Vietnam, Jews and the Middle East - by Judith A Klinghoffer (Hardcover)

About the Book

This study demonstrates that the Six Day war, which transformed the Middle East, split the left and gave birth to Neo-conservatism, was an unintended consequence of the Vietnam War.

Book Synopsis

Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations THE BURIED STORY THE STAGE IS SET The Plan Israel Says No On the Front Line of the Anti-War Movement THE COLLISION American Frustration The New Israeli Foreign Policy Vietnam as a Jewish Problem BLOW UP No Second Front The Fateful Hour Lonelier and Angrier THE DIE IS CAST Vietnam and/or the Middle East Jewish Sparta Organizing the Homefront LINKAGES Index

From the Back Cover

The story of the relations between President Johnson, Israel and American Jewry demonstrates the Vietnam War's unintended, and heretofore unexplored, strategic and ideological consequences. The US focus on Asia left its Atlantic front open to Soviet penetration. Israel resisted US pressure to plant its flag in Saigon, American liberal rabbis led the peace movement, and Lyndon Johnson publicly threatened to withdraw his support from Israel. The Palestinians embarked on their own Vietnamese-inspired 'people's war', and Moscow insisted that Israeli retaliation represented support for American policy in Vietnam by stoking the Middle Eastern fires. The Six Day War challenged US strategy in Vietnam, linked the terms of settlement of the two conflicts, and turned Israel into a Soviet nuclear target and Soviet Jewry into hostages. This split the Left and led some Jewish intellectuals, later known as neo-conservatives, to remount the anti-Communist barricades.

Review Quotes

Judith Klinghoffer has written a provocative, wide-ranging study of the Six Day War and its relationship to broader currents of international, Israeli and American politics in the years 1966-68. David Kaiser for H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews

...an important work.

-MESA Bulletin, Anthony O. Edmonds

About the Author

JUDITH A. KLINGHOFFER is the co-author of Israel and the Soviet Union: Alienation or Reconciliation (1985), she is a winner of the 1990 Elise Boulding Award and the President of Global Perspectives Cross-Cultural Consultants. She received her undergraduate degree from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and her PhD in diplomatic history from Rutgers University. She taught at Rowan University, and was a visiting Lecturer at the Foreign affairs College in Beijing and a Fulbright Professor at Aarhus University in Denmark.