Download or read book American Presidents and Jerusalem written by Ghada Hashem Talhami and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2017-04-26 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Any casual observer of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict would immediately recognize that the holy city of Jerusalem is the core issue impeding a permanent peace settlement between the two antagonists. The religious symbolism of this city and its centrality to major religious faiths has never faded and has become increasingly vital to various strands of twentieth-century religious nationalisms. The political fate of Jerusalem was inevitably mired in international political struggles of the Cold War, particularly after the United States inherited Britain’s mantle as the ultimate arbiter of regional conflicts and strategic disputes. The asymmetrical balance of military power between Israel and Jordan made superpower intervention both inevitable and unpredictable. This study examines the policies of twentieth-century US presidents regarding the status of Jerusalem. It traces the evolution of the United States’ embroilment in the politics of Mandatory Palestine, successive wars, and regimes that vied for control over Jerusalem, and tracks the conflicting historical narratives presented by various states in the region. It also takes a detailed look at the role of the American Jewish lobby, which constantly pressured the United States to overlook Israel’s refusal to go back to the lines of June 5, 1967, or to stop creating facts on the ground in East Jerusalem. The role of the oil lobby in seeking the reversal of Israeli annexationist steps in Jerusalem is also analyzed. The failure of several American presidents to broker an Arab–Israeli peace agreement is seen here as the result of the latitude enjoyed by presidential advisers in determining the main contours of American foreign policy in this region and guarding access to the chief executive in times of crisis. Finally, the book is an illustration of the perils of downplaying the human rights abuses of junior client states in order to placate national lobby groups in the Untied States, leading to the entrenchment of the Israeli state not only over Jerusalem, but throughout the West Bank.
Download or read book The Elected and the Chosen written by Denis Brian and published by Gefen Publishing House Ltd. This book was released on 2012 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why american presidents have supported jews and israel.
Download or read book The Impact of the Presidency of Donald Trump on American Jewry and Israel written by Steven F. Windmueller and published by Purdue University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-15 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Trump presidency has resulted in a fundamentally disruptive moment in this nation’s political culture. Not only were there different policy options and directions, but the cultural artifacts of politics changed because of how this president dramatically challenged the existing norms of political behavior and action. As we have shifted from a period of American liberalism to a time of political populism, deep fissures are dividing Americans in general and Jews in particular. The Impact of the Presidency of Donald Trump on American Jewry and Israel unpacks President Donald Trump’s distinctive and unique relationship with the American Jewish community and the State of Israel. Addressing the various dimensions of his personal and political connections with Jews and Israel, this publication is designed to provide an assessment of how the Trump presidency has influenced and altered American Jewish political behavior. Writers from different backgrounds and political orientations bring a broad range of perspectives designed to examine various aspects of this presidency, including Trump’s particular impact on Israel-US relations, his special connection with Orthodox Jews, and his complex and uneven relationship with Jewish Republicans. For liberal American Jews, these four years represented a fundamental revolution, overturning and challenging much that a generation of activists had fought to achieve and protect. For Trump’s supporters, it afforded them an opportunity to advance their priorities, while joining the forty-fifth president in changing the American political landscape. The “Trump effect” will extend well beyond his four-year tenure, creating an environment that has fomented the politics of hate and exposed a deeply embedded presence of anti-Semitism. How Americans understand this moment in time and the ways society will adapt can be reflected through the prism of the Jewish encounter with Trumpism that this volume seeks to explore.
