Summary
President of the United States (1961-1963) who, in Christison’s account, began the warm and enduring U.S.-Israeli tie - first to call it a ‘special relationship’ and first to sell arms to Israel - while dealing with Israel and the Arab states and talking around the Palestinians, who were a problem, not a people (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 1132-1170).
Details
- Kennedy believed the United States should befriend rather than repress Arab nationalism, wrote to the leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia in 1961 pledging help in resolving the conflict and the refugee problem, and corresponded personally with Gamal Abdel Nasser; the overtures failed (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 1114-1130).
- His repatriation and resettlement efforts for the Palestinian refugees were, in this account, sincere but pro forma; he failed to understand Israel’s vehemence against taking back substantial numbers or Arab fears of “liquidating the Palestine problem” without solving it (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 1132-1150).
- He received an estimated 80 percent of the Jewish vote in 1960 and told David Ben-Gurion at their first meeting that he knew he had been elected by the votes of U.S. Jews and wanted to do something for the Jewish people (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 1132-1150).
- In December 1960 U-2 photographs showed Israel constructing a nuclear complex at Dimona; Kennedy’s agreement in 1963 to sell Hawk antiaircraft missiles to Israel is presented as a failed attempt to induce Israel to stop development of its nuclear-weapons capability (Perceptions of Palestine, lines 1152-1170).
Related pages
Perceptions of Palestine, Lyndon B. Johnson, Dimona, United States