United States policy toward the Middle East: A case study of the Carter and Reagan approaches to the Palestinian issue

This work investigates thoroughly American foreign policy in regard to the Palestinian issue and the Middle East problem between 1945 and 1988. Specifically, it focuses on the impact of the Carter moralist policy and the Reagan strategy on the Palestinian issue. It also examines the impact of those policies on American national interests in the region. The work shows that American-Palestinian policy was molded by the world bipolar balance of power system in its loose and tight aspects. It argues that in American domestic politics pressure groups, like the Jewish lobby, played significant roles in shaping American Middle-East policy.; One of the findings of this work is that American national interests in the region are directly affected by the Palestinian problem. The literature on this subject has generally focused on the development of American foreign policy concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Palestinian issue was treated as an ancillary aspect of the Middle East conflict rather than the essence of it. This approach ignored the impact of the Palestinian issue on the security of American interests in the region. The author contends that the solution to the Palestinian problem lies in the removal of political obstacles which threaten American interests without necessarily accepting the Israeli claim that Arab radicalism is a threat to American interests in the area. The significance of this work is to provide the reader with facts and insights on the correlation between progress toward solving the Palestinian problem and the sustenance of American geostrategic interests in the Middle East. This work illustrates that in order to establish a workable peace in the Middle East, the United States must work with the Palestine Liberation Organization as the Palestinian representative to fulfill the Palestinian national aspiration for a statehood. This is one important conditionality for United States to create world order for international peace.