To pass HR 14260 Y = 51, N = 26 To adopt the Conference Report on HR 14260 Y = 56, N = 24 To pass HR 5840 Y = 90, N = 1 To pass HR 6884 Y = 67 N = 18 To pass HR 7797 Y = 40, N = 27 To agree to the Conference Report on HR 7797 Y = 53, N = 33 To agree to SCR 86 Y = 44, N = 54 To pass S 3075 Y = 73, N = 13 To pass HR 12931 Y = 39, N = 22

APPENDIX A

10/13/78 5/14/79 5/22/79 6/26/79 10/9/79 10/11/79 10/12/79 6/17/80 6/17/80 10/22/81 10/28/81 11/17/81 12/16/82

221

To agree to the Conference Report on HR 12931 Y = 60, N = 31 To pass S 1007 Y = 73, N = 11 To amend HR 3173 Y = 34, N = 58 To pass HR 4289 Y = 86, N = 8 To agree to a Committee Amendment to HR 4473 Y = 54, N = 41 To table an amendment to HR 4473 Y = 78, N = 7 To pass HR 4473 Y = 53, N = 38 To table an amendment to HR 6942 Y = 85, N = 7 To pass HR 6942 Y = 58, N = 32 To pass S 1196 Y = 40, N = 33 To adopt HCR 194 Y = 48, N = 52 To pass S 1802 Y = 75, N = 33 To agree to a Committee Amendment to H J Res 631 Y = 57, N = 41 Senate Role Call Data

Role call data for the Ninety-first through Ninety-seventh Senates, compiled by the staff of the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Science Research at the University of Michigan and kindly made available by the Consortium. Jewish Population in States

The size of the Jewish constituencies in each State of the Union as reported in Milton Himmelfarb and David Singer, eds., American Jewish Yearbook, vol. 85, New York: American Jewish Committee, 1985. PACs Included in the Analysis between Financial Contributions and Senatorial Legislative Support of Israel*

Data for Jewish financial campaign contributions were obtained from the Federal Election Commission representing every contribution "Political action committees on this list operated at least part of the time during the period dealt with in this study.

222

APPENDIX A

made to any filed candidate for the United States Senate for three campaign cycles, 1977-78, 1979-80, 1981-82. These data are recorded by the Commission by type of source of the contribution: group or individual. Group contributions, by federal election law, are made only through Political Action Committees (PACs), which must be registered with and are monitored by the Commission. The Commission data for group contributions include both the PAC name and an identifying committee number. AG PAC AIMPAC Americans for Better Citizenship Americans for Better Congress Americans for Good Government Arizona Politically Interested Citizens BALPAC Political Action Committee Bay Area Citizens PAC BAYPAC Boro PAC Boston Political Action Committee Capitol Hill Political Action Committee Capitol of Texas Committee Capitol PAC Charles River Political Action Committee Chicagoans for a Better Congress CHIPAC Citizens Concerned for the National Interest Citizens Organized PAC City Political Action Committee Committee for "18" Congressional Action Committee of Texas Connecticut Good Government PAC Delaware Valley PAC Desert Caucus East Midwood Political Action Committee Five Towns Political Action Committee Flatbush Midwood Political Action Committee Florida Congressional Committee For Integrity in Government Political Action Committee Friends of Democracy PAC, Inc. Garden PAC

APPENDIX A

Garden State PAC Georgia Citizens for Good Government Government Action Committee Greater New York Political Action Committee Heritage PAC Hudson Valley PAC ICEPAC Joint Action Committee for Political Affairs Lehigh Valley PAC Louisianans for American Security Lower Westchester PAC Massachusetts Congressional Campaign Committee Mid-Manhattan PAC Mississippians for Responsive Government PAC Mobilization PAC Multi-Issue Political Action Committee National Action Committee National Bipartisan PAC National PAC North Shore PAC Northeast Penn Political Action Committee Northern New Jersey Political Action Committee PROPAC QPAC Reno PAC Roundtable Political Action Committee Sacramento Active Citizens Sacramento Area Good Government Association St. Louis PAC St. Louisans for Better Government San Diego Community Political Action Committee San Franciscans for Good Government South Carolinians for Representative Government South Texas Area Political Action Committee Southbrook Political Action Committee To Protect Our Heritage TOPAC TxPAC United Penninsula Citizens University Student PAC Washington PAC

223

224

APPENDIX A

The contributions from PACs included only those from Jewish sources. Because very few PAC names reveal the primary sympathies or intentions of the PAC, one must go beyond the surface of each group to determine its proper classification. The list of Jewish and pro-Israel PACs used in this work were the ones compiled by Mr. John Fialka, an investigative reporter for the Wall Street Journal, who generously made them available to the author. The Election Commission data on group contributions were then filtered by Jewish/pro-Israel PAC numbers and summed by Senate candidate revealing the total Jewish/PACs dollar contribution for each candidate. Records of contributions from individuals include the individual's name, address, and occupation as identifying information. However, candidates are required to record and report such information only when the individual contributes over $100 to the candidate within any given campaign cycle. Data on individual contributions were weighted by the probability that the given individual was Jewish. The probability that given surnames are those of Jewish individuals were estimated through a procedure developed by A.B. Data of Milwaukee, Wisconsin; the firm uses demographic findings to identify probabilistically Jewish people. For every listed surname, A.B. Data's probability of a person with that surname's being Jewish (defined as considering self to be a Jew) was multiplied by the dollar amount of the contribution from that person, yielding expected dollars from Jewish individuals for each candidate. Analysis of Variance Related to Results Presented in Chapter 3. The analyses of variance in this appendix present the results of the computations where only votes taken during the period 1977-1982 are used as the dependent variable. This is the period for which data on financial contributions are also available. The votes used in the analyses whose results are presented in chapter 3, were for the full period of 1969-1982. The correlation between the two measures was calculated to be .97. The degree of relationship between financial contributions from Jewish sources and senators' decisions in regard to Israel was calculated to be .97. If one uses data from the longer period 1970-1982 results are much the same. The lowest support Israel receives is a shade above 56 percent. Eighteen Senators receiving less than $1,000 favor pro-Israel posi-

APPENDIX A

225

tions 57 percent of the time, 15 senators receiving between $1,000 and $5,000 support pro-Israel positions 59 percent of the time, and thirty-five senators who receive between $5,000 and $25,000 support Israel 56 percent of the time. This means that in the case of 67 senators (i.e., those receiving less than $1,000, between $l,000-$5,000, and between $5,000-$25,000), or half of the total sample, there appears to be no relationship between increases in financial receipts from Jewish sources by senators and senatorial support to pro-Israel bills. Above the $25,000 threshold financial contributions aie associated with significantly greater frequency of support for pro-Israel positions. The 41 senators who receive between $25,000 and $100,000 support pro-Israel positions between 71 and 79 percent of the time, those receiving contributions between $100,000 and $200,000 favor pro-Israel positions over 89 percent of the time, and so do the 13 senators who receive more than $200,000 in contributions. The relationship is not entirely linear. Five senators who receive between $175,000 and $225,000 in contributions vote in favor of pro-Israel positions 78 and 63 percent of the time respectively, and there are no senators in the $250,000-$275,000 and $300,000-$325,000 categories.

T h e Index of Internationalism

The index of internationalism used in the least squares analysis was based on the percentage of prointernationalist votes cast by each senator. On many of the amendments listed multiple rollcall votes were cast. 95th Senate: H.R. 5262, S. 1520, H.R. 7797, Treaty, S. Con.Res. 80, S. 3074, S.Res. 512, S. 3075, S. 2152, H.R. 13125, S.C.R. 104, H.R. 12931. 96th Senate: S.C.R. 22, S. 586, H.R. 3363, S. 622, S. 588, S. 239, H.R. 4289, S.Res. 140, H.R. 4473, S.Res. 277, S.Res. 216, S. 2012, S.C.R. 86, H.R. 6081, H.C.R. 307, S.S. 271, S. 2422, H.R. 7584. 97th Senate: S. 573, S.C.R. 9, S. 786, S. 1193, S. 1195, S. 1196, H.J.R. 357, Proc.

APPENDIX A

226

TABLE A.l Senatorial Campaign Contributions, 1977-1982

Senator Abdnor, J. Abourezk, J. Allen, J. Allen, M. Anderson, C. Andrews, M. Armstrong, W. Baker, H. Bartlett, D. Baucus, M. Bayh, B. Beilmon, H. Bentsen, L. Biden, J. Boren, D. Boschwitz, R. Bradley, W. Brady, N. Brooke, E. Bumpers, D. Burdick, Q. Byrd, H. Byrd, R. Cannon, H. Case, C. Chafee, J. Chiles, L. Church, F. Clark, D. Cochran, T. Cohen, W. Cranston, A. Culver, J. Curtis, C.

Estimated Contributions from Jewish and/or Pro-Israeli Sources

Total Contributions

Estimated Contributions from Jewish and/or Pro-Israeli Sources as a Percentage of All Contributions

11,031.00 0.00 0.00 9,048.00 92,773.00 4,070.00 20,029.00 72,591.00 3,056.00 54,616.00 207,560.00 0.00 197,014.00 127,743.00 25,536.00 111,590.00 430,781.00 0.00 43,834.00 4,707.00 79,252.00 2.00 203,981.00 69,807.00 68,126.00 21,592.00 0.00 450,744.00 87,228.00 9,534.00 45,752.00 388,244.00 82,007.00 0.00

1,972,316.00 4,260.00 10,000.00 324,469.00 1,155,562.00 452,042.00 1,238,816.00 2,131,844.00 168,490.00 848,483.00 2,865,845.00 4,759.00 5,133,350.00 695,503.00 1,034,428.00 2,784,926.00 2,547,727.00 0.00 1,197,293.00 319,598.00 912,259.00 22,363.00 1,880,914.00 1,646,604.00 265,890.00 1,158,571.00 849,573.00 2,001,608.00 863,635.00 1,320,151.00 702,048.00 3,584,691.00 1,795,188.00 2,049.00

0.56 0.00 0.00 2.79 8.03 0.90 1.62 3.41 1.81 6.44 7.24 0.00 3.84 18.37 2.47 4.01 16.91 0.00 3.66 1.47 8.68 0.01 10.84 4.24 25.62 1.86 0.00 22.52 10.10 0.72 6.52 10.83 4.57 0.00

APPENDIX A

227

TABLE A.l (continued)

Senator D'Amato, A. Danforth, J. DeConcini, D. Denton, }. Dixon, A. Dodd, C. Jr. Dole, R. Domenici, P. Durenberger, D. Durkin, f. Eagleton, T. East, J. Eastland, J. Exon, J. Ford, W. Garn, J. Glenn, J. Goldwater, B. Gorton, S. Grassley, C. Gravel, M. Griffin, R. Hansen, C. Hart, G. Haskell, F. Hatch, O. Hatfield, M. Hatfield, P. Hathaway, W. Hawkins, P. Hayakawa, S. Heflin, H. Heinz, J. Helms, f. Hodges, K.

Estimated Contributions from Jewish and/or Pro-Israeli Sources

Total Contributions

Estimated Contributions from Jewish and /or Pro-Israeli Sources as a Percentage of All Contributions

300,220.00 85,450.00 183,668.00 14,782.00 78,166.00 182,887.00 35,370.00 17,752.00 156,887.00 45,402.00 113,416.00 3,429.00 2,092.00 14,285.00 5,896.00 11,451.00 83,018.00 16,412.00 13,572.00 13,715.00 36,691.00 37,636.00 5.00 109,657.00 60,319.00 31,592.00 4,759.00 8,842.00 31,579.00 20,300.00 10,358.00 56,473.00 147,255.00 23,128.00 0.00

3,245,266.00 1,858,482.00 2,173,406.00 1,011,086.00 2,936,387.00 1,569,462.00 1,399,540.00 1,074,524.00 5,341,741.00 734,667.00 1,408,014.00 1,455,228.00 69,025.00 268,590.00 637,074.00 1,469,515.00 1,384,499.00 1,084,674.00 985,295.00 2,433,856.00 992,898.00 1,693,995.00 13,838.00 1,210,705.00 658,052.00 5,088,591.00 330,744.00 126,293.00 423,499.00 1,074,384.00 373,308.00 1,359,658.00 2,672,539.00 9,145,335.00 0.00

9.25 4.60 8.45 1.46 2.66 11.65 2.53 1.65 2.94 6.18 8.06 0.24 3.03 5.32 0.93 0.78 6.00 1.51 1.38 0.56 3.70 2.22 0.04 9.06 .17 0.62 1.44 7.00 7.46 1.89 2.77 4.15 5.51 0.25 0.00

228

APPENDIX A

TABLE A . l (continued)

Senator

Estimated Contributions from Jewish and/or Pro-Israeli Sources

Total Contributions

Estimated Contributions from Jewish and/or Pro-Israeli Sources as a Percentage of All Contributions

Hollings, E. Huddleston, W. Humphrey, G. Humphrey, H. Humphrey, M. Inouye, D. Jackson, H. Javits, J. Jepsen, R. Johnston, J. Kassebaum, N. Kasten, R. Kennedy, E. Laxalt, P. Leahy, P. Levin, C. Long, R. Lugar, R. Magnuson, W. Mathias, C. Matsunaga, S. Mattingly, M. McClellan, J. McClure, J. McGovern, G. Mclntyre, T. Melcher, J. Metealf, L. Metzenbaum, H. Mitchell, G. Morgan, R. Moynihan, P. Murkowski, F. Muskie, E. Nelson, G.

23,000.00 14,605.00 4,587.00 0.00 0.00 21,438.00 523,778.00 351,235.00 15,128.00 71,354.00 15,585.00 4,273.00 278,325.00 54,884.00 41,089.00 226,620.00 88,642.00 66,513.00 64,362.00 34,816.00 18,022.00 15,846.00 0.00 1,340.00 78,319.00 14,292.00 12,199.00 0.00 736,164.00 144,099.00 10,987.00 593,851.00 2,914.00 3,211.00 54,376.00

853,988.00 632,703.00 560,970.00 6,094.00 0.00 892,477.00 2,101,115.00 1,981,258.00 1,553,750.00 1,892,031.00 995,532.00 789,229.00 2,636,464.00 2,033,274.00 584,836.00 1,134,846.00 2,727,808.00 3,053,927.00 1,767,263.00 900,796.00 1,024,839.00 1,031,830.00 0.00 492,707.00 3,512,426.00 298,608.00 836,303.00 0.00 3,948,725.00 1,216,550.00 1,008,970.00 3,434,165.00 815,556.00 24,513.00 926,817.00

2.69 2.31 0.82 0.00 0.00 2.40 24.93 17.73 0.97 3.77 1.57 0.54 10.56 2.70 7.03 19.97 3.25 2.18 3.64 3.87 1.76 1.54 0.00 0.27 2.23 4.79 1.46 0.00 18.64 11.84 1.09 17.29 0.36 13.10 5.87

229

APPENDIX A

TABLE A. 1 (continued)

Senator Nickles, D. Nunn, S. Packwood, B. Pearson, J. Pell, C. Percy, C. Pressler, L. Proxmire, W. Pryor, D. Quayle, J. D. Randolph, J. Ribicoff, A. Riegle, D. Roth, W. Rudman, W. Sarbanes, P. Sasser, J. Schmitt, H. Schweiker, R. Scott, W. Simpson, A. Sparkman, J. Specter, A. Stafford, R. Stennis, J. Stevens, T. Stevenson, A. Stewart, D. Stone, R. Symms, S. Talmadge, H. Thurmond, S. Tower, J. Tsongas, P. Wallop, M.

Estimated Contributions from Jewish and/or Pro-Israeli Sources

Total Contributions

Estimated Contributions from Jewish and/or Pro-Israeli Sources as a Percentage of All Contributions

9,245.00 29,156.00 126,067.00 3,217.00 39,585.00 143,858.00 19,069.00 0.00 7,323.00 16,278.00 16,038.00 0.00 226,768.00 24,936.00 65,853.00 169,803.00 131,531.00 12,425.00 0.00 0.00 12,637.00 0.00 75,398.00 2,334.00 4,637.00 3,074.00 0.00 70,749.00 390,696.00 11,084.00 41,916.00 7,910.00 92,816.00 71,488.00 40,172.00

1,038,183.00 778,128.00 1,758,439.00 355,215.00 410,853.00 3,388,068.00 691,398.00 0.00 957,836.00 2,846,686.00 799,341.00 0.00 1,950,996.00 846,311.00 893,209.00 1,699,040.00 2,377,116.00 1,818,850.00 18,795.00 3,910.00 614,179.00 0.00 1,614,817.00 402,824.00 949,213.00 477,911.00 0.00 1,917,473.00 2,152,563.00 1,896,482.00 2,203,706.00 2,138,670.00 6,788,093.00 1,125,489.00 1,223,986.00

0.89 3.75 7.17 0.91 9.63 4.25 2.76 0.00 0.76 0.57 2.01 0.00 11.62 2.95 7.37 9.99 5.53 0.68 0.00 0.00 2.06 0.00 4.67 0.58 0.49 0.64 0.00 3.69 18.15 0.58 1.90 0.37 1.37 6.35 3.28

230

APPENDIX A

TABLE A . l (continued)

Senator Warner, J. Weicker, L. Williams, H. Young, M. Zorinsky, E.

