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Arms Transfers to Israel
The Strategic Logic Behind American Military Assistance

David Rodman
David Rodman is the author of Defense and Diplomacy in Israel’s National Security Experience: Tactics, Partnerships, and Motives (Sussex Academic Press, 2005). He has also published articles on the Arab–Israeli conflict in various professional journals, including Middle Eastern Studies, The Journal of Strategic Studies, MERIA Journal, Israel Affairs, Defence Studies, and Air & Space Power Chronicles.

“Rodman's study of U.S. arms transfers to Israel provides important insight into this critical and oft-misunderstood element of the strategic relationship. Relying on extensive U.S. archival research, the book details the evolution of this relationship from Israel's early reliance on Western European equipment through the start of U.S. arms sales during the Johnson era to the end of the Reagan administration. … As Rodman deftly points out, Israel's conduct during the 1967–1973 period is ‘not comprehensible unless it is examined in the context of the American-Israeli patron-client relationship.’ Arms Transfers to Israel provides a comprehensive picture of the origins and development of the U.S.–Israeli military assistance relationship. In doing so, although not intentionally, Rodman's study goes a long way toward dispelling the now fashionable myth that the strategic relationship with Israel is driven primarily by domestic U.S. politics.” Middle East Quarterly

“This study makes the subject of U.S. arms to Israel highly accessible and in that manner fills a gap in the literature on U.S.–Israeli relations. The author explains in clear and lucid fashion the strategic background to several major arms deals. At the same time, his analysis places in perspective both the issue of Israel’s nuclear capability and the role of the pro-Israel lobby in the United States. [It is] a concise and well-written account of the evolution of the framework in which the United States sells Israel arms. Rodman argues convincingly that the type of relationship he desribes is clearly in the interest of both countries and likely to remain the setting for their bilateral ties for a long time.” Israel Studies Forum


This book dispels two common myths about the American–Israeli patron–client relationship – that arms transfers to Israel have been motivated by American domestic politics rather than national interests and that these arms transfers have come without any political strings attached to them.
… The first part of the book describes and analyzes the institutionalization of the American–Israeli arms pipeline during the Johnson administration, demonstrating conclusively in the process that arms transfers to the Jewish state were based primarily on American national interests. The second part of the book consists of four case studies that clearly reveal that American arms transfers to Israel, whether in wartime or in peacetime, have always come with a diplomatic price tag attached to them.
… The book is based largely on American government documents from the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series, from the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, and from the United States National Archives.

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