In 1948, the United States was the first to recognize Israel as a new state in the United Nations; this quick action on our part shows how important having an ally in the Middle East is for America, and in addition the alliance helped the newly created nation. We had many reasons for continuing this rock-solid friendship, but perhaps the most important is that our values are the same. Israel is very like the United States; it’s the only democratic country in the Middle East, it wants to prevent war, and to gain stability and eventual peace the two recognized the need to work together to meet their mutual goals. Truman, with the Marshall Plan and his many aids and programs created for Israel’s benefit, was the first to not only talk about the ‘have’ and ‘have not’ countries, but also the first to do anything about it (Paul Johnson). During his two term presidency, Truman cemented the United States present values on foreign relations.
The Marshall Plan was created to rebuild the European continent after WWII had left them with famine and economic crises to look forward to. The plan was put into action as almost a side plan of the Truman Doctrine, which was a cold war strategy thought up by President Truman 1947, right before Israel became a nation. Although the Arab countries surrounding Israel were not communist, the United States believed that the fighting against the Israelites, whom we thought were in the right, was against their ideals that would hopefully come about with the Marshall Plan. Thus, by preventing famine and political chaos the United States was working toward political stability and a healthy world economy, which would hopefully help contain communism and promote capitalism and more American thinking, whic...
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Gold, Dore. "The Basis of the U.S.-Israel Alliance: An Israeli Response to the Mearsheimer-Walt Assault." Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Institute for Contemporary Affairs, 24 Mar. 2006. Web. 21 May 2010. www.jcpa.org/brief/brief005-20.htm.
Marshall, George. "Featured Document: The Marshall Plan." Exhibit Hall. National Archives and Records Administration, 3 Apr. 1948. Web. 21 May 2010. http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/marshall_plan/.
Johnson, Paul M. "America and the Birth of Israel." A History of the American People. New York: Harper Perennial, 1999. 818-821. Print.
Ben-Gurion, David. “Status-Quo Agreement.” In Israel in the Middle East: Second Edition, edited by Itamar Rabinovich and Jehude Reinharz, 58-59. Waltham: Brandeis University Press, 2008.
Imagine throwing a small stone across a pond and watching the ripples form across the water. Now what if the rock thrown hit a fish or frog? That would be an unattended consequence of the committed action; history itself often works the same way. It can take months, years, or even entire decades for the results to take place and the consequences could possibly be felt on a global scale. In 1953 a “stone” was cast by the American and British governments by organizing the Iranian coup otherwise know Operation ‘AJAX’ or ‘Boot’ in America and Britain. The operation was responsible for the successful overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. The historical event has affected the relationship between the U.S., Britain, and Iran which has led to the Anti-American and Anti-western sentiment that plagues the Middle East today. By analyzing Operation AJAX we can see the effects ripple across time and study how they have impacted our society today.
I enjoyed your post and agree that the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan were both major foreign policies. In addition to President Truman’s efforts to support democracy he also didn’t want to risk losing access to the Middle East. Like you mentioned “Soviets were trying to get Turkey to allow them access to a waterway linking the two nearby seas.” President Truman’s actions prevented the Soviets from controlling the waterway and helped prevent communism.
Morris, B. (2008). 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press.
Medoff, Rafael. "Recent Trends in the Historiography of American Zionism", American Jewish History 86 (March 1998), 117–134
One of the main and well publicized goals of the Marshall Plan was to solve the post war disorder running rampant across Europe. Marshall recognized that the United States did not have the resources to rebuild Europe country by county without any cooperation, so the Plan was set up to force participating nations to work together in order to plan the most effective way to make use of American Aid. This spawned the creation of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), which was mainly a planning and coordinating group. The OEEC comprised sixteen free, European countries. The Marshall Plan was also an unpreced...
Now that the idea of a global war has been established, it is important to establish the role of the United States (USA). One of the most important documents in establishing this was the ‘Truman Doctrine’. President Harry S. Truman (1945-53) outlined what would become the basis of US foreign policy for the duration of the Cold War. This was the policy of containment – trying to keep communism from spreading to the rest of the world. His speech to Congress in March 19...
...US support for Israel, contributed in making US interests more magnetic targets for outraged groups. This relation is not the only grievance of these groups, of course, but it is a central one, and it makes advancing other U.S. interests more difficult.
The United States also gives Israel full access to top secret intelligence files that it denies even to its NATO allies and chooses to turn a blind eye in the direction of Israel’s acquirement of nuclear weapons. (Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, New York: Columbia University Press, 1999); (Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, New York: Random House, 1991).
...thin the Marshall Plan, all four foreign policies are addressed with special concentration on manifest destiny in order that we might assist European governments. Upon the rebuilding of Europe, the U.S. was once again able to expand its economic markets.
The Marshall Plan was proposed by Secretary of State-- George C. Marshall at Harvard University on June 5, 1947. Marshall mentioned the terrible condition of Europe at the beginning of the speech, and he convinced that US should set up an aid program for Europe to recover their economy. The Marshall Plan was a 4-year aid program which the United States had to give over $12 billion to the countries in Western Europe to help them rebuild their economy since most part of Europe was devastated by World War 2. $12 billion was not a small amount of aid which was a huge cost for the United States. Why would the Marshall Plan still be approved and what was its benefit for the United States?
A direct influence of this Doctrine was the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan was designed to give aid to any European country damaged during WWII. It tremendously helped ravaged European Nations such as Italy and France. By helping them economically, The Marshall Plan indirectly helped to suppress growing Communist sentiment in these countries.
Unlike most Europeans countries, the United States of America enjoyed a rather healthy relationship with Middle East nations during the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Possibly, this was due to the fact that the US had little or no interest in colonizing countries in the region. On the contrary, it largely participated in philanthropic and educational activities therefore attracting positive perception among the Middle East people. However, after the world war II the situation begun to change. The US, after fully appreciating the strategic value of the region, opted to increase its interest there. Particular to ensure it does not lose control of the region’s natural resources (chiefly oil), protecting Israel (which was a newly established state and possibly are strategic America ally), and finally, prevent the Soviet Union from dominating the nation (Russel & Ghabra 2003).
Therefore, after US military intervention, came the Marshall Plan that aided war-torn Europe with money in order to defeat American fears of it turning to Communism. The alliances were necessary for the improvement of the American vision for the future, in acting as political (democracy) and trade partners. Similar was the Truman Doctrine, an example of America modifying the political alignment of the world which was Europe, to make state of affairs helpful for itself to flourish, this is seen as the formation of Americas political
Throughout the course of this paper, I seek to explore the use of realism theory to both explain and account for the Arab-Israeli conflict. More precisely, how has realism theory played a key role in Israeli and Palestinian relations, and will it impact future diplomatic efforts? The viewpoints and stances of various nations, religious organizations, and geopolitical alliances will be examined in an effort to better understand the past, present, and future of Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Contemporary realism theory will also be examined for the sake of giving the noted international relations theory wider parameters and new boundaries. It is no surprise that the global community has had a significant impact on the region, yet the next step is to link such to the international relations theory.