American Policy Toward Israel

This book explains the institutionalization of American support of Israel from 1981 to the present, providing a framework for understanding current policy debates to establish and enforce beliefs about Israel and about Arabs. During the period studied, Israeli actions and geopolitical events put in doubt several of the asserted justifications for American economic, military and political support of Israel. Nevertheless, Congressional support of Israel grew, and pro-Israel policies became institutionalized in executive departments, allowing Israeli prime ministers to act with relative impunity. American Policy towards Israel demonstrates that the key to understanding these results is in appreciating the sources, uses and limits of beliefs about Israel and Arabs held by relevant domestic political actors, including the presidents and their principal advisers, the American Jewish community, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), congressional leaders, Evangelical Christians and neoconservatives. Since the end of the first Bush administration, there have been changes in personalities, geopolitical contexts and the relative power of the players, but the key to understanding remains the struggle for the primacy of beliefs. This book will be of much interest to students of US foreign policy, Israeli politics and international relations in general.