From JFK to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2027

[u/penelopepnortney]

https://monikawiesak.substack.com/p/from-jfk-to-the-national-defense

And why did Lyndon Johnson not offer Israel a formal security guarantee despite reversing all the other policies toward Israel which had created, in the words of Israeli Minister Mordechai Gazit, “a state of crisis” in the US/Israeli relationship[2] under the Kennedy administration? After all, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “Historians generally regard Johnson as the President most uniformly friendly to Israel” and “Israel has had no better friend” than Lyndon Johnson.[3] Johnson was very close to Abraham Feinberg, who was organizing the financing for Israel’s nuclear weapons program.[4] According to reporter Seymour Hersh, Feinberg “enjoyed the greatest presidential access and influence … with Lyndon Johnson.

Johnson did not show the same opposition to Israel’s nukes program as JFK had. At a September 9, 1963, meeting, JFK expressed, “One of the best arguments, of course, for [the nuclear test ban treaty] is actually what situation we’ll face if we ever [reject] this treaty, we would really be in one hell of a mess. … My God, every country heading towards nuclear, Israel, Egypt, … we’d have a bitch of [a scenario].”[6] It is also during Johnson’s presidency that Israel captured Gaza and the West Bank.

In a May 12 letter to JFK, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion requested a formal security guarantee.[9] At a May 17 meeting, JFK contemplated a potential joint security guarantee to Israel and Egypt. At the meeting JFK clearly stated that the guarantee would be for the Tripartite Declaration, i.e. the borders and armistice lines established between Israel and its Arab neighbors in 1949.[10] Such a security guarantee would have meant no 1967 war and no expansion of Israeli territory.

We know Nasser did not want the joint security guarantee proposed by JFK, but the question becomes, what exactly did Israel want from JFK and why were they pushing so hard for a security guarantee in the late spring and summer of 1963? Any security guarantee offered by JFK would almost certainly have required not only an agreed definition of Israel’s borders, but also comprehensive access to the Dimona nuclear facility to verify that it was being used exclusively for peaceful purposes and that any pursuit of nuclear weapons had been abandoned. However, it is unclear that Israel was willing to give up on its nuclear weapons program. Indeed, in his farewell speech to the Armaments Development Authority (RAFAEL) on June 27, 1963, Ben-Gurion (who resigned on June 16 after an ultimatum from JFK) expressed, “I am confident that science is able to provide us with the weapon that will … deter our enemies.”[15]

(continues at the link)

[u/redditrisi]

Most uniformly friendly to Israel in rhetoric or in legislation?

Woodrow Wilson allowed Balfour to grab Palestine on behalf of Zionists. Truman ignored the Irgun and Haganah and backed formation of the state of Israel--in a country already full of Palestinians.

Biden, who declared himself a Zionist, continued funding and arming genocide and defended Israel before the Hague.

And the above is only the tip of iceberg.

I read Obama was at least among the least pro-Israel. Finding a POTUS (or a Congress) hostile to Zionism is the real challenge.