It has long been accepted in the Arab world and in Iran that US foreign policy towards the Middle Last is a conspiracy devised by the American Jewish lobby. It has long been accepted in Europe that the Arabs and Iranians, although prone to exaggeration, had a legitimate grievance about Washington's automatic bias in favour of Israel since the departure of Eisenhower. The recent Middle East peace conference in Madrid may therefore come to be seen as a watershed. With the Cold War over and the Gulf War won, President George Bush and James Baker, his Secretary of State, have adopted an attitude which the Israelis find so alarmingly even-handed that they have begun to suspect another sort of conspiracy, this time concocted by pro-Arab Texas oilmen. Bush says in private that there is not much point kowtowing to the Jewish lobby when most of its members vote Democrat, and he won as great a political victory in forcing Congress to delay $10 billion in US loan guarantees for Israel (to smooth the way to the peace conference) as in convening the conference itself.

LRB 5 December 1991 | PDF Download