The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People

by Walter Russell Mead

In this bold examination of the Israeli-American relationship, Walter Russell Mead demolishes the myths that both pro-Zionists and anti-Zionists have fostered over the years. He makes clear that Zionism has always been a divisive subject in the American Jewish community, and that American Christians have often been the most fervent supporters of a Jewish state, citing examples from the time of J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller to the present day.

He spotlights the almost forgotten story of left-wing support for Zionism, arguing that Eleanor Roosevelt and liberal New Dealers had more influence on President Truman's Israel policy than the American Jewish community--and that Stalin's influence was more decisive than Truman's in Israel's struggle for independence. Mead shows how Israel's rise in the Middle East helped kindle both the modern evangelical movement and the Sunbelt coalition that carried Reagan into the White House. Highlighting the real sources of Israel's support across the American political spectrum, he debunks the legend of the so-called "Israel lobby." And, he describes the aspects of American culture that make it hostile to anti-Semitism and warns about the danger to that tradition of tolerance as our current culture wars heat up.

With original analysis and in lively prose, Mead illuminates the American-Israeli relationship, how it affects contemporary politics, and how it will influence the future of both that relationship and American life.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Israel, Jewish, Middle East, American History

672 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 25, 2022

About the author

American academic. He is the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College and previously taught American foreign policy at Yale University. He is also the Editor-at-Large of The American Interest magazine and a Distinguished Scholar at the Hudson Institute.
From 1997 to 2010, Mr. Mead was a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, serving as the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy from 2003 until his departure.
Mead writes regular essays at the website of the American Interest on a wide variety of subjects ranging from international affairs to religion, politics, culture, education and the media. Over the years he has contributed to a wide variety of leading American journals ranging from Mother Jones and GQ to the Wall Street Journal. He serves as a regular reviewer of books for Foreign Affairs and frequently appears on national and international radio and television programs.
Mead is an honors graduate of Groton and Yale, where he received prizes for history, debate, and his translation of New Testament Greek. He has traveled widely in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Latin America, and often speaks at conferences in the United States and abroad. He is a founding board member of New America, and also serves on the board of Freedom House.

Reviews

[Jan Rice · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the 1840s, variability in Uranus' motion led to the accurate prediction that another planet -- Neptune -- existed, its gravitational pull being responsible for the observed variability.

Subsequently, Mercury's movement likewise was noted to have a wobble. So the existence of another new planet -- this time, Vulcan -- was assumed. But this time, assume made the proverbial "ass of you and me," that is, of all concerned, since there is no Vulcan. Einstein eventually came along and showed it was the sun's gravitational pull impacting the space-time fabric that was affecting Mercury's motion.

Throughout his book, Walter Russell Mead (henceforth, WRM) uses this analogy to the Planet Vulcan to represent the belief in the irresistible power of "the Jews" -- their "Benjamins" or their "Jewish lobby" to divert the United States from the orbit of its true national interests, whatever those are -- a belief that factual analysis shows to reside at "the intersection of ignorance and prejudice," he says.


The Vulcan Salute, Star Trek (similar to the hand sign accompanying the priestly blessing in Judaism)

In addition he places Israel and Zionism in their wider historical contexts, useful for avoiding explanations based on common memory and/or legend, whether pro- or antisemitic.

I went out and bought this book hot of the press after recommendations mainly in Atlantic Magazine (https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/d... and https://www.theatlantic.com/books/arc... ). I got my money's worth in chapters chock-full of ideas, of which I hope to give an idea if only in brief.

WRM emphasizes that despite its small size, Israel has occupied a continent in the American mind, going all the way back to early British immigrants who identified themselves with Israelites fleeing Pharaoh. Their focus on scripture intensified their preoccupations. That's the case even if the individuals involved had never met a Jew. In fact, one possible reason for lower antisemitism in America is the fact, early on, that so few Jews lived here. In fact the segments of Europe experiencing themselves as inundated with Jews (even if the actual percentage of the population wasn't large) were the segments most beset by antisemitism, while the countries such as England that had deported their Jewish population centuries earlier and never recouped it suffered less antisemitism and looked disapprovingly at antisemitism in central and eastern Europe.

WRM says he resisted the temptation to name this book The Arc of a Covenant: Don't Blame Israel on the Jews. Both Jews and antisemites tend to place the Jews in much too central a role for the existence of the modern state of Israel, albeit the former give themselves a heroic role while the latter cite insidious Jewish power and money.

Yes, a return to the Promised Land figured in the prayers and liturgy of Jews (for example, "Next year in Jerusalrem!"), but for centuries Jews were enjoined by their leaders to obey the imperial powers that be, and those powers did not countenance anything of the kind. Nor would Jewish leaders dare to encourage rebellion; they wouldn't dream of such a thing. Zionism was not yet a glimmer in the eyes of Jews.

Yes, there were always some Jews in Jerusalem figuring among the poor and neglected subjects of the declining Ottoman Empire. No, they did not harbor thoughts of rebellion. It was not until the 1890s that political Zionism emerged among Jews, encouraged in part by the preexisting Christian Zionism, known in Europe as "restorationism" and often but not always associated with Christian religious hopes. So, the Christian Zionism that preceded the Jewish variety both inspired it and accounted for its support among the gentiles.

As nationalism among minority groups eroded the old empires, that nationalism became a liberal cause in America, especially in support of the once-grand historical peoples: the Greeks, the Italians, and, yes, the Jews. When political Zionism finally arose in Europe, liberal Americans signed on (as long as it could be supported by diplomacy and not by arms or funding). American Jews, meanwhile did not for the most part sign on to Zionism. They wanted America to be their promised land and did not want anybody accusing them of divided loyalties. Sometimes their leaders put these preferences into writing. It was not until WWII and the Holocaust that American Jews jumped decisively onto the Zionist bandwagon. So, once again, not consistent with blaming the "Jewish lobby."

The pro-Zionist attitudes of American liberals, meanwhile, had no difficulty coexisting with their anti-immigration attitudes. American progressives were not pro-immigration in those days; they were pro-labor, and immigration made for low wages and worked against the labor unions that progressives at the time supported. Open-immigration, though, had long been an American value, so the closure of the immigration floodgates was a long time coming.

Paradoxically, if America hadn't slammed its immigration doors in 1924, there may never have been a state of Israel. Pre-1924, America was overwhelmingly the chosen destination of Jews fleeing pogroms and seeking a better life, and only post-1924 did the torrent turn toward then-Palestine.

In the central portion of this book, WRM devotes a number of chapters to Harry Truman and his political handling of all that was going on from the end of WWII into the Cold War era. WRM regards Truman positively and his handling of the politics of the time as masterful, although in his time Truman was disparaged because he was not FDR, he was not a patrician, and he was not highly educated. Since a few years ago I read a New Yorker article that more or less blamed the Cold War (or maybe it was McCarthyism) on Truman, I doubt WRM's idea is generally accepted. But WRM makes the case that Truman played his cards well. He handled being undermined by the State Department, he outfoxed the USSR, and he held his party together by upholding its liberal wing (Eleanor Roosevelt) and their pro-UN attitude and support for partition and Israel as the home for the Jewish people.

Yes, during those years, Israel was a liberal cause. As a result of reading this book I had to change my hypothesis about the reason for anti-Israel attitudes. My hypothesis was a theological one, that Christianity didn't support a home for the Jews because their rejection of Christianity is supposed to be punished by existential homelessness. Well, if Israel used to be -- was ever -- a liberal cause, then my hypothesis can't be right. The question becomes why was it a liberal cause and, next, why did that change, and this book takes up both questions. Nor is WRM given to theological explanations, although he does peer into the beliefs and attitudes of Americans -- and Europeans, and, at points, Arabs, and even the minority groups breaking out of the old empires and surging forward in hopes of national independence.

I find the existence of liberal and/or Christian pro-Zionism and phylosemitic attitudes heartening, even if those strains are minority strains. I mean the fact that such strains are real. Even if some of those strains are tied in with Christian religious hopes, not all of them are, and not all are tied into the use of Jews for their own religious purposes. In fact, I tend to believe most things people do are because they see it as in their own interests; that is, I don't see all efforts in support of others as having to be tied into altruism, and that doesn't bother me. But what I mainly mean is that not all people who have had such pro-Jewish attitudes are nutty-sounding dispensationalists, for if that were the case, their strain of thought wouldn't lend me encouragement. Believe me, it's pretty depressing to be confronted with Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition and The Jew in the Text: Modernity and the Construction of Identity. I'm happy to know that's not all there is. Good news, since a constant diet of aggrievement is poisonous.

The last third of the book focuses on American politics since the Cold War and on American presidents and their administrations' success or lack of it in dealing with foreign relations. The view taken here is the opposite of Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. For Pinker, liberal democracy was the be-all and end-all. With the fall of the Soviet Union, it was the winner, and now the nations of the world would turn their swords into plowshares in the interest of the irresistibly emerging liberal world order, or so it seemed in those optimistic times. Administrations that have been so out of touch with reality have not fared well. They have lost respect and influence. Wishful thinking won't do.

In his last six chapters, WRM details the changing American domestic politics and the loss of what some might term the American civil religion: the creed that used to hold us together. It's the idea that America is on the right path in embracing all our numerous "denominations" and a liberal acceptance of each other sufficiently to pursue an enlightened capitalism leading to general prosperity. And when we export our creed to the world so everybody can adopt our way and be happy too. Well, that creed ceases to work when the economy is problematic and when people feel cheated compared to each other -- and, speaking of the wider world, when people don't want what we're selling because they see us as internally divided and externally weak and vacillating.

Yet at the same time there were areas of major success: the turn toward domestic oil and alternative energy sources that freed us from dependence on the oil-producing states and enabled us to stop enriching them, security advances to bring down Osama bin Laden and avoid further 9/11s, the technological development in the military field, and, last but not least, the nuclear agreement that the Obama administration reached with Iran, over the displeasure of the supposedly ultra-powerful "Israel lobby."

