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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... May 2010. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf21.html#r.
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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.
To start off the Cold war, Russia had lost twenty-seven million soldiers in World War II. Stalin was not going to allow the Germany to attack Russia again . To make sure of this , Stalin made East Europe his buffer zone.The United states could not allow the this to contunie to happen. The first example was the Truman Doctrine, that declared the the Untited States would support “free people”. The Doctrine was followed by the Marshall Plan which gave 12 billion dollars in aid European democracies so that communist ideas would not be so attractive. These were some of the long term , patient policies the United States did to
During 1940-1970, the USSR and the USA were the world’s leading superpowers. After WW2, it was the US money that helped rebuild nearly all of Western Europe, putting nearly half a dozen countries into debt. They opened trade and helped Europe’s ravaged economy to get back onto its feet. They did so by creating the ‘Marshall Plan’ on June the 5th, 1947. The plans aim was to reconstruct Western Europe and at the same time to stop Communism spreading to them – the Americans were avid believers in the Domino Theory, and believed that communism would take over all of Europe if they did not intervene. They also created other policies such as the Truman doctrine on March the 12th, 1947 (which is a set of principles that state that the US as the worlds ‘leading country’ will help out other democratic governments worldwide) and NATO, 4th of April 1949.
New York: William Morrow. Lipsett, S. M. & Co., P.A. and Ladd, E. C. (1971) The 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the 'Secon "Jewish Academics in the United States: Their Achievements, Culture and Politics." American Jewish Yearbook -. Cited for Zuckerman, Harriet (1977).
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.
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Hertzberg, Arthur. (1973). The Jews of the United States. New York: Quadrangle/ The New York Times Book Co.
Cleveland, William L. A History of the Modern Middle East. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2000.
The United States implemented this new policy with the passage of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan of June5, 1947. In the Truman Doctrine, then President Truman pledged $400 million in aid to Turkey and Greece in an effort to avert communist takeovers. This served as an open ended offer to nations “to choose between freedom and democracy or terror and oppression” (Stranges, 194). The Marshall Plan was an effort to rebuild 16 nations in Europe. $13.326 billion was pledged to Britain, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Turkey, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, an...
Sledge, E. B. World War II Reference Library. Ed. Barbara C. Bigelow, et al. Vol. 4: Primary
1996. “Sacrifices and Offerings in Ancient Israel” in Community, Identity, and Ideology: Social Science approach to the Hebrew Bible., ed. Charles E. Carter.
Since the inception of an Israeli nation-state in 1948, violence and conflict has played a major role in Israel’s brief history. In the Sixty-One year’s Israel has been a recognized nation-state, they have fought in 6 interstate wars, 2 civil wars, and over 144 dyadic militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) with some display of military force against other states (Maoz 5). Israel has been involved in constant conflict throughout the past half century. Israel’s tension against other states within the Middle East has spurred vast economic, social, and political unity that has fostered a sense of nationalism and unity in Israel not seen in most other states. Over the next several pages I will try and dissect the reasons for why the nation state of Israel has been emerged in constant conflict and how this conflict has helped foster national unity and identity among the people of Israel.
...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 Middle East has historically rebuked Western influence during their process of establishing independence. When Britain and France left the Middle East after World War II, the region saw an unprecedented opportunity to establish independent and self-sufficient states free from the Western influence they had felt for hundreds of years. In an attempt to promote nationalistic independence, the states of the region immediately formed the League of Arab States in 1945. The League recognized and promoted the autonomy of its members and collaborated in regional opposition against the West until 1948 when Israel declared independence. Israel represented then and now an intrusive Western presence in the Arab world. The ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict typifies this cultural antagonism. The Cold War refocused attention to the Middle East as a site of economic and strategic importance for both sides, yet the two hegemons of the Cold War now needed to recognize the sovereignty of the Middle Eastern states. With their statehood and power cemented, the Middle Easte...
“International Agreements.” The Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Third Edition. 1994: Columbia University Press. Lanouette, William. A. “Why We Dropped the Bomb.”
The pro-Israel intervention represented the US foreign policy reaction when the violation to regional stability was committed by Israel. The cases discussed above were evaluated against the US reaction to Israel’s regional behaviour; in terms of whether the Israeli behaviour served or hampered US interest in maintaining regional stability and whether or not the US opposed Israel when it acted in ways that the United States deemed undesirable. It was concluded that, as a general rule, Washington was ready to intervene to address any violation to the status quo in the Middle East system except when this violation was committed by its regional surrogate. Israel had contributed directly in destabilizing the Middle East system (pushing the system out of its equilibrium point) in several cases, four of which have been discussed above. These crises, in spite of their negative effect on regional stability, witnessed minimal US reaction.