Estimated Contributions from Jewish and/or Pro-Israeli Sources

Total Contributions

41,849.00 164,239.00 0.00 0.00 24,777.00

3,752,967.00 2,393,278.00 39,891.00 0.00 603,450.00

Estimated Contributions from Jewish and/or Pro-Israeli Sources as a Percentage of All Contributions 1.12 6.86 0.00 0.00 4.11

TABLE A . 2 Voting Behavior of Senators in the 95 th, 96th and 97th Senates, 1 9 7 7 - 1 9 8 2 Votes

Senator Abdnor, J. Abourezk, J. Allen, J. Allen, M. Anderson, C. Andrews, M. Armstrong, W. Baker, H. Bartlett, D. Baucus, M. Bayh, B. Bellmon, H. Bentsen, L. Biden, J. Boren, D. Boschwitz, R.

Number of Votes Taken on Israel-Related Bills 4 2 5 0 6 3 14 19 7 14 15 16 20 21 13 14

Percentage of Pro-Israeli Votes Cast 0.0 0.0 40.0 — . —

100.0 33.3 35.7 79.0 42.9 92.9 93.3 62.5 85.0 90.5 46.2 92.9

231

APPENDIX A

T A B L E A . 2 (continued)

Senator

Number of Votes Taken on Israel-Related Bills

Bradley, W. Brady, N. Brooke, E. Bumpers, D. Burdick, Q. Byrd, H. Byrd, R. Cannon, H. Case, C. Chafee, J. Chiles, L. Church, F. Clark, D. Cochran, T. Cohen, W. Cranston, A. Culver, J. Curtis, C. Danforth, J. DeConcini, D. Denton, J. Dixon, A. Dodd, C. Jr. Dole, R. Domenici, P. Durenberger, D. Durkin, J. D'Amato, A. Eagleton, T. East, J. Eastland, J. Exon, J. Ford, W. Garn, J. Glenn, J. Goldwater, B. Gorton, S. Grassley, C. Gravel, M. Griffin, R.

12 1 6 20 20 22 21 19 7 17 21 16 8 13 12 20 13 7 22 18 3 4 3 21 21 12 18 3 21 4 5 14 21 21 20 11 4 4 14 3

Percentage of Pro-Israeli Votes Cast 100.0 100.0 100.0 95.0 35.0 22.7 33.3 47.4 100.0 76.5 95.2 100.0 100.0 46.2 83.3 95.0 84.6 14.3 95.5 72.2 33.3 100.0 100.0 66.7 61.9 91.7 94.4 100.0 66.7 25.0 20.0 42.9 76.2 42.9 90.0 27.3 75.0 0.0 78.6 66.7

APPENDIX A

232

TABLE A.2 (continued)

Senator

Number of Votes Taken on Israel-Related Bills

Hansen, C. Hart, G. Haskell, F. Hatch, O. Hatfield, M. Hatfield, P. Hathaway, W. Hawkins, P. Hayakawa, S. Heflin, H. Heinz, J. Helms, J. Hodges, K. Hollings, E. Huddleston, W. Humphrey, G. Humphrey, H. Humphrey, M. Inouye, D. Jackson, H. favits, f. fepsen, R. Johnston, J. Kassebaum, N. Kasten, R. Kennedy, E. Laxalt, P. Leahy, P. Levin, C. Long, R. Lugar, R. Magnuson, W. Mathias, C. Matsunaga, S. Mattingly, M. McClellan, J. McClure, ]. McGovern, G. Mclntyre, T. Melcher, J.

8 21 6 20 22 4 7 4 18 13 19 20 3 21 17 14 3 3 18 22 18 13 20 11 4 17 18 21 13 19 22 17 21 17 4 0 19 13 7 20

Percentage of Pro-Israeli Votes Cast 25.0 95.2 100.0 30.0 31.8 75.0 100.0 100.0 66.7 61.5 94.7 10.0 66.7 42.9 88.2 42.9 100.0 66.7 94.4 95.5 94.4 61.5 70.0 72.7 100.0 94.1 33.3 85.7 92.3 21.1 81.82 94.1 85.7 100.0 25.0 — . -

15.8 76.9 100.0 25

APPENDIX A

233

T A B L E A . 2 (continued)

Senator

Number of Votes Taken on Israel-Related Bills

Percentage of Pro-Israeli Votes Cast

Metealf, L. Metzenbaum, H. Mitchell, G. Morgan, R. Moynihan, P. Murkowski, F. Muskie, E. Nelson, G. Nickles, D. Nunn, S. Packwood, B. Pearson, J. Pell, C. Percy, C. Pressler, L. Proxmire, W. Pryor, D. Quayle, J. D. Randolph, J. Ribicoff, A. Riegle, D. Roth, W. Rudman, W. Sarbanes, P. Sasser, J. Schmitt, H. Schweiker, R. Scott, W. Simpson, A. Sparkman, J. Specter, A. Stafford, R. Stennis, J. Stevens, T. Stevenson, A. Stewart, D. Stone, R. Symms, S. Talmadge, H. Thurmond, S.

0 21 7 13 15 4 13 16 4 21 21 6 17 19 12 22 13 4 20 13 19 21 4 20 16 21 17 6 13 4 4 18 16 17 14 10 18 3 13 20

95.2 100.0 84.6 93.3 75.0 92.3 81.3 0.0 66.7 95.2 83.3 100.0 79.0 66.7 36.4 84.6 50.0 40.0 84.62 94.7 42.9 75.0 95.0 100.0 47.62 94.1 16.7 69.2 75.0 100.0 77.8 37.5 76.5 57.1 90.0 88.9 33.3 46.15 45.0

234

APPENDIX A

T A B L E A . 2 (continued)

Senator Tower, J. Tsongas, P. Wallop, M. Warner, f. Weicker, L. Williams, H. Young, M. Zorinsky, E.

Number of Votes Taken on Israel-Related Bills

Percentage of Pro-Israeli Votes Cast

19 11 21 14 18 18 12 22

73.7 90.9 47.62 42.9 94.4 100.0 41.7 36.36

TABLE A.3 Voting Records of Senators in the 9 1 s t - 9 7 t h Senates, 1 9 6 9 - 1 9 8 2 Bills

Senator Abdnor, f. Abourezk, J. Aiken, G. Allen, J. Allen, M. Allott, G. Anderson, C. Anderson, C. Andrews, M. Armstrong, W. Baker, H. Bartlett, D. Baucus, M. Bayh, B. Beall, G. Bellmon, H. Bennett, W. Bentsen, L.

Number of Votes Taken on Israel-Related Bills 4 21 7 26 0 4 3 6 3 14 38 26 14 31 20 29 6 38

Percentage of Pro-Israeli Votes Cast

Percentage of Constituency that is Jewish

0.0 9.5 14.3 46.2

0.1 0.1 0.5 0.2 0.2 1.5 0.4 0.8 0.2 1.5 0.4 0.2 0.1 0.5 4.6 0.2 0.2 0.5

— . -

75 100.0 100.0 33.3 35.7 84.21 53.9 92.9 93.6 95.0 55.2 50.0 86.8

APPENDIX A

235

T A B L E A . 3 (continued)

Senator Bible, A. Biden, J. Boggs, J. Boren, D. Boschwitz, R. Bradley, B. Brady, N. Brock, B. Brooke, E. Buckley, J. Bumpers, D. Burdick, Q. Byrd, H. Byrd, R. Cannon, H. Case, C. Chafee, J. Chiles, L. Church, F. Clark, D. Cochran, T. Cohen, W. Cook, M. Cooper, J. Cotton, N. Cranston, A. Culver, J. Curtis, C. D'Amato, A. Danforth, J. DeConcini, D. Denton, J. Dirksen, E. Dixon, A. Dodd, C. Dodd, C. Jr. Dole, R. Domenici, P. Dominick, P. Durenberger, D.

Number of Votes Taken on Israel-Related Bills 12 37 4 13 14 12 1 13 21 11 31 43 45 44 34 29 17 42 29 27 13 12 10 4 4 42 23 28 3 22 18 3 0 4 1 3 41 37 9 12

Percentage of Pro-Israeli Votes Cast 83.3 78.4 75.0 46.2 92.9 100.0 100.0 76.9 95.2 90.9 96.8 30.2 35.6 45.5 58.8 96.9 76.5 97.6 96.6 92.6 46.2 83.3 90.0 25.0 75.0 92.9 82.6 25.0 100.0 95.5 72.2 33.3 — . -

100.0 0.0 100.0 70.7 73.0 77.8 91.7

Percentage of Constituency that is Jewish 2.3 1.6 1.6 0.2 0.8 5.9 5.9 0.4 4.3 10.6 0.1 0.2 1.1 0.2 2.3 5.9 2.3 4.7 0.1 0.3 0.1 0.7 0.3 0.3 0.6 3.2 0.3 0.5 10.6 1.7 1.7 0.2 2.3 2.3 3.3 3.3 0.5 0.4 1.5 0.8

236

APPENDIX A

T A B L E A . 3 (continued)

Senator Durkin, J. Eagleton, T. East, J. Eastland, J. Edwards, E. Ellender, A. Ervin, S. Exon, J. Fannin, P. Fong, H. Ford, W. Fulbright, J. Gambrell, D. Gam, J. Glenn, J. Goldwater, B. Goodell, C. Gore, A. Gorton, S. Grassley, C. Gravel, M. Griffin, R. Gurney, E. Hansen, C. Harris, F. Hartke, V. Hart, G. Hart, P. Haskell, F. Hatch, O. Hatfield, M. Hatfield, P. Hathaway, W. Hawkins, P. Hayakawa, S. Heflin, H. Heinz, J. Helms, J. Hodges, A. Holland, S.

Number of Votes Taken on Israel-Related Bills 26 43 4 18 0 2 7 14 22 15 32 12 1 30 30 30 1 1 4 4 25 24 12 29 3 18 29 19 24 20 43 4 25 4 18 13 19 39 3 1

Percentage of Pro-Israeli Votes Cast

Percentage of Constituency that is Jewish

92.3 79.1 25.0 33.3

0.6 1.7 0.3 0.1 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.5 1.7 0.6 0.3 0.1 0.7 0.2 1.3 1.7 10.6 0.4 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.9 4.7 0.1 0.2 0.5 1.5 0.9 1.5 0.2 0.5 0.1 0.7 4.7 3.2 0.2 3.5 0.3 0.1 4.7

— . -

50.0 28.6 42.9 22.7 80.0 84.4 16.7 100.0 43.3 93.3 33.3 0.0 0.0 75.0 0.0 80.0 83.3 75.0 27.6 66.7 94.4 96.6 84.2 75.0 30.0 27.9 75.0 84.0 100.0 66.7 61.5 94.7 12.8 66.7 0.0

APPENDIX A

237

T A B L E A . 3 (continued)

Senator Hollings, E. Hruska, R. Huddleston, W. Hughes, H. Humphrey, G. Humphrey, H. Humphrey, M. Inouye, D. Jackson, H. Javits, J. Jepsen, R. Johnston, J. Jordan, B. Jordan, L. Kassebaum, M. Kasten, R. Kennedy, E. Laxalt, P. Leahy, P. Levin, C. Long, R. Lugar, R. Magnuson, W. Mansfield, M. Mathias, C. Matsunaga, S. Mattingly, M. McCarthy, E. McClellan, J. McClure, J. McGee, G. McGovern, G. Mclntyre, T. Melcher, J. Metealf, L. Metzenbaum, H. Miller, J. Mitchell, G. Mondale, W. Montoya, J.

Number of Votes Taken on Israel-Related Bills 35 22 34 10 14 23 3 36 43 40 13 39 2 4 11 4 37 25 31 13 41 22 38 19 44 17 4 1 22 31 14 33 27 20 20 22 3 7 21 20

Percentage of Pro-Israeli Votes Cast 54.3 45.5 91.2 40.0 42.9 100.0 66.7 88.9 95.4 95.0 61.5 76.9 50.0 50.0 72.7 100.0 91.9 36.0 90.3 92.3 46.3 81.8 92.1 15.8 90.9 100.0 25.0 0.0 36.4 9.7 85.7 81.8 92.6 25.0 50 95.5 66.7 100.0 95.2 75.0

Percentage of Constituency that is Jewish 0.3 0.5 0.3 0.3 0.6 0.8 0.8 0.6 0.5 10.6 0.3 0.4 0.3 0.1 0.5 0.7 4.3 2.3 0.5 0.9 0.4 0.5 0.5 0.1 4.6 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.6 0.1 0.1 1.3 0.3 0.7 0.8 0.4

APPENDIX A

238

T A B L E A . 3 (continued)

Senator Morgan, R. Moss, F. Moynihan, P. Mündt, K. Minkowski, F. Murphy, G. Muskie, E. Nelson, G. Nickles, D. Nunn, S. Packwood, B. Pastore, J. Pearson, J. Pell, C. Percy, C. Pressler, L. Prouty, W. Proxmire, W. Pryor, D. Quayle, J. D. Randolph, J. Ribicoff, A. Riegle, D. Roth, W. Rudman, W. Russell, R. Russell, R. Sarbanes, P. Sasser, J. Saxbe, W. Schmitt, H. Schweiker, R. Scott, H. Scott, W. Simpson, A. Smith, B. Smith, M. Sparkman, J. Specter, A. Spong, W.

Number of Votes Taken on Israel-Related Bills 24 13 15 0 4 1 34 36 4 39 40 19 20 39 35 12 1 45 13 4 43 35 19 38 4 0 1 20 16 5 21 40 23 25 13 1 4 21 4 4

Percentage of Pro-Israeli Votes Cast 91.7 100.0 93.3 — . -

75.0 0.0 94.1 77.8 0.0 64.1 92.5 94.7 80.0 97.44 85.7 66.7 0.0 51.1 84.6 50.0 48.8 91.4 94.7 57.9 75.0 — . -

0.0 95.0 100.0 60.0 47.6 95.0 91.3 8.0 69.2 0.0 0.0 85.7 100.0 75.0

Percentage of Constituency that is Jewish 0.3 0.2 10.6 0.1 0.2 3.2 0.7 0.7 0.2 0.7 0.5 2.3 0.5 2.3 2.3 0.1 0.5 0.7 0.1 0.5 0.2 3.3 0.9 1.6 0.6 0.7 0.7 4.6 0.4 1.3 0.4 3.5 3.5 1.1 0.1 2.3 0.7 0.2 3.5 1.1

APPENDIX A

239

TABLE A.3 (continued)

Senator Stafford, R. Stennis, J. Stevens, T. Stevenson, A. Stewart, D. Stone, R. Symington, S. Symms, S. Taft, R. Talmadge, H. Thurmond, S. Tower, J. Tsongas, P. Tunney, J. Tydings, J. Wallop, M. Warner, J. Weicker, L. Williams, H. Williams, J. Yarborough, R. Young, M. Young, S. Zorinsky, E.

Number of Votes Taken on Israel-Related Bills 39 39 37 31 10 29 21 3 14 27 42 35 11 20 0 21 14 35 39 1 1 33 1 22

Percentage of Pro-Israeli Votes Cast

Percentage of Constituency that is Jewish

82.1 35.9 78.4 77.4 90.0 93.1 81.0 33.3 92.9 48.2 61.9 77.1 90.9 100.0

0.5 0.1 0.2 2.3 0.2 4.7 1.7 0.1 1.3 0.7 0.3 0.5 4.3 3.2 4.6 0.1 1.1 3.3 5.9 1.6 0.5 0.2 1.3 0.5

— . -

47.6 42.9 94.3 97.4 100.0 0.0 48.5 0.0 36.4

240

APPENDIX A

TABLE A.4 Jewish a n d / o r Pro-Israeli Campaign Contributions and Pro-Israeli Vote Campaign Contributions from Jewish ani I ox Pro-Israeli Sources,a (U.S. $ Thousand) 400 Grand Eta-squared = .26, p < .001.

Mean Pro-Israeli Voteb

Variance

14 14 35 15 25 14 5 3 5

54.7 58.3 54.7 71.6 79.0 89.5 81.6 92.8 96.8

948.4 911.6 839.3 571.6 524.2 102.8 727.8 11.4 9.2

130

69.0

806.9

Sample Size

NOTE: All senators who cast at least four "yes" or " n o " votes on Israel-related bills in the 1978-1982 period were included in this analysis. '"Jewish and/or Pro-Israeli sources" is operationalized as the sum of the expected contributions from Jewish individuals (see earlier description) and contributions from PACs known to be sympathetic toward Israel. b Pro-Israeli vote was calculated for each senator by dividing the number of "yes" or " n o " votes he or she cast in Israel's favor by the total number of "yes" or " n o " votes cast on Israel-related bills. In this analysis, only those votes cast in the 1977-1982 period were used in the calculation of pro-Israeli vote.

APPENDIX A

241

TABLE

A.5

Contributions from Jewish Sources and Average Senatorial Support, Contributions (U.S. $ Thousand) 400 Total

1970-1982

Number of Senators

Average Support

Variance

18 14 35 16 25 14 5 3 5

57.6 59.6 56.8 71.6 79.5 89.9 83.5 93.6 96.1

982.6 921.1 814.0 484.3 375.6 71.1 455.7 1.4 6.0

135

69.9

743.5

N O T E : The senators included in this analysis were those who cast at least four "yes" or "no" votes on Israel-related bills in 1969-1982 and who were in the 95th, 96th, and/or 97th Congresses. "Jewish sources" is operationalized as the sum of the expected contributions from Jewish individuals and PACs (see Appendix A). The pro-Israeli vote was calculated for each senator by dividing the number of "yes" or "no" votes he or she cast in Israel's favor by the total number of "yes" or "no" votes cast on Israel-related bills. In this analysis, all votes cast in the 1969-1982 period by senators in the 95th, 96th and/or 97th Congresses were used in the calculation of the pro-Israel vote. Eta-squared = 24. p < .001.

