America's Israel. Kenneth Kolander
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In terms of U.S. foreign policy, Jackson and Fulbright represented the different ends of the political spectrum in the Democratic Party. Jackson was a realist and Cold War liberal who wanted nothing to do with détente and insisted on using military power to challenge the evil designs of the Soviet Union. Fulbright, on the other hand, was an idealist in the Wilsonian tradition who advocated a “new internationalism”—rooted in educational and cultural programs, reduced military spending, détente with the Soviet Union, and a more activist United Nations—to facilitate increased international understanding and a stronger position abroad. Fulbright hoped that a settlement to the Arab-Israeli crisis could be completed through the United Nations, which he explained in a speech on “A New Internationalism” to Yale University on April 4, 1971, as well as in his book about U.S. foreign policy, The Crippled Giant.23
The two had very different ideas about military sales and the Vietnam War. Jackson had long supported federal spending (especially defense spending) as a way to both contain communism and fuel the U.S. economy. Some officials, like Robert McNamara, labeled Jackson “the Senator from Boeing” for his efforts to secure defense contracts for the giant aviation company from his home state.24 Sen. George Aiken (R-VT) once remarked that “other areas benefit from government contracts, too, but not all their elected members of Congress are as ardent in their endeavors as Scoop Jackson is.”25 Jackson supported U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War until very late and sought to counterbalance the influence of the New Left by supporting federal defense spending in order to challenge communist aggression abroad.
While Jackson sought to expand defense spending and supported U.S. military involvement in East Asia, Fulbright took the opposite position. Although he actually sponsored the Tonkin Gulf Resolution that granted President Johnson virtually unlimited powers to wage a war in Vietnam, Fulbright soon withdrew his support and eventually emerged as one of the leading voices against U.S. military involvement in East Asia.26 Because he was head of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Johnson administration much disliked Fulbright’s opposition to Vietnam.
Perhaps the greatest source of conflict between Jackson and Fulbright was about U.S. involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Jackson was one of the loudest and strongest senatorial voices in support of a pro-Israel policy. He regarded Israel as a strategic asset that could protect U.S. interests in the region and prevent, or at least limit, Soviet involvement in the Middle East. Although Fulbright continually stressed his support for Israel, he sought a more evenhanded policy in which Israel would not be given much preferential treatment. He viewed U.S. support for Israel as a liability because it soured relations with Arab states and could potentially undermine efforts to work constructively with the Soviet Union.
Jackson had supported the State of Israel from his childhood years. He recalled that his mother first instilled in him a desire to defend Jewish people. He described her as “a Christian who believed in a strong Judaism. She taught me to respect the Jews, help the Jews! It was a lesson I never forgot.”27 In May 1944, Jackson publicly pledged: “If in any way, through my offices as a Congressman, I can forward the work of making the dream of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine come true, my most earnest efforts in this great humanitarian cause can be counted on.”28 While a congressman in 1945, Jackson and seven fellow congressmen traveled to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany upon invitation from Dwight Eisenhower to see firsthand the horrors of Nazi atrocities. According to Kaufman, this experience, along with Jackson’s philo-Semitism, help to explain the senator’s strong support for the Jewish state.29 Naturally, Jackson supported Harry Truman’s decision to immediately recognize the State of Israel in May 1948, and even before the Suez Crisis in the fall of 1956, provoked in part by Egyptian acceptance of a Soviet aid package, Jackson argued that the Soviet Union was “stirring a witches’ brew for the Free World in the Middle East.”30
Fulbright supported the State of Israel but also wanted U.S. foreign policy to reflect a balanced desire to help both Israelis and Arabs. His position reflected the Eisenhower policy toward the Middle East; however, Fulbright later parted ways with Eisenhower. He objected to the Eisenhower Doctrine, which promised military or economic aid to any Middle Eastern country to resist the spread of communism, and instead offered a substitute resolution that called for freedom of navigation through the Suez Canal, a comprehensive settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and a reaffirmation of America’s right to participate in regional collective security under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter.31
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