The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People

By turns lyrical and dyspeptic, Mead explores the role that Zionism and Israel have played in the American imagination and in U.S. foreign policy. He attributes Washington’s steadfast support for the Jewish state and the American fascination with Israel to a sometimes bewildering combination of culture and politics. Protesting, perhaps too much, that pro-Israel lobbying is perceived to be more influential than it truly is, he looks instead to forces such as religious conviction and realpolitik to explain the U.S.-Israeli relationship. His account of the embrace of Israel by Christian evangelical movements in the United States is subtle and revealing in explaining the substantial influence of Christian Zionists in U.S. policy debates about the Middle East. Mead suggests that the interminable peace process, in which everyone genuflects to an ever-receding mirage of concord, has been a hard-nosed strategic choice, useful to virtually all parties to the conflict. Although the peace process has inhibited full-blown war, it has also built and sustained troubling local power holders (notably an emboldened Israeli right wing and a feckless Palestinian Authority), provided a rationale for continuing U.S. arms sales to both Israel and the oil-producing Gulf countries, and guaranteed that the United States remains the uncontested global power in the Middle East.