The United States and the Arab-Israeli conflict: (un)forging future peace.

• Author: Fernandez, Erwin S.

Introduction

Since the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel has relied on military force to suppress Palestinian demands for a homeland. The United States has supported Israel as its strategic ally in the Middle East. This has not only provoked the anger of the Arab states but also made the Israeli-Palestinian dispute one of the most vexing and dangerous diplomatic problems since World War II. An examination of U.S. policy concerning the Middle East peace process demonstrates how the United States subsumed its interests to those of Israel, and, by doing so, has failed to forge a lasting peace in the Middle East.

U.S. Policy and Zionism Before 1945

Zionism, a movement promoting the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine that originated in the 1890s, immediately attracted a sizable following. (1) At first, Americans viewed Zionism as "merely a minority political group" that only dealt with the domestic affairs of the Jews. (2) That changed when Louis D. Brandeis emerged as the leader of American Zionism. Although Brandeis resigned his post after being appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916, he remained a powerful behind-the-scenes voice promoting Jewish interests in the United States. (3)

While Brandeis promoted the Zionist cause in the United States, Chaim Weizrmann, a Russian-born Jewish chemist, did so in Great Britain. Encouraged by Prime Minister David Lloyd George Foreign Minister Arthur James Balfour, both supporters of Zionism, Weizmann sought U.S. support for a Jewish state under a British protectorate. (4) Despite some opposition in the British and American governments, Wilson, pressed by Weizmann and Brandeis, supported the British government's announcement regarding the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine (the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917). (5)

The interwar years witnessed increased American support for Zionism. The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) quickly rose to 200,000 members after Congress and President Warren G. Harding declared their support for the Balfour Declaration. (6) By the mid-1930s, Stephen S. Wise, head of the ZOA, undertook a rigorous campaign to promote the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. With the help of Abba Hillel Silver, Wise pressed President Franklin D. Roosevelt to "swallow our demands." (7) Meanwhile, Zioinist leaders, in mid-May 1942, adopted the Biltmore Program, a reaffirmation of the Balfour Declaration. David Ben-Gurion, head of the Jewish Agency which then functioned as a de facto Jewish government in Palestine, supported this call for the founding of a Jewish Commonwealth in Palestine. (8)

Knowledge of the gravity of the Holocaust intensified Zionist clamor for the immediate establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Silver, now head of the American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs (AECZA), spearheaded a campaign to gain the support of politicians, religious leaders, and the American public for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Aided by strong financial backing and effective grassroots organization, AECZA succeeded in making the Jewish question a prominent issue in American politics. (9)

U.S. Policy and Israel

Although the American response to the Jewish cause was impressive, President Roosevelt refused to endorse it, assuring Arabs that he would not take any action that would prove hostile to their interests. (10) When Harry S. Truman assumed the presidency following Roosevelt's death in mid-April 1945, he showed greater sympathy toward demands for a Jewish state. The onset of the Cold War quickly spilled over into the Middle East. The oil-rich region would not be allowed to fall to communism as evidenced by the Anglo-American response against Soviet activities in Iran in 1946. (11) To prevent Soviet control of the region, the U.S. sought a greater presence in the Middle East. Control over Palestine, a small piece of land strategically located along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea at the crossroads between the Middle East and Northern Africa, would satisfy this need. Hence, demands to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine became intertwined with Cold War considerations. (12)

While Palestine remained a British mandate (1919-47), the British government supported the massive immigration of peoples of Jewish descent (mostly from Eastern Europe) to the area. The Jewish population in Palestine rose from 65,000 in 1919 to 650,000 by 1947. (13) Violence soon erupted in response to this influx of Jewish immigration and the usurpation of Palestinian lands that accompanied it. Truman, meanwhile, accepted the partition of Palestine as stipulated by Peel Royal War Commission Report of 1937. The partition was not carried out, however, as some Zionists now insisted that a Jewish state cover all of Palestine. (14)

By 1947, economic hardship caused Great Britain to transfer its mandate over Palestine to the United Nations. The United Nations' Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) recommended the division of Palestine. In response, the General Assembly, in late November 1947, adopted UN Resolution 181 which affirmed the plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states and designate Greater Jerusalem as an international zone. (15) Palestinians rejected the plan, and within a year both sides were at war.

During the conflict, Haganah, a Jewish paramilitary defense organization, seized several territories, allowing Zionists to claim a clear victory. On May 14, 1948, the provisional government issued its Declaration of Independence. That same day, the Truman administration recognized the State of Israel. This action provoked the ire of Arab states which denounced the U.S. for perpetuating the systematic dispossession of Palestinians of their lands. With a massive immigration of European Jews that followed the war, Palestinian Arabs were evicted from their homeland, causing an international refugee crisis. (16)

Between 1949 and 1956, tensions mounted in the Middle East as Egypt, Syria, and Jordan tried to secure their respective boundaries while Israel expanded its territorial limits at the expense of Palestinian villages. Then, in 1950, Israel announced the transfer of its capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a contested area sacred to Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Despite UN mediation efforts to avoid conflict, Israel, in February 1955, attacked the Gaza Strip in Egypt. Egyptian President Nasser, taking note of his army's lack of arms as a key factor that contributed to its defeat, sought military assistance from the West, particularly the United States. When the U.S., Britain, and France rejected Nasser's request, Egypt turned to the Soviet Union for military assistance. (17)

Since Nasser's ties to the Soviets threatened Western strategic interests in the Middle East, in October 1956 Israel, Britain, and France invaded Egypt, resulting in the Suez Crisis. Israel acquired the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza, but President Dwight D. Eisenhower demanded that it withdraw from those territories. Jewish lobbyists criticized Eisenhower for pressuring Israel to return these territories, causing Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to complain that "the Israel embassy is practically dictating to the Congress through influential Jewish people in the country." (18) Refusing to bow to such pressure, Eisenhower insisted on the withdrawal of Israeli...