Bibliography — Foreign Relations: U.S. and Israel

June 2025

CIE has compiled the following list of books and articles, including some available on our website, to guide understanding of U.S.-Israel relations.

Books

Alteras, Isaac. Eisenhower and Israel: U.S.-Israeli Relations, 1953-1960. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993.

Arens, Moshe. Broken Covenant: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis Between the US and Israel. Simon & Schuster, 1995.

Bass, Warren. Support Any Friend: Kennedy’s Middle East and the Making of the U.S.-Israel Alliance. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Baxter, Kylie, and Shahram Akbarzadeh. US Foreign Policy in the Middle East: The Roots of Anti-Americanism. London: Routledge, 2008.

Benson, M. Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel. Westport, CT: 1997.

Ben-Zvi, Abraham. Decade of Transition: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Origins of the American-Israeli Alliance. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998.

Ben-Zvi, Abraham. Lyndon B. Johnson and the Politics of Arms Sales to Israel: In the Shadow of the Hawk. London: Frank Cass, 2004.

Ben-Zvi, Abraham. The United States and Israel: The Limits of the Special Relationship. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993.

Blackwill, Robert D., and Walter B. Slocombe. Israel: A Strategic Asset for the United States. Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2011.

Blitzer, Wolf. Between Washington and Jerusalem, A Reporter’s Notebook. Oxford, 1985.

Brands, H.W. Into the Labyrinth: The United States and the Middle East, 1945-1993. New York: McGraw Hill, 1994.

Caplan, Neil. Operation Alpha and the Failure of AngloAmerican Coercive Diplomacy in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1954-1956. “Vol. 4: Futile Democracy.” London: Frank Cass, 1997.

Druks, Herbert. The Uncertain Friendship: The U.S. and Israel From Roosevelt to Kennedy. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001.

Eisenberg, Laura Zittrain, and Neil Caplan. Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: Patterns, Problems, Possibilities. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.

Feldman, Shai. The Future of U.S.-Israel Strategic Cooperation. Washington Institute for Near East Policy, May 1, 1996.

Gilboa, Eytan. American Public Opinion Toward Israel and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1987.

Gilboa, Eytan, and Efraim Inbar (eds.). US-Israeli Relations in a New Era: Issues and Challenges After 9/11. London: Routledge, 2009.

Hahn, Peter L. Crisis and Crossfire: The United States and the Middle East Since 1945. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2005.

Indyk, Martin. Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009.

Johnson, Robert David. Lyndon Johnson and Israel: The Secret Presidential Recordings. Research Paper No. 3. Tel Aviv: S. Daniel Abraham Center for International and Regional Studies, Tel Aviv University, 2008.

Kochavi, Noam. Nixon and Israel: Forging a Conservative Partnership. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2009.

Lesch, David W. The Middle East and the United States: A Historical and Political Reassessment. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2007.

Malka, Haim. Crossroads: The Future of the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership. Washington: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2011.

Manṣūr, Kamil. Beyond Alliance: Israel in U.S. Foreign Policy. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.

Migdal, Joel S. Shifting Sands: The United States in the Middle East. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.

Miller, Aaron David. The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace. New York: Bantam Books, 2009.

Novik, Nimrod. The United States and Israel Domestic Determinants of a Changing U.S. Commitment. Tel Aviv: Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, 1985.

Organski, Kenneth. The $36 Billion Bargain: Strategy and Politics in U.S. Assistance to Israel. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.

Pollack, David. The Politics of Pressure: American Arms and Israeli Policy Since the Six Day War. Greenwood, 1982.

Quandt, William B. Camp David: Peacemaking and Politics. Washington: Brookings Institution, 1986.

Quandt, William B. Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict Since 1967. Washington and Berkeley, CA: Brookings Institution and University of California Press, 2005.

Radosh, Allis, and Ronald Radosh. A Safe Haven: Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel. HarperCollins, 2009.

