Representatives Pelly, Bell Jr., Richard McCarthy (D-NY), and Senator Javits.178
Opposition to the sale from within the administration started to soften due to Soviet aggression and congressional assertiveness. Previously, bureaucratic officials believed that Israel’s forces were already superior; that selling the Phantoms would harm diplomatic relations with Arab states; that the sale would undermine Jarring’s peace efforts; and that Israel should agree to nuclear nonproliferation as a precondition.179 But ongoing efforts to reach an arms-control agreement with Moscow again came to naught.180 The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August signaled Moscow’s willingness to employ its military power, and the failure to reach an arms agreement in the Middle East compounded American concerns about Soviet machinations. Secretary of State Rusk ultimately concluded that the Phantom deal “is the most we can get away with in the light of the action of the Congress.”181
The congressional message to the president was received. When Johnson signed the Foreign Assistance Act in October, he “announced that he had taken note of the section concerning the sale of airplanes to Israel, and was asking the Secretary of State to initiate negotiations with Israel.”182 Legislators happily noted the cooperation of the two branches in foreign policy decision-making. Sen. Clifford Case (R-NJ) applauded Johnson’s “prompt response to the request by Congress,” while Rep. Bill Roth (R-DE) noted with satisfaction how the president had responded to “Congress’ mandate” and started negotiations with Israel. Farbstein congratulated the president and stated his belief that “the action of the Congress in recommending the sale of Phantom jets to Israel carried great weight with President Johnson in coming to his conclusion.”183 While congressional insistence likely influenced the president’s decision to agree to the sale, Johnson, a consummate politician, undoubtedly recognized that the announcement of the sale of Phantoms would help Vice President Humphrey in the upcoming presidential election.184
Johnson agreed to sell fifty Phantoms in December 1968, with sixteen to be delivered in late 1969 and another thirty-four in 1970.185 President-elect Nixon was left with the task of delivering the Phantoms to Israel, as well as dealing with more Israeli requests for additional weapons sales, supported by an increasingly combative Congress. Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Warnke observed, “We will henceforth become the principal arms supplier to Israel, involving us even more intimately with Israel’s security situation and involving more directly the security of the United States.”186 After the Phantom sale, the Soviet Union began delivering two hundred MiG 23s to Egypt, which escalated the arms race in the Middle East.187
Conclusion
The June war concretized the U.S.-Israel special relationship, strained American relations with the Arab world, and redefined the nature of the conflict and peace process. Johnson felt a strong cultural connection to Israel, but he did not want to develop a strategic partnership with Israel, either. As in later years, congressional insistence on weapons sales to Israel beyond the desires of the president worked to undercut peace initiatives by placing the United States more squarely on the side of Israel, and by empowering Israel to the point at which there was less incentive to compromise in peace negotiations. While Jarring’s efforts to reach peace probably would have failed regardless of U.S. arms to Israel, the sale of the sophisticated Phantoms only further militarized the region. Over time, Israel developed such a military advantage, thanks largely to the United States, that it severely hampered the peace process. The United States shifted its policy from territorial integrity in the Middle East to support for Israeli occupation in order to force Arab states to make peace. That would remain U.S. policy, presumably, until peace was achieved by the warring parties.
The Vietnam War opened the door for more congressional involvement in foreign policy, and even though concerns about Vietnam would continue, the Middle East would gradually become more important in the minds of Americans and U.S. policymakers, and much more so after the 1973 oil embargo. Moving forward, between the Vietnam War and Nixon’s Watergate fiasco, as Johnson notes, “Congress was situated to assume a degree of control over U.S. foreign policy unmatched since before World War II.”188 The Vietnam War also created enough distraction for the Johnson administration to fail to check Israel’s ambition to construct civilian settlements and hold onto the territories taken during the war.
Congressional activity pointed to shifting support for Israel that increasingly reflected conservative political priorities and, overall, reflected a bipartisan consensus. Traditionally, U.S. political support for Israel came from the Democratic Party. But the political left had fragmented: support for labor declined, the Civil Rights Movement alienated Southern Democrats, and the Vietnam War and antiwar protesters furthered the split of the Democratic Party. Liberal support for Israel would continue to remain strong, but the New Left started to support Arab states against Israel’s perceived imperialism. At the same time, the political right started to warm up to Israel.189 Israel demonstrated military might at a time when the left started to crack, and when the right longed for a reliable partner in the Cold War. The swift Israeli victory in June 1967 stood in stark contrast to the quagmire in East Asia. Israel exhibited traits prized by Americans—“self-reliance, democracy, anti-communism, successful pragmatism, idealism.”190 The split in the Democratic Party over U.S.-Israel relations could be seen very clearly through the perspectives of William Fulbright and Henry “Scoop” Jackson, two leading Senate Democrats, to whom the story now turns.
2
Phantom Peace
Henry “Scoop” Jackson, J. William Fulbright, and Military Sales to Israel
When Richard Nixon assumed the presidency in 1969, despite Johnson’s decision to sell offensive weapons, the future of U.S.-Israel relations remained uncertain. While Democratic presidents (Harry Truman, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson) maintained generally positive relations with Israel, the Republican Dwight Eisenhower did not.1 As former vice president for Eisenhower, President Nixon did not want to get too close to Israel, a position that can also be gleaned from his anti-Semitic comments recorded on Oval Office tapes and his many outbursts about Israel during the course of his one and one-half terms.2 However, Nixon regarded Israel as an important friend in the Cold War, and he admired Israeli toughness and, therefore, sought a closer strategic alliance with Israel. But much like his predecessors, regardless of party affiliation, he actually pursued an evenhanded position in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Congress and the Cold War, along with Nixon’s weakened position due to Watergate and Vietnam, reworked Nixon’s policy aims in the Middle East.
During Nixon’s first term as president, Congress played an influential role in securing larger military-aid packages for Israel, especially F-4 Phantom jets. Johnson agreed to sell fifty Phantoms in his last month in office, and Israeli officials hoped to persuade Nixon to sell more. The Phantoms promised to swing the balance of power in the Middle East even further in Israel’s direction. Israeli airpower proved decisive in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, and the War of Attrition between Israel and Egypt, which followed the 1967 war and ended in August 1970, showed the necessity of the sophisticated Phantoms to combat Soviet-supplied, Egyptian artillery along the Suez Canal Zone.3 Nixon’s first term witnessed a significant increase in military assistance to Israel that cannot be understood without looking at congressional—and, in particular, Senate—politics.
This chapter focuses on the battle between Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-WA) and J. William Fulbright (D-AR) over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and, specifically, about military sales to Israel.4 Jackson, who ran for president in 1972 and 1976, and Fulbright, the longest-tenured chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, staked out very different positions for the proper relationship between the United States and Israel. Jackson viewed the Arab-Israeli conflict through the lens of the Cold War and wanted the president to authorize more military credit sales to Israel to match the growing Soviet presence