Almost accidentally, the fact that neither Israel nor Arab states could rely on actual help from a U.S. beguiled by its dream of a liberal world order enabled Israel's integration into the Arab world, even as hope faded for the Holy Grail of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. And just as the previously noted successes aren't necessarily the accomplishments of Bush II or Obama, Trump, via the Abraham Accords, "reaped what he did not sow."

Trump's rise came as "sunbelt Republicanism" disintegrated. During the Reagan Revolution, good economic times had made possible a union between conservative elites and the working class. As the middle class split into the high-riding educated upper-middle class and the sinking lower-middle class, Trump could exploit the populist resentment consuming the latter. Meanwhile, Black people had been the last to clamber aboard the economic train when times were good; and now they were the first to be cast off, spelling a recurrence of unresolved racial issues.

Absorbing immigrants isn't easy, and just because we have mythologized and smoothed over what happened during the long nineteenth century, when the first great wave arrived, doesn't mean it's going to be any easier this time around. In those earlier times, Americans had no compunction about telling immigrants to Americanize, and the immigrants themselves were eager to live the American dream. Not so, now, with so much change and uncertainty and such self-doubt about American goodness. WRM raises the specter of we ourselves suffering the kinds of troubles we have looked down on far-away places for suffering. And those concerns apply pointedly to the status of Jews here in the United States.


This is the first book like this that I've read. I have read about foreign relations but never a book as wide-ranging as this one, a book that interweaves domestic politics with foreign affairs, and in fact one that tells a lot about the history of domestic politics that I didn't know, or at least didn't know in relationship to a wider picture. In most cases the book strikes me as objective compared to other theories I've seen put forth. So I'm impressed. In comparison, some other writers seem to be indulging in confirmatory thinking, that is, indulging their confirmation bias. It may be that later I'll learn more and see more holes and wrinkles in WRM's thinking. But for now, while others so often turn to their preferred legends, he has fit a lot of diverse information into a comprehensive and coherent picture.


One more example: A recent issue* of The Economist implies the American special relationship with Israel ought to be able to be easily jettisoned since it came about more or less randomly on the basis of a Jewish friend of Truman's who persuaded Truman to meet with Chaim Weizmann, who then extracted Truman's commitment to recognize the state of Israel. In other words, easy come, easy go.
*The Economist, "Lexington | Present at the Creation," April 29 and May 5, 2023, p. 21

WRM, on the other hand, places this incident at the end of a lengthy discussion of the problematic relationship between Truman and the State Department and also of Truman's having to repair the deteriorating Democratic Party and his relationship with its dominant liberal segment. And even that explanation has to be bolstered by an understanding of world politics and the importance to that liberal segment of the Democratic Party of belief in the UN, in view of State's having undermined that position. Only secondary to all this did the meeting with Weizmann occur, and, according to WRM, neither Weizmann nor Truman ever gave a full account of what transpired. In dealing with all the machinations of State, Truman, who had supported partition and the creation of a Jewish state, then had to deal with formal U.S. opposition to partition that State had orchestrated by ignoring (perhaps intentionally) Truman's instructions to make no such change unless the UN did so first (that is, don't undermine the UN). In writing to his sister on March 21, 1948, he called State Department officials "striped pants conspirators" who had "completely balled up the Palestine situation," and on the 22nd, Truman wrote to his brother that he was going to continue to do what he thought was the right thing "and let them all go to hell."

Truman had met with Weizmann the day before State undermined him with the UN (and I can't find the exact date, but before those letters to his siblings and before a New York Times article on the 25th and an irate Eleanor Roosevelt column dated the 26th). Truman's policy did not change, so there's no evidence Weizmann twisted Truman's arm or extracted a promise, although he is likely to have reassured Truman of Israel's military viability. Truman's rapid recognition of the new state of Israel dealt summarily with the USSR, reestablished American support for the UN, and rewove the relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt and her liberal contingent of the party.

I included this last example since it allows for contrast of simplistic assumptions by Israel's supporters and detractors alike with WRM's analyses.

[Sherif Gerges · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I were to recommend a book that captures the depth of America's unyielding commitment to Israel, this would rank highly, albeit with some reservations. It stands out in both commendable and problematic ways, but there is no question that it’s nonetheless an extraordinary read for anyone looking to understand this complex relationship.

Lets start with the good. This is impressively erudite; delivering an even-handed and sweeping narration that spans thousands of years of Middle Eastern history and its connection to America's Christian tradition. I don't think there is a conceivable weave of this fabric that wasn't examined here. For someone to synthesize America's social, biblical and geopolitical dimensions all into a single book is a true testament to Mead’s abilities as a writer. "The Arc of a Covenant" epitomizes a scholarly work of exceptional caliber and readability.

The problem of this book is that it ultimately fails to deliver on what I believe is its key objective - a refutation of another book, "The Israel Lobby", by two fellow Professors, Harvard's Stephen Walt and UChicago's John Mearsheimer. I have never read any of Mead's books, but I am familiar with his criticism of "The Israel Lobby" and never found it really convincing. I can say the same about his attempt to do so in “The Arc of a Covenant".

While this is great history, Mead's contribution to the debate on Israel is essentially his introduction of the term "Vulcanism". While it’s a catchy phrase, it treats Mearsheimer and Walt as mere elements within the continuum of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. This is not only ineffectual but also considerably vexing; namely because Mearsheimer and Walt clearly make the case that the Lobby consists of Christian, Jewish and even secular Zionists. Of course, "Planet Vulcan" does exist - but those are anti-semites whose arguments are easy to dismiss. The real issue Mead has is laying a convincing case against the more serious criticisms of the relationship between the US and Israel, for which there is no equal and in some cases even unjustified.

I was fully expecting to Mead to have addressed "The Israel Lobby" more provocatively, but instead I walked away feeling that the thesis that Mearsheimer and Walt presented is more convincing than not.

[Bruce Katz · Rating 4 out of 5]

An astonishingly thorough examination of the formation of Israel as a Jewish state that stretches back to the earliest Zionist writings to the current day. The most impressive thing about the book is how carefully it examines international relations (definitely NOT simply the US!) surrounding Israel, how and why they've changed, what mistaken assumptions and interpretations have been commonly made over the decades, and so very much more.

Mead describes his starting point this way: Proponents of a close U.S.-Israel relationship use phrases like “the only democracy in the Middle East” more as slogans than as serious arguments, and they often presuppose an identity of interests between the United States and the Jewish state that, to me, sometimes seems to represent wishful fantasy more than rigorous thought. Some of the critics of the relationship are much worse, resorting to overheated, under-thought-out polemics about a shadowy, all-powerful “Israel lobby,” a perspective that owes more to antisemitic stereotypes than to disciplined policy analysis.

Over the course of this long book, Mead unravels and examines all the threads of this summary statement. We learn what led Theodore Herzl to campaign, over the objections of Jewish leaders everywhere (including Rothschild), for a Jewish homeland; why some European countries supported the idea (it wasn't necessarily out of humanitarian or altruistic sensibilities: one advisor to the German Kaiser encouraged him to press for a Zionist state because even though he despised Jews he was convinced they were so fabulously wealthy that they'd gratefully give him lots of money); how America' self-image as a "providential nation" predisposed them to view a Jewish homeland in the very same terms (the return of the Jews to their ancestral homeland would be proof of God's plan for the world, and by extension proof of America's own divine purpose); how Israel probably wouldn't have survived its birth had it not been for Stalin's intervention and the secret shipment of munitions from Czechoslovakia, weapons that had been manufactured for Nazi use (!) during World War 2; how and why various nations now supported, now opposed the formation of a Jewish state -- so much of Mead's most revelatory analysis comes from his examination of political and cultural currents within those nations, particularly within the United States: his take on the back and forth between Jacksonian and Wilsonian worldviews in America is particularly enlightening; the role of what he calls the “historicization of the eschaton,” which is to say the influence of religious beliefs about the apocalypse on how individuals and governments viewed Israel; the terrible misunderstandings that led American leaders to time and again do precisely the wrong thing at the wrong time, and the damage this did to American prestige in the post-Cold War era (the Obama administration doesn't come off particularly well in this context, which -- as a supporter of the former resident I viewed with skepticism at first but then came to believe there was something to Mead's argument); the role of modern American evangelicals in Israeli-American relations; how "Vulcans" and "unicorns" (really -- and the metaphors are very useful, believe me: the first has to do with the notion that there is a powerful "Jewish/Israeli lobby" secretly shaping American policy, and the second refers to the persistence of American administrations that where other administrations have failed to achieve peace, they will succeed... and then don't); and far more than I can describe here.

"The Arc of a Covenant" is a challenging book, not because Mead's writing style is academic and dry - it isn't -- but because he is so thorough in exploring the thinking behind various policies (American, Israeli, and throughout the Middle East) and the contexts in which the thoughts and policies evolved. I have to say that I was surprised and struck by Mead's discussion of how Arab perceptions of Israel -- and Palestine -- changed over the past few decades, and how countries like Saudi Arabia saw common cause in quietly supporting Israel, seeing in them a powerful ally against Iran. (I was equally surprised to read about a phone conversation between Barbara Bush and her son George W. wherein she called him "the first Jewish president" because she disapproved so strongly of his policies with regard to Israel.)

In short, as rich and revealing a look at Israel's place in international relations as one could hope for. I'll end with a couple of representative passages that capture some of what the book does.

Do we really need another [book about US-Israel relations]? I believe we do. One hates to belabor the obvious, but American diplomacy in the Middle East in recent decades has neither been wreathed in glory nor crowned with success.

Debates about Israel policy in the United States often have more to do with debates over American identity, the direction of world politics, and the place that the United States should aspire to occupy in world history than about anything that real-world Israelis and Palestinians may happen to be doing at any particular time.

The controversies among American Jews about American policy toward Israel, and the role if any that the Jewish community should take in that debate, are also controversies about the meaning of Jewish experience, Jewish faith, and Jewish identity... Should Jews bear witness to the universal ethical principles embedded in Jewish tradition, or should they think first about the security and power of the Jewish fatherland?

