Reply To: Presidential Pecking Order

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charliehall
Participant

There is no question that Eisenhower was absolutely the most hostile President as far as Israel was concerned. There was a real possibility of a US invasion of Israel in 1956; the US did invade Lebanon two years later.

Lyndon Johnson has not been given credit for the events of 1967. The US had not been an ally of Israel up to then (see 1956), but Johnson tipped off Israel to the fact that Egypt was about to attack, and didn’t respond to the attack on the USS Liberty. Furthermore, his flip to being supportive of Israel (but not settlements) is a policy that has been maintained with no significant change by his eight successors.

Carter deserves condemnation for his repeated unfair blasts at Israel, but those didn’t start until he left office. While President he was actually an improvement over Ford. As mentioned by another commenter, Bush 41’s policy became a lot more benign once Shamir was replaced by Rabin despite the prominent presence of noted anti-Semite James Baker in the administration.