US – ISRAEL RELATIONS

Contents
 INTRODUCTION
 POLITICAL RELATIONS
 ECONOMIC RELATIONS
 TENSIONS
 CONCLUSIONS
  Israel–United States relations refers to the
bilateral relationship between the State of Israel
and the United States of America. The relations
are a very important factor in the United States
INTRODUCTION government's overall policy in the Middle East,
and Congress has placed considerable
importance on the maintenance of a close
and supportive relationship
  Support for Zionism among American Jews was
minimal, until the involvement of Louis Brandeis in
the Federation of American Zionists,[10] starting in
1912 and the establishment of the Provisional
Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs in
1914; it was empowered by the Zionist
Organization "to deal with all Zionist matters, until
better times come".

 While Woodrow Wilson was sympathetic to the

plight of Jews in Europe, he repeatedly stated in
1919 that US policy was to "acquiesce" to the
Balfour Declaration but not officially support
Zionism. However, the US Congress passed the
POLITICAL Lodge-Fish resolution,[13] the first joint resolution
stating its support for "the establishment in
Palestine of a national home for the Jewish
RELATIONS people" on 21 September 1922. The same day,
the Mandate of Palestine was approved by the
Council of the League of Nations.
  During World War II, while US foreign policy decisions were
often ad hoc moves and solutions dictated by the
demands of the war, the Zionist movement made a
fundamental departure from traditional Zionist policy and
its stated goals, at the Biltmore Conference in May
1942.[16] Previous stated policy towards establishing a
Jewish "national home" in Palestine were gone; these were
replaced with its new policy "that Palestine be established
as a Jewish Commonwealth" like other nations, in
cooperation with America, not Britain. Two attempts by
Congress in 1944 to pass resolutions declaring US
government support for the establishment of a Jewish state
in Palestine were objected to by the Departments of War
and State, because of wartime considerations and Arab
opposition to the creation of a Jewish state. The resolutions
were permanently dropped.

POLITICAL  Following the war, the "new postwar era witnessed an

intensive involvement of the United States in the political
and economic affairs of the Middle East, in contrast to the
RELATIONS hands-off attitude characteristic of the prewar period.
Under Truman the United States had to face and define its
policy in all three sectors that provided the root causes of
American interests in the region: the Soviet threat, the birth
of Israel, and petroleum."
  The main expression of Congressional support
for Israel has been foreign aid.[1] Since 1985, it
has provided nearly US$3 billion in grants
annually to Israel, with Israel being the largest
annual recipient of American aid from 1976 to
2004 and the largest cumulative recipient of
aid ($121 billion, not inflation-adjusted) since
World War II. Seventy-four percent of these
ECONOMIC funds must be spent purchasing US goods and
services. More recently, in fiscal year 2014, the
RELATIONS US provided $3.1 billion in foreign military aid to
Israel. Israel also benefits from about $8 billion of
loan guarantees.
  The United States is Israel's largest single trading partner. The
top five U.S. exports to Israel are: diamonds, semiconductors,
civilian aircraft, telecommunications equipment, and
agricultural products. The top five U.S. imports from Israel are:
diamonds, pharmaceutical products, semiconductors,
medicinal equipment, and telecommunications equipment.
U.S. direct investment in Israel is primarily in the manufacturing
sector, as is Israeli investment in the United States. The United
States and Israel have had a free trade agreement since
1985, serving as the foundation for expanding trade and
investment between the two countries by reducing barriers
and promoting regulatory transparency. To facilitate
economic cooperation, the two countries convene a Joint
Economic Development Group each year to discuss
ECONOMIC economic conditions in both countries and possible
economic reforms for the coming year.
RELATIONS
 The U.S. and Israel also coordinate scientific and cultural
exchanges through the Binational Science Foundation, the
Binational Agricultural Research and Development
Foundation, and the U.S.-Israeli Education Foundation.
  he Carter administration was characterized by very
active US involvement in the Middle East peace
process. With the May 1977 election of Likud's
Menachem Begin as prime minister, after 30 years of
leading the Israeli government opposition, major
changes took place regarding Israeli withdrawal from
the occupied territories. This led to friction in US–Israeli
bilateral relations. The two frameworks included in the
Carter-initiated Camp David process were viewed by
right-wing elements in Israel as creating US pressures on
Israel to withdraw from the captured Palestinian
territories, as well as forcing it to take risks for the sake of
peace with Egypt. The Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty
was signed at the White House on March 26, 1979. It led

TENSIONS
to Israeli withdrawal from Sinai by 1982. Likud
governments have since argued that their acceptance
of full withdrawal from the Sinai as part of these accords
Carter and the eventual Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty fulfilled the
Israeli pledge to withdraw from occupied territory.
President Carter's support for a Palestinian homeland
Administration and for Palestinian political rights particularly created
tensions with the Likud government, and little progress
was achieved on that front.
  Israeli–US tension eased after the start of the
Persian Gulf war on 16 January 1991, when
Israel became a target of Iraqi Scud missiles.
The United States urged Israel not to retaliate
against Iraq for the attacks because it was
believed that Iraq wanted to draw Israel into
the conflict and force other coalition members,
Egypt and Syria in particular, to quit the
TENSIONS coalition and join Iraq in a war against Israel.
Israel did not retaliate, and gained praise for its
W.Bush restraint.

Administration
  In the coming years, as the prospect of a two-
state solution disappears, it is likely that Israel will
continue its inexorable march toward becoming
a state between the Jordan River and the sea,
with one set of laws for Jews, who will have the
rights of citizens, and another for Arabs, who will
be denied full citizenship. What will it cost
America’s broader relationship with the Muslim
world to maintain a special bond with a state
based on this kind of ethnic discrimination? That
also would be difficult to quantify. And yet this
scenario may be impossible to escape. The threat
of Israel’s turning itself into a nuclear-armed
desperado striking at will at the oil states in the
CONCLUSION Gulf cannot, alas, be entirely dismissed. That may
be, as Ariel Roth argues, a compelling reason to
maintain the special relationship pretty much
unchanged