Final_Judgment

[70] Final Judgment 131
"There were, of course, costs involved for America. The United States
would have to take the initial steps toward becoming what three previous
Presidents had said we never would be—Israel's major arms supplier. We
would also at least temporarily forfeit our role as primary mediator of the
multifaceted Arab-Israeli dispute.
"The new arrangement would necessitate throwing our long-standing
nuclear nonproliferation treaty to the winds, the 1968 treaty to the contrary
notwithstanding.
"Perhaps most important, U.S. national security interests in the region
would become merged with Israel's to a degree that was, and is to this day,
unique in the history of U.S. foreign relations." 192
Israel—above all—stood to benefit immensely from U.S. involvement
in Vietnam, something which would not have occurred had JFK lived.
There is yet an additional irony in the relationship of the United States
and Israel vis-à-vis the Vietnam conflict that is very much worth noting,
After the war in Vietnam was underway, dragging Lyndon Johnson
deeper and deeper into the muck of public discontent, Israel was beginning
to encounter its own difficulties as it flexed its muscle in the Middle East.
Although America's entry in Southeast Asia had given Israel a free hand
in its own sphere of geographic influence, the tiny Jewish state found that it
now needed the United States—perhaps more so than ever. Israel's
aggression against its Arab neighbors had rallied the Arab world against
Israel.
With the United States in too deep in Southeast Asia, Israel and its
American lobby perceived U.S. energy to be focused in the wrong direction.
Thus it was that many of the very voices urging U.S. withdrawal from the
arena of Vietnam were those who were most stridently demanding that the
U.S. re-insert itself into the Middle East cauldron.
WHERE SHOULD AMERICA FIGHT?
It was on the eve of the 1967 War—a war that could have been the end
for Israel—that the Washington Star (in its June 4 lead editorial) pointed out
the strange paradox.
"Many of those, both at home and abroad, who most loudly condemn
the American presence in Vietnam, were the first to urge total American
involvement in the Middle East.
"And having made the leap from isolation to intervention, they have
gone on to argue that our commitment in the Middle East is additional
justification for disengagement in Asia. The nation, so this line of
reasoning goes, cannot afford involvement in both areas.
"A choice must be made. And the Middle East is the logical place for
the United States to intervene," 193 according to the Star's assessment of the
attitude of the pro-Israel advocates of withdrawal from Vietnam who were
urging U.S. intervention in the Middle East.
So it was that Israel, which initially reaped benefits from U.S.
involvement in Southeast Asia, ultimately began banging the drum for U.S.