Op-Ed

I have an op-ed in the New York Sun, on revelations from the LBJ tapes and Israel's role in the current presidential election.

Take Home

Basic requirements: Pen an elegant, yet concise, 7-8 page typewritten response to one of the exciting questions from each section below. Answers should: (a) present a compelling argument; (b) use at least three or four specific historical examples; and (c) cite material from the readings and/or the presentations, as relevant.

Due, via email to me, by 15 June. If you need more time, just let me know.

Section One. Choose one of two:

1.) In a recent interview with Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, Barack Obama asserted that the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict “infect[s] all of our foreign policy” in the region. Leaving aside the word choice, to what extent do you agree with Obama’s analysis? Can and should historians view U.S. relations with the Middle East since 1967 as dominated by the effects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

2.) How much did the Cold War affect the U.S. approach to the Middle East? Discuss by comparing U.S. policy toward the region during either the first twenty (1947-1967) or the last twenty (1967-1987) years of the Cold War with U.S. policy toward the region since the end of the Cold War (since 1989, in other words).

Section Two. Choose one of two:

1.) Revisionist scholars speak frequently of the legacy of “Western imperialism” affecting the Middle East. To what extent should the United States be viewed as a “Western” power—i.e., to what extent have U.S. interests and policies toward the region since 1800 coincided with those of Britain, France, or other European powers? Be sure to include material from both before and after 1930 in your response.

2.) Frank Ninkovich, one of the country’s leading diplomatic historians, has described the 20^th century as the “Wilsonian Century.” To what extent is his approach correct? Define Wilsonian ideals as they applied to the Middle East, and then analyze the issue by discussing U.S. policy toward the region in the 20^th century. Be sure to include material from both before and after World War II in your response.

The Besieged LBJ and Israel

On May 1, the LBJ Library released the recordings from the first four months of 1968--which include items on Tet and the President's decision not to run for re-election. One of the newly released items features Johnson chatting with UN ambassador Arthur Goldberg, one week before LBJ announced his withdrawal from the 1968 election. The ostensible subject matter was a UN resolution condemning Israel, after a retaliatory raid against a Palestinian terrorist attack from Jordan. But LBJ then suggests his growing political isolation has made him more sympathetic to Israel, and reaffirms his support for Israel in rather earthy terms.



ARTHUR GOLDBERG: Of course, the poor King [Hussein] is in a hell of a box. His throat is in the . . . is there all the time.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: Yeah, I feel sorry—

GOLDBERG: There isn’t a hell of a lot more that he can do than what he’s been doing.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: I feel sorry for him. Although I thought he sent us kind of a mean wire—

GOLDBERG: Yes—

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: It was unnecessary.

GOLDBERG: Yes. Yes. I feel sorry for him.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: I lost—I felt sorry for him, but I lost a little of my sympathy with his reply to my wire the other night, asking him to . . .

GOLDBERG: Yeah. Yes. Well, you know, they—

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: You saw my wire and his reply, didn’t you?

GOLDBERG: No, I did not see that.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: Well, when they [the State Department] sent the wire, they told Israel that this was disastrous.

GOLDBERG: Uh-huh.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: It was pretty strong. I cut out a word or two of their mean wire to ‘em. I said, “Are we wiring Jordan to watch them to watch these terrorist activities?” They said no. I said, “Well, why not?” Well, they didn’t—this and that. I said, “Let’s just send them both a wire? If you’re going to wire one of them, let’s send them both a wire.”

So they sent them a wire. Eshkol came back with two pages, and said they’re bombing his kids, and they were doing all these other things, and everything’s provocative. He didn’t—he didn’t justify what he’d done, but he at least explained what motivated him.

GOLDBERG: Yeah.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: And was pretty reasoning to me.

And the goddamn King wired me back and said, “Go to hell.”

GOLDBERG: Really?

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: Yeah.

GOLDBERG: Well, you know the Arabs are impossible down here. I have to have the patience of a saint to deal with them. They always keep referring to our domestic events.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: [softly] Mm.

GOLDBERG: And I have to slap ‘em down. They’re . . . a terribly emotional bunch.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: You’re the only man I know that’s got as mean a type of assignment as I have. And I don’t know how you do it as well as you do. I just honestly don’t.

But . . . I sure as hell want to be careful, and not run out on little Israel.

GOLDBERG: Yeah.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: If they—because they haven’t got many friends in the world.

GOLDBERG: I know they haven’t.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: They’re in about the same shape I am. And the closer I got—I face adversity, the closer I get to them.

GOLDBERG: Yeah.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: Because I got a bunch of Arabs after me—about a hundred million of ‘em, and there’s just two million of us. [Chuckles; Goldberg joins in.] So I can understand them a little bit.

