Israel and the Neoconservatives

Adam L. Fuller is associate professor at Youngstown State University.

Neoconservatism is a significant and controversial ideological strand of American politics, one that, as Fuller (Youngstown State Univ.) notes, has been especially prominent among Jewish American intellectuals. Neoconservatives have endorsed stronger military presence in the US's many wars initiated throughout the Middle East, from the 1980s to today. After the 1967 Six-Day War resulted in Israel’s conquest of the West Bank, neoconservatives advocated strongly that Israel should retain control of the territory until Arabs and Palestinians made “peace.” In subsequent decades, when no resolution on the West Bank was achieved, neoconservatives, especially ardent Jewish American supporters of Israel, argued that Israel’s retention of the West Bank, and Syria’s Golan Heights, was necessary to maintain US global geopolitical dominance. In more recent years, the diminishing importance of the Middle East, and hence Israel, to American global geostrategy, has panicked neoconservatives, compelling them to consider alliances with illiberal allies, such as the right-wing monarchies of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. These confounding political choices pose ideological dilemmas for neoconservatives, and for American Jews and Israelis. Ultimately, however, it is unclear what the author hoped to achieve with this short book. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and graduate students.

• Chapter One: Because they are Zionists?Chapter Two: More Concern for Israel’s Interests than America’s?Chapter Three: More Concern about Liberal Democracy?Chapter Four: Because They Are American JewsChapter Five: Looking Ahead