National Interest & Policy Makers Nationa

National policy makers are not free to select their policy options in a vacuum. Fundamental to the development and the very concept of "national interest" is, of course, the existence of other nations whose interests must be taken into account in various ways. Even nations which are close allies because of their convergent interests in many areas may find their interests opposed in other areas: thus, for example, the United States in the Suez crisis of 1956 found reason to join forces with a "rival," the Soviet Union, against three "allies," France, Great Britain, and Israel. Even in one region, nations with parallel interests in some respects may have sharply divergent interests in other respects; thus the United States and many Arab states long shared an interest in restraining Soviet expansionism, but were sharply divided in their responses to Israeli expansionism. These complicated international elements shaping nationalinterest policy may collectively be called the external policy environment.

In addition, in the real world, nations' policy makers must be responsive to internal political factors. These include the institutional structural of the government itself i.e., who has the "right" to set policy, and subject to what constraints by other institutions? Especially in pluralist societies, organized interest groups must also be taken into account, while in democracies, public opinion is the background against which policy decisions must be m

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ts, a critical factor in a climate in which the costs of elections is high and continually rising. American Jews are the one demographic group of wealthy voters who regularly give to the Democrats; it has been estimated that as much as half of Democratic campaign funds came from American Jews (Tivnan, 1987: 84). In light of this, it is not surprising that Democratic "doves" often tend to be "hawks" when it comes to Israel. This writer remembers reading one remark (which unfortunately could not be traced) suggesting that the Israel lobby power would not be broken until public campaign financing was established at which time, presumably, Democrats in particular would no longer be dependent on Jewish financial contributions. The success of the Israel lobby is not solely attributable to either the political or financial clout of the American Jewish community per se. An important factor is the success of individual Jews and of Jewish organizations in "interfacing" and coalitionbuilding, a characteristic which sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset has characterized as the "dynamic core of Jewish political effectiveness" (Rubenberg, 1986: 15). Because of this bridgebuilding effectiveness, support for Israel is not seen narr

Category: Government - N