Language:
English
Year of publication:
2023
Titel der Quelle:
Antisemitism, Islamophobia and the Politics of Definition
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2023) 115-136
Keywords:
Cold War
;
Arab-Israeli conflict Foreign public opinion, American
;
Antisemitism History 1945-
;
Israel Foreign relations
;
United States Foreign relations
;
United States Politics and government 20th century
Abstract:
The Cold War between the USA and the USSR, which lasted from the late 1940s to the late 1980s, bore a contingent relation to the bilateral relations between the US government and the State of Israel, which was established in 1948. Until Richard Nixon became US president in 1969, US leaders often displayed a concern that excessive support for Israel might alienate Arab states and facilitate Soviet ambitions in the Middle East. However, Americans in the political center-left evinced a strong concern to combat antisemitism from the 1940s onward, and this priority consistently underwrote US political support for Israel. Judeophobia declined sharply in American society after 1945, but liberal (in the American meaning) culture retained a powerful determination to expose and combat Jew-hatred, which appeared a leading form of bigotry and a measure of society’s lingering susceptibility to fascist appeals. Those on the center-left saw support for the Jewish state as a moral imperative in this context and were the most passionately pro-Israel figures in American life during this era, especially in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. After the Middle East War of 1973, some American Jewish organizations began to argue that severe criticism of Israel—over its occupation of territories conquered in 1967, its treatment of the Palestinians, or anything else—was a “new antisemitism.” This implied that support for Israel continued to be the major test of one’s opposition to this form of hatred.
DOI:
10.1007/978-3-031-16266-4_6
URL:
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