Americans not only overestimate what their country can do to shape the future in the Middle East; we often overestimate what we have accomplished in the past.

The idea that an Israel lobby composed of Jews and fundamentalist Christians dictates America’s Israel policy in ways that deliberately elevate Israeli interests over those of the United States is wrong about the history of U.S.-Israel relations, wrong about the way foreign policy works, wrong about the American political process, wrong about American Christians, and, last but by no means least, it is wrong not only about American Jews but about the political context of Zionism.

Like most Americans (and certainly like the Bush administration that preceded it), the Obama administration overestimated the role that admiration for American ideology plays in global attitudes toward the United States.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon would mock what he saw as American naïveté, messianic delusions, and arrogance to journalists. The only thing that will save Israel, he was quoted as saying, “is for John Kerry to win his Nobel Prize and leave us alone.”That these criticisms were unfair did not lessen their effect.

Oh, I'll stop here because otherwise I might not stop at all. Not only will this book change how you think of the history and shape of US-Israeli relations, but also how you think about the shifting currents of American politics in the last half century.

[Umar Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best books I've read in the past few years. Sober, dispassionate, and very informative. Analyzing the roots of American foreign policy, the various camps and competing interests that have emerged over centuries, attitudes towards Jews in America, and a fair bit of both American and world history. Among other things, this book carefully dispels the myths of the "all about the Benjamins" conspiracy theorists who believe that Jews run the United States and direct our foreign policy for the sake of Israel. As Mead points out, if Jews ran America in 1948, what the hell happened in the three years since 1944-45 when efforts by American Jews found deaf ears in Washington to bomb the tracks to Auschwitz and lift refugee quotas? Surely something miraculous?

Support for Israel and opposition to Israel and its policies are both for a multitude of complex reasons that have developed over the past several generations, and the book carefully outlines this.

The book closes with the present moment. One in which Trump has taken over the Republican Party, broken the old GOP Sun Belt consensus, and smashed the Bush establishment. While the Trump base is isolationist and nationalist, and a portion is both anti-Israel and antisemitic, he was able to build a rationale for supporting Israel using a language his voters found appealing. Simultaneously, as support for Israel dropped on the political-left for a variety of reasons outlined in the book, older Democratic figures such as President Biden are increasingly out of touch with a younger base.

Some key takeaways-

- as the book points out, America is moving away from a national consensus and in an era of internal political strife. Personally, I don't think Mead goes far enough. I see America as being in a state of irreversible decline and, therefore, unable to project influence and power globally.

- American Jews are drifting away from Israeli Jews. The book touches on this, but it has been well-documented in other places. The Mizrahi-Haredi-Religious Zionist-Jabotinsky alliance in Israel is increasingly uninterested in American approval and more interested in building alliances with regional partners such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. American support for this is helpful, but not necessary. To keep this coalition together is tricky; but as American Jews are increasingly assimilating, at the forefront of the LGBTQ movement, intermarrying, and part of the progressive left, while the Israeli left is marginalized at this point, there are decreasing bonds that tie the two (especially after American Jewish boomers die off).

- To both Arabs and Israelis alike, America is now seen as unreliable and unstable after the massive shifts in policy from the last five administrations. "A big monster with a small brain." Israeli writer Seth Frantzman has detailed this in his writings. Agreements with Russia, China, regional actors, and even the European Union that offer more long-term consistency are increasingly seen as a more stable bet.

- The disaster of the George W. Bush Administration and the failed occupation of Iraq permanently changed the region- for the worse. If the invasion was done at the behest of the Israeli lobby, as some suggest, it horrendously backfired, as the lasting consequence of the American invasion has been to help create an Iran-backed "Shia Crescent" from Tehran to Beirut. As Mead points out, the political consequence of Iraq has been that many Americans no longer want to engage in the region at all.

- the disaster of the Arab Spring and the Obama Administration's bumbling and incoherent response sent both Arab leaders and the public a strong message - America is not to be depended on or trusted. So, in the event America restarted a robust effort for a final status peace agreement between Israel and all neighbors, we no longer have the political capital we once had in the Clinton Administration.

- the Trump grift may have not included hostility towards Israel or Jews, and he may have included some Islamophobia to bolster his populist appeal among working-class white voters, and DeSantis may have more of an establishment GOP foreign policy orientation (depends on the day), but the GOP, and the American Right included, is moving towards an isolationist consensus and this will include curtailing Evangelicals and dropping support for Israel at some point in the near future- my opinion.

- In politics, demography is destiny. The future demographics of America are one in which there is a much greater likelihood for support for Palestinians and a decrease in our support for Israel. Religious Christians, Jews, and those who lived through events such as WWII, the Holocaust, and the Six-Day War are aging and dying. A younger and more racially diverse America, a significant percentage influenced by works such as White Fragility, is much more prone to support Palestinians. Whiteness is monolithic, American understandings of race are universalized, and in this narrative, the historical persecutions of Jews and the unique history of the Jewish people are unimportant. To the extent American wants to or can engage with and influence the world in twenty years, it's not very likely that Israel will have the support it has today.

- President Harry S. Truman once remarked that he had Jewish votes to win and didn't see any Arab voters to please (paraphrasing). That is no longer the case. Both Arab-Americans and American-Muslims are finding a political voice and a place within mainstream American society. Whether progressive or conservative (and American Muslims are in the midst of a shift away from the left) there is a near unanimous opinion that America is too pro-Israel and dismissive of Palestinians.

- Mead talks a lot about Protestant Christianity in this book. Christian support, rooted in Biblical sensibilities, was key in both American Jews and Israel finding support. In an increasingly post-Christain America can we expect attitudes to differ greatly from those of central and western Europe?

[Elise · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for anyone truly interested in the history of the US-Israel relationship, the intertwine of realpolitik, the reality of the American experiment, US power politics, and that dogged hatred called antisemitism.

[Stetson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Arc of a Convenant is a magisterial work and gripping read that covers the entangled histories of Israel and America. The book is not only provides jaunty and insightful coverage of important trends and policy changes over the 20th century in both nations, but also also engages in a thorough investigation of the special relationship between them. It is a balanced analysis without any strident posturing, primarily dissecting the variety of different arguments concerning these issues and clarifying where they are and aren't consistent with the facts. The author also makes his perspective on various issues clear, which is relation to the other parties is ostensibly more moderate.

If one has to distill Mead's position down, it can be construed in part as a robust critique of foreign policy realism and a gentle chiding of foreign policy idealism (often called neo-conservatism or the End-of-History thesis) - essentially a pragmatic, middle-of-the-r0ad approach. However, Mead is eager to respond to common arguments that he sees from a set of realists like John Mearsheimer. Mead recognizes that vaguely pro-Israel Americans find these argument incendiary and also hopes to improve the quality of critiques of Israel. The realists who espouse a theory what Mead calls the Vulcan Theory argue that there is an especially powerful pro-Israel lobby in America that compels policy that is against U.S. interest. Mead does accept that the Israel-Palestine conflict has received an outsized amount of attention relative to other important conflicts on the world stage, but he helpfully contextualizes and explains why the pro-Israel lobbying is not responsible for this.

Mead's argument is that the relationship is an accident of complex historical processes. Mead provides a detailed tour of these factors, including political choices and the deep cultural/ideological links. First, there is a deep theological connection between American Protestantism and Zionism. This began well before the evangelical coalition organized by Billy Graham, but evangelicism subsequently consolidated pro-Israel sentiment but also coded it as a more right-wing position (whereas support for Israel used to code primarily as a left-wing cause). Second, Mead highlights the origins of what he calls Jacksonianism. This is essentially the remnants of Scots-Irish honor culture from the frontiers of early America. This psychology is still dominant in a significant number of Americans and is responsible for robust support of Israel, including those of this ilk who have somewhat isolationist perspectives. Third, Mead explores the influence of the "liberal internationalism" in foreign affairs in the post-WWII context. This illustrates that a confluence of factors contributed to the creation and rise of Israel. Mead also shows that despite a great deal of political intrigue and debate (especially during Truman's administration), American policy figured little into events in the region until well after Israel established itself as a strong, modern nation. The QME that is a political hot button issue today was not a part of the relationship until the Reagan administration and was motivated by American self-interest (i.e. oil plus political stability).

P.S. There is a great deal more that I could say about this book, but I will have to return to this later. Suffice to say it is a great read with content and perspective that is not common in books on this subject.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished reading The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel and the Fate of the Jewish People by Walter Russell Mead. Arc is a tour d' force of greatness, no question. Mead seeks to take the course of U.S. history as it relates to Jews and then Israel from just after the Civil War through 2022. Without serving as a spoiler, Mead effectively makes the argument that Israel's importance to the U.S. stems more from its military and economic success and power than it does to the impact of the "Jewish" or "Israel" lobby. Indeed, he very effectively belittles the impact of the lobbies asa being the equivalent of Star Trek's "vulcans;" an imaginary force thought to be creating a wobble in Mercury's or Venus's orbit. He states: "Not only does Israel occupy a "continent" in the American mind; Jews, at 1.9 % of the population...." in arguing that the focus on Israel is out of proportion to Jewish numbers. The contrast is even starker when compared to an estimated worldwide population at 15.7 million, 0.2% of the 8 billion worldwide population. What the author leaves out is that the Jews, historically, have had a disproportionate pull on the world psycho.

I do have my quibbles with the book: 1) there are lots of run-on and awkwardly constructed sentences; 2) the book illustrates the dictum in intro to Practicing History: Selected Essays by Barbara W. Tuchman, that it is hard to write good history close to the occurrence of events. It certainly was, and is; and 3) part of point II, the last two chapters, on the history of the relationship under Obama, Trump and Biden are not yet history given how recent they are.

While I do not accept 100% of the author's opinions, the book is an indispensable starting point of any serious analysis and understanding.

