The New Israel and the Old: Why Gentile Americans Back the Jewish State
Walter Russell Mead
From Foreign Affairs, July/August 2008
Summary: The real key to Washington's pro-Israel policy is long-lasting and broad-based support for the Jewish state among the American public at large.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD is Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author, most recently, of God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World.
Listen to this essay on CFR.org
On May 12, 1948, Clark Clifford, the White House chief counsel, presented the case for U.S. recognition of the state of Israel to the divided cabinet of President Harry Truman. While a glowering George Marshall, the secretary of state, and a skeptical Robert Lovett, Marshall's undersecretary, looked on, Clifford argued that recognizing the Jewish state would be an act of humanity that comported with traditional American values. To substantiate the Jewish territorial claim, Clifford quoted the Book of Deuteronomy: "Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them."
Marshall was not convinced and told Truman that he would vote against him in the upcoming election if this was his policy. Eventually, Marshall agreed not to make his opposition public. Two days later, the United States granted the new Jewish state de facto recognition 11 minutes after Israel declared its existence as a state. Many observers, both foreign and domestic, attributed Truman's decision to the power of the Jewish community in the United States. They saw Jewish votes, media influence, and campaign contributions as crucial in the tight 1948 presidential contest.
Since then, this pattern has often been repeated. Respected U.S. foreign policy experts call for Washington to be cautious in the Middle East and warn presidents that too much support for Israel will carry serious international costs. When presidents overrule their expert advisers and take a pro-Israel position, observers attribute the move to the "Israel lobby" and credit (or blame) it for swaying the chief executive. But there is another factor to consider. As the Truman biographer David McCullough has written, Truman's support for the Jewish state was "wildly popular" throughout the United States. A Gallup poll in June 1948 showed that almost three times as many Americans "sympathized with the Jews" as "sympathized with the Arabs." …………. (Read the rest: New Israel)
A Cast of 300 Advises Obama on Foreign Policy (NYT): "Dennis Ross, the Middle East envoy for Mr. Clinton and the first President Bush and a member of the Obama campaign’s Middle East team, is frequently asked by Ms. Rice, Mr. Lake or Mr. McDonough for help on framing Mr. Obama’s comments on Iran’s nuclear program and its potential threat to Israel.
“They’ve asked for substantive help: ‘Can I take a look at language on Iran?’ ” Mr. Ross said. “Or sometimes I’ve been asked questions to explain the administration’s approach on Iran.” Mr. Ross participated in a conference call last week with Mr. Obama and other advisers to prepare for the senator’s foreign trip, and he will travel with Mr. Obama in Israel and the West Bank city of Ramallah and at other stops. Mr. Ross described Mr. Obama in the conference call as focused on “drilling down” into the issues on the trip."
Why John Bolton is Right on Iran, by Gary Sick at Rootless Cosmopolitan by Tony Karon
Sanctions Fail to Cripple Iran's Oil Industry
U.S. Tries Squeeze But Fears Tehran Is Buying Time
By CHIP CUMMINS in Dubai and ROSHANAK TAGHAVI in Tehran
July 18, 2008
Sanctions Fail to Cripple Iran's Oil Industry
U.S. Tries Squeeze But Fears Tehran Is Buying Time
By CHIP CUMMINS in Dubai and ROSHANAK TAGHAVI in Tehran
July 18, 2008
As Iran prepares to hold nuclear talks this weekend with Europe and the U.S., economic sanctions are crimping Tehran's oil industry — but they haven't
broken it.
War*Piece. Via FLC
"A colleague writes, "Everyone seems to have missed the obvious: The State Department's third man is going to [talk with] Iran to send oil prices down. I'm sure Paulson told Bush this was the only way to stop a panic." Almost certainly part of it. (And is it working?)
Indeed, a US official involved with Iran policy wrote me a couple weeks back that high oil prices had severely crimped their policy: "It’s clear that the two-track policy put in place a number of years ago (incentives vs. sanctions) has been overtaken somewhat by the unforeseeable and dramatic rise in oil prices. Iran’s GDP has doubled, and they are more isolated from the effects of economic sanctions. At the same time the Iranians have made significant progress on enrichment. There are many, many more economic sanctions in the quiver, but we have carefully resisted imposing economic sanctions, unilaterally or multilaterally, that would significantly affect the Iranian people. Our goal remains an Iran without nuclear weapons, and our strategy remains the two-track approach. In light of the rise in oil prices and Iran’s enrichment achievements, the interim objectives that the two-track strategy should be aiming to achieve is something everyone is looking at, and there is no question that there is a way forward. …"
Sham Holding wins contract to build a private electrical power plant that will sell its electricity to the government. Although this article (in Arabic: Syria-News) proposes that this new method of financing and building a power plant in Syria constitutes the mobilization of home-grown capital and talent to solve the nation's problems, some questions are left unanswered. No mention is made of how the contract was awarded. Syria needs an improved and steady supply of electricity, no doubt. The country is moving away from the strict state-controlled model of the socialist era. It has been reluctant to sell state assets; however, many new Syrian oil companies, electrical power plants, and other large infrastructural investments, such as road building, are being handed over to private investors. Because some of those investors have strong ties to the state, the transition is not to a strictly free market model.
Israel Advises Nasrallah to Stay in Hiding
7:07
