Vietnam, Jews, and the Middle East

by Judith Apter Klinghoffer

"The story of the relations between President Johnson, Israel and American Jewry demonstrates the Vietnam War's unintended, and heretofore unexplored, strategic and ideological consequences. The US focus on Asia left its Atlantic front open to Soviet penetration. Israel resisted US pressure to plant its flag in Saigon, American liberal rabbis led the peace movement, and Lyndon Johnson publicly threatened to withdraw his support from Israel. The Palestinians embarked on their own Vietnamese-inspired 'people's war', and Moscow insisted that Israeli retaliation represented support for American policy in Vietnam by stoking the Middle Eastern fires. The Six Day War challenged US strategy in Vietnam, linked the terms of settlement of the two conflicts, and turned Israel into a Soviet nuclear target and Soviet Jewry into hostages. This split the Left and led some Jewish intellectuals, later known as neo-conservatives, to remount the anti-Communist barricades."--BOOK JACKET.