APPENDIX A

242

TABLE A.6 Jewish and/or Pro-Israeli Contributions as a Percentage of all Contributions and Pro-Israeli Vote Campaign Contributions from Jewish and/oi Pro-Israeli Sources b as a Percentage of All Contributions

15% Grand Eta-squared = .28, p < .001

Sample

Size

Mean Pro-Israeli Vote

Variance

53 36 23 8 10

53.0 70.6 85.1 88.1 95.0

859.0 562.5 308.7 496.5 15.9

130

69.0

806.9

NOTE: Pro-Israeli vote was calculated as in Table X.2B, using the same sample of senators. 'Contributions from Jewish and/or Pro-Israeli sources were estimated as described in the note to the table above. Eta-squared = .28. p < .001

APPENDIX B

T

ABLES IN this appendix present in tabular form data regarding U.S. public opinion on different issue areas and periods of the Israel-Arab dispute. Table B.4. presents the data on which figure 2 has been constructed. All values in the table are percentages of the total sample. As a screening question, respondents were first asked, "Have you heard or read about the situation in the Middle East?" Those who responded affirmatively were then asked the question given in the table. Approximately 80-90% of the initial people questioned were familiar with the situation in the Middle East.

APPENDIX B

244

T A B L E B. 1 U.S.-Israeli Cooperation,

1950-1956

"How important do you think it is for the United States cooperate closely with (each country below) . . . !"

to

Very Important

Fairly Important

Not Important

Don't Know

1950

The Arab Countries Israel

34% 31

31% 30

14% 15

21% 24

1953

The Arab Countries Israel

32 34

29 28

11 11

28 27

1956

The Arab Countries Israel

30 35

37 37

12 10

21 18

SOURCE: National Opinion Research Center Surveys. For 1950 values, Survey No. 273DU-1, January 18, 1950. For 1953 values, Survey No. 344, November 11, 1953. For 1956 values, Survey No. 382, January 26, 1956. The scores reported in table 2, when contrasted with other countries, for the "very important" category, yield the following results: 1950, India 41%, France 54%; 1953, Philippines 68%; 1956, England 67%. This indicates the relative importance attached to the Middle East.

TABLE B.2 Sympathy for Selected U.S. Friendly Nations "How would you rate your feelings following countries!

Country England France West Germany Israel India Egypt

Highly Mildly Favorable Favorable Neutral 23% 16 16 12 8 4

34% 36 30 21 21 13

27% 34 41 53 56 52

SOURCE: The Gallup Poll, December 14-19, 1956.

toward

the

Mildly Unfavorable

Highly Unfavorable

7% 9 6 8 10 17

9% 5 7 6 5 14

245

APPENDIX B

TABLE B.3 U.S. Public Perceptions of Israel and Egypt EGYPT

DATE

Favorable

Unfavorable

1956 (Dec| 1966 (Dec)

31% 46%

44% 37%

ISRAEL

Don't Know Favorable 25% 17%

Unfavorable

Don't Know

25% 20%

26% 16%

49% 64%

SOURCE: The data in the table are based on a collapsed version of the original scale of the Gallup Polls' "Scalometer Trends." Here we combined highly favorable and mildly favorable into one category, and highly favorable and mildly unfavorable into another. Gallup Report No. 204 (September 1982), p. 21. The 1956 survey was taken days after the Israeli invasion of the Sinai desert.

TABLE B.4 Measures of American Sympathy Toward Israel and the Arab Countries, 1967-1982 "In the Middle East situation, are your sympathies more Israel or more with the Arab Statesi"

Date 1967 1969 1970 1973 1973 1975 1977 1978

June January March October December January June October December February March April-May August September (early)

Israel

Arab Nations

Neither

56% 50 44 47 50 44 44 46 44 33 38 44 44 41

4% 5 3 6 7 8 8 11 10 14 11 10 10 12

25% 28 32 22 27 22 28 21 27 28 33 33 33 29

with

No Opinion 15% 17 21 25 18 26 20 22 19 25 18 13 13 18

APPENDIX B

246

TABLE B.4 (continued)

Date

1979 1981 1982

1982 1983 1983 1983 1983 1983 1984 1984 1984 1985 1985 1985 1985 1986 1986 1986 1987 1987 1988 1988 1988

September (late) November January July-August January April-May June July January 3 February" March" July" September 3 January 11 Marchb October" April" June" August" Octoberd May" June 3 October February" February" 1 April" May December

Israel 42 39 40 44 49 51 52 41 47 52 40 37 49 44 39 39 42 49 37 64 53 62% 61 48 58 37 43 46

Arab Nations 12 13 14 11 14 12 10 12 17 16 14 9 13 8 8 5 10 11 7 14 8 13% 10 8 8 11 20 24

Neither 29 30 31 34 23 26 29 31 15 13 33 21 14 21 21 23 23 18 21 10 19 13% 23 14 26 20 16

No Opinion 17 18 15 11 14 11 9 16 21 19 13 21** 24 13** 21** 20** 12** 22 23** 9* 11** 13% 29 14* 18* 16 17+ 14+

SOURCES: ABC News/Washington Post, January 1983; March 1983; September 27, 1983; July 1985; June 24, 1986. Gallup Report, No. 203, August 1982; March 14, 1983; March 1987; May 29, 1988; January 15, 1989. Louis Harris Survey, November 2, 1985; March 30, 1987. Roper Report, 83-7, September 1983; February 1984; 84-4, May 1984; 84-10, December 1984; June 1985; 85-8, November 1985; June 1986; April 1987; April 1988. Note: Only Gallup Polls used in figure 2. 'ABC/Washington Post hRoper Report 'Responses: "Equally with both sides" and "Equal or greater sympathy with Egypt but not other Arab nations" (July 1983, 10, 1; January 1984, 12, 1; March 1984, 9, 2; October 1984, 12, 1; April 1985, 11, 2; August 1985, 10, 1]. Louis Harris Survey 'Responses: "Equally with both sides" (October 1985, 3; May 1986, 8; February 1987a, 7; February 1985b, 2,- April 1988, 11]. 'Question asked was "In the Middle East situation, are your sympathies more with Israel or more with the Palestinian Arabs?"

247

APPENDIX B

TABLE

B.5

T h e P u b l i c ' s V i e w of E g y p t a n d I s r a e l "As

far

close

as you ally

friendly

are

concerned,

of the but

not

U.S.,

an enemy, Close Ally

ISRAEL December 1974 October 1977 January 1 9 7 9 March 1979 GYPT December 1974 October 1977 January 1 9 7 9 March 1979

do you

is friendly

feel

but

that

not

[Israel/Egypt]

a close

or is an enemy

of the

Not Friendly

Friendly

ally,

is a is

not

U.S.!" Not Sure

Enemy

26% 30 24 30

49% 42 46 49

10% 6 15 12

1% 1 2 2

14% 21 13 7

1 5 10 16

25 43 52 51

44 19 18 20

9 2 2 3

21 30 18 10

SOURCE: Louis Harris, "Americans View Both Israel and Egypt in a Friendly Light, " ABC News/Harris Survey, April 2, 1979, p. 3.

TABLE

B.6

E x p r e s s i o n s of A m e r i c a n S y m p a t h y w i t h t h e A r a b S t a t e s a n d Israel D u r i n g t h e Oil E m b a r g o Agree

Disagree

Not

Sure

February 1 9 7 4 W e need A r a b oil . . . so w e had better find w a y s t o get along w i t h t h e Arabs, even if t h a t m e a n s supporting Israel less.

23%

61%

16%

July 1 9 8 0 I resent being cold this w i n t e r b e c a u s e this c o u n t r y is supporting Israel in t h e Middle East.

20%

65%

15%

SOURCE: Louis Harris, "Arab Actions on Oil Only Reinforce Pro-Israeli Sentiment in U.S.," The Harris Survey, February 14, 1974. The commentary accompanying the document releasing the findings of the survey is of interest. "People were asked to react in this way [to agree or disagree] for the reason that the issues involved are highly emotional and controversial. Experience has shown that by asking them to agree or disagree in this fashion, they are likely to express feelings that might otherwise be concealed beneath the surface."

APPENDIX B

248

TABLE B.7 Level of Military Support "If war broke out again in the Middle East between Arabs and Israel, would you favor or oppose the U.S. continuing to send military supplies as they are needed, but not troops or personnel, to help Israeli" TOTAL

Favor Oppose Not sure

PUBLIC

1980

1976

1975

73% 18 9

64% 25 11

66% 24 10

SOURCE: Louis Harris, "A Study of the Attitudes of American People and the American Jewish Community Toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict in the Middle East," Study No. 804011, Mimeograph, Louis Harris and Associates, 1980, p. 88.

TABLE B.8 American Public Opinion on Return of the Territories Conquered in the 1967 War Gallup Poll' Keep all Give back part Give back all No opinion

24% 35 16 25

Harris Pollb None of it All except for security needs All of it Not sure

22% 54 9 15

"'[Should Israel] give back part of this land, give back all of this land, or keep all of this land?" Dr. George H. Gallup, The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion 1974-1977. Volume Two 1976-1977 (Wilmington, Delaware: 1980), p. 1120. Interviewing date, June 3-6, 1977. k"Should Israel give up all the land, . . . all the land except what it needs to protect its security, or none of the land it occupies?" Louis Harris, "Egypt vs. Israel on the Issues," Harris Survey (January 26, 1978), p. 2.

APPENDIX B

249

TABLE B.9 Opinions on Jerusalem's Future

Israel has the right to make Jerusalem her capital. 3 Jerusalem should be internationalized.

11

Yes

No

Not Sure

48%

17%

35%

26

52

22

22

56

22

Jerusalem should be united under Israeli sovereignty. b

63

17

20

All of Jerusalem should remain under Israeli control, 0 but with Arabs and Christians having separate and full access to all holy places

75

14

11

Israel should give East Jerusalem to the Arabs.

b

'Yankelovich: July 1981 bHarris, "A Study of Attitudes," p. 54. T h e Harris Survey, "Optimism High for Middle East Peace" (October 1978).

APPENDIX C

T

(aid and sales) figures presented in this work are all reported in millions of constant 1982 U.S. dollars. The Gross National Product deflator used was taken from Survey of Cunent Business, July 1964, p. 110; July 1968, p. 49; July 1972, p. 47; July 1973, p. 52; July 1976, p. 58; July 1980, p. 62; July 1984, p. 84; July 1985, p. 81. The GNP deflator, rather than the Implicit Price Deflator for National Defense Purchases Less Compensation and Petroleum, was used for military goods because the latter was available only for the years 1972-1983 while the GNP deflator was available for the years 1946—1984. The correlation between the two deflators in the time span in which they overlap was .9978, certainly close enough to warrant the exchange of one for the other. HE A S S I S T A N C E

APPENDIX C

251

C . I . U.S. Foreign Assistance, Military and Economic, 1946-1983

The data in tables 5.9 and 5.10 represent the sum of economic and militry aid given by the United States for the years 1946-1983. Economic assistance includes aid from the Agency for International Development, Food for Peace, Loans such as those authorized by the Inter-American Development Bank from the Social Progress Trust Fund, the relevant Peace Corps expenditures, and grants for International Narcotics Control. Military aid includes Military Assistance Program (MAP) grants, Foreign Military Credit Financing, International Military Education and Training (IMET), Transfers from Excess Stocks, other grants such as the military portions of "Greek-Turkish Aid," "China Naval Aid," "PL 454 Philippines Aid" and "Vessel Loans," Export-Import Bank Loans, and other loans including short-term credits by the U.S. Department of Agriculture under the Commodity Credit Corporation Charter Act, Overseas Private Investment Corporation direct loans, and Private Trade agreements under PL 480 Title I. The sources for the data on economic and military transfers are as follows: For the years 1946-1961, see United States Agency for International Development, United States Foreign Assistance and Assistance from International Organizations July 1945-June 30, 1961. Data for the years 1946-1948 were aggregated in this document. Estimated annual totals were obtained by dividing the 1946—48 totals by three before converting the data into constant dollars. Since inflation was fairly low during this time period, one would expect distortions from the conversion to be minimal. For the years 1962-1965 the sources were annual Reports to the Congress on the Foreign Assistance Program, US AID, and The Foreign Assistance Program Annual Report to the Congress, US AID, published respectively in 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965. For the years 1966-1973, see US AID, United States Overseas Loans and Grants and Assistance from International Organizations, 1973. For the years 1974-1976, see US AID, United States Overseas Loans and Grants and Assistance from International Organizations, 1977. (Note: this time period contains a Transitional Quarter (TQ) between 1976 and 1977 when the U.S. government changed its ac-

APPENDIX C

252

counting procedures. The TQ exists in government records as an autonomous unit of time separate from 1976 and 1977 figures. All the TQ data were included with the 1977 data.) For the years 1977-1979, see US AID, United States Overseas Loans and Grants and Assistance from International Organizations, 1980. For the Years 1980-1983, see US AID, United States Overseas Loans and Grants and Assistance from International Organizations, 1984.

C.2. U . S . E x p e n d i t u r e s for N A T O

Estimates of U.S. spending committed to NATO were derived as follows: For the years 1974—1982, data were available for a report to Congress by the U.S. Department of Defense. (U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Department of Defense Authorization for Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1982, Part 1, Posture Statement, Hearings on S. 815, 97th Cong., 1st sess., January 28, March 4, 1981, pp. Cl-68.) This report established two important categories of expenditures: The dollar amount for troops deployed in Europe "include[d] general purpose forces and support elements deployed in Europe," and early reinforcements include[d] "general purpose forces that are ready to rapidly deploy to counter Soviet aggression. . . . These troops are mainly based in the United States and in general would be withheld from deployment to contingencies elsewhere." Estimates for the years 1950-1973, and 1983, were done based on the following assumptions: (1) It was assumed that the U.S. troop deployment in Western Europe had remained relatively constant over the period 1950-1983 (see Stanley R. Sloan, Defense Burden Sharing: U.S. Relations with NATO Allies and Japan, Congressional Research Services, Report No. 83-140 F, July 1983, p. 50); (2) It was also assumed that the proportion of U.S. defense expenditures committed to NATO had remained relatively constant over the time of our series. For both categories—European Deployed and Early Reinforcements—the number varied from 14 percent to 17 percent and 20 percent to 22 percent of U.S. defense expenditures, respectively. Costs for U.S. expenditures to NATO for 1950-1973 were then estimated through extrapolation. Here, an average for the percentage of U.S. defense expenditures going to NATO during the period for which data were available was applied to the years where data were

APPENDIX C

253

missing to derive an estimated NATO expenditure for missing years. (United States Department of Defense, Security Assistance Agency, Fiscal Year Seríes as of September 30, 1984, Data Management Division, Controller, OSAA.)

TABLE C . l U.S. Defense Expenditures Committed to NATO, 1950-1983 (1982 U.S. $ Million)

Year 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 TOTALS

West Germany

Greece

Greenland

.07 .12 .16 .17 .14 .13 .13 .14 .14 .14 .13 .14 .15 .14 .14 .14 .17 .19 .19 .18 .17 .16 .16 .16 .15 .14 .13 .15 .15 .16 .17 .19 .20 .23

7.69 13.01 18.46 18.71 15.79 14.89 14.98 15.65 15.90 15.81 14.62 15.38 16.59 16.18 15.62 15.36 19.46 20.95 21.06 20.84 19.16 17.65 17.98 17.52 16.46 15.41 15.07 16.59 17.45 18.02 18.96 21.27 22.73 26.24

.11 .18 .26 .26 .22 .21 .21 .22 .22 .22 .20 .21 .23 .22 .22 .21 .27 .29 .29 .29 .27 .24 .25 .24 .23 .21 .21 .23 .24 .25 .26 .29 .32 .36

.01 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .03 .03 .03 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .02 .03 .03 .03

5.21

587.45

8.14

.73

Belgium

APPENDIX C

254

T A B L E C . l (continued) Year 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 TOTALS

Iceland

Italy

Netherlands

Norway

.09 .15 .21 .21 .18 .17 .17 .18 .18 .18 .16 .17 .19 .18 .18 .17 .22 .24 .24 .23 .22 .20 .20 .20 .18 .17 .17 .19 .20 .20 .21 .24 .26 .29

.40 .66 .94 .95 .80 .76 .76 .80 .81 .80 .74 .78 .84 .82 .79 .78 .99 1.07 1.07 1.06 .97 .90 .91 .89 .84 .78 .77 .84 .89 .92 .96 1.08 1.16 1.33

.08 .13 .19 .19 .16 .15 .15 .16 .16 .16 .15 .16 .17 .16 .16 .16 .20 .21 .21 .21 .19 .18 .18 .18 .17 .16 .15 .17 .18 .18 .19 .22 .23 .27

.01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .01 .02 .02

6.60

29.87

5.94

.41

APPENDIX C

255

TABLE C . l (continued) Year

Portugal

Spain

Turkey

United Kingdom

Afloat

1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983

.04 .08 .11 .11 .09 .09 .09 .09 .09 .09 .09 .09 .10 .09 .09 .09 .11 .12 .12 .12 .11 .10 .10 .10 .10 .09 .09 .10 .10 .10 .11 .12 .13 .15

.27 .45 .64 .65 .55 .52 .52 .55 .56 .55 .51 .54 .58 .56 .55 .54 .68 .73 .74 .73 .67 .62 .63 .61 .57 .54 .53 .58 .61 .63 .66 .74 .79 .92

.15 .26 .37 .38 .32 .30 .30 .31 .32 .32 .29 .31 .33 .33 .31 .31 .39 .42 .42 .42 .39 .35 .36 .35 .33 .31 .30 .33 .35 .36 .38 .43 .46 .53

.78 1.31 1.86 1.89 1.60 1.50 1.51 1.58 1.61 1.60 1.48 1.55 1.68 1.63 1.58 1.55 1.97 2.12 2.13 2.10 1.94 1.78 1.82 1.77 1.66 1.56 1.52 1.68 1.76 1.82 1.91 2.15 2.30 2.65

.78 1.31 1.86 1.89 1.60 1.50 1.51 1.58 1.61 1.60 1.48 1.55 1.68 1.63 1.58 1.55 1.97 2.12 2.13 2.10 1.94 1.78 1.82 1.77 1.66 1.56 1.52 1.68 1.76 1.82, 1.91 2.15 2.30 2.65

TOTALS

3.42

20.51

11.80

59.34

59.34

APPENDIX D

A r m s Transfers to the Middle East, 1 9 5 0 - 1 9 8 3

A. United States The tables in this appendix present time series of arms sales agreements to principal Middle Eastern nations by the United States.

