Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- INTRODUCTION
- Part I THE INTERNAL DIMENSION
- Part II RED STAR OVER ZION
- Part III THE WESTERN CONNECTION
- 9 THE MILITARY AND ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS
- 10 FROM NEUTRALITY TO THE SEARCH FOR A LINK
- 11 SOLIDIFICATION OF A WESTERN ORIENTATION
- 12 FAILURE OF “FACTS AND PACTS” POLICY
- EPILOGUE: “A people that dwells alone”?
- Appendix 1 U.N. voting record
- Appendix 2 Biographical notes
- Appendix 3 Israel's votes at the U.N.
- Index
- LSE MONOGRAPHS IN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
9 - THE MILITARY AND ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- INTRODUCTION
- Part I THE INTERNAL DIMENSION
- Part II RED STAR OVER ZION
- Part III THE WESTERN CONNECTION
- 9 THE MILITARY AND ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS
- 10 FROM NEUTRALITY TO THE SEARCH FOR A LINK
- 11 SOLIDIFICATION OF A WESTERN ORIENTATION
- 12 FAILURE OF “FACTS AND PACTS” POLICY
- EPILOGUE: “A people that dwells alone”?
- Appendix 1 U.N. voting record
- Appendix 2 Biographical notes
- Appendix 3 Israel's votes at the U.N.
- Index
- LSE MONOGRAPHS IN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Summary
Writing in 1972, Michael Brecher presented the following analysis of Israel's relations with the Great Powers:
Israel has never been formally aligned. She is, in fact, one of the few states which do not belong to a pact, bloc alliance, or regional organization … Israel is excluded from the non-aligned group at the U.N. and elsewhere; at the same time she is denied membership in any Western alliance.
It has not always been so. From 1948 to 1950 Israel followed the path of non-identification … Thereafter, she moved towards a defacto alignment with the West: that shift was catalyzed by the need for arms and economic aid, rationalized by a perception of a renewed Soviet hostility, and eased by indifference to the Third World.
The following chapters will examine the specifics of that process. Their purpose is to analyze the web of economic, political and military-strategic circumstances which generated an Israeli perception that the survival of the Jewish state depended on the Western bloc and, in particular, on the United States. Israeli documents demonstrate that those circumstances exerted a persistent influence on domestic deliberations with regard to Israel's international orientation and eventually persuaded her leaders to abandon their declared policy of “non-identification.” Instead of seeking to maintain correct – but unbinding – relations with both protagonists in the cold war, they felt constrained to take sides in that conflict. Whatever the costs, they concluded, Israel had to work relentlessly towards an alliance with the Western bloc, and first and foremost with its leader the United States.
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- Information
- Between East and WestIsrael's Foreign Policy Orientation 1948–1956, pp. 197 - 205Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990
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