> Without questioning the broader argument about political imagination, I
> would like to make two amendments to the argument about how and when our
> military strategy actually shifted.
>
> In the first place, local cold war politics probably played the biggest
> immediate role. The Soviet Union was the main backer of all of Israel's
> enemies. When Israel spectacularly kicked all their asses at once, this
> presented a golden opportunity in cold war terms to be on the other side
> of the Soviets and backing someone already proven to be a winner. In cold
> war terms, it seemed a no-brainer.
The US didn't like Soviet ties to the Arab states. But it equally disliked independent Arab nationalism. The fact that Arab nationalists were by definition anti-Zionist made Israel a natural ally in its fight against Nasserism - regardless of what the Soviets were doing in the background.
> And this is what gave birth
> to the strategy: to make general war in the middle east (which meant Arab
> Israel war) impossible by sealing peace between Israel and Egypt. And
> buying that peace with money. It wasn't a strategy against Egypt. It was
> rather a strategy of strong alliance with Egypt, of permanently splitting
> Egypt off from the other frontline states. And Sadat was more than open
> to this. He was almost soliciting.
>
> So the first real military aid in the sense of gift didn't come to Israel
> until the very midst of the 1973 war under the immediate impact of what
> looked at first like it could be a real loss on their part. The first
> monetary aid started in the aftermath of trying untangle it, just as Sadat
> had wanted. For retreating under the Sinai I and Sinai II treaties,
> Israel started getting 1.75 billion a year, (much which consisted of
> replacements promised in the heat of the war, which is what allowed it to
> throw in its reserves.) The whole approach was institutionalized in its
> final form in the Camp David accords in 1978, under which Israel started
> getting 3 billion a year.
>
> But in some ways, Camp David is a brilliant misdirection of attention. The
> real point was to give 2 billion a year to Egypt, as well as a liberal
> visa regime allowing them to earn another half a billion a year from
> overseas remittances from Egyptians in the states. (New York suddenly at
> that time became full of of Egyptian chicken places and taxis drivers.)
> For reasons of domestic politics that by then by then had taken a form now
> familiar (and which are I'm sure your broader analysis of our political
> imagination goes far to explain) it wasn't politically possible to give
> such a huge amount of money to Egypt without giving more to Israel. But
> that didn't harm the strategic plan.
This is a fine explanation of why the Camp David payments started. But it doesn't explain the more pertinent issue of US dipomatic support for Israel on the political issues of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Originally, the US supported a two-state solution along the 1967 borders. Then in 1971-1973, it abandoned that position. Since then the US position has vacillated between blocking all international pressure on Israel no matter what it does and actively supporting the Labor plan for a Palestinian Bantustan settlement. The US is in total international isolation on this issue. The desire to bribe Egypt to stay out of the Arab-Israeli conflict doesn't provide an explanation.
It may seem far-fetched in today's atmosphere, but there's nothing unrealistic about the idea of the US calling a Rambouillet-style conference with Israel, Egypt and the Palestinians, laying out a settlement and threatening to cut off aid / impose sanctions on anyone who says no. The question is why the US won't do this.
Seth