United States Policy Toward Israel: The Politics, Sociology, Economics & Strategy of Commitment Submitted for Ph.D. in International Relations at the London School of Economics & Political Science Elizabeth Stephens 2003 UMI Number: U613349 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U613349 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 C ontents Page Abstract 4-5 Chapter 1 The Special Relationship 6 -3 6 Chapter 2 Framing American Foreign Policy 37 - 86 Chapter 3 American Political Culture & Foreign Policy 87 - 131 Chapter 4 The Johnson Administration and U.S. Policy Toward Israel 132 - 185 Chapter 5 Nixon, Kissinger and U.S. Policy Toward Israel 186 - 249 Chapter 6 Reagan, the Neo-Conservatives and Israel 250 - 307 Chapter 7 Bush, the Gulf War and Israel 308 - 343 Chapter 8 Framing American Foreign Policy in the New World Order 344 - 375 Conclusions 376 - 379 Appendix A U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 380-382 Appendix B The Rogers Plan 383 Appendix C United Nations Security Council Resolution 338 384 Appendix D The Camp David Accords 385 -391 Bibliography 392-412 1 Hr£TS £ F 82.1 / Acknowledgements The writing of this thesis would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of my supervisor Geoffrey Stem, Senior Lecturer at the London School of Economics. I would also like to thank Professor Fred Halliday for his insightful comments and guidance and also the late Philip Windsor, both of the London School of Economics. Thanks are also due to Professor Bernard Reich at George Washington University for sharing his ideas on US relations with Israel and to all those involved in policy making who and kindly gave up their time to allow me to ‘interview’ them. I also gratefully acknowledge the support of the London School of Economics research fund. On a personal note, thanks to my parents and grandparents for their support in this endeavour. Thanks also goes to my friends for their endless patience during the research and writing of this thesis: Helen Mason, Mohammed Hafez, Simon Harrison, James Berrill, Sonoko Sunayama, Samantha Roper and Claire Saunders. Particular thanks are owned to Andrew Saunders who discussed ideas and was willing to check the manuscript and to Alison Sands for time spent proof reading. Abstract The rationale for Washington’s enduring and often forbearing commitment to Israel has long been a puzzle. During the Cold War it was argued that Israel, a “bastion of democracy” amidst a world of semi-authoritarian and often pro-Soviet states, was a natural ally. But the Cold War is over, and the Arab world awash with oil, a resource that is always in short supply in the US. Yet the American commitment to Israel, a small state that is largely oil free, and of little tangible economic benefit, remains. An alternative view is that the US commitment is underwritten by the Jewish lobby which exercises a disproportionate influence on American policy. Yet the Jews comprise little more than six million out of a total of nearly 300 million people. Even when combined with the influence of Protestant fundamentalists who for largely religious reasons, increasingly support Israel, it is still questionable whether interest group politics could determine American foreign policy to such an extent. Yet irrespective of transitions between Republican and Democratic presidents, bureaucratic support for Israel remains relatively constant indicating that support for Israel is not a product of partisan politics but a given firmly ingrained in the political agenda and discourse. This thesis examines some of the commonplace theories of explanation and finds them wanting. Instead it proposes to explain the American commitment to Israel in terms of a somewhat imprecise and yet still serviceable concept - that of political culture. For reasons that are elaborated in this thesis, the concept best solves the puzzle of an American commitment that is often costly in both economic and diplomatic terms. This thesis does not seek to argue that political culture is the sole explanatory factor in the development of US policy toward Israel, but that it has played a key role in serving to shape and define the American approach to foreign affairs, thus contributing to decisions and operations that cannot easily be explained solely in geopolitical, economic or military terms. It is argued that in perceiving their society to be a beacon of what they like to call ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, in a world in which these values are largely absent, Americans have been encouraged to believe that they share a political kinship with societies similarly imbued and that they have an obligation to assist where such values are under threat. It is this belief that sets Israel apart from other nations and forms the bedrock of the US-Israeli ‘special relationship.’ The relevance of the concept of political culture in accounting for US policy toward Israel is examined in a series of case studies. These focus on crisis decision-making during the presidencies of Johnson, Nixon, Reagan and Bush Sr., when domestic and organisational constraints were somewhat relaxed and decision-makers tended to act on pre-existing values and beliefs. In comparing and contrasting US decision-making both during and following the Cold War, the thesis attempts to provide an explanation for the relative continuity in US policy toward Israel in times of significant international and domestic change. 5 Chapter 1 The Origins of the US-Israeli Special Relationship For many decades, political rhetoric and public sentiment has accorded Israel a special status in American foreign policy that no other state, with the possible exception of Great Britain, has achieved. This chapter explores the nature of US-Israeli relations, the concept and attributes of a special relationship and examines whether it is indeed valid to describe the US-Israeli relationship as such. The Special Relationship We have deepened our relationship to the point where it is probably the closest that we have with any of our friends and allies anywhere in the world ... We support Israel because it is our major democratic ally with strategic and ideological and cultural ties that grow stronger each year ... As we work to achieve the goal of peace in the Middle East, we are guided by the fundamental principle which forms the basis for the peace process: our absolute commitment to Israel’s security and to close U.S.-Israeli relations ... The security of Israel is important to us, and we make no bones about it. ... The U.S. stands by Israel in an unshakeable partnership for peace. Vice President A1 Gore “U.S. Middle East Policy: A New Era of Cooperation,” 35th Annual AIPAC Policy Conference, Washington, DC, 13 March 19941 The idea that states, like people, can have a special relationship with one another, is now over half a century old, but the concept of a ‘special relationship’ remains under­ theorised and under-conceptualised. The terms themselves are commonly employed with inverted commas to denote significance, but so far little theorisation or interpretation has been offered. Generally, by way of conceptualisation, we are left with little more than 1 Quoted in Bernard Reich, Securing the Covenant: United States-lsrael Relations After the Cold War (Westport, Connecticut & London: Praeger Publishers, 1995) p. 1. 6 the assertions of politicians that the relevant relationship “is special. It just is. And that’s that.”2 The notion of a ‘special relationship’ between two countries was coined by Winston Churchill to describe and if possible consolidate and make enduring the wartime alliance between Britain and the United States. His rhetoric created the belief that the relationship was indeed ‘special’ and this rhetoric both preceded and outlasted the formal wartime ties between the two countries. More than any other individual it was Churchill who advertised what he saw as the benefits of the relationship and used the notion of a ‘special relationship’ to dramatise its possibilities in his own lifetime. Before his death but after the end of the Second World War, the relationship may be said to have returned to a more conventional form, with Washington consulting London less frequently on foreign affairs than had been the case during the exigency of hostilities. The closeness of the relationship dissipated in the absence of careful nurturing, but was to be rekindled under the leadership of, first, Harold MacMillan and John F. Kennedy, perhaps most notably under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan3 and later under Tony Blair and Bill Clinton and most recently under Blair and George W. Bush. As a starting point for a discussion of what makes an inter-state relationship in some senses ‘special’ we might begin with a quotation from the former US Secretary of State Dean Acheson. For him what was important was not the emotional but the functional: I shall not bother you by doing what is done so often on occasions like this, of talking about all that we have in common: language, history, and all of that. We know all that. What I wish to stress is one thing we have in common, one desperately important thing, and that is we have a common fate.4 2 Margaret Thatcher, speech in Washington, 21 February 1985, quoted in H.C.