Friends in Deed : Inside the U. S.-Israel Alliance

The best-selling authors of Every Spy a Prince journey behind the scenes to examine the four-decade evolution of the complex political, strategic, and economic relationship between Israel and the United States.

Raviv and Melman here examine the growth of the pro-Israel lobby in Washington, the spread of American popular culture in Israel, the profound effect of the Six-Day War on American Jews, the importance of the link between American Christians and Israel, and many other events and developments in the unique, complicated partnership between the two countries. The authors explore tensions in the relationship, such as defense secretary Caspar Weinberger's attempt to torpedo relations between President Reagan and Prime Minister Menachem Begin, the strain placed on the alliance by the arrest of secret agent Jonathan Pollard by Israel in 1985, and the "hate at first sight" reactions of both President Bush and Prime Minister Yitshak Shamir. Raviv and Melman suggest that the Jewish community in America is becoming less of a rock-solid base of support for Israel and that each succeeding generation shows signs of being less connected to the Jewish state. Readable and informative, this account will have an even wider readership than the authors' bestselling Every Spy a Prince. Raviv is a CBS News correspondent; Melman is an Israeli journalist. Photos.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

CBS correspondent Dan Raviv and Israeli journalist Yossi Melman (Every Spy a Prince, 1990) explore the special but often troubled relationship between Israel and the US. America's involvemnt with Israel, despite periodic rifts, dwarfs its ties to any other nation. The authors cite estimates that Israel has received some $100 billion in various forms of aid from the US since the tiny state's 1948 birth. To that figure must be added a web of relationships between the two countries' military and intelligence communities, and the inordinate amounts of time successive administrations have devoted to the Middle East in general and Israel in particular. Raviv and Melman attribue this special relationship to a complex of factors, including American feelings of guilt for the Holocaust; the role of Israel in the prophetic visions of Christian evangelicals; the political effectiveness of the American Jewish community; and the strong personal feelings of some presidents, especially Carter and Reagan. The book is well researched but not scholarly. Rather, Raviv and Melman have spun a yarn filled with gossip and inside accounts, and even an occasional bombshell (they reveal how Israeli intelligence obtained Krushchev's seminal, top-secret anti-Stalinist speech for the CIA). Throughout, they have attempted to be scrupulously evenhanded, a difficult task in recounting events in which there were--and remain--sharp disagreements. On the negative side, especially for people with some prior knowledge, this volume's occasional superficiality will be disappointing (the complex of events, for instance, that led to Israel's involvement in the Iran- Contra affair). Also, virtually all attributions are in notes in the back of the book, making it difficult to find the sources of particular bits of information. The book's strength, on the other hand, is in its compilation of eyewitness accounts of historical moments. A good read that sheds light not just on US ties with a particular country, but on the personal and even idiosyncratic ways in which US foreign policy is sometimes made. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

This is one of the most readable accounts of U.S.-Israeli relations in recent years. Both authors have impeccable credentials in the field of journalism and Israeli politics and successfully coauthored Every Spy a Prince (LJ 7/90), which detailed the activities of the Israeli intelligence community. As they chronicle the political give-and-take between the two countries from Harry Truman's presidency onward, fascinating pieces of the hardball reality that is international politics float to the surface. Thus, we learn that it was the Israelis who suggested focused bombing raids to eliminate Saddam Hussein during Desert Storm; during the 1980s, Israel was so well received in Washington that Secretary of State George Shultz and others would solicit Israeli help in getting certain pieces of legislation passed by Congress. Eminently readable, Friends in Deed is highly recommended for all libraries with collections in this field.
David P. Snider, Casa Grande P.L., Ariz.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

The Israeli alliance with the U.S. has seemed incongruous (and unwise) to many. The U.S. is a superpower, a Christian nation, and a staunch promoter of free-market capitalism. Israel is a Jewish state founded by committed socialists who often looked with disdain at American materialism and commercialism. Raviv, a CBS correspondent, and Melman, an Israeli journalist, lay out the development of this "unlikely" partnership from Israel's prestatehood days to the Gulf War. They view the alliance as a product primarily of Cold War politics, with a bit of American guilt and sympathy over the Holocaust thrown in. Of course, the ceaseless lobbying by American Jews was a factor, and here the authors provide some fascinating details of that process. For example, Teddy Kollek, later the much revered mayor of Jerusalem, cultivated ties with Jewish gangsters such as Bugsy Siegel to gain their financial support in the early 1950s. In laying out the realpolitik behind the alliance, Raviv and Melman make a convincing case; however, one wonders if they haven't given short shrift to the common democratic ideals that bind the people of both nations. Jay Freeman