The purpose of this research is to examine United States foreign policy with Israel, from 1986 to the present time. The plan of the research will be to explore relations between the United States and Israel both intrinsically, and with reference to other countries of the Middle East. In particular, two areas of examination will be emphasized: (1) the changing pattern of relations between the United States and Israel due to American relations with Arab nations of the region, such as the issues surrounding American arms sales to the Arabs, and (2) the scope and limit of Israeli and American involvement in the 1990 1991 war in the Middle East. Time sensitive documents such as newspaper reports will be used to track the issues involved.
The relationship between the United States and Israel, which is often referred to as "special" in various media, can be viewed from 1986 onward only with appropriate reference made to events occurring years earlier, notably the famed 1967 six day war, in which Israel's self sufficiency as a nation was put to a decisive test. A capsule review of the event and its implications, coming some 20 years later, sets forth the context in which the emergence of Israel in new terms occurred:
For the Israelis, the Six Day War began as a nightmare and ended
as a miracle, and it retains a deep and lasting hold on the
Israeli psyche. In the dark days before June 5, while Lyndon
Johnson urged restraint, Charles de Gaulle canceled arms
shipments to Tel Aviv, and Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia
moved forces toward Israel's border as Egypt sent thousands of
troops into the Sinai and blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba, visions of
a second Holocaust filled the air here. . . . To the kibbutzniks,
the Six Day War was an act of self liberation (Frankel, 1987, p. 6).
To put it another way, Israel had "arrived" on the international sce...