The Arab-Israeli Conflict in American Political Culture

The Arab-Israeli Conflict in American Political Culture
Author: Jonathan Rynhold
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 315
Release: 2015-02-23
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107094429

This book surveys discourse and opinion in the United States toward the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1991. Contrary to popular myth, it demonstrates that U.S. support for Israel is not based on the pro-Israel lobby, but rather is deeply rooted in American political culture. That support has increased since 9/11. However, the bulk of this increase has been among Republicans, conservatives, evangelicals, and Orthodox Jews. Meanwhile, among Democrats, liberals, the Mainline Protestant Church, and non-Orthodox Jews, criticism of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians has become more vociferous. This book works to explain this paradox.

American Public Opinion Toward Israel

American Public Opinion Toward Israel
Author: Amnon Cavari
Publisher:
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2020-12
Genre: Israel
ISBN: 9781138345201

This book examines trends in American public opinion about Israel in over 75 years, from 1944 to 2019. Analyzing data from hundreds of surveys in jargon-free writing, the authors show that public support for Israel has seen a dramatic shift toward increased division between partisan and select demographic groups, elaborating on the implications that this important change may have for the countries' special relationship. Scholars and students of American foreign policy, public opinion, Middle East politics and international relations, as well as policy analysts, policymakers, journalists and anyone interested in American policy toward Israel, will want to read this book. Special Features An Online Appendix including all surveys used throughout the book. A Roper Center-approved Data Tool that allows readers to create their own figures based on data used in the book: https: //www.idc.ac.il/en/schools/government/research/apoi/pages/data-tool.aspx

The Movement and the Middle East

The Movement and the Middle East
Author: Michael R. Fischbach
Publisher:
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2019
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781503610446

The Arab-Israeli conflict constituted a serious problem for the American Left in the 1960s: pro-Palestinian activists hailed the Palestinian struggle against Israel as part of a fundamental restructuring of the global imperialist order, while pro-Israeli leftists held a less revolutionary worldview that understood Israel as a paragon of democratic socialist virtue. This intra-left debate was in part doctrinal, in part generational. But further woven into this split were sometimes agonizing questions of identity. Jews were disproportionately well-represented in the Movement, and their personal and communal lives could deeply affect their stances vis-à-vis the Middle East. The Movement and the Middle East offers the first assessment of the controversial and ultimately debilitating role of the Arab-Israeli conflict among left-wing activists during a turbulent period of American history. Michael R. Fischbach draws on a deep well of original sources--from personal interviews to declassified FBI and CIA documents--to present a story of the left-wing responses to the question of Palestine and Israel. He shows how, as the 1970s wore on, the cleavages emerging within the American Left widened, weakening the Movement and leaving a lasting impact that still affects progressive American politics today.

On Palestine

On Palestine
Author: Noam Chomsky
Publisher: Haymarket Books
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2015-03-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1608465012

The sequel to the acclaimed Gaza in Crisis from world-famous political analyst Noam Chomsky and Middle East historian Ilan Pappé. Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, left thousands of Palestinians dead and cleared the way for another Israeli land grab. The need to stand in solidarity with Palestinians has never been greater. Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky, two leading voices in the struggle to liberate Palestine, discuss the road ahead for Palestinians and how the international community can pressure Israel to end its human rights abuses against the people of Palestine. Praise for Gaza in Crisis by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé “This sober and unflinching analysis should be read and reckoned with by anyone concerned with practicable change in the long-suffering region.” —Publishers Weekly “Both authors perform fiercely accurate deconstructions of official rhetoric.” —The Guardian Praise for Noam Chomsky . . . “Chomsky is a global phenomenon . . . perhaps the most widely read American voice on foreign policy on the planet.” —The New York Times Book Review “One of the radical heroes of our age . . . a towering intellect . . . powerful, always provocative.” —The Guardian . . . and Ilan Pappé “Ilan Pappé is Israel’s bravest, most principled, most incisive historian.” —John Pilger, journalist, writer, and filmmaker “Along with the late Edward Said, Ilan Pappé is the most eloquent writer of Palestinian history.” —New Statesman

The Case for Israel

The Case for Israel
Author: Alan Dershowitz
Publisher: Turner Publishing Company
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2011-01-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1118045742

The Case for Israel is an ardent defense of Israel's rights, supported by indisputable evidence. Presents a passionate look at what Israel's accusers and detractors are saying about this war-torn country. Dershowitz accuses those who attack Israel of international bigotry and backs up his argument with hard facts. Widely respected as a civil libertarian, legal educator, and defense attorney extraordinaire, Alan Dershowitz has also been a passionate though not uncritical supporter of Israel.

Covenant Brothers

Covenant Brothers
Author: Daniel G. Hummel
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2019-06-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 0812251407

Weaving together the stories of activists, American Jewish leaders, and Israeli officials in the wake of the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, Covenant Brothers portrays the dramatic rise of evangelical Christian Zionism as it gained prominence in American politics, Israeli diplomacy, and international relations after World War II. According to Daniel G. Hummel, conventional depictions of the Christian Zionist movement—the organized political and religious effort by conservative Protestants to support the state of Israel—focus too much on American evangelical apocalyptic fascination with the Jewish people. Hummel emphasizes instead the institutional, international, interreligious, and intergenerational efforts on the part of Christians and Jews to mobilize evangelical support for Israel. From missionary churches in Israel to Holy Land tourism, from the Israeli government to the American Jewish Committee, and from Billy Graham's influence on Richard Nixon to John Hagee's courting of Donald Trump, Hummel reveals modern Christian Zionism to be an evolving and deepening collaboration between Christians and the state of Israel. He shows how influential officials in the Israeli Ministry of Religious Affairs and Foreign Ministry, tasked with pursuing a religious diplomacy that would enhance Israel's standing in the Christian world, combined forces with evangelical Christians to create and organize the vast global network of Christian Zionism that exists today. He also explores evangelicalism's embrace of Jewish concepts, motifs, and practices and its profound consequences on worshippers' political priorities and their relationship to Israel. Drawing on religious and government archives in the United States and Israel, Covenant Brothers reveals how an unlikely mix of Christian and Jewish leaders, state support, and transnational networks of institutions combined religion, politics, and international relations to influence U.S. foreign policy and, eventually, global geopolitics.

Blind Spot

Blind Spot
Author: Khaled Elgindy
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2019-04-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 0815731566

A critical examination of the history of US-Palestinian relations The United States has invested billions of dollars and countless diplomatic hours in the pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian peace and a two-state solution. Yet American attempts to broker an end to the conflict have repeatedly come up short. At the center of these failures lay two critical factors: Israeli power and Palestinian politics. While both Israelis and Palestinians undoubtedly share much of the blame, one also cannot escape the role of the United States, as the sole mediator in the process, in these repeated failures. American peacemaking efforts ultimately ran aground as a result of Washington’s unwillingness to confront Israel’s ever-deepening occupation or to come to grips with the realities of internal Palestinian politics. In particular, the book looks at the interplay between the U.S.-led peace process and internal Palestinian politics—namely, how a badly flawed peace process helped to weaken Palestinian leaders and institutions and how an increasingly dysfunctional Palestinian leadership, in turn, hindered prospects for a diplomatic resolution. Thus, while the peace process was not necessarily doomed to fail, Washington’s management of the process, with its built-in blind spot to Israeli power and Palestinian politics, made failure far more likely than a negotiated breakthrough. Shaped by the pressures of American domestic politics and the special relationship with Israel, Washington’s distinctive “blind spot” to Israeli power and Palestinian politics has deep historical roots, dating back to the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate. The size of the blind spot has varied over the years and from one administration to another, but it is always present.