Red Hot Jewish Papers
The United States is known to the world as the posterchild of democracy. Our founding fathers designed this government so that no single sovereign would have total control. In an effort to keep this from happening, they designed a system of checks and balances, a government with 3 main institutions. The executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. The executive and legislative branches have the most important and influential jobs when it comes to foreign policy. The President, his cabinet, and his team of advisors make up the executive branch, while the House of Representatives and the Senate make up the legislative branch. The legislative branch writes and votes on laws and legislation to be handed to the president for his signature, along with allocating revenue appropriately among the functional aspects and agencies of the government. On the other hand, the President of the United States is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and the chief diplomat and representative of the United States to foreign countries and assemblies. There is confusion between the two institutions because of implied and explicit powers and the distortion of implied powers between administrations. Often, these confusions need to be settled in the Supreme Court of the United States. The Constitution lists broad powers that the Executive branch has access to, but powers that are not granted to Congress are sometimes delegated to the Executive branch. Along with precedents set by previous presidents, these compile the implied powers of the Executive branch. An example of a previously implied power was the presidential term limit. Every president had served a maximum of two terms up until Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Although it was not written law that the president can only serve two terms, most presidents saw fit to only serve two. F.D.R. was elected to four terms and passed away early in his fourth term. After his death, the 22nd amendment was ratified to ensure presidential term limit of a maximum of 2 four-year terms. In 1936, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Executive branch in the case of US v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation. This case granted the President the power to prohibit the “sale of arms and munitions of war… to those countries engaged… in armed conflict” (McCormick pp 263). This was in response to the Corporation’s conspiracy to sell arms and munitions to Bolivia during the Chaco War. The court argued that this was an external affair, and as the Commander in Chief, and the chief diplomat to foreign nations, this was an executive matter. As the federal government can only exercise powers granted to them by the Constitution. The president being the “representative of sovereignty” allowed the executive branch to have the utmost and final authority in regard to foreign affairs (McCormick pp 264).
After World War 2, the United States and the world saw massive changes in international relations. Before World War 2, the US tended to remain uninvolved in foreign conflicts, with the exception of World War 1. The United States alliance with the Soviet Union rapidly declined after the war. From then on, the main focal point of United States foreign policy was the spread of communism and the role that the USSR played in the Asian communist revolutions.
After the fall of the USSR however, the United States had to adapt their foreign policy once again. This time it would still be focused communism, but because of the collapse of the USSR, there was a plethora of power vacuums where the Soviet Union once had satellite states. The concern was still stopping the spread of communism, but with the mixture of proxy wars and direct involvement, the US had to make sure their Middle Eastern interests would remain loyal and intact. President George H.W. Bush is credited with the fall of the Soviet Union, but he wasn’t single handedly responsible for the fall of the Communist empire. His post-Cold War policy approach was a more reactive approach instead of the previous approaches by presidents to be proactive in their foreign policies. To avoid conflicts between the dying communist states in Eastern Europe, the Bush Administration was rather quiet about the fall of the USSR. This was an effort to keep the United States from seeming like they had their hand in the cookie jar with this. He didn’t want the United States to seem boastful about the fall of the USSR. His administration remained cautious and ensured these now independent nations that the United States would continue to foster democracy, but only intervene physically when asked or when our interests were threatened (McCormick pp 138-140).
The Reagan Administration took a hardline approach to dealing with the USSR. Although he maintained his pursuit of negotiations with the Soviets, his idealistic approach didn’t sit well with European nations. The Iran-Contra affair had plagued his administration’s reputation and was a major setback in his pursuit of negotiations (McCormick pp 123). With Reagan’s re-election in 1984, his administration promised that they would do exactly “what we’ve been doing” (McCormick pp 124). Instead, they made some small yet significant changes in their foreign policy approaches. One factor in their changed policy was the “New Thinking” of the USSR. The selection of Mikhail Gorbachev as the general secretary of the Communist party and subsequent selection as the Soviet president, ushered in an era of change in the USSR that the United States needed to accommodate (McCormick pp 124). Gorbachev’s lean towards more economic freedom was the Soviet’s last-ditch effort to compete in a world full of capitalism and free markets. Gorbachev called this change, glasnost and perestroika, and they involved a significant overhaul of outdated Soviet economic and strategic policies (McCormick pp 125). As Gorbachev saw it, the Soviet Union needed to adapt in a changing world in order to ensure the longevity of the empire. In response to Gorbachev’s new thinking, the Reagan Administration supported anticommunist movements throughout the Third World, which were believed to have absorbed heavy influence from the USSR. One of these movements that the United States supported was the Nicaraguan Contras. The Contras were fighting the Sandinistas over control of Nicaragua. The Reagan Administration believed the Sandinistas were directly controlled and supplied by the Soviet Union, and with Nicaragua being so close to the United States, his administration used this threat of spreading communism to bolster support for arming and supplying the Contras. In October of 1984, Congress enforced their “power of the purse” and completely severed all military assistance to the Contras in lieu of several events in the previous months and years that caused international relations between Iran, the US, and Lebanon to deteriorate rapidly (McCormick pp 128). Iran’s seizure of 63 Americans during the Iranian Revolution, and the terrorist bombings of a United States Marine Barracks in Lebanon showed a growing anti-American sentiment in the region and consequently, Reagan lost support from Congress in aiding anti-Communist groups such as the Contras. In response to this, Reagan directed a secretive operation to continue funding and supplying the Contras (McCormick pp 128). This lack of transparency in executive actions tainted the reputation and credibility of the administration and raised skepticism of the Reagan Doctrine.
