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U.S.-Israel relations

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Israeli nuclear power plant.

How Israel Deceived the United States About Its Nuclear Weapons Program

Israel is attacking Iran’s nuclear sites, but Tehran’s secret path was blazed by the Israelis.
by Glenn Kessler via Washington Post on June 23, 2025
Sign along empty road reading "Private Road No Entry" in Hebrew and English.

How Israel Deceived the U.S. and Built the Bomb

Newly declassified documents reveal how Israel operated under the noses of U.S. inspectors.
by William Burr, Avner Cohen via Foreign Policy on February 7, 2025
US National Security council meets in 1967

How LBJ Forged the US-Israel Alliance

The special relationship between the United States and Israel was cemented by the support offered by Lyndon B. Johnson throughout the sixties.
by Ronan Mainprize via Engelsberg Ideas on January 22, 2024
Illustration of Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu.

How Joe Biden Became America's Top Israel Hawk

The president once said “Israel could get into a fistfight with this country and we’d still defend” it. That is now clearer than ever.
by Noah Lanard via Mother Jones on December 22, 2023
U.S. President Truman smiles next to the President of Israel, Chaim Weizmann

A Brief History of the US-Israel 'Special Relationship'

A historian of the Middle East examines how connections have shifted since long before the 1948 founding of the Jewish state.
by Fayez Hammad via The Conversation on November 29, 2023
Member of Hamas holding a flag and an automatic rifle.

How George W. Bush Helped Hamas Come to Power

In Bush’s naïveté about the magic of elections, he ignored a crucial point about democracy.
by Fred Kaplan via Slate on October 24, 2023
Harry Truman receives a menorah from Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in 1951.

"The Edge of the Abyss": The Origins of the Israel Lobby, 1949-1954

Today's Israel lobby is one of the most powerful forces in Washington, but how did it start?
by Doug Rossinow via Modern American History on March 8, 2018
Demonstrators marching with a sign advocating a free Palestine and an end to U.S. aid to Israel.
partner

Why Democrats are Abandoning Israel

Democrats like Lyndon Johnson staunchly supported Israel. Now the party is leaving that legacy behind.
by KC Johnson via Made By History on August 18, 2017
A man pushes a bicycle as he walks amid rubble in the devastated area around Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital, April 3, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)

Gaza and the Undoing of Zionism

A historian reviews new books by Peter Beinart, Avi Shlaim and Pankaj Mishra on the project that animates Israel’s violence.
by Yakov M. Rabkin via New Lines on June 20, 2025
A Guatemalan police officer standing in front of a memorial to Guatemalan civilians murdered during the country's civil war that depicts their photographs.

By Rejecting Evidence of Genocide in Gaza, the US Is Following a Familiar Pattern

For decades, Washington has denied, downplayed and rationalized atrocities by its allies.
by Stephen Zunes via New Lines on February 14, 2025
Human figures colored either blue or green.

Mortality Wars

Estimating life and death in Iraq and Gaza.
by Shaan Sachdev via The Drift on July 8, 2024
Joe Biden lifting finger.

Hey Man, We’re Out of Runway

On three histories of the Biden White House, and the 2024 election.
by Christian Lorentzen via London Review of Books on July 8, 2024
NYPD arrests hundreds, including members of the Jewish group Not In Our Name, at a pro-Palestinian protest in Brooklyn on April 23, 2024.

Jewish Critics of Zionism Have Clashed with American Jewish Leaders for Decades

American foreign aid to Israel has long relied on the support of American Jews. But American Jews have never been unified in their support for Israel.
by Marjorie N. Feld via The Conversation on June 20, 2024
Image of Jewish protestors outside the White House, wearing sweatshirts that state "Not In Our Name."