Reich, Bernard. Securing the Covenant: United States-Israel Relations After the Cold War. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1995.

Reich, Bernard. The US and Israel. Praeger, 1984.

Ross, Dennis. Doomed to Succeed: The US-Israel Relationship From Truman to Obama. Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2015.

Ross, Dennis. The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004.

Rynhold, Jonathan. The Arab-Israeli Conflict in American Political Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Safran, Nadav. Israel: The Embattled Ally. Harvard University Press, 1981.

Sasson, Theodore, et al. Still Connected: American Jewish Attitudes About Israel. Brandeis University, Maurice and Marilyn Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, 2010.

Satloff, Robert. Proceedings of Strategy and Defense in the Eastern Mediterranean: An American-Israeli Dialogue. Jerusalem: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, July 7-9, 1986.

Schoenbaum, David. The United States and the State of Israel. Oxford University Press, 1993.

Shalom, Zaki. Israel’s Nuclear Option: Behind-the-Scenes Diplomacy Between Dimona and Washington. Brighton and Portland: Sussex Academic Press; Tel Aviv: Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, 2005.

Sheffer, Gabriel (ed.). Dynamics of Dependence: US-Israeli Relations. Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations, 1987.

Sheffer, Gabriel (ed.). US-Israeli Relations at the Crossroads. London: Cass, 1997.

Spiegel, Steven L. The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict: Making America’s Middle East Policy From Truman to Reagan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Stein, Kenneth W. Heroic Diplomacy: Sadat, Kissinger, Carter, Begin and the Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace. Routledge, 1999.

Stephens, Elizabeth. US Policy Towards Israel: The Role of Political Culture in Defining the “Special Relationship.” Portland: Sussex Academic Press, 2006.

Thomas, Michael. American Policy Toward Israel: The Power and Limits of Beliefs. London and New York: Routledge, 2007.

Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Enduring Partnership: Report of the Commission on US-Israeli Relations. 1993.

Articles

Aronson, Geoffrey, “Hidden Agenda: US-Israeli Relations and the Nuclear Question,” Middle East Journal, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Autumn 1992): 617-630.

Bar-Siman-Tov, Yaacov, “The United States and Israel Since 1948: A ‘Special Relationship?” Diplomatic History, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Spring 1998): 231-262.

Barbalat, Ari, “A Friend Like This: Re-Evaluating Bush and Israel,” Middle East Policy, Vol. 15, No. 4 (Winter 2008): 91-111.

Bayme, Steven, “American Jewry and the State of Israel: How Intense the Bonds of Peoplehood?” Jewish Political Studies Review, Vol. 20, No. 12 (June 2008).

Ben-Zvi, Abraham, “Stumbling Into an Alliance: John F. Kennedy and Israel,” Israel Affairs, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2009): 224-245.

Clark, Clifford, and Richard Holbrooke, “President Truman’s Decision to Recognize Israel,” Jerusalem Viewpoints, Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, May 1, 2008.

Bzostek, Rachel, and Samuel B. Robison, “U.S. Policy Toward Israel, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia: An Integrated Analysis, 1981-2004,” International Studies Perspectives, Vol. 9, No. 4 (2008): 359-376.

Chernus, Iran, “Obama’s Israel-Palestine Gamble,” Foreign Policy in Focus (September 16, 2009).

Cobban, Helena, “The U.S.-Israeli Relationship in the Reagan Era,” Conflict Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Spring 1989): 5-32.

Cohen, Michael A., and Mathew Duss, “Report: The United States and Israel at a Crossroads,” Foundation for Middle East Peace (February 2015).

Dowty, Alan, “Israeli Foreign Policy and the Jewish Question,” MERIA, Vol. 3, No. 1 (March 1999).

Eisenstadt, Michael, and David Pollock, “Friends With Benefits: Why the U.S.-Israeli Alliance Is Good for America,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy (November 7, 2012).

