Summary
Movement that originated in the 1960s and 1970s among originally liberal intellectuals concerned about the radical New Left, whose thinkers in Perceptions of Palestine’s account blamed the Soviet Union for most mischief in the world, promoted Israel as a vital Cold War ally and Palestinians as Soviet tools in international terrorism, held Palestinian nationalism to have no legitimacy as only a Soviet invention, supplied many Reagan administration foreign policymakers through Commentary, and, in the administration’s second theme taken up here, equated Israel’s democratic nature with morality in a way that allowed its practices in the occupied territories to be ignored (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 2016-2023, 2324-2333).
Details
- Prominent recruits listed: Jeane Kirkpatrick, Richard Perle, Elliot Abrams, Max Kampelman, Richard Schifter and Richard Pipes, many brought to the Reagan administration’s attention as Commentary contributors under editor Norman Podhoretz (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 2018-2023).
- Eugene Rostow, a former Johnson official and neoconservative, is given as the apparent source of Reagan’s position that Israeli settlements were legal (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 2046-2051).
Related pages
Ronald Reagan, Norman Podhoretz, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Frame of reference