257

APPENDIX D

TABLE D. 1 U.S. Military Sales Agreements to Principal Middle Eastern Nations, 1950-1983 (1982 U.S. $ Million) Yeai

Egypt

Iran

1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 .7 0.0 .1 0.0 0.0 0.0 .4 .0 0.0 .0 .0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 117.6 1.3 221.4 522.5 2440.7 327.2 1910.7 684.2

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 .3 2.3 .3 .4 .4 .1 188.1 239.3 371.1 170.7 525.9 299.4 755.3 889.8 4129.0 6102.7 1973.7 2424.2 1928.8 412.4 18.3 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 .1 .5 .1 0.0 0.0 .0 1.1 .1 3.5 29.5 .2 .9 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

TOTALS

6,226.9

20,432.4

36.1

Iraq

Israel

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 .8 .5 .04 .6 .2 3.0 2.0 1.0 6.5 5.2 .9 163.6 188.8 24.0 768.1 166.3 340.1 620.9 804.3 315.0 4236.6 1320.6 1507.6 702.0 1869.9 991.5 601.7 139.2 631.3 2374.6 17,786.8

SOURCE: Department of Defense, Security Assistance Agency, Fiscal Year Series as of September 30, 1984, Data Management Division, Comptroller, DSAA.

APPENDIX D

258

T A B L E D . l (continued)

Year

Jordan

Kuwait

1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 .5 1.9 3.9 107.7 4.3 73.0 82.7 31.5 63.4 34.8 39.1 13.7 114.7 123.5 544.1 138.8 89.4 92.5 343.3 357.2 116.6 48.0 2,424.6

TOTALS

Lebanon

Libya

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 .1 54.1 573.9 294.4 24.6 90.2 13.7 141.4 46.5 115.4 142.7

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 .8 .0 .0 0.0 0.0 0.0 .0 .0 .2 .0 .2 5.8 .1 .1 2.6 .4 .4 9.2 17.7 .7 .4 0.0 30.1 28.2 35.7 51.6 9.5 407.3

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 .2 0.0 0.0 1.7 .1 1.4 40.1 5.9 4.0 11.8 1.4 5.5 .3 .0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

1,496.9

600.9

72.5

APPENDIX D

259

T A B L E D . l (continued) Saudi Arabia

South Yemen

Syria

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 2.6 .4 1.1 0.0 .1 26.6 53.7 24.2 .6

0.0 0.0 0.0 8.9 0.0 42.7 11.1 54.4 77.8 11.9 6.6 9.4 13.2 28.0 2.4 1017.3 23.0 294.2 31.8 10.0 180.7 31.9 633.8 2723.7 2820.8 9356.6 11,576.0 2744.2 3460.1 8448.1 5421.4 2041.5 7258.0 2557.9

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 4.7 .5 181.2 2.9 1.8 212.5 1.8 20.4 16.6 8.7

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 .0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

109.2

60,674.9

451.0

.0

Year

Oman

1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 TOTALS

APPENDIX D

260

TABLE D . 2 U.S. Government Estimates Warsaw Pact Military Sales to Principal Middle Eastern Nations, 1 9 5 0 - 1 9 8 4 (1982 U.S. $ Million) Year 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 TOTALS

Egypt

Iraq

Israel

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

265.4 593.7 154.9 257.6 89.4 440.9 521.9 431.5 424.9 208.9 204.9 279.6 452.0 284.9 248.2 1523.3 770.2 1109.5 1607.2 356.3 407.4 15.7 7.4 13.8 25.5 17.4 5.3 10.0 33.7 13.9

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 44.7 73.5 174.0 330.8 269.1 55.7 68.3 79.9 206.6 297.3 212.7 89.6 74.9 280.0 1225.0 1051.1 790.4 1232.3 1423.7 1561.6 2694.6 1156.4 1977.3 2635.0 1468.6 2289.6

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0

10,775.3

21,762.7

0.0

SOURCE: U.S. G o v e r n m e n t estimates.

Jordan

Libya

Syria

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 212.0 0.0 48.2 0.0

0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 78.4 128.4 20.7 29.4 454.3 1450.5 235.5 1371.8 1831.1 2707.4 1394.7 1669.8 1300.0 1107.5 1019.7

0.0 144.4 123.9 272.7 89.4 44.1 43.5 100.7 85.0 69.6 27.3 39.9 142.1 99.1 94.5 145.6 288.8 580.7 2469.6 1434.2 570.4 777.1 882.4 1126.3 2274.2 2923.1 2078.0 1830.0 1613.1 1117.0

260.2

14,799.2

21,486.8

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

261

APPENDIX D

T A B L E D.3 U.S. Government Estimates of Western European Arms Sales Agreements to Principal Middle Eastern Nations, 1950-1984 (1982 U.S. $ Million) Year

1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 TOTALS

Egypt

Iraq

Israel

Libya

Syria

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

— —

—

—

—

—

—

5.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 5.0 0.0 0.0 37.2 23.6 11.2 32.1 20.7 9.8 44.5 163.0 196.2 311.4 404.9 509.6 290.6 434.7 980.0 587.4 927.0

18.8 18.8 18.8 18.8 18.8 18.8 18.8 18.8 18.8 18.8 18.8 18.8 0.0 12.9 0.0 35.5 11.2 0.0 10.4 9.8 53.4 195.6 172.7 333.7 469.9 140.2 778.7 1415.4 850.0 2426.8 2465.7

67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 106.5 400.3 334.4 260.0 156.8 42.8 51.8 58.8 44.5 24.4 39.2 74.2 9.7 0.0 0.0 37.1 0.0 0.0 0.0

772.9 561.9 550.0 375.6 213.2

1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 1.3 13.3 12.9 24.8 23.6 11.2 0.0 0.0 19.6 35.6 32.6 204.0 51.9 110.6 216.6 215.0 111.3 10.0 0.0 9.3

5,044.1

9,607.1

2,451.9

2,473.6

1,117.6

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

NOTE: For the period 1954-1965 yearly data were not available. Total sales for that period were divided evenly. The appropriate deflators were then used to convert to constant dollars.

APPENDIX D

262

TABLE D.4 Israeli and U.S. Government Estimates of Western European Assistance to Israel, 1 9 5 4 - 1 9 8 3 (1982 U.S. $ Million)

Year 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 TOTALS

West German Reparationsa

West European Military Salesb

$26.9 62.3 82.5 142.2 200.9 211.1 285.7 333.3 396.7 404.5 401.6 307.9 293.9 318.2 355.0 325.9 456.1 491.9 604.5 518.0 564.9 584.4 492.5 519.2 561.8 560.2 543.8 461.3 441.9 0

$67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 67.6 106.5 400.3 334.4 260.0 156.8 42.8 51.8 58.8 44.5 24.4 39.2 74.1 9.6 0 0 37.1 0 0

$10,948.9

$2,452.9

'Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, "Personal Restitutions from Germany." b These are U.S. government estimates. For the period 1954-1965 yearly data were not available. Total sales for that period were divided evenly. The appropriate deflator was then used to convert to constant dollars.

NOTES

Introduction

1. It is unclear what the ambassador actually said. His deputy remembers him to have said something about hoping that the two sides could get together, and that he spoke in a spirit of "Christian" forebearance. The reported choice of words was clearly unfortunate, but what he meant to say was simply that, as a Christian, he was partial neither to the Jewish nor to the Arab side. Another version of Austin's remarks was that "the Arabs and Jews . . . come together and settle this problem in a true Christian spirit." (George T. Mazuzan, Warren R. Austin at the UN 1946-1953, p. 99.) 2. Recently, important "revisionist" history has been written by Israeli scholars and journalists. The works have focused on myths composing the romanticized popular version of Israel's foreigfi dealings in the region. For example, the origin of Palestinian refugees, the relations between Zionists and the Hashemite Dynasty in Jordan, and the Lebanese

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War of 1982. See Ze'ev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War; Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949; and Avi Shlaim, Collusion across the Jordan. Such works are very important. Opponents to present Israeli policy expand the audience for Israeli scholars stripping away Israeli myths about itself. Their findings provide new ammunition for the fight over the opinions of elites and/ or mass publics of all important actors. 3. The term "Jewish lobby" is used in the broadest possible sense. It includes ordinary Jewish voters and Jewish organizations that articulate Jewish interests on behalf of Israel as well as the actual lobbyists working in Washington.

1. American Presidents and Israel

1. There is some dispute among participants and sources as to which official was responsible for passing on information to the Saudis. Such disagreements are to be expected. See Alexander Haig, Caveat, pp. 3 4 2 344. Ze'ev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari suggest that it was not Secretary Weinberger but National Security Adviser William Clark who passed on to the Saudis information on U.S. intentions (Israel's Lebanon War, p. 205). 2. A detailed and exhaustive historical review has been done and has concluded that there is no evidence that U.S. policy in helping Israel is driven by pressure of the Jewish community or its Washington legislative lobby. "The pro-Israeli lobby is universally (and incorrectly) thought to have great leverage if not determining impact on Middle East policy" (Steven L. Spiegel, The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict, p. 388). 3. See chapters 6 and 7. 4. See chapter 3. 5. M. Sklare and J. Greenblum, Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier, p. 266. 6. Ibid.-,cf. also Eytan Gilboa, American Public Opinion Toward Israel and the Arab Israeli Conflict, Tables 7-11. 7. Mark R. Levy and Michael S. Kramer, The Ethnic Factor: How America's Minorities Decide Elections, pp. 100-109. Some major political leaders seemed to sense that the constant cry of the pivotal role of American Jews in presidential elections and the need of political leaders to give in to their pressures on behalf of Israel is vastly exaggerated, revealing people whose anxieties outrun their capacity of prediction (M. S. El Azhary, Political Cohesion of American Jews in American Politics: A Reappraisal of Their Role in Presidential Elections). Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan, to mention two major leaders, appear to have sensed as much. Both were pressured by pro-Israel activists and disre-

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garded such pressures. Neither appear to have been politically harmed. Quite the contrary. In the case of the Eisenhower administration, the President insisted that the Israelis, who had conquered the Sinai in the war of 1956, return it to the Egyptians. It was not a minor matter. There was intense pressure from American Jewish leaders at the time for the President to change policy. Senators Johnson and Knowland, the majority and minority leaders, pressured the President to change the U.S. position. It was the time of the Soviet invasion of Hungary and the crushing of the Hungarian revolt. The Senators argued that U.S. acceptance of such an invasion was inconsistent with the harsh punishment of Israel, the UK, and France for their attack against Egypt. But President Eisenhower did not change his view. When aides warned about the political perils of his course, because of the anger of so many American Jews at this policy, he pushed on regardless. President Eisenhower's determination to go to considerable length to make the Israelis give up all Egyptian territory they had conquered is well described in his diary: The United States, as a member of the United Nations, to employ our armed force in strength to drive them back within their [the Israeli's] borders. If this turned out to be the case, much of the responsibility would be laid at my door. With many of our citizens of the eastern seabord [a clear reference to American Jews] emotionally involved in the Zionist cause, this, it was believed, could possibly bring political defeat. None of them however, urged me to abandon my position. I thought and said that emotion was beclouding their good judgment. (Eisenhower, Waging Peace, p. 74). Or take a very recent case of President Reagan who was backing a policy to help Jordan that was considered unpopular with supporters of Israel. King Hussein, visiting Washington, worried aloud how the Jewish community could create difficulties for President Reagan for taking the position he had. Reagan's rejoinder was a marvel of political insight, that he could win without Jewish support (Karen House, "Hussein's Decision"). And so he could. One political operative hazarded the opinion to this author that, more often than not, those who could not win without the Jews probably could not win with them. It should be noted that, in the case of these two presidents, one was negative toward Israel and the other was very much in favor. High popularity does not seem to have influenced their decisions. Of course, both Eisenhower and Reagan were enormously popular. One could argue that they could afford to disregard the pressures of the Jewish community, while other, less popular presidents might have less freedom of action. But this is a totally untestable hypothesis, because with the available evidence there is no way to be sure what less popular presidents might have done. 8. There have been a number of authors who have held to this view that the Jewish lobby has been very powerful. (George Ball, Seth Tullman,

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Noam Chomsky, Fred Khouri, Paul Findley). The last such work is by Edward Tivnan. Tivnan makes precisely the argument above (The Lobby: Jewish Political Powei and American Foreign Policy). As indicated above, the evidence does not support this argument. 9. The U.S. general public was also aroused by the short, swift, and total victory of Israeli arms. The high point of support for Israel on the part of the U.S. general public was immediately after the 1967 war (see chap. 3). See also, E. Gilboa, American Public Opinion Toward Israel, Tables 7.1, 7.2; pp. 241-242. See also Marshall Sklare, and Benjamin Ringer "A Study of Jewish Attitudes Toward the State of Israel," in Marshall Baker (ed.), The Jews, pp. 248-450; Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum, Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier, tables 6.1-6.5, pp. 214-249; and Ernest Stock, Israel on the Road to Sinai, 1949-1956; with a Sequel on the Six Day War, 1967, p. 142. 10. See chapter 7. 11. David K. Shipler, "On Middle East Policy, a Major Influence," p. 1, col. 1; Robert Pear with Richard L. Berke "Pro-Israel Group Exerts Quiet Might as it Rallies Supporters in Congress," p. 7, col. 7. 12. Robert Scheer, Jews in U.S. Committed to Equality. 13. Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, pp. 48182, 346, 355-56, 472; Henry Kissinger, White House Years, ch. 30; Years of Upheaval, chs. 6, 11, 12, 13, 18, 21, 22. 14. Brooks Jackson, Honest Graft, p. 107. 15. See chapter 3. 16. There is consensus that, given the psychotic determination of the Nazi government to exterminate European Jewry, it would have been impossible to save all or even the bulk of Jews in Europe. Still the story of U.S. government inaction and the dogged resistance of relevant officials, particularly Breckenridge Long of the Department of State, to any significant attempt at rescue in spite of the mounting evidence that extermination was being carried out is a major black mark on the American record (Henry L. Feingold, The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938-1945; David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945-, and Arthur D. Morse, While Six Million Died). 17. Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men, pp. 572-573. 18. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 564. 19. Ibid., pp. 550-551. 20. Henry Kissinger, White House Years, p. 564. 21. Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men, pp. 452. 22. One should note that among pro-Israel forces there is also a widespread belief that economic leaders whose businesses have interests in Arab countries have a good deal of influence in the shaping of pro-Arab decisions by the U.S. government. That view is equally un-

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founded. The evidence seems fairly conclusive that fundamental decisions in regard to Middle East policy are really made by political elites for reasons of their own (S. Spiegel, The Other Aiab-Isiaeli Conflict, p. 389). 23. See Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 948; and there were other such incidents. See Kissinger on the oil crisis, chs. 19, 20. 24. This point will be explored further in chapter 2. 25. Robert J. Donovan, Conflict and Crises: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1945-1948. 26. Kissinger tells of a visit he and President Nixon paid Eisenhower while the latter was in his final illness. "Nixon told him about our Middle East discussion. Eisenhower argued against major American involvement in the negotiations. Probably reflecting the agony he went through over Suez in 1956, he thought the best course was to let the parties work it out for themselves. If we became active we would be forced in the end to become an arbiter and then offer to parties our own guarantee of whatever final arrangement emerged. This would keep us embroiled in Middle East difficulties forever" (Henry Kissinger, White House Years, p. 351). See also, Andrew Berding, Dulles on Diplomacy, p. 100; Townsend Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles-, Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Mandate for Change, 1953-56-, and Donald Neff, Warriors at Suez: Eisenhower Takes America into the Middle East. 27. Nadav Safran, Israel, The Embattled Ally, and The United States and Israel-, William B. Quandt, Decade of Decisions: American Policy Toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1967-1976. 28. The outcome of that war was also a factor in the split between Jewish and black leaders. Differences over the Arab-Israel conflict have continued to affect that relationship. 29. Eventually both sides accepted a new ceasefire agreement. By then the Soviet Union had more than ten thousand soldiers in Egypt. The USSR defended the presence of its soldiers as defensive. The State Department accepted the USSR explanation because it conformed with their own basic preconception about the Middle East. State discounted the Israeli military power as an obstacle to Russian expansionism and an obstacle to meeting legitimate Arab demands and was convinced that Israeli bellicosity was behind the stalemate of American efforts for beginning a peace process. Some Kissinger aides argued that the U.S. refusal to confront the problem actually misled the Soviets into believing that the United States acquiesced in what they were doing and were surprised at the eventual confrontations. Henry Kissinger, White House Years, p. 575, ff. 30. The surprise attack on Israel represented a major intelligence failure for both the Israelis and the United States; both sides misread the signs of what was coming. The war also dispelled the illusion of