Fetter, Henry D., “‘Showdown in the Oval Office,’ 12 May 1948 in History,” Israel Affairs, Vol. 14, No. 3 (2008): 499-518.

Fetter, Henry D., “‘Forthcoming Three Months Represent Best Remaining Opportunity for Accomplishment’: Israeli Diplomacy and the 1948 U.S. Presidential Election (Part I),” Israel Affairs, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2009): 246-260.

Fetter, Henry D., “‘Forthcoming Three Months Represent Best Remaining Opportunity for Accomplishment’: Israeli Diplomacy and the 1948 U.S. Presidential Election (Part II),” Israel Affairs, Vol. 16, No. 2 (2010): 201-218.

Fetter, Henry D., “‘Two & Three Air Raids Daily. What a Bother’: An American Diplomat in Israel During the War of Independence,”. Israel Affairs, Vol. 18, No. 4 (2012): 546-562.

Fishman, Ben, “The ‘Israel Lobby’: A Realistic Assessment,” Orbis, Vol. 52, No. 1 (2008): 159-180.

Freedman, Robert O., “U.S. Policy Toward the Middle East in Clinton’s Second Term,” Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 3, No. 1 (March 1999): 55-79.

Garfinkle, Adam, “U.S.-Israeli Relations After the Cold War,” Orbis, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Autumn 1996): 557-675.

Gerlini, Matteo, “Waiting for Dimona: The United States and Israel’s Development of Nuclear Capability,” Cold War History, Vol. 10, No. 2 (2010): 143-161.

Gilboa, Eytan, “Obama in Israel: Fixing American-Israeli Relations,” Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, Vol. 7, No. 2 (2013): 19-28.

Gold, Dore, “Understanding the U.S.-Israel Alliance: An Israeli Response to the Walt-Mearsheimer Claim,” Jerusalem Viewpoints 556, Jewish Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (2007).

Goldberg, Giora, “Ben-Gurion and Jewish Foreign Policy,” Jewish Political Studies Review, Vol. 3, Nos. 1-2 (Spring 1991): 91-101.

Goldberg, Jeffrey, “The Crisis in U.S.-Israel Relations Is Officially Here,” The Atlantic (October 28, 2014).

Goldman, Nahum, “Israel, the US, and American Jewry — A Complex Relationship,” New Outlook (November/December 1979).

Goldstein, Yossi, “France or the U.S.? The Struggle to Change Israel’s Foreign Policy Orientation, 1956-64 (Part I),” Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, Vol. 4, No. 2 (2010): 99-113.

Greenbaum, Avraham, “The U.S. Airlift to Israel in 1973 and Its Origins,” Israel Affairs, Vol. 13, No. 1 (2007): 131-140.

Hahn, Peter, “The View From Jerusalem: Revelations About U.S. Diplomacy From the Archives of Israel,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 22, No. 4 (1998): 509-532.

Hertzberg, Arthur, “Jewish Identification After the Six-Day War,” Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 31, No. 3 (1969): 267-271.

Indyk, Martin, “Reagan and the Middle East: Learning the Art of the Possible,” SAIS Review, Vol. 7, No. 1, Johns Hopkins University (Winter-Spring 1987): 111-138.

Jackson, Galen, “The Showdown That Wasn’t: U.S.-Israeli Relations and American Domestic Politics, 1973-75,” International Security, Vol. 39, No. 4 (2015): 130-169.

Klieman, Aharon, “The United States and Israel: The Road Ahead,” Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2015): 163-177.

Kochavi, Noam, “Joining the Conservative Brotherhood: Israel, President Nixon, and the Political Consolidation of the ‘Special Relationship,’ 1969-73,” Cold War History, Vol. 8, No. 4 (November 2008): 449-480.

Koplow, Michael J., “Value Judgment: Why Do Americans Support Israel?” Security Studies, Vol. 20, No. 2 (2011): 266-302.