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

In its capacity as a history book? Fascinating. Basically an analytic tour through US foreign policy from WW1 to 2022. Style reminded me of John Lewis Gaddis: he connects the big picture with academic theory, and it's readable but requires you already have a working background knowledge.

In its capacity as a rebuttal to Mearsheimer and Walt's arguments in The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy? Largely ineffective. In their book, Mearsheimer and Walt argue that our domestic Israel lobby -- like any other lobby that prioritizes an in-group at the expense of the broader public's interests -- drives us to support Israel even at the expense of our national interest. Instead of addressing the substance of those claims (which are extremely well-substantiated), Mead treated them as though they were just part and parcel of the broader landscape of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. It wasn't effective, it was more than a little frustrating (and frankly offensive), and it felt irresponsible to label serious research as anti-Semitic just because it cut "against"* Israel.

Also, this didn't need to be 600+ pages.

Rating: 4.25/5.

* I say "against" in quotation marks because, of course, one of Mearsheimer and Walt's main arguments is that AIPAC, in its stringent hardline support for Israel and its ability to negotiate our country's unending concessions to it, often paradoxically harms Israeli interests by alienating US public opinion against Israel and enabling hardliners in the Israeli government to dig their heels even deeper into the sand -- which pretty much everyone on all sides agrees is clearly not Israel's best path towards achieving security and peace. But that's an argument for another day. Or at least, as far as Mead seems to be concerned, for another book.

[Amanda Schwartz · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The state of Israel is a speck on the map of the world; it occupies a continent in the American mind.”

[Tony Wohlfarth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to learn from this book. I gave up:
- it is too long. Each chapter averages 28 pp;
- the text is dense and virtually unreadable e.g. Chapter 6 begins with: "The restoration of the Jews and the Americanization of the world did in fact take place in the twentieth century, but the fulfillment of these hopes was not as satisfying as Americans had once dreamed". What does this mean? I have no idea!!
- it reads like a graduate school thesis - not a book full of insights?
I also found a least one glaring omission. Prior to the Balfour Declaration, the British had a plan for a Jewish homeland in Uganda. How did the US react? No mention whatsoever.
I am not a scholar. But I am a student of history. If I could not finish this book, who was it written for?

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book and learned a lot but I’m not sure how anyone who doesn’t have a masters in international relations can make it through - it’s not written for a general audience at all. In some cases, it assumes a general knowledge of foreign affairs events that even I don’t have, presumably events that occurred within the lifetime of the author and therefore feel like common knowledge. As you get closer and closer to the present, the author makes more and more assertions I’m not sure he ever meaningfully proves. Much better analysis before it moved into the last thirty years or so - which is harder, I grant, because we all lack the benefit of the perspective distance gives us.

[Eric C 1965 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good, so much history. Some new words I learned applied differently than I expected. American involvement has been extensive, since FDR. Very nice coverage all the way through Trump and a little bit into Biden. Seemed balanced to me, that is, I didn't detect a bias, but explains all the important people and how the issue surrounding the Jews have flipped politics.

[Mike Horne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it though it was long. Lots of stuff I knew, but as much stuff I did not know. This is not a book about what happened in Israel/Palestine. It is about what led up to it in Europe and US. It was 3 stars for me, but if you don't know the story, I would give it 4 stars.

[patrick humphrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally finished it! Had to drag myself across the finish line, but that’s just my trouble with non-fiction. Very important read, for such a time as this.

[Jeffrey Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another magisterial tome, this time encompassing the context and the details of the American relationship with Zionism and Israel. Spoiler alert: it's not because of the "Jewish Lobby". A very long explanation of the origins of Zionism and the connections between American society and the state of Israel, the book is periodically peppered with rejoinders to accusations of Jewish power. He is quite insistent about the relative weakness of the Jewish lobby in determining US policy toward Israel; but he soft-pedals descriptions of anti-semitism in US (and international) society. His research seems quite thorough, with exceptional details of the early days of Zionism and the founding of Israel, and its early recognition by Truman -- he describes Truman as writing a memo recognizing Israel a few hours before the Soviets officially recognized the new state; but the official legal winner is USSR, I think, as full American recognition had more bureaucratic hurdles. Still, this book is part of the general re-assessment of Truman's legacy, much improving these days. I disagree somewhat with the author's portrayal of US distance from Israel before its mettle was proven in the six-day war, as I lived through that war in Israel, thanks to a US military contract with Israel Aviation. And the full US military commitment came as a result of the YomKippur war in 1973. In domestic terms, the author makes good use of the tensions around religious beliefs (millennialism) and the oft-cited categories of political attitudes -- Hamiltonian, Jeffersonian, jacksonian, and Wilsonian -- to explain the reasons for our attachment to Israel. I would place this as a determined attempt at a centrist historical presentation. I longed for this writer, so obviously learned and thoughtful, to express more thorough opinions about future steps. He only briefly states his preference for a Palestinian state -- how might that happen, really?

[Jisel · Rating 2 out of 5]

haven’t finished the book yet but i’m writing an early review because i really doubt i will finish it.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is really a 2.5 for me: kind of a 3.5 for the argument and a 2 for the execution and efficiency. Let me start with the more interesting stuff: the main arguments. Mead is wading into one of the most contentious debates in US politics and foreign policy: Why are the US and Israel so close, even when the Israeli alliance seemingly does not support our national interests? Mead is responding to authors like Mearsheimer and Walt who argue that the power of the Israeli Lobby exerts distorting effects on US policy toward Israel, punishing people who criticize Israel and creating linkages and funding to ensure a close relationship and Israeli influence. He's also responding to less responsible and more conspiratorial arguments that nefarious Jewish interests control US foreign policy and place it into Israel's service. Sometimes, I must say, he conflates these two groups unfairly, and he associates people like Walt and Mearsheimer too much with the anti-Semites for my tastes.

Mead instead constructs an interesting argument that it is US cultural and ideological affinity, as well as geopolitical interests, that really accounts for the close US-IS relationship. The United States is a deeply Christian nation historically speaking, and it tends to see itself in providential terms as having a special mission in the world. This has been true since before the US even existed. Thus it makes a lot of sense that Americans would find deeper meanings and identification with the Jewish people. They, like us, have a covenant and higher purpose. They, like us, are a chosen people. And of course, CHristianity and Judaism are closely related faiths, to the point where Christians spend a huge amount of time and energy in the study of the Jewish texts of the Old Testament. Mead does a great job exploring how leaders like Washington thought about Jewish-Americans and Jews in general, seeing them through both a Christian lens and the Enlightenment lens of religious toleration.

These connections only deepened in the 20th century as Jews became more integrated into American life. The great wave of fin-de-siecle immigration brought millions of Jews to the United States, the vast majority of which became proud and well-integrated and successful immigrants. At the same time, Zionism was developing among some European Jews, although not the majority, who wanted to remain German or Polish or French and viewed Zionism as actually reinforcing notions of essential Jewish alienness. Zionism was a relatively minor force among assimilated American Jews as well, but many American Christians favored it out of the belief that the return of the Jews to Zion A. signaled biblical truths about Jewish return before the end times come and B. Would bring modernity to the benighted Muslim world. This was an interesting reframing of Zionism for me: it was never a majority Jewish movement until after WWII, and non-Jews supported it for a host of reasons, some of them actually quite anti-Semitic (sort of a Jewish version of the anti-colonization movement before the Civil War).

The Cold War, and US domestic politics, also brought Israel and the US into closer alignment, although not in a straightforward way. It wasn't until the 70s that something like a US-Israeli alliance really coalesced, in large part because of the US need post-Vietnam to use more regional allies to project power and influence into key parts of the world. But this alliance was a natural fit in terms of culture: both powers were Western in culture, democratic, technologically advanced, and suspicious of Arabs and Muslims. The rise of Islamic and Palestinian terrorism in the 70s and 80s only intensified the US sense of identification with Israel given that they seemed to have the same enemies. Pro-Zionist sentiment in the US went from being a more liberal thing (given the leftist nature of early Zionism) to a more conservative thing as Israel also drifted rightward and the US left became more sympathetic to Third World movements like the Palestinians. By the 1980s, Israel and the US were firm partners, and this has been an unshakeable alliance ever since, despite many mutual frustrations

I think Mead is right in many important ways, and this book offers correctives to arguments by folks like Mearsheimer and Walt. HOWEVER, and this is a big however, even though I learned a good deal from this book, this was not an efficiently told story by other means, and at times Mead straight up wastes his readers time. Only about half of this book is actually about Jews, Israel, the IS-US alliance, and so on. The other half is a recitation of very familiar history. Of course, historians need to set the scene, and I get that Mead had to (for instance) discuss the role of Christianity in US identity and foreign policy in order to help explain why the US and IS have become so tightly linked. Still, I found myself going through hours of this book without Israel even coming up. And the last third or so is really just Mead's critique of recent USFP rather than an exploration of the US-IS alliance's origins and consequences. What's especially annoying about this is that even though this book is quite long, Mead doesn't go much into the nitty-gritty of US-IS relations. He critiques various administrations for Quixotic attempts to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but he doesn't even profile those diplomatic efforts in any depth. So you listen (in my case) to a 26-hour audiobook and come away with almost no new understanding of probably the most important and contentious aspect of US-IS relations.

So while I took some important insights away from this book, I can't really recommend it to people because it isn't worth one's time. Not that it's wrong, it just needed to half its current size. I wonder if this is a case of a prominent scholar just mixing scholarship with personal opining and his editors not doing a good job whittling down the message. The size of this book simply does not justify the payoff, and that's a big problem.

[Jef Sneider · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is first and foremost a book of American history. While the author starts with an in-depth discussion of the roots of Zionism, bringing the reader into the politics of 19th century Europe and centuries of anti=semitism leading up to WWII, the story quickly turns to the policies and activities of successive American administrations from 1948 to the present. The internal history of Israel is covered only as needed to provide background for the discussion of American actions.