The break in foreign policy between these two presidents is how each president constructed their policy. Although the Reagan Administration might have seen the decline of the USSR, the Bush Administration saw the end of the USSR as a whole and had to adapt to a democratic Eastern Europe and Asia. Bush’s approach was more cautious and reactive, while Reagan’s approach was more boastful and proactive, showing the developing world that America would always have their foot in the door during a transition of power. Some continuity showed in each president’s view towards the spread of Soviet Communism, and although Bush saw the Soviet Union out the door, he was still cautious of possible uprisings and revolutions that might have adhered to Soviet-style policies.
While people have influence over their elected representatives, those with like-minded concerns have banded together to form “special interest groups”. These groups lobby individual politicians to pass or propose legislation that would benefit their cause. Two groups that regularly butt heads on legislation and both have influence in our government are the “Boycott, Divest, and Sanction” movement, which aligns itself with the idea that organizations and companies should boycott Israeli products, divest in Israeli markets, and sanction the State of Israel in order to force Israel to change the way they treat the Palestinian people. On the other hand, AIPAC, or the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, seeks to improve relations with Israel in order to maintain security and steady economic growth in the nation. Unlike BDS, AIPAC tends to be more bipartisan in their approach, while BDS tends to target democratic leaders to pass anti-Israel legislation. Both of these interest groups are ethnic because BDS is founded and led by Palestinians, even though their founder studies at Tel Aviv University. AIPAC is mainly led by Americans who hold pro-Israel beliefs. AIPAC’s website states that, “AIPAC urges all members of Congress to support Israel through foreign aid, government partnerships, joint anti-terrorism efforts and the promotion of a…two-state solution—a Jewish state of Israel and a demilitarized Palestinian state” (Our Mission). AIPAC strongly opposed and lobbied many members of congress to oppose the JCPOA, or the Iran Nuclear Deal. While these efforts were partially unsuccessful, AIPAC was able to rally Congressmen/women to support an extension of sanctions on Iran. They also fully supported the Trump Administration’s decision to carry out the United States embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, officially recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This outraged those involved with the BDS movement, as the BDS movement views Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine and maintains their standpoint of opposing Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights, the military blockade of the Gaza Strip, and the ghetto style checkpoints and fences surrounding some West Bank villages. They also strongly oppose Israeli settlements in the West Bank. In order to pressure Israel to leave these areas and allow Palestinian’s to have full rights, they focus on boycotting Israeli international companies, along with sporting events involving Israel, and academic institutions that support Israel. They also urge banks, churches, and universities to divest in Israeli companies that are directly or indirectly involved in the violation of Palestinian rights. The final part of their mission is to pressure governments to “fulfill their legal obligation to hold Israel to account my ending military trade, free-trade agreements and expelling Israel from international forums” (What Is BDS?, 2017). Both of these organizations lobby across the aisle, however, AIPAC is more successful in achieving bipartisan support, while BDS generally achieves only democratic support. BDS sees more success and attention on college campuses across the United States. More recently, the Ohio State Undergraduate Student Government recently held a vote concerning the support of the BDS movement. Although the vote did not pass, it is certainly a signal that BDS is growing their influence in the minds of young Americans. The BDS website states that they are committed to fighting anti-Semitism, however, many supporters of AIPAC, along with Zionist Diaspora Jews and Zionists, believe that any form of anti-Israel sentiment is anti-Semitic. Some BDS movements in the United States have controversial members that are openly anti-Semitic, and this creates a fault line in their support, especially with recent events such as the mass shooting in the Tree of Life Synagogue.