Kuntzel, Matthias, “America’s Shifting ‘Red Lines’ on Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions: A Wedge Issue in US-Israel Relations,” Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, Vol. 7, No. 1 (2013): 37-44.

Lasensky, Scott, “Dollarizing Peace: Nixon, Kissinger and the Creation of the US-Israeli Alliance,” Israel Affairs, Vol. 13, No. 1 (2007): 164-186.

Lasensky, Scott, “Friendly Restraint: U.S.-Israel Relations During the Gulf Crisis of 1990-1991,” Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 3, No. 2 (June 1999): 24-35.

Lasensky, Scott, “Underwriting Peace in the Middle East: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Limits of Economic Inducements,” Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 6, No. 1 (March 2002): 89-105.

Levey, Zach, “The United States’ Skyhawk Sale to Israel, 1966: Strategic Exigencies of an Arms Deal,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 28, No. 2 (2004): 255-276.

Lewis, Samuel W., “An American Perspective on Strategic Cooperation,” in Proceedings of Strategy and Defense in the Eastern Mediterranean: An American-Israeli Dialogue, Jerusalem, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, July 7-9, 1986.

Lewis, Samuel W., “The United States and Israel: Evolution of an Unwritten Alliance,” Middle East Journal, Vol. 53, No. 3 (Summer 1999): 364-378.

Lieber, Robert, “US-Israeli Relations Since 1948,” MERIA Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3 (September 1998).

Lieberman, Robert C., “The ‘Israel Lobby’ and American Politics,” Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 7, No. 2 (2009): 235-257.

Little, Douglas, “The Making of a Special Relationship: The United States and Israel, 1957-68,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 25, No. 4 (November 1993): 563-585.

Lipset, Seymour M., and William Schneider, “Carter vs. Israel,” Commentary (November 1977): 21-29.

Luttwak, Edward N., “Strategic Aspects of U.S.-Israeli Relations,” Israel Affairs, Vol. 2, Nos. 3-4 (1996):198-211.

Makovsky, David, “Disagreements on Hostages Loom Over Netanyahu’s Washington Trip,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy (July 19, 2024).

Malley, Rob, and Peter Harling, “Beyond Moderates and Militants,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 89, No. 5 (September/October 2010): 18-29.

McAlexander, Richard J., “Couscous Mussolini: US Perceptions of Gamal Abdel Nasser, the 1958 Intervention in Lebanon and the Origins of the US-Israeli Special Relationship,” Cold War History, Vol. 11, No. 3 (2011): 363-385.

Mead, Walter R., “The New Israel and the Old: Why Gentile Americans Back the Jewish State,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 4 (July/August 2008): 28-46.

Ottolenghi, Michael, “Harry Truman’s Recognition of Israel,” The Historical Journal, Vol. 47, No. 4 (December 2004): 963-988.

Pew Research Center, “American and Israeli Jews: Twin Portraits From Pew Research Center Surveys,” January 24, 2017.

Pressman, Jeremy, “The Bush Administration’s Foreign Policy Failure in the Middle East,” International Security, Vol. 33, No. 4 (Spring 2009): 149-179.

Pressman, Jeremy, “Explaining the Carter Administration’s Israeli-Palestinian Solution,” Diplomatic History, Vol. 37, No. 5 (2013): 1117-1147.

Rabinovich, Itamar, “Testing the ‘Israel Lobby’ Thesis,” reprinted with the author’s permission from The American Interest (March/April 2008).

Reich, Bernard, “The United States in the Middle East,” Current History (January 1991): 5-8, 42.

Roth, Ariel Ilan, “Reassurance: A Strategic Basis of U.S. Support for Israel,” International Studies Perspectives, Vol. 10, No. 4 (2009): 378-393.

Safran, Nadav. “America’s Israel Connection,” Jerusalem Quarterly (Summer 1977): 3-30.