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Israeli invincibility, created in 1967. Arab soldiers proved that they could fight; the fantasy of Israeli invulnerability was shattered. The difficulties Israel experienced in the Yom Kippur War had the further, immensely important effect of convincing the Israeli government and population of the need to come to some sort of terms with their Arab neighbors. All of this was clearly understood by Secretary Kissinger. Now in complete control of U.S. foreign policy decision making as both Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, Kissinger lost no time in seizing this opportunity and turning it to the benefit of American policy in the region. Cf. Matti Golan, The Secret Conversations of Henry KissingeiS. Spiegel, The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict, p. 252 ; Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, chapters 11-19, 21-23; William B. Quandt, Decade of Decision: American Policy Toward the Arab Israeli Conflict, 1967-1976. There is good evidence that Sadat had wanted to switch sides and sign a peace treaty with Israel even before he went to war. Though he thought he would lose the war, he needed a good military performance to reestablish Arab self-respect after the ignominious defeat five years earlier. His strategy proved at least partially right. His army did at first win some major victories in the field. Israeli knees buckled for an instant. At that point the United States urged a cease-fire in place: A perfect setting for peacemaking. The Israelis had been weakened, the Egyptians ready to make peace. But Sadat, carried away by euphoria, turned it down. The Israelis recouped and won. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, pp. 517-518. 31. This was a White House concern in the second term of the Nixon administration. Nixon and Kissinger accepted the fact that a strong Israel might be able to do triple duty for the United States: First, it would stand as a direct obstacle to Soviet expansion through proxies in the region; second, convincing the front-line states that military moves would lead to disaster might induce them to abandom their ties with the Soviet Union—since Soviet assistance had failed them—and turn instead to the United States in the hope that it might use its leverage with Israel on their behalf: finally, Israel's military strength might prove some protection to the Arab countries that were friends of the United States. In 1967 Israel's victory had stopped cold the Nasser threat in the Yemen War in which Saudi Arabia was opposing him ; and in 1970 Israeli mobilization had stopped Syria from helping the PLO in its attempt to overthrow the King of Jordan, thus making it possible for the King's army to quash the rebellion (Matti Golan, The Secret Conversations of Henry Kissinger-, Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, ch. 11). 32. See chapter 7. 33. Before the 1973 war, the U.S. government worried that Soviet strategy might succeed. This was before Israel's defeat of Egypt and Syria,

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and Syria's temporary and Egypt's more permanent shift to the U.S. side. Nixon wrote Kissinger: "We have been gloating over Soviet 'defeats' in the Mideast since '67—&. State et al. said the June war was a 'defeat' for the Soviet. It was not. They became the Arabs' friend and the U.S. their enemy. Long range this is what serves their interest" (Henry Kissinger, White House Years, p. 564). 34. The circumstances of the war in Lebanon in 1982 and the political infighting among U.S. foreign policy leaders in regard to what U.S. policy should be is discussed in chapter 8. 35. For a pioneering effort in fitting the study of government foreign policy decisions into the requirements of science, see Bruce Bueno de Mesquita et al., Forecasting Political Events: The Future of Hong Kong. 36. Evan M. Wilson, Decision on Palestine; How the U.S. Came to Recognize Israel, pp. 66-129, 134-36; J. C. Hurewitz, The Struggle for Palestine. 37. Harry S. Truman, Memoirs: Years of Trial and Hope, vol. II, pp. 89-94, 158, 184. Among the opponents were General Marshall, now Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense Forrestal (James Forrestal, The Forrestal Diaries), and Undersecretary of State Lovett, and George Kennan, the architect of containment policy and a host of others. The Near East bureau in the Department of State bitterly opposed it, and so did the British government, the United States closest ally. David Niles and Clark Clifford in the White House fought for it, and so did with all their might Zionist organizations. See Loy Henderson, "American Political and Strategic Interests in the Middle East and Southwestern Europe"; U.S. Department of State, "Report by the policy planning staff on position of the United States with respect to pressure," in FRUG, 1948, pp. 546-54; Harry S Truman, Memoirs; Shlomo Slonim, "The 1948 American Embargo on Arms to Palestine," pp. 496-499; Robert Silverberg, If I Forget Thee O Jerusalem. 38. Some Arab partisans have argued that Syria had never promised to withdraw, that Secretary Shultz had been misinformed or had erred. The argument is not persuasive. Given the incredible sources of information the U.S. government had about all relevant Arab governments in that period, it is far more likely that Secretary Shultz was misled. Be that as it may, what is important for our purposes is that Secretary Shultz thought Syria had gone back on a promise.

2. American Opinion

1. The literature on public opinion is immense. For some of the classic discussions of the workings of public opinion and the way policy decisions are made, see V. O. Key, Jr., Public Opinion and American

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Democracy-, R. E. Lane and D. O. Sears, Public Opinion-,W. L. Bennett, Public Opinion in American Politics-, W. Lippmann, Public Opinion-, P. E. Converse, "The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics"; Robert Y. Shapiro and Benjamin I. Page, "Foreign Policy and the National Public," pp. 211-247; Benjamin I. Page and Robert Y. Shapiro, "What Moves Public Opinion," pp. 23-43; Benjamin I. Page and Robert Y. Shapiro, "Effects of Public Opinion on Policy," pp. 175-190; R. E. Lane, Political Ideology-, and Angus Campbell et al., The American Voter. Concerning a selection of the literature on American public opinion toward Israel one should note Eytan Gilboa, American Public Opinion Toward Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict-, George Salomon (ed.), Jews in the Mind of America-, William C. Adams, "Middle East Meets West: Surveying American Attitudes," pp. 51-55; Mitchell Bard, "Israel Standing in American Public Opinion," pp. 58-60; Connie DeBoer, "The Polls: Attitudes Toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict," pp. 121-31; George F. Gruen, "Arab Petropower and American Public Opinion," pp. 33-39; Seymour Lipset, "The Polls on the Middle East," pp. 24-30; Bruce Russett and Miroslav Nincic, "American Opinion on the Use of Military Force Abroad," pp. 411-31; Robert H. Trice, "Foreign Policy Interest Groups, Mass Public Opinion and the Arab Israeli Dispute," pp. 238-52; Shanto Iyengar and Michael Suleiman, "Trends in Public Support for Egypt and Israel, 1956-1978," pp. 34-60; and Michael Suleiman, "American Public Support of Middle Eastern Countries: 1939-1979." 2. Seymour Martin Lipset, "The Polls on the Middle East," p. 24. 3. See Appendix B. 1. 4. See Appendix B.2. 5. Hazel Erskine, "The Polls: Western Partisanship in the Middle East," Public Opinion Quarterly, pp. 633-34; Charles Stember, "The Impact of Israel on American Attitudes." 6. As we have noted in chapter 1, Truman, though deeply concerned about the plight of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, was not really concerned with the Middle East; he did not believe that the creation of a Jewish state was the answer to the refugee problem and did nothing to encourage it. See J. C. Hurewitz, The Struggle for Palestine-, Harry S. Truman, Memoirs: Years of Trial and Hope-, Evan M. Wilson, Decision on Palestine-, Herbert Feus, The Birth of Israel Shanto Iyengar and Michael Suleiman, "Trends in Public Support for Egypt and Israel, 1956-1978," pp. 34-60. 7. See Appendix B.3. 8. The years of 1974-1979 were a period full of dramatic events. Sadat startled the world with his dramatic trip to Jerusalem, and the Middle East was moved to the front burner of American foreign policy. It was a period that began with disengagement from the 1973 war and culminated with the Camp David Accords and the peace that followed. It was also a period during which two American administrations (Ford/

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Kissinger, and Carter/Vance) were angered by Israeli recalcitrance over returning Egyptian territory captured in the Six Day War of 1967. Of course, Israel eventually gave in but too late to change official U.S. attitudes. Official praise for Egypt and criticism of Israel came to be reflected in similar changes in public opinion. Other data also suggest that the improvement in Egypt's standing in polls continued over the next four years and that Sadat was personally more popular than Egypt. Sadat was regarded by Americans—more by Jews than non-Jews—as the most reasonable leader in the Middle East, and Egypt's standing decreased somewhat following his death (Seymour Lipset and William Schneider, "Carter vs. Israel," pp. 21-29). See Appendix B.5. 9. Moshe Dayan, Breakthrough: A Personal Account of the EgyptIsrael Peace Negotiation, pp. 109, ff.; Seymour Martin Lipset and William Schneider, "Carter vs. Israel: What the Polls Reveal," pp. 21-29. 10. One should note that shortly beyond our last data point occurred the infamous Sabra Shatila killings by the Arab Christian Phalange. The Israelis were held partly responsible and sympathy for Israel plummeted, but only for a brief period; it was soon to return to previous levels. 11. I have dealt with this point in chapter 1, page 17. 12. Louis Harris, A Study of the Attitudes of the American People and the American Jewish Community Toward Anti-Semitism and the Arab-Israeli Conflict in the Middle East, pp. 67-68. 13. See Appendix B.5. 14. Louis Harris, A Study of the Attitudes of the American People and the American Jewish Community Toward Anti-Semitism and the Arab-Israeli Conflict in the Middle East, pp. 67-68. 15. The question asked was: "And if it came down to a choice, do you think it is more important that we have good relations with Israel or with Egypt?" Response: Israel, 52%; Egypt, 20%; Don't Know, 29% (The Roper Organization, Roper Report 79-3, October 1979). 16. It should be made clear that the rise in oil prices was not fueled by the embargo but by a reduction in oil production by the Arab states. The rise in oil prices was fueled also by the actions of the oil companies and the fears of the European governments who refused to follow the advice of the United States that the best way of handling the problem would be to resist Arab pressure and present a united front to the producers (Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, pp. 860-61). 17. See Appendix B.6; Index to International Public Opinion, 197980, 94; ABC-News Harris Survey, No. 132, (November 6, 1979); and Louis Harris and Associates, Study 804011, (August 1980). See also Eytan Gilboa, American Public Opinion Toward Israel, p. 64. 18. See Appendix B.6; and George Gallup, "Public Sides with Israelis Despite Arab Oil Embargo," 11-13. 19. Available evidence comes from a number of polling organiza-

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tions asking different questions, and such differences should lead us to expect differences in results. As we have noted earlier, though the intent of the interview may be the same, any differences in the wording of questions may cue the respondent to produce dramatically different results. 20. Roper Organization, Roper Report 82-9 (September 1982). 21. Roper Organization, Roper Report 82—9 (September 1982). Data from the Harris surveys also support this view. Louis Harris and Associates, Study No. 804011, Vol. 34 (August 1980). 22. Louis Harris and Associates, A Study of the Attitudes of the American People and the American Jewish Community Toward AntiSemitism and the Arab-Israeli Conflict in the Middle East, p. 88; Eytan Gilboa, American Public Opinion Toward Israel, table 6-1, p. 212. 23. Eytan Gilboa, American Public Opinion Toward Israel, Tables 2-3, 6-9, pp. 50, 213, 214, 220, 224. 24. George Gallup, "Public Rejects Mid-East Arms Sales, Sympathy for Israel Seen Declining" (Gallup Opinion Index, 156 (July 1978): 7). The opposition of the public to economic or military assistance to the Arab states is confirmed by other surveys. See the Roper Organization, Roper Report 78-4 and 80-8 (1978, 1980). 25. Steven J. Rosen and Yosef I. Abramowitz, How Americans Feel About Israel, AIPAC Papers on U.S.-Israel Relations, No. 10 (Washington, DC: AIPAC, 1984), p. 23. 26. Ibid. 27. See chapter 6. 28. See Appendix B.6. 29. Roper Organization, Roper Report 82-8 (August 1982). 30. Ibid. 31. Harris, A Study of Attitudes . . . , p. 102; see also Louis Harris, "Egypt vs. Israel on the Issues"; George Gallup, "American Sympathies for Israel Rebound after 'Holocaust' Shown, Lebanon Invasion," Gallup Opinion Index, 158 (Sep. 1978). 32. See Appendix B.7. 33. The first question asked was as follows: "In the Middle East situation, are your sympathies more with the Israelis or more with the Palestinian Arabs?" The second question was: "Do you favor or oppose the establishment of an independent Palestinian nation with the territories occupied by Israel in the 1967 War?" (George Gallup, Jr. and Alec Gallup, "Independent Palestinian Nation Favored by Most Americans," Princeton, NJ: Gallup Poll, May 29, 1988.) 34. George Gallup, Gallup Poll, January 15, 1989. 35. Mark J. Penn and Douglas E. Schoen, "American Attitudes Toward the Middle East," pp. 45-47. 36. Ibid., p. 47.

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37. Robert Scheer, "U.S. fews Back Mideast Peace Talks." 38. For example, 60 percent of the Jewish public was in favor of the Schultz proposal for settlement of the dispute. Again, both fews (65 percent) and non-Jews (86 percent) opine that both sides would have to change their attitudes for solutions to be possible [Ibid). 39. Data in this section comes from an extensive study by Louis Harris, A Study of the Attitudes of the Ameiican People and the Jewish Community Toward Anti-Semitism and the Arab-Israeli Conflict in the Middle East, Study No. 804011, August 1980. A number of studies have targeted the same problem area. See Steven M. Cohen, Attitudes of American fews Toward Israel and Israelis. See also American Jewish Committee, The 1983 National Survey of American fews and Jewish Communal Leaders, and The National Survey of American Jews: Political and Social Outlooks (New York: American Jewish Committee, Institute of Human Relations, 1984). 40. Harris, A Study of Attitudes . . . , pp. 67-68. 41. Harris, A Study of Attitudes . . . , p. 104. 42. Harris, A Study of Attitudes . . . , p. 105. 43. The questions were: "If the government of Israel should become so unbending that the chances for peace in the Middle East grow much worse, do you think the U.S. should or should not threaten to withhold economic and military aid to the Israelis to pressure them to make peace?" "Suppose such a withholding of economic and military aid by the U.S. meant that the Arabs would have military superiority in the case of another war, would you favor or oppose this country withholding such aid if Israel is too unbending on working for peace?" Harris, A Study Attitudes . . . , pp. 102-3. The differences observed in the responses to these two questions by the general public and the Jewish community require clarifying comment. The questions have been extracted from a whole battery of closely related questions, and if one compares the replies they evoked with those given in response to the other questions, a couple of important points emerge very sharply. With regard to the creation of a Palestinian state, the general public seems to accept the idea if, and only if, Israel's security is guaranteed; without such guarantee, the idea is rejected. And concerning the withholding of economic and military assistance to pressure Israel to adopt positions likely to enhance the chances for peace in the region, both Jews (87 to 6 percent) and non-Jews (50 to 25 percent) oppose withholding assistance in the case of war. 44. Harris, A Study of Attitudes . . . , p. 67. 45. Katherine Organski and A. F. K. Organski, Population and World Power, chapter 5. 46. Marshall Sklare and Joseph Greenblum, Jewish Identity on the Suburban Frontier; Charles Silberman, A Certain People, George Salomon

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(ed.), Jews in the Mind of America-, Marshall Baker, The Jews-, and Marshall Sklare, America's fews. This view of American Jews toward the United States is not necessarily the view of Jews living in other countries. 47. Steven Cohen, American Modernity and Jewish Identity. 48. A New York rabbi, who had migrated to Israel, reflected on the occasion of the Arab riots in the occupied territories in early 1988; "In New York, I was dealing with Jewish survival against assimilation. . . . Here [in Israel] I am dealing with the survival of the nation of Israel against an external enemy." Identification with Israel offered a compromise among several forces that pulled at one another. It seemed as if he thought the threat was more dangerous in New York. (Francis X. Clines, "Israeli Army Also Worried by the Settlers," p. 4, col. 6.) 49. Steven Spiegel, The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict, pp. 129-30. 50. In a recent study 41 percent of Jewish respondents testified to being committed to liberalism, 56 percent testified to being committed to the Democratic party, and 50 percent expressed a commitment to social equality. (See "American Jews Back Mideast Peace Talks," and Robert Scheer, "Jews in the U.S. Committed to Equality.")