Mead uses the planet Vulcan to highlight one important and recurrent theme in the relationship between the Jewish people and the rest of the world. In the 19th century, astronomers noticed a perturbation in the orbit of the planet Mercury which could not be explained by Newtonian physics. To explain this anomaly, a planet Vulcan was theorized, orbiting inside the orbit of Mercury, close to the sun, causing measurable gravitational effects on Mercury. Astronomers argued for years about the existence of planet Vulcan which was spotted by many reputable observers. It was Albert Einstein who finally explained what was going on using his theory of relativity. Gravitational space-time curvature around the sun accounted for Mercury’s odd movements. There is no planet Vulcan.

Like the planet Vulcan, all sorts of observers and pundits have explained the movements and decisions of politicians, peoples and whole governments on the influence of Jews, Jewish magic power, the Jewish lobby, or Jewish money. Throughout history Jews are simultaneously been accused of incredible power, from the the power of money to space lasers, while at the same time they are weak and easily punished whenever a government turns against them from Medieval Spain to Hitler’s Germany. Mead punches holes in the idea that “the Jewish lobby” or “Jewish money” forced the United States to make decisions which seem to be in Israel’s favor and are inexplicable any other way.

He argues, instead, that the United States has supported Israel for many reasons, and that it is unnecessary to look for an outside source of influence. Those influences can be traced back to George Washington, who appreciated Jewish support for the new nation. The idea that the United States was a creation of Divine Providence, blessed by God and “chosen” for a special role in the world gave an early natural connection between the US and the Jewish people. The apocalyptic world view of some Christians, seeing the repopulation of the Middle East by Jews as a step towards the end of days and the ultimate return of the Messiah has also helped from the beginning, especially during the many Christian revivals in American history, mand continues to help provide Christian support for Israel to this day.

Sympathy for the Jewish people was strong after World War II, although the old guard State Department leadership did not share that sympathy. The State Department mainly wanted the US to favor Arab countries where there are many more people and more to be gained by showing support, and so America did in the beginning. President Truman, with support from Eleanor Roosevelt and encouraged by a visit from an old friend who happened to be Jewish, helped Truman make the decision to support creation of the State of Israel at the United Nations - against the advice of his own experienced diplomatic advisors in the State Department.

Mead does not call the creation of Israel a colonial enterprise. He sees the 1948 European and American world as already post-colonial, attempting to withdraw from colonial entanglements. There is certainly the reality that Great Britain, the US and the United Nations supported the creation of Israel. However, it was as a homeland for the Jewish people, not as a colonial effort for settlement by any foreign country.

Mead’s discussion of the Palestinian people, their history, and their prospects, is very sympathetic. As described by Mead, the Palestinians have had a bad shake all around. While they have rejected every opportunity to achieve their own state by partition of the original lands occupied by the Ottomans and then the British, they had good reasons to be rejectionist. They continue to have good reason to reject the “two state solution” which would give them a truncated demilitarized, weak, proto-state with little autonomy, geographic integrity or power. Based on what I read here, I am convinced that the Palestinians have a very good argument in their favor. (my note: unfortunately, they cannot use such sympathy and a good argument to achieve their goals by destroying the existing State of Israel. Some new accommodation needs to be made.)

There is almost no mention of the first decade of Israel’s existence, because the United States did not support Israel during the time from 1948 to the Suez Crisis in 1956. It was Czechoslovakia, believe it or not, which gave arms to Israel to help defeat the combined Arab armies in 1948. Finally getting involved in 1956, the US forces Israel, France and Great Britain to return the Suez Canal to Egypt. From Eisenhower onward, the author carefully documents America’s increasing involvement with the Jewish state right up to the Trump presidency.

This is complicated history, but Mead makes it interesting and understandable. His command of the subject is impressive and the writing is much more readable than one would expect for a history text.

As baby boomer and an American, this book reminded me of the history I have lived, that I have witnessed, and that I still see every day. I remember the 1967 war. I remember 1973. I remember Clinton and Arafat and Menachem Begin and all the others who have tried to make peace in the region, and failed.

Even with all my previous reading on the subject, I learned a great deal from reading Walter Russell Mead. For those interested in a comprehensive history of the relationship between the United States and Israel, including those anguished progressives who support the Palestinians in their political aspirations, I can recommend no better book.

[John Stults · Rating 5 out of 5]

very interesting

This is more a social and cultural history of US and Jewish (mostly Israeli) relations. The author use good examples For instance his Vulcan analogy. And while probably not intended as such this would make a good textbook. In fact like a good textbook he tends to repeat key ideas often in mini reviews at the beginning of new sections.
I enjoyed reading this book and though I consider myself well read on the subject (maybe I am not) I learned a lot from this book and this author. I highly recommend the book. I read the ebook version and had not trouble with footnotes or bad transcriptions.

[Andrew Figueiredo · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Arc of a Covenant" is a strong repudiation of the talking point that the US is pro-Israel because of an influential "Israel Lobby." That talking point has re-arisen since October 7, 2023, which spurred me to read this book now. Mead begins with a takedown of this myth, showing convincingly that to the extent pro-Israel lobbying groups are powerful, it's because of American support for their goals.

Mead then moves into a history of Zionism, beginning with Theodore Herzl's surprising audience with German Kaiser Wilhelm as a leading example of how Zionists sought support from non-Jewish leaders.

Walter Russell Mead argues that Zionism became as prominent as it is due to non-Jews supporting it. Early Jewish opinion was instead mixed on the subject, but Gentile backing helped it gain support within and outside of the Jewish community alike, as did experiences with horrible anti-Semitism that convinced Jews that assimilation was not enough.

This was particularly the case in America, where "Israel policy is a domestic political issue, not just another foreign policy debate." (18)

Mead writes about America's innate progressivism, encouragement of plucky democratic nationalists around the world throughout the 1800s, and Protestant theology. By the early 1900s, an isolationist America instead began to see Zionism as a way to ease immigration and facilitate the closing of America's borders. This more xenophobic sentiment existed in a tense relationship alongside the earlier, more genuine sympathy for the notion of a Jewish state.

As World War II came to a close, the United States took a more active role in the world, marked by the horrifying images out of Germany. Building on this sentiment, the American left felt that bringing Israel into existence via the UN would vindicate their belief in a UN-led postwar order. At the time, much of the liberal Democratic base consisted of internationalists. To escape his political pit, Truman overrode pro-British elements of his State Department and recognized Israel, which Mead points to as a political turning point going into the 1948 election. I hadn't previously realized how much friction there was between the UK and US on Israel, so these chapters were especially illuminating. Stalin coming aboard all but guaranteed that Israel would declare independence, and pressured Truman to recognize the same.

But even after Truman, supporting Israel was not always top of mind. Presidents like Dwight D. Eisenhower preferred to build relationships with Nasser's Egypt. JFK pressed Israel to halt nuclear weapons development, but did so with carrots more than sticks by investing in their security. In the early 1970s, the US' realist tack brought them into greater alignment with Israel. The US felt that it needed to reassure Israel of its security to prevent the Middle East from overheating. This served two ends, anti-communism and rapprochement with the Arab world to secure a supply of oil. Supporting Israel balanced out the US' military and financial overtures to Gulf Countries.

Since the 1970s and 1980s, the US has pushed for peace between Israel and Palestine. Fitting his main argument, Mead points out that this usually served domestic political ends like building support for a greater American role in the world and capturing a moral high ground. On the global stage, the peace process became a safety valve for regional tensions. However, it almost always fell short due to the hubris and ignorance of American policymakers.

Mead then argues that in the wake of decolonial rhetoric on the left, the political alignment of pro-Israel politics shifted rightward. In turn, he claims that this served as the glue for Reagan's Sun Belt coalition, bringing together Jacksonians and Evangelicals. When Mead arrives at the recent portions of American history, I feel the need to dock this book from 5 to 4 stars. In my view, he overstates the role played by Israel, which is probably why Mead doesn't cite polling data. In reality, historical polling data shows that Israel is one relatively minor topic of many driving American voting habits. Even right now, with Israel-saturated news and social media, it doesn't move a ton of voters.

He is right, though, that polarization has crept into the US-Israel relationship. Many on the left became skeptical of that alliance even before the current war in Gaza, following their European comrades into an embrace of Palestine.

President Bush attempted to deploy Israel-Palestine talks to advance democracy promotion, but largely failed. Following him, President Obama at first tried to improve regional relationships through technocratic diplomacy. But failures on Syria and Libya led him to cut loose American commitments in MENA and pivot to Asia. His adminstration's failures in the Middle East compounded with Bush's to alienate much of the region, making the prospects for peace even dimmer. Mead links the frequent missteps of American foreign policy elites to the rise of populism, which in turn fueled a shift in the US-Israel relationship. For President Trump, Israel policy could bolster his anti-establishment cred, hold his own right-leaning coalition together, and sustain a Jacksonian approach.

While I think Mead sometimes leans too far into his argument about domestic politics without the data to back it up, he's correct to state that "the driving forces behind Americans' fascination with Israel originate outside the American Jewish community." (581)

[Joni · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very disappointing. Poorly written. Sentences went on and on with many having 3 or more commas.
The author seemed more interested in telling his take on US history than the relationship of the U.S. and Israel. The book could easily have been reduced from 588 pages to under 300 pages with no loss of value. (As a side note, Trump won in 2016 because he ran against Hillary Clinton and would have lost to almost any other Democratic candidate).

[K C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting history of the US foreign policy, with the main premise being that the US foreign policy is not and has never been determined by Israel or the Jewish lobby in the US. Rather Mead shows several instances in history when US policy worked against Israel and more instances where even the seemingly "pro-Israel" foreign policy decisions were made to further the best interests of the US and/or its administration at the time.

[Izzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first I reacted negatively to this book:
“There is some basic truth that some of the support that Israel has received from the US over the past 75 years has been in the self interest of the United States, but it is also the case that Walter Russel Mead has written a selective history with a great deal of bias, much of which I doubt that he realizes. Nor does he mention the parallelism of the wresting of North America from the control of its indigenous population with the practical impact of Zionism, on the Arabs who lived in Palestine before the Jews came back. “

As I read on, I was more an more impressed with the depth of his analysis. Although he has Hudson Institute credentials he seems to have a rather deep handle on the basic history.