Sasson, Theodore, “Mass Mobilization to Direct Engagement: American Jews’ Changing Relationship to Israel,” Israel Studies, Vol. 15, No. 2 (2010): 173-195.

Satloff, Robert, and Chas Freeman, “Israel: Asset or Liability? A Debate on the U.S.-Israel Relationship,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, March 2011.

Schoenbaum, David, “Afterthoughts,” in The United States and the State of Israel, Oxford University Press (1993): 297-380.

Sela, Avraham, “The Arabs, Truman, and the Birth of the State of Israel,” at the conference Harry S. Truman, the State of Israel, and the Quest for Peace in the Middle East, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (May 29, 2008): 41-66.

Sharp, Jeremy M., “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel: Overview and Developments Since October 7, 2023,” Washington, Congressional Research Service, May 28, 2025.

Sheffer, Gabriel, “The United States-Israeli ‘Special Relationship,’” The Jerusalem Journal of International Relations, Vol. 9, No. 4 (1987): 35-44.

Siddiqi, Shibil, “The Divergence of America and Israel,” Foreign Policy in Focus (July 12, 2010).

Siniver, Asaf, “Abba Eban and the Development of American-Israeli Relations, 1950-1959,” Diplomacy & Statecraft, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2015): 65-83.

Slonim, Shlomo, “The United States and the Status of Jerusalem 1947-1984,” Israel Law Review, Vol. 19, No. 2 (1984): 179-252.

Spiegel, Steven L., “The American-Israeli Relationship: Past and Future,” Israeli Journal of Foreign Affairs, Vol. 2, No. 3 (2008): 15-28.

Spiegel, Steven L., “U.S.-Israel Relations After the Gulf War,” Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (July 15, 1991).

Spiegel, Steven L., “U.S. Relations With Israel: The Military Benefits,” Orbis, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Fall 1986): 475-498.

Stein, Kenneth W., “My Problem With Jimmy Carter’s Book,” Middle East Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Spring 2007): 3-15.

Stein, Kenneth W., “U.S.-Israeli Relations 1947-2010: The View From Washington,” in The World Facing Israel — Israel Facing the World: Images and Politics, Alfred Wittstock (ed.), Berlin, Frank and Timme (2011): 159-175.

Stein, Kenneth W., “The U.S.-Israeli Relationship,” in The Oxford Handbook of Israeli Politics and Society (November 2020).

Steinberg, Gabriel, “Israel and the United States: Can the Special Relationship Survive the New Strategic Environment,” Middle East Review of International Affairs, Vol. 2, No. 4 (November 1998).

Tal, David, “A Tested Alliance: The American Airlift to Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War,” Israel Studies, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Fall 2014): 29-54.

“U.S.-Israeli Relations at the Crossroads,” Israel Affairs, special issue, Vol. 2, Nos. 3 and 4, 1996.

Valensi, Carmit, and Udi Dekel, “The Current Challenges in the Middle East Demand a Joint United States-Israel Strategy,” Strategic Assessment, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2016): 25-39.

Vanetik, Boaz, and Zaki Shalom, “The White House Middle East Policy in 1973 as a Catalyst for the Outbreak of the Yom Kippur War,” Israel Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1 (2011): 53-78.

Verbeeten, David, “How Important Is the Israel Lobby,” Middle East Quarterly, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Fall 2006): 37-44.

Weber, Timothy, “How Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend,” Christianity Today, Vol. 42, No. 11 (October 5, 1998): 38-49.

Weinberg, David Andrew, “Israel and the United States: An Alliance Like None Other,” in Israel and the World Powers: Diplomatic Alliances and International Relations Beyond the Middle East, Colin Shindler (ed.), London and New York, I.B. Tauris (2014: 61-91.

Zanotti, Jim. “Israel: Background and U.S. Relations,” Congressional Research Service, July 1, 2022.

Zanotti, Jim, “Israel: Major Issues and U.S. Relations,” Congressional Research Service, December 5, 2024.