How Israel Quietly Crushed Early American Jewish Dissent on Palestine

An explosive new book delves into American Jewish McCarthyism from the 1950s through late 1970s.
by Debbie Nathan via The Intercept on March 3, 2024
Marlon Brando and other "A Flag Is Born" actors

How Broadway Helped the Zionist Revolt Against Britain

In the 1940s, the Irgun went to the heart of American culture to garner support for its campaign of violent insurrection.
by James A. S. Sunderland via New Lines on February 2, 2024
Palestinian Arab women and children in Israel, 1949

American Jews Have Fought for Palestinian Rights Since Israel Was Born

My research shows that this tradition runs deep.
by Geoffrey Levin via Slate on January 28, 2024
Anwar El-Sadat, Jimmy Carter, and Menachem Begin after the Camp David Accords.
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Jimmy Carter and the Israel-Hamas War

How America's failures in the Palestinian-Israeli crisis of the 1970s hurt U.S. security and contributed to the current war.
by Benjamin V. Allison via Made By History on November 17, 2023

America Is a Root Cause of Israel and Palestine’s Latest War

How 30 years of U.S. policy ended in disaster.
by Stephen Walt via Foreign Policy on October 18, 2023
Israeli artillerymen plug their ears while laying down a barrage on Syrian positions.

The Arab-Israeli War 50 Years Ago Brought Us Close to Nuclear Armageddon

As world leaders scramble to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from escalating, it is often forgotten just how close the Yom Kippur War came to all-out nuclear war.
by Gordon F. Sander via Washington Post on October 10, 2023
Harry Truman, left, holds a copy of the Torah presented to him by Israeli leader Chaim Weizmann in May 1948.

How A U.S. President Known to Disparage Jews Became Godfather of Israel

Harry Truman used antisemitic slurs in private. But his surprise decision 75 years ago to recognize Israel, launching a fierce alliance, was a long time coming.
by Gordon F. Sander via Retropolis on May 13, 2023
Riesman giving fundraising speech

My Grandfather the Zionist

He helped build Jewish American support for Israel. What’s his legacy now?
by Abraham Josephine Riesman via Intelligencer on June 23, 2021
Demonstrators holding signs and Palestinian flag

‘We Know Occupation’: The Long History of Black Americans’ Solidarity with Palestinians

Why the Black Lives Matter movement might help shift the conversation about a conflict thousands of miles away.
by Sam Klug via Politico Magazine on May 30, 2021
The cover of Exodus by Leon Uris.

How Americans Were Taught to Understand Israel

Leon Uris's bestselling book "Exodus" portrayed the founding of the state of Israel in terms many Americans could relate to.
by Amy Kaplan, Matthew Wills via JSTOR Daily on August 29, 2020
John Kennedy and David Ben-Gurion, 1961.

The Tangled History of American and Israeli Exceptionalism

Amy Kaplan’s new book examines the pioneering cultural myths that have tied Israel and the United States together.
by Rashid Khalidi via The Nation on June 3, 2019
Billy Graham at a speaker's podium (Photo by Ninian Reid).

The Preacher and Vietnam: When Billy Graham Urged Nixon to Kill One Million People

The disclosure of Billy Graham's recommendation of war crimes did not exicte any commotion.
by Alexander Cockburn, Jeffrey St. Clair via CounterPunch on September 27, 2017
Man reading paper about gas rationing in front of a sign that reads "sorry no gasoline."
partner

1973 – The Year That Changed Everything

The story of the oil shocks of 1973 and how they continue to shape the world we live in today.
via BackStory on January 9, 2015
Illustration equating Israel's “Who is a Jew?” policy with the Nazi selection process.

Jew? Not a Jew?

The untold story of how American Jewry and the Jewish state almost resolved the question of who is a Jew.
by Tracy Frydberg via Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera on June 10, 2025
Art piece of a hand holding barbed wire.

Do Border

Who can migrate to the US and make their home here? Who gets to drop US-made bombs, and who is expected to suffer them? These are not unrelated questions.
by Daniel Denvir via n+1 on August 22, 2024
Jewish activists demanding ceasefire in Gaza.

When ‘Nice Jewish Boys and Girls’ in the US First Took up the Palestinian Cause

According to Geoffrey Levin’s ‘Our Palestine Question,’ divides over Israeli policy aren’t new – they existed before American Jews fully embraced Zionism.
by Geoffrey Levin via The Times Of Israel on February 5, 2024
Street art graffiti on the Israeli separation West Bank wall in Bethlehem features a portrait of George Floyd, symbolizing the links between Black American and Palestinian activists.

The Long, Complicated History of Black Solidarity With Palestinians and Jews

How Black support for Zionism morphed into support for Palestine.
by Sam Klug, Fabiola Cineas via Vox on October 17, 2023
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