There are at least 100 years of history covered, and it is all quite fascinating up to early 2022; I credit him on completing the book, with a darn good assessment of this topic.

Some of the more obscure history that he recounts of pre Balfour Zionistic maneuvering by Herzl et al and of the various roles of Ottoman Turkey and Hohenzollern Prussia/Germany with the Zionistic journey— is enlightening and new to me.


The Maelstrom chapter describes that 90% of the Worlds Jews lived in the three of the four empires that ceased to exist in 1917-18.
The advent of illiberal (and worse) leaders of the autocracies in 1881 led to 43 years of migration and 2 + million ‘Russian’ Jews coming to the US until our own reactive immigration policies were changes (and Soviet emigration policies as well.

“The Imperial Zone” is a construct that Mead comes up with but it exclusion of Germany makes it odd for me. He comes up with their bouillabaisse vs the American melting pot.

Some of the demographic history of major cities such as Salonika, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Alexandria and Constantinople is mentioned in passing, but how this fits his overall theme is unclear.

There are many sweeping generalizations in this chapter, but the discussion is sometimes a bit superficial to my taste.
Yes, WWI started 1 month after the Archduke was shot dead, but the Mead fails to state that the bitter nationalist rivalries were more the flash point than the cause.

It is very interesting that the US population was only 50 million in 1880, and that 23.5 million immigrants came to the US in the next 40 years, (of whom 9% were Jews.)
I agree there was a lot of change in the World and in the US between 1880 and 1924, (and even more, between 1914 and 1918-20.)

The parallelism between the immigration waves of 1880-1924. And 1969-present are very interesting, and he does get into that too.

Reasons given for closing the immigration gates:
1. “Progressives” saw immigrants as support of Tammany, Pendergast etc
2. Immigrants seen as bolshevists and mafia material and so
3. Racism as well as Protestantism was as much a reason here as in Germany at that time (fear of degenerate races, and wrong religions)
4. Prohibition as an antiimmigrant measure, and Settlement houses
5. Unions wanted to keep wages up
I wouldn’t have previously connected the 1924 immigration changes in the US with the establishment of Israel… but Mead does!

The support for the Balfour declaration in the US Congresses of pre WW II US was news to me… at least from areas of US without a lot of Jews… but not from LaGuardia or from the Jewish owned NYT…with the claims of the Palestinian Arab inhabitants overlooked…the idea at the time was that the Arab nation was getting 97% of the formerly Ottoman/Turkish controlled area.

Mead’s contention is that Jewish immigration to Palestine was greatly fostered by the worsening pressure against Jews in Europe combined with the shutting of the gates to America to most of them, in 1924.
Mead also points out the US was cheering for the Jews of Palestine but with minimal more tangible support.

The politics of getting visas for the DP’sin Europe is covered in this book in a depth i had previously not read about. It covers British post war financial prostration, worsening under Labor guidance; Republican isolationism, Wallace support for more collaboration with Uncle Joe, and all sorts of interacting issues; Truman navigates as well as he can….

The linkage of post 9/11/01 US foreign policy during W. Bush-Obama-Trump Administrations with Israel….was it strategically beneficial to US interests or not…..
Issues of Muslim immigration trends and the possible linkage with control fanatical Ilam…
Justification of a war to keep WMD from falling into hands of non state actors
Iraq war as disaster for israel by its empowerment of iran…and creation-of a shia crescent from Teheran to Beirut… even as the war was blamed on Jewish influence of Bush
Illusions seen by contemporary realists looking backwards: Wilsonian promotion of League and a nation for each state
Wallace thinking Stalin was a friend
Carter and his moralization
Bush promoting democracy in middle east
and the special relationship with Israel

The analysis of American policy as it relates to Israel and the peace process, since Jimmy Carter was fascinating, and I think he does a good job in explaining the meaning of the recent treaties, and the difficulties that the various US administrations had in getting anything more than what they got.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most insightful book I’ve read in years. Blisteringly honest, deeply incisive, sweeping in breadth and depth. Cannot recommend enough to those interested in the relationship between US domestic politics, US foreign policy, and Middle Eastern history.

[Alexandra]

[Book read; review incomplete and TODO]

“Israel is neither America's most important ally nor its most valuable trading partner. But the idea that the Jews would return to the lands of the Bible and build a state there touches on some of the most powerful themes and cherished hopes of American religion and culture. America's long immersion in biblical Christianity and in a theory of progress that both secular and religious Americans have built on those foundations has given the Jewish people and the Jewish state a distinctive place in American historical consciousness and political thought.”

“Debates about Israel policy in the United States often have more to do with debates over American identity, the direction of world politics, and the place that the United States should aspire to occupy in world history than about anything that real world Israelis and Palestinians might happen to be doing at any particular time.”

“As a student of foreign policy I find the tendency to reduce a complicated practical question to a question of moral accounting unhelpful.”

“Both Israeli Zionists and American pioneers drew inspiration from passages in the Hebrew scripture about the advance of the chosen people into the land of Canaan where they displaced the original inhabitants in obedience they believed to a divine mandate. But settler state colonialism is controversial and rightly so.”

“At its best theory can challenge our assumptions, point us toward interesting questions and alert us to important facts that we might otherwise miss. But theory can and often does hide as well as uncover. Without deep wells of historical knowledge and personal experience, a too confident reliance on abstractions and generalizations frequently creates an illusion of knowledge, concealing our ignorance and blinding us to forces and facts that cannot safely be ignored.”

“With respect to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, American optimism leads to three very damaging mistakes: First, we continually overestimate the chances that negotiations for lasting peace will actually succeed…. Second, when negotiations fail, Americans still over-estimating the prospects for success, blame the intransigence of the two parties rather than acknowledging the difficulties of the task… Third, American optimism leads both elite and popular observers to mistake the nature of American power… Washington’s ability to force smaller and weaker countries to take steps against the wishes of their leaders is much less extensive than most Americans appreciate.”

“Americans not only overestimate what their country can do to shape the future in the Middle East, we often overestimate what we have accomplished in the past.”

“There is no doubt that prejudice and Orientalism played a significant role in the development of American attitudes toward the Zionist movement and its enemies.”

“Sympathetic caricature is still caricature and it remains an obstacle to full understanding of a rich and complicated political culture.”

“Antisemitism commits its adherence to a set of damaging errors about how power works in the modern world.”

“If historians often do not agree about whether our policies in the past were effective and wise, what kind of agreement can we expect from policy makers and politicians today about whether a given policy will work?”

“Americans do not always or even usually agree about what we should be trying to achieve, much less the best strategy for achieving it. Lacking certain knowledge about future developments, we seek to steer our policies based on different ideas about how the world works, what America needs, and what our priorities should be.”

“To blame the jewish community for policies it dislikes made by presidents it rejects seems if not virulently antisemitic, at least uninformed.”

“Jewish leaders remained deeply skeptical about the idea of a Jewish state until Hitler’s final solution was already under way.”

“If Jewish wealth-creation and Jewish benevolence had failed to win acceptance for long established Jewish communities in Austria and France, why would those same qualities make them beloved as immigrants in the Middle East?”

“In just 52 years the apparently impossible vision of a Jewish state had become a reality.”

“In country after country, case after case, Zionism intrigued, interested, and ultimately drew the support of powerful gentile leaders, even as Jewish leaders often wanted nothing to do with it.”

“Piotism, a movement of personal and social renewal that played an immense role in 18th and 19th century Protestant Germany.”

“The Zionism that Hertzel built into an important historical force was not a movement of Jewish power but a movement that linked the preference and passions of the gentile world to the needs of the Jewish people. And it was the unique power of Zionism to enlist powerful gentile supporters that made Zionism a power among jews.”

“In many circles it became a mark of Calvinist doctrine to believe that Israel would be restored.”

“Covenants are legal agreements between two parties. in Protestant theology, especially though no only in Calvinism, a series of covenants between God and humanity mark the basic stages in God’s work of redemption.”

“The existence of the Jews was evidence for the existence of God. Any sign that the Jews were returning to Palestine would be seen as proof that God was acting in history.”

“Many 20th century Jewish leaders in the United States would regret the degree to which American ideology often made Zionism virtually the only question on which Jewish Activists could look to American public opinion for support.”

“Before the enlightenment popularized the hope that science and education could transform the human condition and usher in a new and utopian stage of world history without poverty, oppression, bigotry, despotism, or war, human beings generally thought that only some form of divine intervention could fundamentally alter the conditions of human existence.”

“Reading Jewish experience primarily through the lens of the scriptures, Americans assumed that the Jews of Russia, Turkey, Iraq, and other countries were as homesick for Palestine as their ancestors had been during the first exile from Babylon.”

“This was a convenient position to hold. One could simultaneously dislike individual Jews and exclude them from one’s social life while distancing oneself from conventional antisemitism and supporting greater political and economic emancipation for Jews at home and for restoration as the grand solution to the problem of the Jews.”

“... pro-american, and saw the country in spite of its flaws and shortcomings as a repository for the hopes of mankind. People who opposed the emergence of the Jews into the wider society tended to be opponents of liberalism, capitalism, and democracy and also saw the growth of power and influence of the United States as a dangerous thing.”

“Nationalism quickly became identified with the idea of reversing historical wrongs and that was often seen as justifying or even mandating the removal of long established populations who inhabited the ‘wrong’ place. The rise of ethnic nationalism was about more than maps; it was about the creation of new bonds of solidarity between educated and privileged city dwellers and the peasant masses.”

[on why American melting pot immigration undermined socialism in the country] “Better still, a multilingual and multicultural working class was difficult to organize into labor unions.”

“As Shlomo Avineri explains in The Making of Modern Zionism, Nordau’s point was that the gap between the formal external forms of emancipation and the real concrete feeling toward the Jews in society was a fertile environment in which new forms of antisemitism would and did grow.”