3. Congress and Aid to Israel

1. Steven Spiegel, The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict, p. 221. 2. For a brief review of the growth of attempts to regulate political spending see Gary C. Jacobson, Money in Congressional Elections; Congressional Quarterly, Dollar Politics, (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1982). Cf. also Herbert E. Alexander, Financing the 1980 Election. 3. The U.S. Census does not include a mandatory question on the religion of respondents, so there are no complete official figures on how many Jews live where. Thus, data are not readily available for any analysis of the relation between Jewish constituencies and support for Israel in the House of Representatives. The data provided by the American Jewish Committee are presented by state. See Milton Himmelfarb and David Singer, eds., American Jewish Year Book, 1985, vol. 85, (New York: American Jewish Committee, 1984), Appendix 1, pp. 180-181. 4. In both cases the informants asked that their advice not be attributed, and I followed their wishes. 5. For a description of the data for this analysis, see Appendix A. 6. The 16 states and the District of Columbia with Jewish populations in excess of one percent are: New York, 10.6%; New Jersey, 5.8%; Florida, 5.2% ; Maryland, 4.6%; Massachusetts, 4.3%; District of Co-

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lumbia, 3.9%; California, 3.2%, Connecticut, 3.0%; Illinois, 2.3%; Rhode Island, 2.3%; Nevada, 2.0%; Arizona, 1.8%; Delaware, 1.6%, Colorado, 1.4%; Missouri, 1.3%; Ohio, 1.3%; Virginia, 1.1%. (Milton Himmelfarb and David Singer, eds., American Jewish Yearbook, 1982, pp. 180-81; see also appendix A.) 7. Nevada is an exception. With a Jewish constituency of 2.5 percent of total population, senatorial support fluctuated between 38 and 83 percent. 8. E. E. Schattschneider, The Semisovereign People: A Realist's View of Democracy in America, pp. 55-56. 9. Richard Hall and Frank Wayman have suggested in a recent paper ("Buying Time: Rational PACs and the Mobilization of Bias in Congressional Committees") that money is given to have the recipient invest time to mobilize support. Hall and Wayman's ideas appear a very promising addition to the literature. They agree, however, that PAC money has little effect in getting legislators to vote for the PACs' interests. 10. The contribution from "Jewish sources" was estimated to have been $523,778.00 out of $2,101,115.00 total contributions received during the period of this analysis. 11. $450,744.00 from Jewish sources out of total receipts of $2,001,608.00 during the period under analysis. 12. The literature on campaign contributions and congressional voting has long considered the direction of causation between contributions and votes. Different authors adopted different assumptions. Several of the more sophisticated studies model the relationship as reciprocals estimating the effects of contributions on votes as well as (anticipated) votes as contributions. While contributions are treated here as exogenous in our model of senatorial voting, it is important to emphasize that this specification biases our results against our principal finding: that contributions of Jewish groups have little effect on senators' voting behavior. For an excellent treatment of these issues, see Janet M. Grenzke, "PACs and the Congressional Supermarket: The Currency is Complex." For other important works, see Henry Chappell, "Campaign Contributions and Congressional Voting: A Simultaneous Probit-Tobit Model;" James B. Kau and Paul H. Rubin, Congressmen, Constituents, and Contributors; Frank W. Wayman, "Arms Control and Strategic Arms Voting in the U.S. Senate: Patterns of Change, 1967-1983"; John Wright, "PACs Contributions and Roll Calls: An Organizational Perspective." For a very interesting new angle of vision on the effect of contributions on congressional decision making, see Richard L. Hall and Frank W. Wayman, "Buying Time: Rational PACs and the Mobilization of Bias in Congressional Committees." 13. Amendments to bills, rather than the bills themselves, were used because in foreign assistance bills, where overall assistance to countries

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is voted up or down, Israel is included. One could not know that a senator voting in favor of a particular bill was ending up supporting other countries as a cost to be paid to help Israel. Using amendments dealing with assistance of individual countries permitted one to separate votes affecting Israel from votes regarding assistance to other countries and then comparing the two. A full list of the bills used can be found in appendix A.2. 14. The nonlinearity in the bivariate ANOVA disappears when one controls for contributions from Jewish and/or pro-Israeli sources. 15. In addition to the variables in the analysis the effects of party and region have also been estimated. Democrats' mean pro-Israeli vote score was less than 4 of one percent higher than that for Republicans, ceteris paribus, with the difference statistically insignificant. Southerners' mean pro-Israeli vote scores were the lowest, all other things held equal. Midwestern senators voted with Israel slightly over 4 of one percent more than southern senators (p > .50); senators from the West voted in Israel's favor 2.5 percentage points more than southern senators did (p > .50); senators from the Northeast were the strongest supporters, voting pro-Israel 7.4 percent more than southern senators (.10 < p < .15). The data available did not permit reasonable evaluation of the extent to which the relationship discussed in the analysis holds true over time. Rough separate analyses for the 95th, 96th, and 97th Congresses indicated that internationalism was consistently by far the best predictor of senators' propensities to vote in favor of Israel. 16. The explanatory variables are not colinear. Pearson's r correlation between explanatory variables: Ln($ + 1) % Jewish .0835 % Internationalist .2950 .3357 ln($ + 1) % Jewish 17. The Pearson's r correlation between the two variables is .80. 18. There is a fair amount of variation in senators' propensities toward internationalism: one-fourth of the senators fell between 21 percent and 40 percent, another one-fourth between 40 percent and 62 percent, another one-fourth between 62 percent and 75 percent, and a final one-fourth between 75 percent and 92 percent. 19. Marvin C. Feuerwerger, Congress and Israel, p. 58. 20. Ibid. 21. Recent research has questioned to what extent European recovery was actually a function of the aid that the United States gave Europe in the Fifties. See, for example, A. F. K. Organski and J. Kugler, The War Ledger, pp. 142-44, and Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action, and The Rise and Decline of Nations.

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22. Here an aside: One of the problems donors have faced in the past is that there was no way to know in advance whether the political system of the recipient nation was able to absorb the aid it received. The situation was slightly better in the case of economic aid, but there was no way to tell whether other types of assistance, particularly military assistance, would be put to good use or wasted. Only recently have initial measures been developed. 23. Israel's posture toward U.S. giving reminds one of the appeal Winston Churchill made to the American government and people while the United States was formally neutral in the early years of World War II: "Give us the tools and we shall finish the job." 24. On the issue of Israel's economic dependence on the United States see, for example, John Felton, "Reagan, Hill Weigh Huge Boost in Aid to Israel," and Christopher Madison, "Israel's Economic Crisis Adds New Twist to Unique U.S.-Israeli Relationship." 25. Feuerwerger, Congress and Israel, p. 77. 26. Ibid., p. 77. 27. Between 1974 and 1983 Israel received roughly 15.7 billion dollars (current) in loans, and of these $6.3 billion, or 40.1%, have been forgiven. 28. Report by the Comptroller General of the United States, U.S. Assistance to the State of Israel (Washington D.C.: GAO/lO-83-5; 1983), pp. 20-21. 29. Ibid., p. 20. 30. Marvin Feuerwerger presents some data for a period straddling the Nixon-Ford administrations when aid changed from low to high levels. Overall increases were upward by less than 10% over the period 1970-1977. Most of the increase was in economic rather than military assistance. Marvin C. Feuerwerger, Congress and Israel, p. 32. 31. Marvin Feuerwerger, Congress and Israel, p. 81.

4. The Forging of a Foreign Policy Consensus

1. George Kennan, The Nuclear Delusion, pp. 34-35. One should note that the beliefs indispensable to American political personality after World War II, which Mr. Kennan refers to in the foregoing statement, are entirely absent in the half century before that war. I suggest that the American political personality was not to blame. The reason for the change in foreign policy direction was that two very different coalitions of elites ran foreign policy in the two periods. 2. Acheson put it clearly in November 1944: "We cannot go through another ten years like the ten years at the end of the twenties and the beginning of the thirties, without having the most far reaching conse-

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quences upon our economic and social systems. . . . We have go to see that what the country produces is used and sold under financial agreements which make its production possible. . . . My contention is that we cannot have full employment and prosperity in the United States without the foreign markets" (quoted in William A. Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, p. 148). The editors of Fortune magazine put it equally explicitly: "The analogy between the domestic frontier in 1787, when the constitution was formed, and the present international frontier is perhaps not an idle one. The early expansion of the U.S. was based upon firm political principles; and it may be that further expansion must be based on equally firm—and equally revolutionary— international principles" [ibid., p. 146). 3. See Jacek Kugler and A. F. K. Organski, "The End of Hegemony?" 4. There had been much private and public debate over the meaning of Soviet actions. What were the Soviets doing? Were they simply consolidating their hold on the peoples they had captured as the result of the war? Was the push in Berlin an answer to the Allies' action in proceeding with changes that divided Germany? By their probes beyond the established boundaries, were they simply helping revolutionary reformers in countries run by reactionary oligarchies, as in the example of Greece? Were not reforms essential? Were we not backing reactionaries who had sympathized with the Axis powers, as England and France had done in the same countries before the war, to keep out left-wing coalitions seeking reforms? The drumbeat of Soviet propaganda argued as much, and American opinion itself was divided. Some felt that what was happening was not terribly critical and, in any event, was none of our business. The thought of confrontation with the USSR was frightening. 5. These terms have been chosen for convenience in simplifying a reality that otherwise is enormously complex. In all major divisions where a commitment of resources is required, a way to penetrate the arguments is to array those who wish to maximize the investment of resources and those who wish to minimize the investment. There is no intention to create an analogy with the Bolshevik and Menshevik factions of the Russian revolutionary movement. 6. For data on World War I, see Frank W. Notestein et al., The Future Population of Europe and the Soviet Union (Geneva: League of Nations, 1944), table 3, p. 75. 7. The maximalists were not intellectuals. The leadership of the maximalist camp was composed of a business elite that had entered government service during the war or immediately prior to the war: Lovett, McCloy, Acheson, Forrestal, and Nitze. The intellectual leader of the minimalists was clearly George F. Kennan. It should not be surprising that the maximalist leadership did not understand him and fi-

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nally isolated him and dropped him altogether. Kennan, a contradictory figure, has remained quite rightly the most renowned theorist in the field of foreign affairs in the postwar period. He was Minister Counsellor in the American Embassy during the war. He was to become Ambassador for a brief period immediately after the war and was the recognized authority in the government on Russian affairs. He was expelled by Stalin from the Soviet Union, and, on his return to the United States, he was, for a period, Director of the Policy Planning Staff in the Department of State under Truman. He was pushed out of the Foreign Service by John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State under Dwight Eisenhower. He has remained the most interesting critic of American foreign policy to this day. (His predictions at the turn of the forties into the fifties of the future course of U.S. foreign affairs were incredibly accurate.) Henry Wallace had been Vice President and Secretary of Agriculture and Commerce. He was Secretary of Commerce under Harry Truman. He resigned and broke with the President on the issue of relations with the Soviet Union. He led a coalition composed of elements of the left wing of the Democratic party and a number of radical parties and movements in the United States against Truman in the 1948 presidential election. 8. Two observations are important here. One is in regard to the view that the totalitarian systems have an advantage over democracies because of their alleged absolute control over their population. The other is in regard to the power position of the contestants. The belief that a totalitarian system has an advantage over a democracy in efficiency, effectiveness, and flexibility because of its greater control over its people is a notion that has run deep in the American political culture of certain strata of elites. These beliefs do not represent reality. But those who make such assertions usually do not search for cases to disprove their hypotheses. They do not think, for example, of Mussolini's Italy or Franco's regime—both dictatorial, both totalitarian, but both very inefficient and ineffective systems. Rigorous attempts to compare the performance of democratic and totalitarian systems have provided empirical evidence against this piece of conventional wisdom. Such comparisons have been made between England, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, and the evidence suggests that the hypothesis that totalitarian dictatorships can have the advantages in question is without foundation (A. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger, 1980; facek Kugler and William Domke, "Comparing the Strength of Nations"). The view of the power distribution between the United States and the USSR presented by the maximalists had its critics. William Schaub offered a stinging criticism: "It is hard to accept a conclusion that the USSR is approaching a straight-out military superiority over [the U.S.] when for example (1) our air force is vastly superior qualitatively, is

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greatly superior numerically in the bombers, trained crews and other facilities necessary for offensive warfare; (2) our supply of fission bombs is much greater than that of the USSR, as is our supply of thermonuclear potential; (3) our Navy is [so] much stronger than that of the USSR that they should not be mentioned in the same breath; (4) the economic health and military potential of our allies is, with our help, growing daily; and (5) while we have treaties of alliance with and are furnishing arms to countries bordering the USSR, the USSR has none with countries within thousands of miles of us" (John L. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, p. 105). 9. When one looks back over the forty-five years that separate us from the end of World War II, one can only be amazed at how far off the projections of the maximalists were. The Soviet Union is far behind the United States in all important social, economic and political sectors of national life that provide the resources that make up national power. But when one reviews the documents that present the data on which the projections were made, one cannot be surprised that the forecasts were as wrong as they were. 10. Kennan's attempt to account for the unexpected official embrace is amusing: "[Ojfficial Washington, whose states of receptivity or the opposite are determined by subjective emotional currents as intricately imbedded in the subconscious as those of the most complicated of Sigmund Freud's erstwhile patients, was ready to receive the given message" (John L. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, p. 21). It was, of course, not as mysterious as all that. His message was needed by the realists to argue that the Russians could not be seduced into cooperation, that they would have to be opposed and contained (Walter Isaacson and Evan Thompson, The Wise Men). 11. George Kennan spent much of his writing on current affairs charging that his views had been adulterated. Graduate students have written theses about what Kennan meant. Be that as it may, he remains the most important theorist in the field of American foreign policy to date. 12. John L. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, pp. 99-100; Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men. 13. John L. Gaddis, Strategies of Containment, p. 104. 14. A parallel thing has occurred in the Soviet Union; only there, it was the United States who carried the expansionist flag.

Part II. The External Scene

1. Henry Kissinger gives this description of the King of Saudi Arabia's statement of his concerns for the Middle East: Faisal's standard

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speech Its basic proposition was that Jews and Communists were working now in parallel, now together, to undermine the civilized world as we knew it. Oblivious to my ancestry—or delicately putting me into a special category—Faisal insisted that an end had to be put once and for all to the dual conspiracy of Jews and Communists. The Middle East outpost of that plot was the State of Israel, put there by Bolshevism for the principal purpose of dividing America from the Arabs. It was hard to know where to begin in answering such a line of reasoning. . . . The speech on Communism and Zionism, however bizarre it sounded to Western visitors, was clearly deeply felt. At the same time it reflected precisely the tactical necessities of the Kingdom. The strident anti-Communism helped reassure America and established a claim on protection against outside threats (which were all, in fact, armed by the Soviet Union). The virulent opposition to Zionism reassured radicals and the PLO and thus reduced their incentive to follow any temptation to undermine the monarchy domestically. And its thrust was vague enough to imply no precise consequences; it dictated few policy options save a general anti-Communism (Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, pp. 661-662). 2. From 1955 to 1972, under the leadership of Gamal Nasser, Egypt was a radical state, allied with the Soviet Union. Anwar Sadat left the radical camp and aligned Egypt with the United States Under President Mubarak, Egypt continues along the course charted by Sadat. 3. The present reigning princes cannot help but remember that the radical regimes of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Egypt came to power through the violent overthrow of similar monarchies in their own countries. The feudal lords of the moderate states fear the continuous rise of Islamic extremism, combining religion and politics, continuously seeking new recruits, and further fueling precisely those revolutionary sentiments the feudal princes most fear. Calls by the new extremists for an end to imperialist interference and revolutionary reform echo deeply within the intellectual, professional, military, and business communities of moderate Arab states. The fundamentalist religious content of their appeal speaks to all classes of Arab society. 4. A vivid example of this point is the occasion of Syria's invasion of Jordan to help the Palestinians unseat Hussein. The United States oscillated between using its own force and Israel's might. Then, the President decided to use Israel. Kissinger reports: "Nixon called back . . . he said: 'I have decided it. Don't ask anybody else. Tell him [Rabin, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. at the time] "go".' " (Henry Kissinger, The White House Years, p. 625.) 5. Take, for example, the views of the non-Arab prince in the region, the Shah of Iran: With all his sympathy for Sadat, the Shah considered Israel a strategic linchpin in the area. Indirectly, it contributed to the independence of

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Jordan by deterring Syrian or Iraqi military action against it. . . . Unfortunately, in the Shah's view, Israel's foreign policy was not as wise as its contribution to the overall security was strategically significant; its diplomatic intransigence complicated the position of the moderate Arab governments on which its own survival ultimately rested and threatened to weaken American influence. (Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 675) 6. I am not suggesting that war is the only, and in the long run even the most important, mechanism for mobilizing masses and elites in the Middle East. Contacts with the West, and particularly the absorption of Western technological innovations, will prove far more significant. Even so, the effects of war accelerate mobilization and also the social changes that follow in its wake. 7. An example of the depth of the radical elites' overt hatred for the United States will illustrate the point. Henry Kissinger tells of an exchange that took place in 1973 between the American ambassador and Abdal-Halim Khaddam, the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Syria. "Khaddam's attitude toward the United States was shown in an exchange with our Ambassador, Richard Murphy, months later. As my plane was coming in to land [the Secretary was shuttling to Damascus], Murphy said, not without ambivalence himself: 'I think the airplane is God's punishment to mankind.' 'No/ replied Khaddam simply, 'America i s ' " (Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 849). For a long time it was commonly thought that the Arab—Israeli conflict is the main destabilizing force in the Middle East. As the Iran-Iraq war continued, it became quite clear that the rivalries between radical states which have nothing to do with Israel, coupled with internal power struggles, are together the most important source of international and domestic strife in the region. The costs of inter-Arab strife have been immense. Radical elites have fought each other with as much intensity, and in many ways far greater intensity, and bitterness than they have even shown in conflict with Israel. Revolutions and coups have toppled regimes in Egypt, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. Kings of Iran, Iraq, Lybia, and Jordan and Sadat, the President of Egypt, were gunned down by radical assassins and mutineers. The present King of Jordan has had to fend off a series of assassination attempts, coups, and armed revolts. In one twentyyear period, the Government of Syria was overthrown six times by opposing military factions. Egypt under Nasser, at the time the most powerful of the radical states, interfered in the internal affairs of nations throughout the Arab world, demanding acknowledgment of its preeminence and fomenting political turmoil, revolts, revolutions, and civil war in Syria, Libya, Tunisia, Jordan, Sudan, Yemen, and Lebanon. The radical regime of Iraq has threatened Jordan, Lebanon, and Kuwait; Syria has repeatedly threatened Jordan and Lebanon; and Iran and Iraq have

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been at each other's throats for years. Libyan involvement in the affairs of other Arab states has become a major source of Arab anxiety and an embarrassment for all concerned. 8. The P.L.O.: From Birth to Terrorism to U.S. Acceptance," New York Times, Dec. 16, 1988, p. 7, col. 3. 9. The events that precipitated the mass exodus of the Palestinian Arabs from their homes in the 1948 war and the creation of the trajedy of the Palestinian refugees are bitterly contested (Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem-, David K. Shipler, Arab and Jew, pp. 35 ff). 10. The inhabitants of the occupied terrorists do not need to seize control of Israeli territory, since they already live in their own homes. For an overview of the situation of the Palestinian community in these two areas, see the reports of the West Bank data project established in 1982 and directed by Meron Benvenisti. The most recent reports used for this work have been Meron Benvenisti, 1986 Report, and The West bank Handbook. 5. American Foreign Assistance

1. A. R. Norton, "The Climate for Mideast Terrorism." 2. U.S. Department of the Treasury, Report of the Comptroller General of the United States, U.S. Assistance to the State of Israel, United States General Accounting Office, GAO/ID-83-51, Washington D.C.: June 24, 1983, p. 1. 3. Ibid., p. 1. 4. Ibid., p. 7. 5. Bernard Gwertzman, "Israel Says Peres Will Seek Big Rise in Aid Next Year." 6. Z. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 236. 7. "Plenty for Some," The London Economist. 8. All the values cited in this chapter are in 1982 dollars. The source for the data in tables 5.1 and 5.2 is from The United States Agency for International Development's annual publications entitled U.S. Overseas Loans and Grants. Volumes used to compile these tables were the 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1973, 1977, 1980, and 1984 reports. All values were converted to constant 1982 U.S. dollars using the appropriate GNP price deflator for each respective year in our series. For a more detailed description of sources and methodology see appendix C. They are the data which critics of aid to Israel use in their conclusion. 9. For a review of the politics of the arms trade see Andrew }. Pierre, The Global Politics of Arms Sales. 10. For the American expenditures on the Korean War see M. T.

