Israel And American Jewish Relations Research

The Middle East Region has been the hot spot in the international politics for a long time. The Middle East studies have also been the hot subject in the area of international studies. In the field of Middle East Studies, many scholars home and abroad focused on the research of the relationship between Israel and US.In the many of factors influencing the US-Israel relations, US Jewish lobby is a vital factor which is emphasized repeatedly. The scholars holding this view believe that the main course of Israel's acquisition of long-term support and assistance from US is the support and help from American Jewish communities and Jewish lobby.After more than 350-year development, American Jewry has became one of the ethnic minorities with great strength and influence. The special status of American Jews among the world Jews and American ethnic minorities makes them constitute an important link in the Israel-US relationship and form a triangle among Israel, American Jews and US.Israel is the state reestablished in 1948 by the Jewish people after their global Diaspora for more than 1800 years. The foundering of the State of Israel gave the Jewish people motherland again. The core thoughts of the Zionism are to end the Diaspora and attract the world Jews to make aliyah. In the beginning of 2007, the world Jewish population reached 13.155 million, among which the Jewish population in Israel was 5.393 million, American Jewish population was 5.275 million respectively. These two largest Jewish communities occupied more than 80 percent of the world Jewish population. The relationship between these two Jewish communities has a great impact on the establishment and development of Israel, the Middle East situation and the Israel-US special relationship.The efforts of the American Jewish community gave great contribution to the reestablishment of. the State of Israel. American Jews and the American Zionist institutions did not only support the nation-building course of Jewish people morally and financially, more importantly, they also turned US into the main battlefield of Zionist political and diplomatic activities. Without the support and efforts of American Jews which are the largest Jewish community in the world, the realization the Jewish dream of rebirth their country is unimaginable.The relationship between Israel and American Jews could be divided into three layers. The political interaction between the two sides is on the top layer and consists of the political connection between Israeli Government and American Jews. The channel of the political interaction is also divided into three levels which are the American Jewish high-level officials and the individuals who have direct access into the top, the group of Jewish Congressmen, and the Jewish lobby consisting of many Jewish organizations. The Jewish lobby is the main channel of the interaction that has stable operational mechanism.The political interactions between Israel and American Jewish officials and congressmen forms the top two levels of the pyramid of political connections between Israel and American Jews. Because of the important role of the administration and congress in the US diplomatic policy-making, the interaction between Israel and these two levels has direct impacts on the US policy-makers and achieves the result favorable to Israel. But these two channels relatively depend on individual contact, and the changes of officials and congressmen are regular, so it is difficult to reach the stable mechanism. The solid basis of the bottom level of the political interaction pyramid is formed by the intimate contact between Israel and the Jewish lobby and all kinds of Jewish organizations.Israel has been aware of American Jews as its potential resource. In the process of contact with US, Israel mobilizes the political enthusiasm and participation of American Jewish communities represented by Jewish lobby, pressures on the important areas for the decision-making process such as Administration, Congress and public opinion, leads to the direction favorable to Israel and reaches the results within its expectations, and sometimes even beyond its expectations.The political interactions between Israel and American Jews are limited to the Israel governmental level and the elites of the American Jews, while the economic contacts and the cultural connections between the two side involve the ordinary people from the two large Jewish communities. Due to the solid basis formed by economic contacts and cultural connections, the political relationship in the top level could interact healthily and bring great interests to Israel.The spiritual and cultural connections between Israel and American Jews maintaining the political interaction and economic contacts are the inner core of the relationship between Israel and American Jews. The identification of American Jews to Israel as the spiritual and cultural center of Jewish people and Jewish state is the basis for the active political support and enormous economic aids to Israel from American Jews. Israel makes great efforts to construct the spiritual center for the world Jews and strengthen the ethnic conscience and the identification and intimity to Israel of American Jews. The relations between Israel and American Jews witnessed some changes since the establishment of the State of Israel. In the 21st century, the old model of the relationship is more questionable, and the new era needs a new type of more equal partnership relation.