“As it happened however, the policy mix [Lodge] supported in the early 1920s was so solidly grounded in American opinion that it outlasted the circumstances that made it so appealing.”

“Two generations of increasing turmoil in the old imperial zone convinced educated Americans that ethnic and religious disputes were intractable and in many cases insoluble. They were also unavoidable.”

“Reform Judaism was originally built around a modernization of Jewish faith that explicitly rejected the goal of a return from exile. For Reform Jews, steeped in the atmosphere of the European Enlightenment and its approach to Jewish emancipation, any talk of a Jewish state was an attack on the ideas that allowed Jews to participate in the life of the countries in which they lived. They not only dismissed the idea of a return to Palestine as a naive fantasy with no hope of realization. They deplored it as an assault on the values that, as they saw things, offered the only possible security for a Jewish minority in a non-Jewish state.”

“The European powers were already in the habit of carving slices off the ottoman empire to create homelands for its various minorities. Why not reserve a slice for the Jews?”

“Just as many Americans today will visit Egypt to see the ruins of Ancient Egyptian culture but show interest whatever in the history and monuments of Islamic times, so most Americans of the 1920s knew little and cared less about what had happened in Palestine between the fall of the last Jewish commonwealth and the fall of the Ottoman Empire. The Jewish connection to ancient Judea was more real to many Americans than the connection of Palestinian Arabs, Muslim or Christian, to the Palestine of the 20th century.”

“The strong and vibrant Palestinian culture that we see today is a product of 20th century history, a product above all of the conflict with Zionism, but also of the frustration of many Palestinians with the halfhearted and often self-interested approach that many Arab leaders took toward the Palestinian movement.”

“The pre-war percentages however, with only 2-3% of Jewish emigrants choosing Palestine strongly suggest that without the restrictive American emigration legislation, the Jewish population in Palestine might never have reached numbers large enough to build and maintain an independent state… Zionism only succeeded among Jews as it became clear that the options that most Jews initially preferred (integration into the countries where they lived or, failing that, free emigration into more hospitable places) had failed.”

“Pro-Israel Pro-Zionist writers, including many American Jews wanting to celebrate the contributions American Jews made to Israeli independence, have developed a mythic history that puts the United States at the center of the story of Israeli independence and attributes American policy to American-Jewish Activitsm.”

“Under these circumstances, Truman’s approach to Palestine was necessarily and appropriately political. But those who see it as a simple exercise in ethnic pandering to American Jews miss the drama and meaning of one of the most important episodes in the history of American foreign policy. President Truman integrated his approach to Palestine into the central political and diplomatic effort of his first term, using his Palestine policy to help reconcile American liberals to his shift away from FDRs WWII foreign policy toward the cold war strategy that would guide the United States for the next forty years.”

“With the memories of the depression still strong, Americans feared both the economic competition from large numbers of desperate immigrants and the cultural consequences of a wave of migration that, unless controlled, threatened to dwarf all previous episodes of mass migration into the United States.”

“What became clear to Harry Truman in the summer of 1945 was the American support for the pro-Zionist Blackstone position was stronger than ever and the United States had more power to support it than ever before. But that Great Britain was no longer interested in carrying out its commitments to the Jews under the Balfour declaration.”

“The American WASP establishment had seen Jewish immigration into Palestine as an alternative to Jewish immigration into the United States since the time of the Blackstone Memorial. And more than a few Christian advocates of the Jewish homeland had made the connection explicit. Nevertheless in 1946 it was both tactless and wrong to make this charge. Those on the battle lines for Jewish immigration to Palestine in 1946 were liberal humanitarians who, like Eleanor Roosevelt, also favored admitting more refugees to the United States and Jewish activists who were insulted and enraged by the implication that they were serving in anti-semitic agenda.”

“The Palestinians hoped and expected that the British would recognize the Arab majority of Palestine as the legitimate rulers of the country and turn the country over to them. They rejected any and all proposals for confederations, federal structures, Swiss-style cantonal arrangements, and so on - much less the option of partition into two independent states.”

“But in a world where Russia, India, China, and Japan all admire Israeli tech and Israeli military and intelligence capabilities, if abandoned by Washington Israel would not remain friendless for long.”

“American culture is fundamentally an optimistic culture. The American experience for more than three centuries was one of material and social progress. An entrepreneurial, forward-looking people set in a rich continent, most Americans have been drawn to optimistic readings of history and of the human potential for improvement. In the 18th and 19th centuries this cultural optimism was reflected in the development of a benign vision of a peaceful and gradual transformation of human history in a kind of progressive march towards a utopian future… universal reign of peace.”

“To large majorities of Americans in the post-war decades it appeared that America's self-interests were bound up in the general interests of humanity and that the United States would best serve itself by seeking its own future in the promotion of harmony and prosperity abroad.”

“The United States, it was widely believed, could not enjoy close relations with both Israel and the Arab world and the Arab world was almost infinitely more important to American security and prosperity than the tiny Jewish state.”

“Even in the midst of turmoil at home and wars abroad God had preserved his people who had triumphed over their adversaries yet again against what, to lay observers, seemed to be miraculous odds. At the same time the western left’s sympathy for Israel began to erode following its dramatic military victory. Instead of creating a trade unionist’s paradise on the Mediterranean, the Jewish state had become a military juggernaut.”

“The Nixon strategy would survive the fall of the Shah of Iran, initially a more important regional partner for the United States than Israel or any of the Arab countries to establish an era of American supremacy in the Middle East that endured into the 21st century.”

[Luke Eure · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book, not only on the US-Israel relationship, but maybe the best book I've ever read on American politics. Definitely the best book I've read on overall American foreign policy.

Some favorite quotes:
- “Washington’s ability to force smaller and weaker countries to take steps against the wishes of their leaders is much less extensive than most Americans appreciate.”
- “Many people — Jews, antisemites, and others — share a tendency to think that Jews play a larger role in human society than they actually do.”
- “This ‘historicization of the eschaton,” the transfer of speculation about the end of history and/ or the end of the world from the realm of theology and myth to the realm of practical politics, is one of the greatest differences between human culture and self-awareness in our times and in the premodern era.”

Some interesting bits:
- In medeival Europe, common people could not read the bible. Only elites could, so your main exposure to Christian scripture was whatever the church decided to transmit to you. Church ceremonies had a heavy emphasis on Jesus's passion and death - so Christians were constantly being reminded (explicitly or implicitly) that "the jews" killed Jesus
- Around 1560, the Bible started getting mass produced for people to read themselves. People spent a lot of time with the Bible. And 75% of the Bible is the Old Testament - which is Jewish scripture and tells the story of Jewish people. There are all these Jewish heroes, like Abraham, David, Ruth, Solomon, Samson, etc. Tons of Jewish poetry, and law, and fun stories are in the old Testament. So the common people of Europe starting being much much more sympathetic to Jews
- progressives were some of those who put and end to immigration to the US in the 1920s because they worried that immigrants would weaken the labor movement
- The UK economy was so bad after WW2. There was a 6-day period in 1947 when it was SO COLD in the UK that the cabinet decided to pull out of India and Israel and stop supporting Greece nationalism
- Some of the first aspects of common American interest in the welfare of people in other countries came up around Greek independence. Then similar for Italian independence. Jewish restorationism among American Christians grew out of this tradition. Greek, Latin, and Jewish civilization were all ancient civilizations that Americans were familiar with and had warmth towards
- Eleanor Roosevelt was super powerful after FDR had died, and was one of the main forces that pulled Truman's policy - especially foreign policy - to the left
- American foreign policy experts don’t realize how much their promotion of democracy, freedom, etc. are challenges to governments like China, Russia, Iran. And then when what seems like promotion of self-obvious goods from the US is met by violence by Russian and China, and the US has the audacity to be annoyed
- Trump used Israel as a foreign policy issue to unite his base of people who want strong US power abroad and those who want US to not intervene much
- Nationalism manifests itself quite differently in the US vs in Europe. The idea of the melting pot in US makes way more sense when you consider that in in the 1800s all the Poles, Czechs, Irish, Italians, Greeks, French, etc. were all for the first time in a big way buying into the idea that each of them were ethnic nations that should have their own countries. But in the US all these people were living in the same nation - and that nation fashioned its own nationalism partly out of being welcoming to all these people
- Israel policy became much more part of the American right’s agenda from Reagan, who stressed the promotion of democracy abroad, and was supported by evangelicals for whom the restoration of Israel has eschatological importance

Also I bought on both kindle and audible. Ideally this lets you seamlessly go back and forth between reading and listening. When it worked I found this experience quite nice, but it was very very buggy. Would not really recommend unless you really want to both listen and be able to double check things by reading - OR you have a lot of disposable income to be able to buy books twice without worrying about it.

[billyskye · Rating 3 out of 5]

WRM’s designs here are imbued with the kind of audacity befitting a doyen of his stature. He would contextualize the notorious “special relationship” between the United States and Israel within nothing less than the broad sweep of American social and political thought. By doing so, he aims to retire that pernicious “Vulcan Theory” of American-Israel relations, pervasive among certain intellectual circles (notably Mearsheimer and Walt’s controversial work on the subject) and unsavory crowds alike, that “Jewish power exerted in the interest of a foreign state is subordinating American policy to the will of another state.” While superficially compelling, this frame of analysis – Mead contends – ignores much deeper historical trends (often obscured by the overbearing dominion of contemporary attitudes) that could more robustly explain the maneuverings of the past.

While cutting one’s way through this 700pg tome, one might be forgiven for pondering the likelihood that such purveyors of conspiracy about Jewish space lasers and globalist cabals (for whom vast swathes of the work appear to be targeted) would have the patience to do the same; however, The Arc of a Covenant is at its best when it stays on task. Mead does some excellent work in transporting his reader to the ideological environs that would have surely animated decision making in times gone by. The dynamics at play are far too complex to enumerate here in full, but – from biblical aspirations among the gentiles of “restoring” the Jewish homeland to projections of America’s sense of exceptionalism in shaping a liberal, “post-historical” world order; from consolidating domestic political coalitions to maintaining balance with rivals overseas – Mead portrays Israel as equal parts talisman and multipurpose tool in the story of America’s rise to great power status.