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Haggard, United States Expenditures in Indochina and in Korea, Congressional Research Service, April 1975, p. 2. Haggard estimated that we spent $18 billion in current dollars, or $63.25 billion in constant 1982 dollars. Estimates for expenditures on the Vietnam War are available from Larry Niksch, Ellen Collier, and M. T. Haggard, United States Policy Toward Vietnam: A Summary Review of its History, Congressional Research Service, No. 86-16F, January 1985, pp. 62-63. This CRS study estimated that we spent $139 billion in current dollars, or $32441 billion in constant 1982 dollars. 11. One could try to quantify such assistance. One could take the view that the U.S. "advice" that Israel agree to an armistice was equivalent to the military force required to shift the balance of forces in favor of Egypt to stop Israel. Since Egypt had all the weapons it could need from the Russians, a military force to stop the Israelis would have had to include U.S. soldiers. One could then factor in the cost of an expeditionary force. The results of such calculations are obviously very tentative and are clearly beyond the scope of this study. 12. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 492. 13. The United States dominates the flow of arms in the western world, preserving its own arms market mostly for U.S. enterprise, financing the sale of arms for countries willing to buy American. (Israel has been granted small exceptions.) 14. Subcommittees on Arms Control, International Security and Science, and on Europe and the Middle East Hearing, Proposed Arms Sales to Kuwait, Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 100th Cong. 2d sess., July 7, 1988, p. 2. 15. Having the help given another country appear in the U.S. defense budget has often important political advantages. It hides the assistance from general view where it can be a target of opponents. Given the political climate in the last forty years, it was difficult to attack items in the defense budget. Moreover, items in the defense budget can be more easily obscured. For example, the assistance to NATO is classified. The military say they wish to block congressional micromanaging of alliance decisions. It also seems reasonable to believe that the public would be startled to know how much has been spent over the years, and opponents would have a field day. 16. One U.S. government estimate puts the "Cost of U.S. Forces Formally Committed to NATO" at $105.1 billion for 1982 alone. See U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Department of Defense Authorization for Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1982, Part I, Posture Statement, Hearings on S.815, 97th Cong., 1st sess., June 28, March 4, 1981, p. 61. 17. It is ironic that, while so many countries including NATO members envy Israel for the help it receives, Israel, for its part, envies the

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United States' NATO allies and has been trying to obtain their status vis-a-vis the United States. In 1986, serious steps were taken to designate Israel, along with Egypt, South Korea, Japan, and Australia as a "major non-NATO ally." Robert S. Greenberger, "Israel Seeks to Obtain the Kind of Financial Aid that NATO Members get from U.S. Government." 18. To date, a full series of U.S. contributions to NATO has not been published. It has been known for a long time, however, that the U.S. expenditure to support its own forces in the alliance has soaked up a major share of the resources allocated to defense. The level of the U.S. effort in NATO is a subject of controversy among the Allies. Some Americans argue that the Europeans should carry a good deal more of the common burden. Europeans maintain that they are doing their full share. Given the level of expenditures involved, one is tempted to say that U.S. irritation with levels of European efforts is a displacement from the real problem: the burden that the United States carries. That argument aside, opponents of the pact argue that it is not strategically necessary for the United States to allocate such a major share of its defense resources to the European theater in view of the stability in the region and the very low probability of the USSR attacking our Western European allies. They argue that only token American forces are necessary to demonstrate American resolve in defending Europe. While the Russians have needed to keep troops in Eastern Europe to deter desertion, no such danger exists for Western European countries. Most important of all, the savings of defense resources could be more productively used in places where we are being challenged and defeated on other continents. On the other hand, elites responsible for defense obviously fear that if the commitment to Europe were to be reduced, resources now channeled to defense would not be preserved for other defense needs but would be used to meet the demands of elites representing health, education, economic investments, etc. In short, once those resources were detached from NATO, the military might lose control of them altogether. And they are probably right. 19. The values in question do not include the resources allocated to NATO early reinforcements. 20. Aid for the European countries appearing in Table 5.2 is mostly economic help received under the Marshall Plan. 21. Franco Pavoncello, The Nature and Dynamics of Political Disaffection in Italy. 22. U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Armed Services, Department of Defense Authorization for Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1982, Part 1, Posture Statement, Hearings on S.815, 97th Cong., 1st sess., January 28, March 4, 1981, pp. 62-63, Tables 4 and 5.

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6. Aid to the Middle East and the Maghreb

1. Government rules were written favoring oil companies and the Arab states, with the U.S. taxpayer footing the bill. "The U.S. continued to regard royalties paid to Arab countries by the oil companies as income tax, saving the oil companies billions in U.S. taxes. This so called "golden gimmick," first conceived in 1950 and kept secret for the next six years, allowed the U.S. to in effect funnel foreign aid to Arab countries without admitting it" (Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas, The Wise Men, p. 573). 2. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 225. 3. Narra Sagi, German Reparations. 4. A. F. K. Organski and J. Kugler, The War Ledger, ch. 2. > 5. Ibid. 6. The experience in the Middle East is not unique. It is replicated in every war where resources have been transferred to recipients that could not absorb them. 7. For a full description of the statistical procedure used to determine Relative Political Capacity measures, see ibid., chapter 2 and Appendix 1; R. W. Bahl, "A Regression Approach to Tax Effort and Tax Ratio Analysis," IMF Staff Papers, November 18, 1971; R. J. Chelliah et al., "Tax Ratios and Tax Effort in Developing Countries, 1969-1971," IMF Staff Papers, March 18, 1975, pp. 187-240; J. Kugler, "Utilization of Residuals: An Option to Measure Concepts Indirectly," Political Methodology, 1982; A. F. K. Organski et al. Births, Deaths, and Taxes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984).

7. Reasons for Giving Assistance

1. Senator W. Scott, "Foreign Assistance Act of 1971," Congressional Record—Senate, 92d Cong., 2d sess., vol. 118, part 17, p. 22237. 2. U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 1971-1980, table 1, p. 53. 3. "Americans Fly into Battle in Egypt in Swirls of Dust," New York Times. 4. The Arab states have not been able to put the huge amounts of assistance they have received to good advantage due to problems remediable only in the very long run: low pay, illiteracy, and poor organization of their troops, etc. (See Bernard Gwertzman, "U.S. Says Mideast Needs 'Reflection' on Peace Efforts." See also A. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger, Chapter 2.) 5. Our capability to measure rigorously and systematically the strength

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of nations has made substantial strides in the last decade. Far more accurate and powerful measures than previously available have been developed. The measures capture the differences in the political organizations of potential combatants. See A. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger, ch. 2. The comparison between Arab front line states and Israel show quite clearly Israel's advantage. For a more orthodox approach see, for example, Brig. Gen. Yenhoshua Raviv, The Aiab-Isxaeli Military Balance. 6. Given these sequences, it's really not possible for the action and reaction process in the Middle East to have been moving the other way. By that we mean that the initial impetus for U.S. aid was clearly a response to the Soviet action in pouring military assistance into the Arab front line states. From then on an action-reaction mechanism took effect. 7. In some ways the technologically less sophisticated arms produced by the Soviets are more suitable than U.S. weapons for use by members of the armed forces of developing societies where low income, inferior technical education, and rampant illiteracy make the training of armed forces enormously difficult. 8. In the 1956 Suez Canal attack by the French, British, and the Israelis, President Eisenhower threatened to remove the tax exemptions from those bonds, thus decreasing the total of American private contributions, and even talked of cutting them off entirely. 9. The proffering of such reparations by the German government and the acceptance of such payment by the Israelis was a bitterly divisive issue in Israeli politics, and one doubts that it would have been accepted but for the security needs of the country. 10. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, pp. 567-576. 11. Other countries made gestures of joining the fight, but their contributions, if any, were symbolic. The Jordanians, for example, stung by their disastrous decision to join in the 1967 war, inquired delicately whether the Israelis would give assurances that if the Jordanians moved a division to join the Syrian forces, so as to show their solidarity with the other Arab states, the Israelis would understand the Jordanian predicament and not attack Jordan. (And this in the middle of a war.) The Israeli denied the request. The Jordanians hesitated but in the last few days of the war moved an armored brigade to Syria. 12. Henry Kissinger, White House Years, ch. 28. 13. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 564. 14. See, for example, Z. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, chs. 7 and 12. 15. Raphael Israeli, The Public Diary of President Sadat, Part 2, ch. 11. See also part 3, ch. 20. 16. U.S. Assistance to the State of Israel, United States General Accounting Office, GAO/ID-83-51, Washington, D.C.: June 24, 1983, p. iv.

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17. See, for example, Christopher Madison, "Israel's Economic Crisis Adds New Twist to Unique U.S.-Israeli Relationship," 2:60-65; John Felton, "Reagan, Hill Weigh Huge Boost in Aid to Israel," 3159-3164. 18. It is interesting that Mr. Schultz was reported to have stated at the time of Mr. Reagan's 1980 election that he agreed with the President-elect in foreign policy but disagreed sharply over support for Israel. Shultz felt, obviously, that a more "even-handed" policy toward the Arab point of view should bring results. When he became Secretary, he tested that hypothesis and found it to be in error. 19. Israel's citizens had long been divided on means and ends with regard to the disposition of the occupied territories. The Labor Party had long accepted that territory needed to be exchanged for peace and that negotiations should be initiated under the umbrella of the UN Security Council's five permanent members so that Soviet participation would shield Hussein of Jordan from criticism by Syria and Hussein would agree to negotiate with Israel. The Likud Party was opposed and had taken the position that the territory-for-peace formula of Camp David applied to Egypt and the Sinai, not to the West Bank and Gaza. Such a position would mean that no peace was possible. The Likud Party feared that participation from Britain, France, and China would isolate Israel, tip the scales in favor of the Arab side, and force an unfavorable settlement on the Israelis. The two sides had successfully stalemated one another. After a time the United States had accepted the international conference and Soviet participation in the initiation of the negotiation. Shamir had rejected negotiation and the formula of trading peace for territory. He proposed his own plan Thomas Friedman, "Baker's Remarks in PLO Upset Israel" (New York Times, April 17, 1989, p. 3, col. 4). And most important would the U.S. force Israel to accede to Palestinian demands?

8. Patron and Client: A Matter of Control

1. Henry Kissinger, White House Years, p. 569. Anwar Sadat had even a harsher opinion of Menachem Begin as a negotiator. "The man is obsessed, he is a hopeless case. . . . Begin haggles over every word. Begin is making withdrawal conditional to land acquisition. Begin does not want peace." And Carter agreed with Sadat (Z. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 257). 2. Z. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 246. 3. Ibid., p. 263. 4. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, pp. 621-22. 5. Steven Spiegel, The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict, p. 411. 6. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 484.

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7. Ibid., pp. 538-39. 8. Alexander Haig, Caveat, pp. 328-39. 9. Steven Spiegel, The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict, p. 204. 10. Ibid., p. 209. 11. Z. Brzezinski, Power and Principle, p. 248. . 12. Alexander Haig, Caveat, p. 184. 13. The best review of presidential decisions over the forty years of United States-Israeli relations evaluates United States-Israeli interactions before the 1967 war in this fashion: "At the climax of the conversation Johnson stated 'very slowly and positively,' three times, an aphorism that the State Department had prepared: 'Israel will not be alone unless it decides to go alone.' Ambiguously, this statement could be interpreted to mean, 'If you think you can go on your own, do so, but if you need us, you will have to act according to our timetable.'" (Steven Spiegel, The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict, p. 142.) 14. Steven Spiegel, The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict, pp. 147-48. 15. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 477. 16. It is reported that this act of terror was perpetrated by the terrorist group led by Abu Nidal with the help of the Iraqi secret service; and it was committed precisely to provoke the attack on Lebanon. Bitter political intra-Arab infighting accounts for the act that began the war. Iraq was in bitter competition with Syria; if the Israelis attacked and Assad did nothing to stop the invasion this would show him up as a weak leader. A second fact also played a role. Abu Nidal hated Arafat, whom he had tried to assassinate several times. Abu Nidal had chosen the Israeli ambassador to London as a target because the terrorist leader believed the Ambassador to be a point of contact between Israel and PLO mainstream forces, and Abu Nidal was seeking to stop such contacts. The Israeli government overlooked the clear provocation of the assassination attempt and struck out at the PLO in Lebanon. Ze'ev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War, p. 101. 17. For an excellent description for the conduct of that war see Ze'ev Schiff and Ehud Ya'Ari, Israel's Lebanon War. 18. The PLO even asked for American recognition as the price for leaving the city—a proposal that was regarded favorably in some quarters of the foreign policy bureaucracy. 19. For a more complete account of the events see Ibid. See also Alexander Haig, Caveat, pp. 340-50. 20. Ze'ev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari, Israel's Lebanon War, p. 247. 21. One of the reasons the Beirut airport had been chosen as the staging area for the U.S. Marine Corps in spite of the vulnerability of this position was that the Defense Department knew the Israelis would not resist U.S. troops coming into their areas. 22. Ibid., p. 255.

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23. The risk was particularly high because of the assassination of Bashir Gemayel and the Phalange talk of revenge. Some Israeli officers worried openly about the dangers of letting the Phalange into the camps. But such anxieties did not penetrate the highest echelons of leadership. Begin's reported remark "Goym [Hebrew for non-Jewish] kill Goym and Jews get blamed" tells much of the speaker's callous disregard for Palestinian safety. One should note that members of the Lebanese Christian and Moslem communities hold an equally callous contempt for one another and for Palestinian Arabs, and of course, Palestinian Arabs very frequently have similar contempt for the lives of Israeli Jews. As indicated, similar views toward Arabs are not absent across strata of Israel's society. Here is an example of the way each of them regards the other. First speaks a member of the Phalange: (1) As the killing was going on in Shatila, an Israeli officer, who had spotted some Phalangists returning from executing Palestinians, shouted at the killers "Why are you killing women and children?" and the Phalangist replied: "Women give birth to children and the children become terrorists." (2) A young West Banker who was asked how she could justify a PLO bombing on a bus that cost the lives of Israeli Jewish women and children responded: "We agree with them [the PLO terrorists]; children will grow up to be soldiers." (3) Finally in discussion groups representative of young Israeli Jews about to enter the army one could find "a few that proposed liquidating physically the Arabs [in the West Bank and Gaza] right down to the elderly, women, and children." In every group there were two or three that held humanitarian and antiracist views, but it could be seen that they were afraid to express them in public (David K. Shipler, Arab and few: Wounded Spirits in the Promised Land, pp. 115, 195-196). In regard to Sabra and Shatila it, is worthy of note that the Lebanese government never really investigated the killings nor brought the perpetrators to justice though they were well known. The leader of the force that carried out the massacre, Elias Hobeika, could be seen in East Beirut and Damascus unmolested. And, as one would expect, the leadership of Syria vehemently attacked the Israelis for having permitted the killings. 24. Here is a description of the situation by Alexander Haig, the U.S. Secretary of State at the time: "The Syrians and the Soviets were at each other's throats in the aftermath of Syria's humiliating defeats at the hands of the Israelis. The Syrians blamed the destruction of their air force (the Israelis claimed a total of eighty-seven Syrian Planes downed, against no Israeli losses) on the inferiority of Soviet aircraft; the Soviets, whose MIGs had once again been swept from the skies by American-Israeli technology and Israeli manpower while the whole world (and especially the Arab world) watched, charged the Syrian pilots with incompetence" (Haig, Caveat, p. 342).

EPILOGUE

291

9. The Logic of U.S. Aid to Israel

1. John L. Gaddis, The Long Peace. Epilogue

1. Elaine Sciolino, "The Secret Effort of Arafat: Go-Betweens Seize Moment." 2. Thomas L. Friedman, "Reality Time in Mideast"; "Israelis Express Shock and Dismay." 3. Henry Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 620. 4. Thomas L. Friedman, "Baker, in Middle East Blueprint, Asks Israel to Reach Out to Arabs." 5. Youssef M. Ibrahim, "In PLO Eyes, A Big Step"; Bassam Abu Sharif, "Arafat's Aide, on Israel"; Ishan A. Hijazi, "An Aide to Arafat Comes Under Fire." 6. Robert Pear, "Reagan Is Lavish in Praising Peres." 7. Alan Cowell, "Arafat Urges U.S. to Press Israelis to Negotiate Now." 8. John Kifner, "From Palestinian Rage, New Leadership Arises." 9. Avi Shlaim, Collusion Across the Jordan, p. 584. 10. Paul Lewis, "Most Soviet Jews to Go, Arens Says." 11. Joel Brinkley, "Use of Palestinian Workers is Discussed in Israel."