Download or read book American Presidents and Israeli Settlements since 1967 written by Michael F. Cairo and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-07-15 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing presidential administrations since Lyndon B. Johnson, this book argues that the Trump administration's policy toward Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem is not an aberration but the culmination of over 50 years of American foreign policy. Under the Johnson administration, the United States rhetorically supported the applicability of international law regarding Israeli settlements. However, throughout the 1970s, administrations did little to reverse the construction and expansion of settlements. Moreover, presidents sent mixed signals regarding Israel's withdrawal from the occupied territories. The Israeli settlement movement received support when Reagan argued that settlements were not illegal. Since then, American presidents have opposed settlement activity to various degrees, but not based on their illegality. Rather, presidents have described them as unwise, unhelpful, or obstacles to peace. Even when presidents have had opportunities to confront Israeli settlements directly, domestic pressure and America's special relationship with Israel have prevented serious action beyond rhetoric and condemnation. This volume will be of interest to scholars and students of the history and politics of American foreign policy, American relations with Israel, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Download or read book Ally written by Michael B. Oren and published by Random House. This book was released on 2015-06-23 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Includes a new afterword about the Iran nuclear agreement, the 2016 presidential race, and the future of the U.S.-Israel alliance Michael B. Oren’s memoir of his time as Israel’s ambassador to the United States—a period of transformative change for America and a time of violent upheaval throughout the Middle East—provides a frank, fascinating look inside the special relationship between America and its closest ally in the region. Michael Oren served as the Israeli ambassador to the United States from 2009 to 2013. An American by birth and a historian by training, Oren arrived at his diplomatic post just as Benjamin Netanyahu, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton assumed office. During Oren’s tenure in office, Israel and America grappled with the Palestinian peace process, the Arab Spring, and existential threats to Israel posed by international terrorism and the Iranian nuclear program. Forged in the Truman administration, America’s alliance with Israel was subjected to enormous strains, and its future was questioned by commentators in both countries. On more than one occasion, the friendship’s very fabric seemed close to unraveling. Ally is the story of that enduring alliance—and of its divides—written from the perspective of a man who treasures his American identity while proudly serving the Jewish State he has come to call home. No one could have been better suited to strengthen bridges between the United States and Israel than Michael Oren—a man equally at home jumping out of a plane as an Israeli paratrooper and discussing Middle East history on TV’s Sunday morning political shows. In the pages of this fast-paced book, Oren interweaves the story of his personal journey with behind-the-scenes accounts of fateful meetings between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu, high-stakes summits with the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, and diplomatic crises that intensified the controversy surrounding the world’s most contested strip of land. A quintessentially American story of a young man who refused to relinquish a dream—irrespective of the obstacles—and an inherently Israeli story about assuming onerous responsibilities, Ally is at once a record, a chronicle, and a confession. And it is a story about love—about someone fortunate enough to love two countries and to represent one to the other. But, above all, this memoir is a testament to an alliance that was and will remain vital for Americans, Israelis, and the world.
Download or read book The Late Great Planet Earth written by Hal Lindsey and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The impact of The Late Great Planet Earth cannot be overstated. The New York Times called it the "no. 1 non-fiction bestseller of the decade." For Christians and non-Christians of the 1970s, Hal Lindsey's blockbuster served as a wake-up call on events soon to come and events already unfolding -- all leading up to the greatest event of all: the return of Jesus Christ. The years since have confirmed Lindsey's insights into what biblical prophecy says about the times we live in. Whether you're a church-going believer or someone who wouldn't darken the door of a Christian institution, the Bible has much to tell you about the imminent future of this planet. In the midst of an out-of-control generation, it reveals a grand design that's unfolding exactly according to plan. The rebirth of Israel. The threat of war in the Middle East. An increase in natural catastrophes. The revival of Satanism and witchcraft. These and other signs, foreseen by prophets from Moses to Jesus, portend the coming of an antichrist . . . of a war which will bring humanity to the brink of destruction . . . and of incredible deliverance for a desperate, dying planet.