Some of the book’s most captivating sequences see the author deploying his magisterial understanding of history to unpack the geopolitical dimensions of support for Zionism (including how it fit into America’s burgeoning “Lodge Consensus”) as well as the manner in which Truman navigated the chaos surrounding UN resolution 181 to unite the Democratic Party amidst the great strains exerted upon it by the Cold War. Using Israel as way to shore up political support is a theme that gets a lot of play here, again by those attempting to keep the “Sun Belt Republican” coalition together and, of course, by Donald Trump who would lean on it repeatedly to signal his ability to deliver on foreign policy issues in ways the establishment could not while simultaneously ensuring that he wouldn’t be outflanked by more virulently antisemitic pockets of the “alt-right.” Mead is able to infuse nuance with “common sense” clarity, presenting his arguments in a manner that feels generous and empathetic to all viewpoints – a rare feat for someone traversing such emotionally fraught terrain.

Unfortunately, the resulting work could afford – and, indeed, would benefit – to lose about half of its imposing word count. By untethering itself so completely from the traditional strictures of a modern policy book in pursuit of a more encompassing appraisal, The Arc of a Covenant often strays dangerously far beyond the bounds of any reasonable organizing principle. It is never a good sign when the full first two chapters must be spent qualifying the remit and justifying the length of the text. Later in the book, wrapped in the throes of some monumental tangent, I’d read (admittedly compelling) sentences such as “The Cold War was a religious conflict between secular states, fought under the shadow of the apocalypse, over conflicting visions of the path to utopia” or “Like the Industrial Revolution before it, the Information Revolution would arrive on the wings of a storm” and start giggling. Like what are we even talking about at this point, sir??? This is a truly impressive display of scholarship. It might also be the greatest shaggy-dog story ever told.

[timnc15 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took me a solid two summers to complete (I read through a quarter of it last summer, got distracted, and had to read it all the way through this summer). Was it worth it? Kinda.

Ever since I read "Special Providence," I have greatly respected Walter Russell Mead (I even got to meet him in person once to have a chat!) As a scholar at Hudson, he places himself on the conservative internationalist right in a very intelligent and measured way, which is a perspective that I greatly respect, even if I don't identify as that myself. As a result, when I thought this book was a great way for me to understand the relationship between Israel and the United States. For the longest time, as a person who identifies greatly with the Global South and grew up in the Muslim world, I have been perplexed by America's continual commitment to Israel. While Israel is an extremely valuable ally in the region and a strong, technologically-advanced, nuclear-armed country that we'd rather not be on the wrong side of (and has its use in terms of anti-proliferation), I was (and still am sometimes) continually astounded by our willingness to defy the international community and expend blood, treasure, and political capital to cover for their foreign policy. This has only deepened since 10/7, when it was quickly revealed to me that this relationship goes beyond American support for Taiwan or Ukraine or any of our other allies - there is something deeply religious, ingrained in the American psyche that causes us to share such commitment to Israel. I do not believe in a shadowy Israel lobby or a cabal of international Jews that control world politics, but I feel like it's a reasonable question to ask why seemingly every American politician makes the trip to Israel and Jerusalem, recite the same statements about Israel's right to exist (does any country have a "right" to exist? I don't think so), and conflate college students concerned about what they see as a genocide as anti-Semitism. Even in local politics, we can find evidence of this - during the first New York mayoral debate, why was there an expectation that all candidates would visit Israel as their first trip abroad?

As a result, as a person who fundamentally believes that America is a force for good in the world when it asserts its values abroad (and works with those who share those values), I wanted to read this book to understand why these decisions were made. Mead's book made it about halfway there. Firstly, his argument against the idea of a shadowy Israel lobby capable of dictating American politics is compelling. While money in politics is problematic generally, Mead does a good job of explaining why there's nothing particularly remarkable about the Israel lobby - and I'd highly encourage people to read that part. The broader argument that Israel is a project of both Jews and Gentiles alike - and that the initial idea of Israel was very much unpopular among European Jews (who preferred integration) until the Holocaust - was interesting. I had previously read about the Nakba from "The Hundred Years' War on Palestine" by Rashid Khalidi, so relitigating these historical events from the Jewish perspective was fascinating - I did not know about Israel's weapons' Yugoslav origins, the Stalinist connections of Israel's initial leadership, and the socialist politics of early Israel. As Mead progresses through Cold War history to the present (though I would appreciate a deeper examination of the Suez Crisis), he uses various presidential administrations to show the fluctuations in American foreign policy and why actors on the left and right both had their reasons to support Israel. He does enjoy going on long tangents about domestic politics (which, while sometimes relevant, I attribute to the fact that this is the first book he's published in a while, and he probably wanted to get some personal opinions about America's leadership off his chest). He is also extremely critical of Obama and ambivalent about Trump's Abraham Accords, which I thought had merit. I would have appreciated more information on Israeli domestic politics (e.g. how the Netanyahu government came to power, the fascinating power struggles and factionalization of the Likud coalition) and the path forward. However, in general, I thought this was a very comprehensive (but immediately outdated, since it was published a year before 10/7) recollection of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and I appreciated the chance to update my beliefs on this religiously, ideologically, and politically charged region of the world.

[Murtaza · Rating 4 out of 5]

Support for the state of Israel rests on cultural and religious foundations that run deep in U.S. history and cannot be attributed solely to the activities of lobbyists and political activists. This is the basic argument of this book, and it is a reasonable one. That said, in his zeal to make his case, Mead goes overboard and simply replicates a negative image of the incomplete arguments of those that he is criticizing. Before I expand on this critique, I will say that this is an impressive and enjoyable work of scholarship. It is less a history of the U.S.-Israel relationship than an analysis of American history and culture that tries to explain U.S. support for Israel as a natural outgrowth of deeper trends in American life. Many of the arguments on this score are convincing, and he provides a good psychological insight into the views of Americans of an earlier generation who were affected by events like the Arab oil boycott and Iranian revolution. Mead is a very breezy and accessible writer and has an admirably broad-minded ability to see the perspective of various groups of people by placing himself in their shoes, whether he agrees with them or not.

My objection to this book is that Mead, in making his case that there are many organic reasons for U.S. support of Israel, goes to the extreme of suggesting that practical political activism and lobbying is basically meaningless and not worthy of mention. He turns the argument of his opponents into a strawman by suggesting darkly that they believe that a monolithic group of hardline pro-Israel people known as "The Jews" have controlled U.S. foreign policy throughout American history. He beats this theme throughout the book and describes belief that pro-Israel groups sway U.S. foreign policy as akin to belief in a hidden planet known as Planet Vulcan. While it may be the view of the most ignorant antisemites it is clearly an asinine thing for any intelligent person to believe and it is also not the argument of Walt and Mearsheimer's book The Israel Lobby (which Mead seems to implicitly be responding to without ever naming).

Mead's alternate history of the relationship makes it seem instead that groups like AIPAC barely even exist, and never explains what he believes their net impact is or why so many U.S. politicians seem so visibly obsequious and cowed by their preferences. This is like writing a book arguing that possession of guns has deep roots in American culture, while never discussing the role that the NRA nonetheless plays in preventing sensible gun reform. Despite its flaws, I enjoyed this book. Mead is a learned and accessible scholar and this book deserves to be read in conversation with The Israel Lobby, though, while it deepened my understanding and I actually agreed with it on many counts, on balance it did not fully convince me of its thesis.

[Danny Jarvis · Rating 4 out of 5]

An outstanding and in depth reading on not just Israel-US relations, but on its impact across all of US foreign policy. Long and not a particularly entertaining read, this is an extremely thorough analysis on the historical, theological, political, and cultural context of these relations from the founding of the US to 2022. While, as the author states, it’s impossible to completely understand every aspect of foreign relations because of its inherent complexity, this book is the most complete breakdown of the major factors which I have heard/read.

Additionally, it takes into consideration that while the morals of issues must be considered, they cannot be the driving factor behind decisions in foreign policy or the analysis of those decisions. This includes a message throughout the book about Vulcanism (a term derived from the 19th century belief a false planet caused Mercury’s movement variations) to describe how people falsely point the finger to underlying imaginary Jewish/Israeli influence over US domestic and foreign policy (eg Rothschilds controlling the weather, Jewish baby-eaters, or a Jewish-based New World Order pulling strings).

In explaining the creation of Israel, it depicts how different country’s, in particular the US and Britain, immigration controls, followed by the horrors of the holocaust, pigeonholed the idea of Zionism and creating a separate Jewish state. Prior to WWII, there were strong arguments against Zionism in the 19th and early 20th century even by Jews in the west who felt they’d rather enrich the culture of the nations they belong to than be given their own separate state.

The true goal of American politicians in their support of Israel is ultimately a means to an end; for Truman it was keeping the Democratic Party united going into the Cold War, for Nixon it was to extend US influence by having an America-based regional order, for the Bush/Clinton post-Cold War era there was a desire to create a lasting peace, for Bush/Obama it was having both an ally in the post-9/11 Middle East and avoiding a weak Palestine which could harbor terrorism.“The art of American statecraft lies less in choosing between idealism and realism than in judiciously blending them together”

From the Palestinian perspective, it is easy to understand the desire to remove what many believe an extension of foreign/colonial influence in the state of Israel. However, a 2-state solution would likely set them up for failure given the disparity of power and the fact they’d be ceding the best agricultural land, ports, and transportation networks making it far weaker and poorer.

“For Israelis and Palestinians, two peoples whose fates have become intertwined in ways neither side wanted or foresaw… their private quarrel must be fought out in the glare of global publicity. Politicians all over the world will comment, legislatures will pass resolutions, students will demonstrate, historians will drone on, and worst of all, demagogues will sensationalize and further inflame a conflict that is already dangerously hot.”