The Golden Lariat : explaining American aid to Israel
Name
600073314-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
13.19 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
2ccf68af7e4d303ad3654914b3e1c5de
Author(s)
Kraus, Richard (Richard A.)
Advisor(s)
Stephen Van Evera.
Alternative Title
Explaining American aid to Israel
Date Issued
2009
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
An observational study was conducted to determine the most likely explanation of American support for Israel. Several extant hypotheses were considered, most particularly, and at greatest length, that of a pro-Israel domestic lobby in the United States, but also that it had to do with Cold War containment, common values, or precedent. It was ultimately concluded that the domestic lobby hypothesis could not account for American support, since the level of that support correlated negatively with the resources of the lobby, and because sudden, temporary changes in the level of American support did not coincide with any similar changes in the resources of the lobby. Furthermore, statistical analysis indicated that there was on balance no benefit for politicians who supported the lobby's agenda, and no cost for those who opposed it. Likewise, the other explanations also proved unsatisfactory. The containment hypothesis, for instance, could not explain why American support continued after the Cold War ended, while the common values hypothesis could not explain why American support did not begin until 1971, nor why it peaked in 1979 and began to decline in the eighties. Finally, it was concluded that the best explanation of American support was that it gave the United States the leverage to restrain Israeli belligerence, for which the United States was blamed by the Arab states. In this way, the U.S. was able to minimize damage to its relations with the Arabs resulting from the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Description
Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2009.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 181-186).
Subjects
Political Science.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science
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