Download or read book Master of the Game written by Martin Indyk and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 689 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A perceptive and provocative history of Henry Kissinger's diplomatic negotiations in the Middle East that illuminates the unique challenges and barriers Kissinger and his successors have faced in their attempts to broker peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. “A wealth of lessons for today, not only about the challenges in that region but also about the art of diplomacy . . . the drama, dazzling maneuvers, and grand strategic vision.”—Walter Isaacson, author of The Code Breaker More than twenty years have elapsed since the United States last brokered a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians. In that time, three presidents have tried and failed. Martin Indyk—a former United States ambassador to Israel and special envoy for the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in 2013—has experienced these political frustrations and disappointments firsthand. Now, in an attempt to understand the arc of American diplomatic influence in the Middle East, he returns to the origins of American-led peace efforts and to the man who created the Middle East peace process—Henry Kissinger. Based on newly available documents from American and Israeli archives, extensive interviews with Kissinger, and Indyk's own interactions with some of the main players, the author takes readers inside the negotiations. Here is a roster of larger-than-life characters—Anwar Sadat, Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Hafez al-Assad, and Kissinger himself. Indyk's account is both that of a historian poring over the records of these events, as well as an inside player seeking to glean lessons for Middle East peacemaking. He makes clear that understanding Kissinger's design for Middle East peacemaking is key to comprehending how to—and how not to—make peace.
Download or read book Bending History written by Martin S. Indyk and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2013-09-04 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the time of Barack Obama's inauguration as the 44th president of the United States, he had already developed an ambitious foreign policy vision. By his own account, he sought to bend the arc of history toward greater justice, freedom, and peace; within a year he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, largely for that promise. In Bending History, Martin Indyk, Kenneth Lieberthal, and Michael O’Hanlon measure Obama not only against the record of his predecessors and the immediate challenges of the day, but also against his own soaring rhetoric and inspiring goals. Bending History assesses the considerable accomplishments as well as the failures and seeks to explain what has happened. Obama's best work has been on major and pressing foreign policy challenges—counterterrorism policy, including the daring raid that eliminated Osama bin Laden; the "reset" with Russia; managing the increasingly significant relationship with China; and handling the rogue states of Iran and North Korea. Policy on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, however, has reflected serious flaws in both strategy and execution. Afghanistan policy has been plagued by inconsistent messaging and teamwork. On important "softer" security issues—from energy and climate policy to problems in Africa and Mexico—the record is mixed. As for his early aspiration to reshape the international order, according greater roles and responsibilities to rising powers, Obama's efforts have been well-conceived but of limited effectiveness. On issues of secondary importance, Obama has been disciplined in avoiding fruitless disputes (as with Chavez in Venezuela and Castro in Cuba) and insisting that others take the lead (as with Qaddafi in Libya). Notwithstanding several missteps, he has generally managed well the complex challenges of the Arab awakenings, striving to strike the right balance between U.S. values and interests. The authors see Obama's foreign policy to date as a triumph of discipline and realism over ideology. He has been neither the transformative beacon his devotees have wanted, nor the weak apologist for America that his critics allege. They conclude that his grand strategy for promoting American interests in a tumultuous world may only now be emerging, and may yet be curtailed by conflict with Iran. Most of all, they argue that he or his successor will have to embrace U.S. economic renewal as the core foreign policy and national security challenge of the future.
Download or read book Palestine Peace Not Apartheid written by Jimmy Carter and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2007-09-18 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: PRESIDENT CARTER'S COURAGEOUS ASSESSMENT OF WHAT MUST BE DONE TO BRING PERMANENT PEACE TO ISRAEL WITH DIGNITY AND JUSTICE TO PALESTINE
Download or read book In Jerusalem written by Lis Harris and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An entirely fresh take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that examines the life-shaping reverberations of wars and ongoing tensions upon the everyday lives of families in Jerusalem. An American, secular, diasporic Jew, Lis Harris grew up with the knowledge of the historical wrongs done to Jews. In adulthood, she developed a growing awareness of the wrongs they in turn had done to the Palestinian people. This gave her an intense desire to understand how the Israelis’ history led them to where they are now. However, she found that top-down political accounts and insider assessments made the people most affected seem like chess pieces. What she wanted was to register the effects of the country’s seemingly never-ending conflict on the lives of successive generations. Shuttling back and forth over ten years between East and West Jerusalem, Harris learned about the lives of two families: the Israeli Pinczowers/Ezrahis and the Palestinian Abuleils. She came to know members of each family—young and old, religious and secular, male and female. As they shared their histories with her, she looked at how each family survived the losses and dislocations that defined their lives; how, in a region where war and its threat were part of the very air they breathed, they gave children hope for their future; and how the adults’ understanding of the conflict evolved over time. Combining a decade of historical research with political analysis, Harris creates a living portrait of one of the most complicated and controversial conflicts of our time.