GOLDBERG: I—

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: And I don’t want—there’s nobody fussing at me, nobody raising hell with me. Nobody, not one human’s called me about it.

I just . . . my State Department, sometimes—I just want to be damn sure that I don’t wind up here getting in the shape Eisenhower did, where I want to put sanctions on ‘em—

GOLDBERG: Well, we’re never going to put sanctions on—

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: The only people they got in the world, that they got faith in, I think, [i]s me and you. I was down there at the ranch, and I looked at ‘em, and I . . .

They don’t know when they’re going to be run over; they don’t know when they’re going to die; they don’t know when those goddamn Russians are going to come in there. They don’t know anything.

And the only thing they got is a little hope, and a prayer, and a wing . . . for me, if my heart keeps beating. And I don’t want ‘em to look back and say, “Well, he got to limber tail, and he ran,” and so forth.

Now, I’ve been hard and tough with them. I haven’t given them their Phantoms.

GOLDBERG: Yeah.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: I haven’t done this or that. But I just—I’m damn sure going to give them to ‘em, because I want the Russians to quit arming, and agree to file up there [at the UN] with you-all what they do arm, and they cut back on their ABM.

And if they’re not going to do any of it, and they’re going to continue to pour arms in there, I want to make them take the consequences of their actions—and I’m going to stick it up of Israel’s bottom just as much as I’ve got.

GOLDBERG: Amen to that.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: Well, that’s what I’m going to do.

GOLDBERG: Yeah, well—

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: I didn’t tell them [the Israelis] that. I just told them I wasn’t going to—

GOLDBERG: No, no—

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: I wasn’t going to be responsible. But that’s what I’m going to do!

GOLDBERG: Right.

PRESIDENT JOHNSON: I said, “You don’t need to worry if they [the Soviets] keep arming them [the Arabs]. I’m not going to let you just stay there and let you get eaten up, like the little boy that the calf was playing with. And his daddy walked out and saw him, and caught him. And he said, ‘Bobby, you just going to stay there, and let the calf eat me up?’” [The President chuckles.]

GOLDBERG: Mm-hmm. Well, there you’re absolutely, a thousand percent right.

Conference Program

Sunday, 25.5

14:00-14:30 Welcoming and Opening Remarks

Mordechai Tamarkin, Head, The Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research

Zvi Shtauber, Director, The Institute for National Security Studies

Dany Leviatan, Rector, Tel Aviv University

14:30-16:00 Session I

Introduction: Theoretical Perspectives

Chairperson - David Vital (Tel Aviv University)

Janice Gross Stein (University of Toronto)

From a Bipolar World to a Unipolar One: International Efforts to Resolve Local Conflicts

Rajan Menon (Lehigh University)

'The Responsibility to Protect': An Idea Worth Considering for Managing Local Conflict?

Yossi Beilin (Knesset Member)

The Interface between Academia and Practice in the Context of Conflict Resolution

16:00-16:30 Coffee break

16:30-18:00 Session II

The Cold War and the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Chairperson – Gabriel Gorodetsky (Tel Aviv University)

Galia Golan (The Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya)

The Soviet Union and the Efforts to Resolve the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Avraham Ben-Zvi (The University of Haifa)

Between Comprehensiveness and Step-by-Step: Rogers, Kissinger, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Kenneth W. Stein (Emory University)

The Carter Administration: From a Comprehensive Peace to a Separate One

Monday, 26.5

09:30-11:00 Session III

From the Cold War to a New World Order: The Middle East, 1980-2007

Chairperson – Arnon Gutfeld (Tel Aviv University)

Robert David (KC) Johnson (Brooklyn College)

The Reagan-Bush Administrations and the Middle East

Shibley Telhami (University of Maryland)

The Clinton Administration and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Robert Lieber (Georgetown University)

The George W. Bush Administration and the Middle East

11:00-11:30 Coffee break

11:30-13:30 Session IV

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in the Web of Regional and International Politics:

Local Perspectives

Chairperson – Shimon Shamir (Tel Aviv University)

Samir Hulileh (Portland Trust)

In Search for Peace and Justice: A Palestinian Perspective Towards the Role of the International Community

Yehuda Ben Meir (The Institute for National Security Studies)

Israeli Perspective

Shlomo Brom (The Institute for National Security Studies)

Managing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Local Actors' Response to International Policing

Yossi Kostiner (Tel Aviv University)

Mediation by Local Powers: Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Arab-Israeli Peace Process

13:00-15:00 Lunch break

15:00-16:30 Session V

Europe and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict in the Aftermath of the Cold War