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INDEX

Abdullah, King of Jordan, 166, 21516

Abu Nidal, 289nl6 Acheson, Dean Gooderham, 23, 98 AIPAC, see American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Algeria, 110, 146, 162 Allen, J., 68 American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), 18-20, 210, 214 American Jewish community: elite of, 56-61; financial contributions of, 20-21, 70-79; general public and, 53-56; geographic distribution of, 65; integration of, 58-59; Israel and, 16, 17, 56-61; Nixon and, 28-29; political constituencies, 65-70, 75-77; political support, 22, 24-25;

power of, 22, 63; Six Day War (1967) and, 17, 26, 33, 42 ; see also Jewish lobby Amitay, Morris, 18 Anti-Semitism, 23 Arab interests, U.S. policy toward Middle East and, 23-24 Arab-Israeli conflict: 1948-1956, 40-41; 1956-1967, 41-42; 1963present, 42-46; economic assistance, 15, 139-42, 146-47; military assistance, 15, 137-39, 144, 147-49; occupied territories, 50-53, 206, 208; public opinion and, 43-45, 109; total assistance, 148; West Bank, 50-51, 54 Arab leaders, Jewish lobby and, 2930 Arab states: economic assistance to, 136, 140, 144, 146, 147;

310

Arab states (continued) military assistance to, 136-39, 144, 146; moderate, 109-10, 174; public opinion on, 245-47; radical, 110, 176 Arafat, Yassir, 111, 176 Arbetman, Marina, 15 In Arms sales, 125-28, 135-37, 256-61 al-Assad, Hafiz, 176 Assistance paid for by recipient, 122-25 Austin, Warren, 1-2 Bahrein, 146 Baker, James, 214 Baucus, M., 68 Begin, Menachem, 43, 84, 170, 172, 185-86, 188 Beirut, 14, 194 Bekaa Valley, 174, 194 Brown, General George, 63 Brzezinski, Zbiegniew, 116, 184-85 Bush, George, 14 Cambodia (Kampuchea), 167, 199 Campaign contributions, senatorial support for Israel and, 70-75, 226-30, 239-41 Camp David agreement, 35, 43-44, 165-66, 169-71, 172, 184-85 Carter administration, 171-72, 18485, 188 Chamberlain, Neville, 99 China, 94, 199 Church, Frank, 74 Clifford, Clark, 26 Congressional support for Israel, 49, 78, 80-82, 210; executivecongressional competition, 82-85; internationalism, 74-78, 79, 225; Jewish political power and, 6579; PACs and, 71-78; see also Senatorial support for Israel Containment policy toward Soviet Union, 93-95, 107-8 Costs of supporting American soldiers abroad, 156-57

INDEX

Dayan, Moshe 14 De Concini, D., 68 Developing world, assistance to, 80 Dewey, Thomas, 96 Dine, Thomas, 18 Dulles, John Foster, 23, 191 Eastern Europe, 31 Eban, Abba, 33, 60 Economic assistance, 139-42, 144, 146 Egypt, 83, 102-3, 110, 111, 121, 168-69, 174, 182, 188, 190, 191, 204, 205, 245; American public opinion and, 41, 43, 45-47; radical politics, 166; reasons for assistance, 150-51, 154, 156, 157, 162; sources of support, 137-39, 140, 141, 143, 146; U.S. strategy and, 163-64 Eisenhower, Dwight, 14, 15, 41, 190, 267n26 Eisenhower administration, 23, 27, 32, 78, 209, 264n7 Escalation of U.S. assistance to Israel: 1967-1972, 161-62; 19731976, 161, 163-72; 1981-1985, 161, 172-73; Intifada and, 161, 177-78; Lebanon War (1982) and, 173-77; quid pio quo policy and, 161; reasons for, 158-61; Soviet assistance to Arab states and, 158-60, 162-72; U.S. assistance to Arab states and, 160-61 European elites, 97 European Jewry, Roosevelt administration and, 22-23 Fannin, P., 67 Feuerwerger, Marvin C., 79-82 Foreign assistance: arms sales, 12528, 135-37; control through, 187; definition of, 120; economic, 125-26, 129; hidden foreign assistance, 128, 157; House of Representatives and, 79-80; nonmaterial assistance, 120-22; paid for by recipient, 122-25;

INDEX

political capacity of recipient, 150-51; recipients of, 117-19, 132-34; revised estimates of, 12932; subsidies, 123; see also U.S. assistance to Arab states; U.S. assistance to Israel Foreign policy-making, 39 Forgiveness of loans, 83 Forrestal, James, 28 France, 17, 118, 132, 162, 190 Gaza, 22, 43-44, 50-51, 57, 169-70, 184 Gemayel, Amin, 174 Gemayel, Bashir, 166, 195, 197, 290n22 General Accounting Office (GAO), 115 Geographic distribution of Jewish population in U.S., 65 Germany, see West Germany Gidi Pass, 35 Golan Heights, 35, 50, 183, 186, 188 Goldwater, Barry, 67-68 Great Britain, 32, 118, 132, 133, 143, 190 Greece, 83, 118 Haig, Alexander, 37, 188, 189-90, 193, 194, 195-96 Harris, Louis, 46 Hiss, Alger, 97 House of Representatives: aid to Israel and, 81-82; foreign aid and, 79-80 Hussein, King of Jordan, 14, 155, 176-77, 264/37; resistance to PLO, 281n4 India, 118, 133 Integration of American Jews, 5859 Intifada, 22, 51-52, 57, 111, 177-78, 215 Iran, 109, 110, 154, 156, 181, 205; strategic evaluation of Shah, 281n5

311 Iraq, 109, 110, 137-39, 140, 143, 146, 150-51, 154, 166, 204 Iraqi atomic reactor, bombing of, 189-90 Ireland, see Northern Ireland Isaacson, Walter, 26 Isolationism, 88-90 Israel: American Jewish community and, 56-61; as actor in Middle East, 111, 112-13, 141, 155, 160; Congressional support for, 63; economic performance of, 81, 82; military performance of, 81, 82, 156; occupied territories and, 288nl9; public opinion on, 40-42, 244-47; Wars of, 40, 46-47; see also U.S. assistance to Israel Israeli leaders, Jewish lobby and, 29 Italy, 118, 130, 133 Jackson, Henry, 28, 74 Jerusalem, 51, 54-55, 249 Jewish lobby, 30-31; Arab leaders and, 29-30; Israeli leaders and, 21-22, 63; Political Action Committees (PACs) and, 20-21, 70-74, 209-10; use by U.S. policy makers, 27-29 Johnson, Lyndon, 60, 101 Johnson administration, 14, 15, 27, 32-33 Jordan, 14, 45, 46, 111, 112, 140, 143, 146, 150-51, 155, 156, 17071, 176, 205 Kenen, Albert, 18-19 Kennan, George F., 87, 96, 103, 278n7, 279n7, 280nl0-ll Kennedy administration, 15, 27, 3233, 41, 42, 78, 209 Khaddam, Abdal-Halim, 282n7 Kirkpatrick, Jeane, 60 Kissinger, Henry, 14-15, 24-26, 28, 101-4, 121, 138, 163, 168, 171, 175, 176, 182, 183, 185, 186, 188, 192, 213-14 Korea, see North Korea; South Korea

312

Korean War, 99, 129, 134 Kuwait, 146 Lebanon, 112, 146, 172 Lebanon War (1982), 14, 36, 37, 155-56, 159, 173-77, 193-97, 207-8 Lewis, Samuel, U.S. Ambassador to Israel, 188 Libya, 110, 136, 137-39, 140, 146, 150, 190 Loans, forgiveness of, 83 Lobbying by American Jewish community, see Jewish lobby Long, Breckenridge, 266/216 Lovett, R., 26 Mansfield, M., 68 Marshall Plan, 80, 89-90, 94, 132 Mass media: Intifada and, 1-52; Jewish lobby and, 21-22; U.S. assistance to Israel and, 114-17 McCarthy, Joseph, 97-99 McCloy, John, 23 Meir, Golda, 168, 183, 185, 192 Metcalf, L., 68 Middle East: economic assistance, 144-46; foreign policies in, 10913; protection of friendly regimes, 154-55; see also U.S. policy toward Middle East Military assistance, 137-39, 143-46, 248; see also Arms sales Mitla Pass, 35 Moderate Arab states, 110; see also Egypt; Jordan; Morocco,- Tunisia Money, see Campaign contributions Morocco, 110, 139, 146, 163 Munich pact, 99 Murphy, Richard, 282n7 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 32, 34, 163, 164, 190, 191-92 NATO, U.S. assistance to, 119, 122, 124, 128, 129, 130-33, 25255, 284nl5, 285nl8 NSC/68, 98, 279n8

INDEX

Nixon, Richard, 13, 15, 18, 20, 2427, 28-29, 31, 60, 102, 104, 163, 171, 190 Nixon administration, 34-35, 101-4, 121, 162, 209, 268n31 Nonmaterial assistance, 120-22 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, see NATO Northern Ireland, 2 North Korea, 99 North Vietnam, 100, 199-200 North Yemen, 146 Occupied territories: Israel and, 288nl9j public opinion and, 5053, 54; return of, 206, 208, 248 Oil companies, U.S. policy toward Middle East and, 23-24 Oil embargo (1973), 29, 47-48 Oman, 146 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), 45, 213-16; chronology of, 111; competition with Jordan, 175-77; Hussein's resistance to, 281n4; Intifada, 178; Palestinians'support for, 111-12; revolt against Jordan, 155-56; U.S. public opinion and, 53-54; War in Lebanon and, 14, 36, 19397; West Bank and, 50-51 Palestinian state, 51, 111 Patron-client control: aid as instrument of, 187-90; in Lebanon War (1982), 193-97; in Sabra and Shatila massacres, 19799; security negotiations by Israel and, 181-87; in Six-Day War (1967), 191-92; Soviet Union and North Vietnam, 199-200; Soviet Union and Syria, 200-1; in Suez crisis (1957), 190; United States and South Vietnam, 200; in Yom Kippur War (1973), 47, 192-93 Pattern of U.S. assistance to Israel, 15-24 Percy, C., 69 Peres, Shimon, 115

INDEX

PLO, see Palestine Liberation Organization Political Action Committees (PACs), 20-21, 221-25 Political capacity of recipient of foreign aid, 148-52 Pompidou, Georges, 190 Portugal, 132 Public opinion: Arab-Israeli conflict and, 43-46; on Arab states, 49-50, 244-46; on Egypt, 45-46, 244; general public compared to American Jews, 53-56; on Israel, 52, 244-47; on military assistance, 48-50, 55, 248; occupied territories and, 50-53, 54; oil embargo (1973) and, 4748; on return of occupied territories, 50-53, 54, 248; U.S. assistance to Arab states and, 4950; U.S. assistance to Israel and, 48-49; on U.S. friendly nations, 244; U.S. government and, 38-40; on U.S.-Israeli cooperation, 244 Quid pio quo policy, 161 Rabin, Yitzhak, 188, 214 Radical Arab states and Iran, 110, 208; see also Algeria; Egypt; Iran; Iraq,- Libya; Syria Rapid Deployment Force, 157 Reagan, Ronald, 13, 194, 264u7 Reagan administration, 36-37, 175 Refugee problem, Palestinian, 283n9 Rogers, William, Secretary of State, 103, 188 Roosevelt Administration, European Jewry and, 22-23 Sabra and Shatila massacres, 175, 197-99, 290n22 Sadat, Anwar, 14, 43, 46, 103, 104, 164, 165-66, 169-70, 182, 184, 267n30 Saudi Arabia, 156, 188, 204; American public opinion on, 45-

313

46; moderate state, 110; U.S. assistance and, 124, 127, 133, 137-39, 140, 143, 146; utilization of foreign assistance, 149-50; world view of King Faisal, 280/31 Schattschneider, E. E., 69-70 Security concerns, senatorial support for Israel and, 78, 79 Security negotiations by Israel: negotiating style, 183-87; setting for, 181-83 Senatorial support for Israel: campaign contributions and, 7075, 226-30, 239-41; internationalism and, 74-78, 79; Jewish constituencies and, 65-70, 75-79; security concerns and, 78, 79; voting behavior, 230-39 Sharon, Ariel, 174, 193, 197 Shazar, Zalman, President of Israel, 188 Shift in U.S. assistance to Israel, 15-17 Shlaim, Avi, 215 Shultz, George, 37, 172, 176, 196, 213, 214, 269n38 Sinai, 14, 35, 75, 169, 172-3 Six Day War (1967) 17, 19, 33-34, 40, 42, 50, 60, 156, 159, 163, 191-92 Somalia, 83 South Korea, 118-9, 122, 124, 128, 129, 132-33, 200, 204 South Vietnam, 118, 119, 122, 124, 128, 129, 130, 133, 200, 204 South Yemen, 110, 146 Soviet assistance to the Arab states, 18, 125; escalation of U.S. assistance to Israel and, 158-60, 162-72 Soviet Union: as actor in the Middle East, 45, 109, 113, 125, 160; capabilities of, 280n9; Chinese split with, 94; competition with United States, 91, 206, 211-12; containment policy toward, 93-95, 107-8; defense budget, 130-32; expansion in the Middle East,

314

Soviet Union (continued) 31-36, 159, 162; intentions, 9495, 97, 99, 166-67; patron-client relationships, 199-201; sale of arms by, 126; threat of, 92-93, 97-98, 103, 108; U.S. relations with, 90-91 Spain, 132, 133 Sparkman, J., 68 Spiegel, Steven, 186 Strategic interests in Middle East, 5-6 Subsidies, 123 Sudan, 83, 146 Suez crisis (1956), 33, 40, 41, 57, 190, 208 Syria, 14, 193, 195, 200-1, 204 ; gains from foreign assistance, 150-51; hostility toward the U.S., 282n7; Invasion of Jordan by, 155, 156; Lebanon War and, 37; location of Palestinian refugees, 112; radical regimes, 110, 111, 166, 168; Soviet assistance and, 163-64; U.S. military and economic assistance to, 121, 13739, 140; U.S. sale of arms to, 125; U.S. strategy regarding, 159; War in Lebanon, 174-77; Western European, U.S., and Warsaw Pact assistance to, 143, 145; Yom Kippur War and, 102, 168, 170-71 Terrorism, 45 Thomas, Evan, 26 Thomas, Parnell, 98 Tito, Josip Broz, 94 Totalitarian systems, efficiency of, 279n8 Truman, Harry, 15, 93, 96-97, 209 Tunisia, 110, 146, 162 Turkey, 83, 118, 133 TWA hijacking, 207-8 United Kingdom, see Great Britain United Nations, 89; Resolution 242, 168, 170, 184, 213; Resolution 338, 213

INDEX

United States, as actor in Middle East, 33-34, 45, 113; clientpatron relationship with Israel, 164, 167, 180; competition with Soviet Union, 158, 206, 211-12 U.S. assistance, general, 117, 126, 127 U.S. assistance to Arab states, 4950, 126, 127, 160, 205-6; escalation of U.S. assistance to Israel and, 158, 160-61; public opinion and, 43-44, 49-53 U.S. assistance to Israel, 15, 16, 24, 34, 114-17, 125, 137; diplomatic assistance, 121; domestic factors, 43-45, 209-12; economic assistance, 140-43; Federal Election Commission, 65; as instrument of control, 165-67, 187-90; interests in Middle East and, 154-58, 203-6; Jewish constituencies and, 65-69; Jewish financial contributions and, 7079; military assistance, 141-43; new conditions, 216-17; pattern of, 15-24; public opinion and, 4043, 48-49; shift in, 15-17; strategic considerations, 158, 202-9, 290n24; timing of, 101-3; see also Senatorial support for Israel U.S. assistance to NATO, see NATO U.S. government: Council of Economic Advisors in, 95; decision-making process, 36-37, 39; executive-congressional competition, 82-85; political coalitions and foreign policymaking in, 88, 91; public opinion and, 38-40; see also Senatorial support for Israel U.S. policy toward Middle East, 107-8; Arab interests and, 23-24; coalitions, 91-93; oil companies and, 23-24; strategic interests in, 5-6; use of Jewish lobby, 27-29 U.S.-Israeli cooperation, public opinion on, 244

INDEX

U.S.S.R., see Soviet Union Vietnam, see North Vietnam; South Vietnam Vietnam War, 14, 33, 39, 42, 60, 118-19, 129, 134, 157, 163, 186, 199 Voting behavior, senatorial support for Israel and, 230-39 Wallace, Henry, 93, 96-97, 279n7 Warsaw Pact: arms sales to Arab states, 205, 260; assistance to Arab states, 144-46 Watergate, 28 Weinberger, Caspar, 14, 37, 183, 194 Weizman, Ezer, 116

31S

West Bank, 22, 35, 43, 50-51, 54, 57, 112, 169-70, 184-86 Western Europe: arms sales to Arab states, 260; arms sales to Israel, 136, 260; assistance to Arab states, 136, 144-46; assistance to Israel, 141-43 West Germany, 89, 118, 122, 132, 133, 143, 162, 204 Yemen, see North Yemen,- South Yemen Yom Kippur War (1973), 18, 34-35, 102, 121, 122, 159, 161, 163, 19293, 208, 213, 267n30 Zionist Movement, 58, 217