The Arc of a Covenant

Starred review from June 1, 2022

Mead's (God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World) engaging book is certainly an eye-opening read for anyone interested in U.S.-Israel foreign policy. In nearly 700 pages, Mead engages readers with his thoughts on the historical arc between the U.S. and its relationship with Jewish people and Israel. This volume, 10 years in the making, will challenge many widely held assumptions on the conventional narrative surrounding this long-standing relationship. The author supplies an overview of the political and cultural context of U.S. support from colonial times to the present. He reviews the words and actions from George Washington, Theodore Herzl, to American support for the Balfour Declaration, and American Christians who support the State of Israel. Additionally, Mead addresses issues underpinning the criticisms of U.S.-Israel foreign policy and the Israel-Palestinian dispute. VERDICT A meticulously written and engaging volume that may make readers pause and reconsider an issue they thought they already knew. Best suited for those interested in the history of the Middle East, Israel, U.S. studies, and Jewish history.--Jacqueline Parascandola

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June 27, 2022
Mead (God and Gold), a professor of foreign affairs at Bard College, delivers a sweeping study of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. Stretching from the colonial era to the present day, Mead’s comprehensive history analyzes the impacts of Christianity’s changing attitudes toward Judaism and Jews; broad political trends that enabled the acceptance of Jewish people “as active members of the American commonwealth,” exemplified by George Washington’s 1790 letter to the congregation of Touro Synagogue in Newport, R.I.; and economic developments such as the rise of labor unions. Revealing inconvenient facts for both Palestinians and Israelis (“Most of the land that Zionists settled before 1947 was freely sold to them by Arabs”), Mead forcefully critiques Yasser Arafat for rejecting a peace agreement proposed by the Clinton administration and contends that U.S. foreign policy toward Israel is governed by self-interest. Though he declines to offer detailed prescriptions for how American leaders should handle Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Iranian funding of Hamas, and other contentious matters, Mead provides more than enough context to understand them. The result is a valuable resource for policymakers and voters alike.

Starred review from July 1, 2022
A veteran foreign policy scholar explores the ups and downs in the complex friendship between the U.S. and Israel. "There are few subjects in American foreign policy that get as much attention as the relationship between the world's only Jewish state and the global superpower," writes Mead, author of God and Gold and Special Providence, among other trenchant works on the far-reaching tentacles of American foreign policy. Even so, much of that literature is biased and wrongheaded. In the complicated business of foreign policy, writes the author, "even experts go badly wrong, and history is full of examples in which very serious and thoughtful people have fundamentally mistaken the nature of the forces with which they were trying to deal." So it is with Israel, a nation resolute in insisting that it be allowed to live on its own terms even while being closely shepherded by the U.S. In Mead's view, the idea that Jews somehow secretly control the U.S. government and media, to say nothing of its finances, is not worth discussing. Far more important is the seemingly intractable issue of political balance in the always-volatile region, with American political leaders so often favoring close ties with authoritarian Arab states even as dollars-and-cents-minded policymakers have had to negotiate ways to "ensure the security of the oil producers...so that no single power had the ability to interrupt the oil flow." A nuclear Israel has complicated that already tangled state of affairs even as an aggressive settler regime under Benjamin Netanyahu has further destabilized regional relations. Writing fluently and with a depth born of decades of study, Mead urges that Israelis and Palestinians work harder to achieve ever elusive peace in the region, holding that "the creation of a Palestinian state will move both sides closer to a mutually acceptable accommodation." An essential contribution to the literature of politics and diplomacy in the Middle East.

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