possesses a wealth of tools to influence foreign policy. The U.S. Constitution explicitly protects the president’s right to conduct foreign relations. But the Founding Fathers, fearful of the potential excesses of a tyrant, designed Congress to be the much stronger branch. Congress has the power to tax, declare war, make laws, regulate foreign commerce, and pass a yearly federal budget; Congress relies most heavily on the “power of the purse,” or its budgetary powers, to influence foreign policy. Following World War II, Congress deferred to the “Imperial Presidency” in order to give the executive branch enough power and flexibility to fight the Cold War.13 But the war in East Asia emboldened legislators to play a more active role in foreign policy. During the 1970s, Congress chipped away at excessive presidential power in an effort to restore better constitutional balance to foreign policymaking. Congress eventually cut off all funding for the Vietnam War, effectively ending the war, and also passed legislation to restrict executive power, such as the 1973 War Powers Act.
A profound shift happened during the 1970s. After peace negotiations following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War led nowhere, Washington preferred to remain mostly aloof from further peace discussions. Secretary of State William Rogers recognized the dangers of allowing the status quo to remain and tried to initiate peace talks on several occasions. But National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger continually worked to undermine his efforts, and Nixon was much more inclined to deal with Vietnam than the slow-moving peace process. The 1973 Arab-Israeli War (and oil embargo) forced the Nixon administration to play a more active role in facilitating a peace agreement. The Middle East, largely due to the oil embargo and its effect on Western economies, came to be seen as vital to U.S. security, while East Asia faded in importance. Americans sensed their vulnerability to Middle Eastern oil as they were forced to deal with long gas lines, a recessed economy, and inflated prices on consumer goods. Bruce Schulman, Daniel Sargent, and Salim Yaqub also identify the 1970s as being a crucial period for U.S. foreign policy.14
Presidents gradually agreed to provide Israel with weapons so it could protect itself against Arab neighbors that continually pledged to drive it into the sea, and to prevent the spread of communism. Presidents first authorized sales to Israel using military loans, and beginning with Richard Nixon’s emergency aid to Israel during the 1973 Arab-Israel War, a combination of loans and grants. Since fiscal year 1985, U.S. military aid to Israel has been exclusively military grants. But presidents also tried to balance U.S.-Israel relations with other interests in the region. The White House recognized that weapons equaled leverage and consistently tried to use the threat of withholding arms from Israel to get it to be more flexible in peace negotiations. Successive presidencies came to recognize that Israel planned to remain in much of the occupied territories and hoped to prevent a fortress mentality from developing in the minds of Israeli leaders. Moreover, the executive branch sought to avoid escalating the arms race in the Middle East and feared that overt support for Israel would compromise other security and economic interests in the region (that is, containing communism and securing access to oil).
But the presidency, crippled by Vietnam and Watergate, was at a low ebb. The United States and Israel developed a much tighter relationship just as congressional involvement in U.S. foreign policymaking reached its highest point in the Cold War.
Congress pushed back when the White House threatened to withhold weapons (or in the minds of some legislators, did not agree to sell enough weapons) and used a combination of policy initiatives and displays of public support for Israel to pressure the president to change course. Like other hotspots during the 1970s—Vietnam, Cyprus, and Angola, for example—Congress took on the White House over U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and had its way. If the power of the presidency had remained high, the United States might not have developed such a close relationship with Israel.
The weakened White House had to bow to the gathered strength of a decidedly pro-Israel Congress, which helps to explain the sharp rise in U.S. military aid to Israel. Through 1970, annual military aid to Israel had not exceeded $90 million. But in 1971, spurred by Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson’s amendment to the Defense Procurement Act, the number jumped to $545 million. After the secret executive agreements in 1975, annual military aid to Israel reached $1 billion and has not dipped below that mark ever since. Military aid gradually increased to an annual level of $1.8 billion during the Reagan years and then remained steady through the end of the 1990s. But during the 2000s the number gradually increased again and moved up to $3 billion annually. According to a June 2015 Congressional Research Service report, “Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II,” with a total that exceeded $125 billion.15 In September 2016, the United States and Israel agreed to a new ten-year, $38 billion military-aid package, along with an American insistence that Israel use the grants to purchase U.S.-made products and services.16
U.S. Assistance to Israel, FY1949–FY1985 (millions of dollars)
Table: FFP means Food for Peace. TQ means “Transition Quarter.” In 1976, the U.S. federal fiscal calendar changed. Prior to 1976, the fiscal year ended on June 30. But beginning in 1976, the fiscal year ended on September 30. Therefore, TQ refers to the total amount of U.S. aid to Israel between July 1 and September 30, 1976. The amount of the 1976 FFP Grant, represented by *, refers to less than $50,000. There are additional loans and grants that impact the total amount not included in this table: Export-Import Bank Loans, Jewish Refugee Resettlement Grants, American Schools and Hospitals Grants, Cooperative Development Grants, a $20 million grant in 1975 for a seawater desalting plant, and a $17.5 million CCC loan in 1982. (Clyde R. Mark, “Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance,” April 26, 2005, Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress, CRS Issue Brief for Congress, received through the CRS Web, 13.)
Graph 1: The Sinai II agreement, which included open-ended and far-reaching secret executive agreements between the United States and Israel, led to the establishment of a much higher annual baseline of U.S. economic support, which is reflected in the total for 1976. A transition quarter existed between July 1 and September 30, 1976, when the U.S. government adjusted the fiscal calendar, and that has been added to the total for 1976, which makes the amount seem a bit higher than it actually was since it includes three extra months. The amount of economic assistance for the transition quarter was $25 million in loans and $50 million in grants. (Clyde R. Mark, “Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance,” April 26, 2005, Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress, CRS Issue Brief for Congress, Received through the CRS Web, 13.)
Graph 2: The Sinai II agreement, which included open-ended and far-reaching secret executive agreements between the United States and Israel, led to the establishment of a much higher annual baseline of U.S. military support, which is reflected in the total for 1976. The noticeably larger amounts of military aid were for the 1973 emergency airlift and the Camp David Accords. A transition quarter existed between July 1 and September 30, 1976, when the U.S. government adjusted the fiscal calendar, and that has been added to the total for 1976, which makes the amount seem a bit higher than it actually was since it includes three extra months. The amount of military assistance for the transition quarter was $100 million in loans and $100 million in grants. Since 1976, U.S. military aid to Israel has not dipped below $1 billion annually. (Clyde R. Mark, “Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance,” April 26, 2005, Congressional Research Service, The Library of Congress, CRS Issue Brief for Congress, Received through the CRS Web, 13.)
Thus, the present work aims to transform the traditional narrative. Relying on a broad collection of sources, including the Congressional Record, presidential libraries, the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), personal papers of former legislators, the Center for Legislative Archives at the U.S. National Archives, and the Israel State Archives, I argue that U.S. foreign policy
