Obama and Eisenhower: Some Parallels
Yoav J. Tenenbaum
Jerusalem Post Historical comparisons must be made with caution. No two events are identical. The risks of the historical analogy is as numerous as its benefits. Anyway, compare events in history can clarify and sharpen our understanding of the phenomenon under discussion.
In this spirit, it is possible to make a comparison between the new policy toward Israel of President Obama and pursued by President Dwight Eisenhower and his administration from 1953 until 1957 when it also changed the orientation of U.S. policy toward Israel .
The similarities are striking.
Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, a policy conceived as warm to Israel at the same time he was very friendly towards the Muslim world.
Upon assuming the presidency in the midst of the Cold War, the new administration sought to build coalitions aimed at thwarting further progress of communism after the fall of Eastern Europe and China and the invasion of South Korea by Korea North.
the early '50s, those taking decisions in the U.S. and Britain feared that the Soviet Union invaded the Middle East, without mentioning the political infiltration, which sought to prevent forging partnerships in the region.
Eisenhower and Dulles believed that a closer relationship with the Arab and Muslim countries was necessary. To achieve this, a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict was considered essential. Reach an agreement meant painful concessions. Israel agreed to make these concessions, it was pressure.
addition, the policy of retaliation against terrorist attacks from Jordan and Egypt was seen as an obstacle to reaching that agreement. Israel must be persuaded, pressed indeed to adopt a policy of moderation.
To be sure, ask Dulles believed that moderation was not enough if Israel did not propose any alternative for Israel to feel secure. Israel is not felt safe in the first half of '50. Actually felt very at risk, diplomatically and militarily cornered attack. His neighbors were adamant in their refusal to acknowledge its existence, let alone negotiate a peace with him. The policy pursued by the Eisenhower administration only served to make sense of isolation was more acute.
PURPOSES 1954, was conceived by the U.S. and Britain a peace plan. The so-called Alpha Plan, among other things, demanded that Israel make territorial concessions in the Negev, accept a territorial corridor on its sovereign territory to link with Egypt and Jordan to accept some refugees Arab.
vigorously opposed Israel.
Following the victory of Israel in the Sinai Campaign of 1956, Eisenhower considered imposing sanctions if it refused to withdraw from recently captured the Sinai Peninsula.
In the eyes of Eisenhower and Dulles, the existence of Israel must be reluctantly tolerated. Dulles said, though in different words. Eisenhower himself said he did not know if he had been in favor of the establishment of the state if he had been president in 1948. However, now that was a fact, USA was accepted.
The goal of his administration was clear: get the support of Arab and Muslim countries in order to confront the communist threat. To achieve that, USA should remove any obstacle on the road.
In the context of the Cold War, there was no need to ingratiate themselves with Israel. Your support in any future conflict with the Soviet Union assumed. Israel was seen as an asset to be reinforced, but as an obstacle to be mitigated.
British diplomats in the early '50s were sometimes shocked by the hostility of U.S. officials to Israel, even in minor matters that would not have much meaning in the context of the broad interests U.S. in the Middle East.
Certainly, Israel is a nation more powerful than it was in the '50s. Today, circumstances in some respects, quite different from those they were then. However, it is hard not to make some comparisons between the new policy adopted by the Obama administration and the new policy pursued in the 50s by the Eisenhower administration.
way, both Obama succeeded Eisenhower as president known for his different approach to the region and Israel in particular: Harry Truman and George W. Bush. The parallels that can be done, then, are deeper than can be at first sight.
The author lectures in diplomacy program at the University of Tel Aviv.
porisrael.org Translation: Joseph Blumenfeld
Forward: www.porisrael.org
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