Download or read book Doomed to Succeed written by Dennis Ross and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-10-13 with total page 425 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A necessary and unprecedented account of America's changing relationship with Israel When it comes to Israel, U.S. policy has always emphasized the unbreakable bond between the two countries and our ironclad commitment to Israel's security. Today our ties to Israel are close—so close that when there are differences, they tend to make the news. But it was not always this way. Dennis Ross has been a direct participant in shaping U.S. policy toward the Middle East, and Israel specifically, for nearly thirty years. He served in senior roles, including as Bill Clinton's envoy for Arab-Israeli peace, and was an active player in the debates over how Israel fit into the region and what should guide our policies. In Doomed to Succeed, he takes us through every administration from Truman to Obama, throwing into dramatic relief each president's attitudes toward Israel and the region, the often tumultuous debates between key advisers, and the events that drove the policies and at times led to a shift in approach. Ross points out how rarely lessons were learned and how distancing the United States from Israel in the Eisenhower, Nixon, Bush, and Obama administrations never yielded any benefits and why that lesson has never been learned. Doomed to Succeed offers compelling advice for how to understand the priorities of Arab leaders and how future administrations might best shape U.S. policy in that light.
Download or read book Blind Spot written by Khaled Elgindy and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Lincoln and the Jews written by Jonathan D. Sarna and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One hundred and fifty years after Abraham Lincoln's death, the full story of his extraordinary relationship with Jews is told here for the first time. Lincoln and the Jews: A History provides readers both with a captivating narrative of his interactions with Jews, and with the opportunity to immerse themselves in rare manuscripts and images, many from the Shapell Lincoln Collection, that show Lincoln in a way he has never been seen before. Lincoln's lifetime coincided with the emergence of Jews on the national scene in the United States. When he was born, in 1809, scarcely 3,000 Jews lived in the entire country. By the time of his assassination in 1865, large-scale immigration, principally from central Europe, had brought that number up to more than 150,000. Many Americans, including members of Lincoln's cabinet and many of his top generals during the Civil War, were alarmed by this development and treated Jews as second-class citizens and religious outsiders. Lincoln, this book shows, exhibited precisely the opposite tendency. He also expressed a uniquely deep knowledge of the Old Testament, employing its language and concepts in some of his most important writings. He befriended Jews from a young age, promoted Jewish equality, appointed numerous Jews to public office, had Jewish advisors and supporters starting already from the early 1850s, as well as later during his two presidential campaigns, and in response to Jewish sensitivities, even changed the way he thought and spoke about America. Through his actions and his rhetoric—replacing "Christian nation," for example, with "this nation under God"—he embraced Jews as insiders. In this groundbreaking work, the product of meticulous research, historian Jonathan D. Sarna and collector Benjamin Shapell reveal how Lincoln's remarkable relationship with American Jews impacted both his path to the presidency and his policy decisions as president. The volume uncovers a new and previously unknown feature of Abraham Lincoln's life, one that broadened him, and, as a result, broadened America.
Download or read book Tested by Zion written by Elliott Abrams and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-01-14 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book tells the full inside story of the Bush Administration and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Written by a top National Security Council officer who worked at the White House with Bush, Cheney, and Rice and attended dozens of meetings with figures like Sharon, Mubarak, the kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and Palestinian leaders, it brings the reader inside the White House and the palaces of Middle Eastern officials. How did 9/11 change American policy toward Arafat and Sharon's tough efforts against the Second Intifada? What influence did the Saudis have on President Bush? Did the American approach change when Arafat died? How did Sharon decide to get out of Gaza, and why did the peace negotiations fail? In the first book by an administration official to focus on Bush and the Middle East, Elliott Abrams brings the story of Bush, the Israelis, and the Palestinians to life.