Chairperson – Uzi Eilam (The Institute for National Security Studies)

Ron Pundak (Peres Center for Peace)

Norway and the Oslo Agreement

Jean-Pierre Filiu (Sciences Po, Paris)

Reflections on French Experiences in the Middle East

Georg Simonis (Fern Universität, Hagen)

The EU and its Efforts to Resolve the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

16:30-17:00 Coffee break

17:00-19:00 Session VI

Diplomatic Round-Table

Chairperson - Zvi Shtauber (former Israeli Ambassador in London)

Itamar Rabinovich (former Israeli Ambassador in Washington)

Saeb Erakat (chief Palestinian negotiator)

Daniel C. Kurtzer (former US Ambassador in Cairo and Tel Aviv)

Tuesday, 27.5

09:30-11:00 Session VII

Conflict-Resolution Efforts in Post-Cold War Europe

Chairperson - Rafi Vago (Tel Aviv University)

James Gow (King's College, London)

International Engagement and the Yugoslav War of Dissolution

Dimitri Trenin (Carnegie Foundation, Moscow)

Conflicts in Russia's Neighbourhood: From Situation-Freezing to Dispute-Resolution

Adrian Guelke (Queen's University of Belfast)

External Mediation and Internal Ownership – The Belfast and St. Andrews Agreements Compared

11:00-11:30 Coffee break

11:30-13:30 Session VIII

Peace-Keeping Operations

Chairperson – Kobi Michael (The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies)

Efrat Elron (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)

The Evolution of Peace Operations: From the Cold War to the Global Era

Stefan Wolff (University of Nottingham)

European Union Crisis Management in the Western Balkans: Policy Objectives, Capabilities and Effectiveness

Chen Kertcher (Tel Aviv University)

Same Agenda, Different Results: the UN peacekeeping in Cambodia and Somalia

Udi Dekel (Former C.O. Liaison Unit & Head of Strategic Division)

The Effectiveness of Peace-Keeping Forces: The Israeli Experience

13:00-15:00 Lunch break

15:00-16:30 Session IX

Military Intervention and Democratization: Global Order and the Radical Islamist Challenge

Chairperson - Bruce Maddy-Weitzman (The Moshe Dayan Center, Tel Aviv University)

Marvin G. Weinbaum (Middle East Institute, Washington. D.C.)

Lost Faith, Forfeited Trust: Afghan Responses to Post-9/11 International Intervention

in State-Building and Insurgency

Michael Eisenstadt (The Washington Institute for Near East Policy)

Military Intervention, Political Violence and Transitional Democratic Politics in Iraq

Eyal Zisser (The Moshe Dayan Center, Tel Aviv University)

Military Intervention and Democratization: Global Order and the Radical Islamic Challenge in Lebanon

16:30-17:00 Coffee break

17:00-18:30 Concluding Session

Chairperson - Eyal Zisser, Director, The Moshe Dayan Center, Tel Aviv University

Daniel C. Kurtzer (Princeton University)

Rajan Menon (Lehigh University)

LBJ & Israel Tapes

McGeorge Bundy--Track One


Abe Feinberg--Track Two

Dean Rusk--Track Three



Abraham Ribicoff--Track Four



Arthur Goldberg--Track Five



Dean Rusk--Track Six



Walt Rostow--Track Seven



Bill Fulbright--Track Eight



Dwight Eisenhower--Track Nine



Dwight Eisenhower--Track Ten



Everett Dirksen--Track Eleven



Bill Fulbright--Track 12



Russell Long--Track 13



Arthur Goldberg--Track 14



Everett Dirksen--Track 15



Arthur Goldberg--Track 16



Gale McGee--Track 17

May 5 Notes

U.S. and the Middle East

Beyond 2002

May 5, 2008

I. Road to 9/11

1. 2000 (Clinton foreign and domestic struggles; administration divisions; election)

2. Early Bush (Powell/Rice/Rumsfeld; role of Tenet & Mineta; bureaucratic divisions; Cheney?)

3. After 9/11 (9/11 and Saddam; U.S. and Northern Alliance; revising Musharraf relationship; Karzai solution)

II. Path to War

1. Domestic Response to 9/11 (Guantánamo and constitutional theories; failure to capture bin Laden; Patriot Act and civil liberties; Yoo and unitary executive theory; Lieberman and Homeland Security Department; Rove and political issues—Chambliss/Cleland race)

2. Run-up (sanctions and international diplomacy; Clinton and Iraq Liberation Act; significant obstacles: Shinseki; Turks and Kurdistan; French/German hostility; role of Eastern Europe; Iranian question; Blix and lack of WMD)

