During these days of extreme polarization within the American Jewish community over the recently negotiated Iran nuclear deal, a calm voice of intellectual integrity and historical accuracy can help put things into perspective. 

Dennis Ross, author of the recently published “Doomed to Succeed:  The U.S.-Israel Relationship From Truman to Obama,” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $30), possesses that voice. Ross has vast experience as a widely respected diplomat who has played a leading role in the Middle East peace process, during the administrations of George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. That Ross has equal standing as a trusted advisor, negotiator or consultant to both Republican and Democratic presidents is a testament to his integrity.

Ross is the counselor and Davidson Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University. He also is a frequent guest on major news programs, including “The PBS News Hour,” “Meet the Press” and “Face the Nation” among others.

The timing of “Doomed to Succeed” and Ross’s Sunday appearance at the St. Louis Jewish Book Festival and later, at the St. Louis Speakers Series (in January), could not be better. In his book, Ross takes the reader through every administration from that of Harry S Truman, the Man from Missouri who recognized the State of Israel 11 minutes after it issued its Proclamation of Independence, up to and including that of President Barack Obama, who has stressed that the bond between the United States and Israel is “unbreakable.” 

Among the many nuggets of insights regarding some of the presidents Ross discusses are:

• Harry S Truman:  Ross details how Truman was threatened by no less a personage than former General George Marshall, his then-secretary of state and author of the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe.  In a tense meeting in which Truman discussed with advisers whether or not to recognize the new State of Israel, Marshall blurted out: “If the president were to follow Mr. (Clark) Clifford’s advice [to recognize the new State of Israel] and if in the election I were to vote, I would vote against the President.” The President nonetheless went forward and declared recognition of the Jewish State, later working to repair his relationship to Marshall, who did not resign in protest.

• Dwight D. Eisenhower:  Unlike Truman, who had a Jewish partner in his failed haberdashery in Independence, Mo. before he entered politics, Eisenhower had no special emotional attachment to Jews. Ross notes that Eisenhower and his secretary of state John Foster Dulles shaped America’s foreign policy as a team and their views on the Mideast “were heavily influenced by their preoccupation with the need to counter the Soviet Union.” The administration was really seeking Arabs, not the Israelis, as partners in the region, “and Dulles was not subtle in expressing this aim in his meetings.” Dulles gave assurances to Lebanese leaders and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser that the United States was “prepared to consider counter-measures and concert measures to prevent Israeli aggression.” He added the egregious comment, “the Republican Administration does not owe the same degree of political debt as did the Democrats to Jewish groups.”  

• John F. Kennedy:  The youthful JFK, who enjoyed tremendous political support within the American Jewish community, became the first president to approve an arms sale to the Jewish State.  That first sale of purely defensive weapons was to usher in the decades-long arms sales relationship between the United States and Israel.  Ross writes that Kennedy “was the first president to speak of a special relationship with Israel, to talk explicitly of our commitment to its security, and to overrule the proscription on the provision of arms.” Kennedy also pressured Israel to open up its nuclear facilities in Dimona for inspections, which caused some strain before Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion agreed.

• Lyndon Baines Johnson: Ross writes that LBJ had “strong emotional ties” to Israel and American Jews, but was “constrained by Vietnam.” Johnson became the first president to receive an Israeli prime minister at the White House and was president during the 1967 Six-Day War. LBJ was praised for his skillful management of the American response to the conflict, including deploying the Sixth Fleet as a message to the Arabs. Johnson said that Israel’s victory offered “a real chance for peace,” but because he was so bogged down in the Vietnam War, he could not devote his full energies to initiate a meaningful effort for a settlement.

• Richard M. Nixon: Nixon was known to harbor anti-Jewish views, some of which were expressed in his recorded Oval Office conversations. But he ironically became the president who provided Israel with essential arms during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, at one point drawing down NATO’s arsenal to ship urgently needed weapons to Israel, which had been caught by surprise by the coordinated Egyptian and Syrian invasion on the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.

Ross’s detailed analysis of each of the presidents’ relations with Israel offers proof that the “special relationship” has had its ups and downs through the years, but he makes clear his cautious optimism for the future. “With all its tensions and problems,” he writes, “the relationship has flourished. Its success was far from assured, but it has taken on a life of its own. With the right kind of continuing management and commitment on both sides, it will remain certain, if not doomed, to succeed.”

“Doomed to Succeed” is a work of serious scholarship and meticulous research, though sometimes the reader might become bogged down with the details. But Ross’s volumes “The Missing Peace” and “Doomed to Succeed” belong on the shelves of students of the U.S.-Israel relationship as essential reference books on all aspects of this complex subject.