Download or read book Religion and the American Presidency written by Gastón Espinosa and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book challenges the idea that the mixing of religion and presidential politics is a new phenomenon. It explores how presidents have drawn on their religious upbringing, rhetoric, ideas, and beliefs to promote their domestic and foreign policies to the nation. This influence is evident in Washington's decision to add "so help me God" to the presidential oath, accusations by Adam's supporters that Jefferson was an infidel, Lincoln's biblical metaphors during the Civil War, and FDR's call to fight against Nazi totalitarianism on behalf of Judeo-Christian civilization. It is also apparent in Truman's support for Israel, Eisenhower's Cold War decision to add "In God We Trust" on American currency, the debate over JFK's Catholicism, Jimmy Carter's born-again Christianity, Reagan's "Evil Empire" speech, Clinton's public repentance, and George W. Bush's "crusade" against Islamic terrorists. This volume explores these issues of religion and power in the presidencies of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lincoln, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush through scholarly interpretations, primary sources, and illustrations.
Download or read book U S Foreign Aid to Israel written by Jeremy M. Sharp and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2010-10 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contents: (1) U.S.-Israeli Relations and the Role of Foreign Aid; (2) U.S. Bilateral Military Aid to Israel: A 10-Year Military Aid Agreement; Foreign Military Financing; Ongoing U.S.-Israeli Defense Procurement Negotiations; (3) Defense Budget Appropriations for U.S.-Israeli Missile Defense Programs: Multi-Layered Missile Defense; High Altitude Missile Defense System; (4) Aid Restrictions and Possible Violations: Israeli Arms Sales to China; Israeli Settlements; (5) Other Ongoing Assistance and Cooperative Programs: Migration and Refugee Assistance; Loan Guarantees for Economic Recovery; American Schools and Hospitals Abroad Program; U.S.-Israeli Scientific and Business Cooperation; (6) Historical Background. Illustrations.
Download or read book American Presidents Religion and Israel written by Paul Merkley and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2004-07-30 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortly after the end of the Second World War, President Harry S Truman declared his support for the creation and maintenance of the modern state of Israel, basing that support on religious and theological grounds. This is the first book to explore the connection between the religious backgrounds and beliefs of U.S. presidents in relation to their policies toward Israel. From Truman to Ford, U.S. presidents relied, in part, on their religious and moral commitments to support their policies and views toward Israel. Beginning with Carter, however, presidents have abandoned the role of champions of Israel to become champion of the Peace Process, stressing peace and a secular approach that rises above the religious and theological fray. And yet, even in the context of this attempted fair-mindedness, U.S. presidents reveal their personal religious and moral beliefs in their responses to the issue of Israel. Today, George W. Bush, one of the most vocally religious presidents, seems poised to take up the tradition once again of relying on his religious convictions to justify his positions toward the Arab-Israeli conflict. Here, Merkley argues that while faith alone does not determine action, or that it even has a controlling influence, religious belief does play a role in the policies that U.S. presidents, and the nation, adopt toward Israel. When Truman declared, I am Cyrus, he was emphatically grounding his support of the modern state of Israel in his belief in the Bible. Referring to the Persian king who allowed the Jews to return to Israel, and to build the Second Temple, Truman revealed his religious commitments and supported his policies on biblical grounds. Bringing to the fore neglected evidence of the role of religious belief in policies toward Israel, Merkley explores an overlooked aspect of presidential decision-making, suggesting that religion, while not the only factor, is at least among the influences that determine a president's view of the Arab-Israeli conflict. From Truman to Ford, policies often reflected the Evangelical traditions that dictated unyielding support of Israel, but with Carter's commitment to the peace process above all else, the trend turned toward moral absolutes and more general religious beliefs that could sustain arguments for a negotiated peace. George W. Bush, thus far, however, has clearly demonstrated his personal religious beliefs and may, in the end, reclaim the mantle of Cyrus.