3. Rationale (schisms between Old Bush and New Bush; rationales: Tenet, Powell, and WMDs; neocons and democracy; Rumsfeld as test case; Cheney and Chalabi, Office of Special Plans and undoing excesses of 1970s; Rice)

4. National Response (New York Times and flawed coverage; role of Pincus and Hersh; divisions among Democrats; significance of Powell)

III. War & Consequences

1. Conflict (“Coalition of the Willing”: significance of Turkish refusal, role of Eastern Europe; Iranian question; from WMD’s and Republican Guard to fedayeen—Franks’ difficulty in adjusting; embedding press and U.S. public opinion)

2. Aftermath of War (looting; lessons of Balkans vs. Bush hostility to Clinton policies & Rumsfeld drawn-down approach; Wolfowitz and lack of contingency planning; Tommy Franks; difficulties of fedayeen; did a chance of success exist?)

3. Difficulties of Nation-Building (Garner, Franks, and start of insurgency; Garner/Bremer dispute and De-Baathification; Bremer qualifications; Moqtadr al-Sadr, Abu Ghraib: who’s in charge?; gap between abstraction and policy outcomes)

4. War on the Home Front (anti-European sentiment; superficial regional knowledge; Rove and domestic politics: “mission accomplished” banner; Democratic divisions—Dean vs. Kerry; Plame leak and calls for special prosecutor; administration response; response of the press; Iraq and 2004 elections; failed search for WMD’s)

5. Beyond Iraq (Iran: from Axis of Evil speech to confrontation over nuclear weapons; Saudi Arabia: limits of friendship?; Israel: U.S. and the Lebanon war; road to Annapolis; Syria: congressional engagement—Pelosi, Specter—vs. administration stand-offishness; Turkey: containing the Kurds and Islamist movement; Egypt: foreign aid and leverage; Afghanistan: limits of U.S. leverage?; fringes of region—Pakistan, Somalia; cultural diplomacy: lessons of Al-Jazeera)

April 30 Notes

U.S. and the Middle East

Road to 9/11

April 30, 2008

I. Clinton and the Middle East

1. Inheriting Bush Difficulties (foreign policy and the 1992 campaign; ineffective early advisors; Somalia, Bosnia, 1994)

2. Terrorism (first WTC bombing: State/DOD, Reno, Clarke, road to Khobar Towers)

3. Taliban & Al Qaeda (US and Afghan civil war; Saudis, Pakistanis, and UNOCAL; second-term distractions: Starr, Kosovo, Pakistani issues)

II. 2000

1. Clinton’s Struggles (domestic context: Starr inquiry, movement toward impeachment, partisan polarization; international context: Kosovo conflict and constitutional showdown, Pakistani issues, terrorism)

2. Administration Divisions (Taliban as potential allies against bin Laden, or clear enemies [Richardson/State vs. Clarke]; assassination acceptable [DOD/Clarke/CIA vs. Justice Department]; Taliban as ideological or strategic enemies [Hillary vs. Clarke]; problem overstated? fizzling of Millennium threats, then USS Cole—Yemeni port scheme, futility of Clinton response, US as “paper tiger”?)

3. Arab-Israeli Peace Process (Oslo and U.S. disengagement; Rabin assassination and emergence of Netanyahu; Clinton, Netanyahu, and the Palestinians; Barak and re-engagement—legacy issue; U.S. and Syria; failure at Camp David; blame game)

4. Election (terrorism and campaign: Bush and Rice, strong hostility to “nation-building”; Republican right—1990s literature on missile shields, North Korea, evil states—looking backwards; neocon arguments on democracy; Gore—difficulties with Clinton, Reno and Elian Gonzalez affair, downplay foreign policy?)

III. 9/11 and Beyond

1. Early Bush (foreign policy team—weakness of Powell, role of Rice, Rumsfeld death watch?—former cheney aide—Career Pentagon officials "fear they're shackled to incompetence”—talk of libs saving Rumsfeld, retaining Tenet; Clarke and bureaucratic battles; warnings from the field—Arizona, Minnesota; weaknesses in airport security—airline industry, consumer groups, fear of federal power; PDB; path to attacks)

2. International Response (Bush/Rumsfeld, Clarke, and Saddam?; significance of Tenet; NATO and international support; U.S. and Northern Alliance; revising Musharraf relationship; decision for war; ousting the Taliban, bolstering Karzai; Guantánamo and constitutional theories; failure to capture bin Laden)

3. Domestic Response (Patriot Act and civil liberties; Yoo and unitary executive theory; Lieberman and Homeland Security Department; Rove and political issues—Chambliss/Cleland race)