The United States and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
The United States and the Arab-Israeli Conflict
With rare exceptions, since 1948 and the onset of the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, the United States has provided near unconditional support of Israel. The downside of that support is that it has enabled Israel to spurn repeated opportunities for peace settlements of those conflicts, for even when US governments have disagreed with hard-line Israeli policies, they have only rarely been willing to press for changes. A number of factors that explain these US policies are examined: the belief that support of Israel is morally required; shared religious and political values; public opinion; strong congressional and presidential support of Israel; the strategic and national interests of the United States, particularly concerning Middle East oil and the containment of the Soviet Union during the Cold War and the “war on terrorism” afterward; and the power of the Israel lobby. Particular attention is paid to the dispute over how much power the lobby has over US Mideast policies.
Keywords: moral obligations, US support of Israel, national interests, oil, Soviet expansionism, war on terrorism, Israel lobby
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