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HEBRG104 Anglo-Israeli Relations

Course Code:	HEBRG104
Tutor:	Professor Neill Lochery
Mode of assessment:	One 5,000 word essay and one final unseen examination
Taught:	In terms 1 and 2
Classes:	Wednesdays, 0900-1100 in Room 105a, Roberts Building

Syllabus Outline

The subject introduction adopts a chronological approach to the study of Anglo-Israeli relations from 1948-2007. It aims to provide an in-depth historical analysis of the complex development of the Anglo-Israeli relations, and assess the impact of the Arab world and the Arab-Israeli conflict on this bi-lateral relationship. In specific terms, it introduces students to the main secondary literature and primary documentation on Anglo-Israeli relations. Given that much of this material is very new students will be asked to read very specific secondary texts on the topic as well as more general histories of Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Method of Assessment

MA Students
Students take a three hour dedicated MA written examination in May/June 2013. You will be asked to answer three questions from a total of ten (80% of final mark). The questions will reflect the topics covered in the syllabus, but not all of them will necessarily feature in any particular exam paper. You should therefore make sure that you have covered enough of the syllabus to enable you to answer fully the required number of questions. One coursework essay of 5,000 words from the enclosed list (20% of final mark)

LECTURES

Introduction
WEEK ONE: Foreign policymaking and its implementation in the UK.
Part One: The Post-War Attlee Labour Government, July 1945-October 1951
WEEKS TWO AND THREE: The early years: the one that got away: Establishing a bi-lateral working relationship.
Part Two: The Conservative Years, July 1951-1964
WEEKS FOUR AND FIVE: Growing pains: the question of British arms sales to Israel and the Arabs.
WEEKS SIX AND SEVEN: The road to Suez and Beyond: The Collusion and its impact upon British policy towards Israel in the post-Suez era.
WEEKS EIGHT AND NINE: The times are a changing: Israel goes nuclear.
Part Three: The Turnover Years October 1964-May 1979
WEEKS TEN AND ELEVEN: The road to war and beyond: Britain’s softly-softly approach to Israel and the conflict over water rights between the Arabs and the Israelis.
WEEKS TWELVE AND THIRTEEN: Profit versus loss: British interests in the Middle East: Post June 1967 War Anglo-Israeli relations.
WEEKS FOURTEEN AND FIFTEEN: The right to remain silent: UK, Israel and the EEC.
WEEK SIXTEEN: Israel: menaced and menacing: the turnaround year of 1976 for Anglo-Israeli relations.
Part Four: The Thatcher and Major Era May 1979 - May 1997
WEEK SEVENTEEN AND EIGHTEEN: Thatcher, Israel and the Foreign Office.
WEEK NINETEEN: Anglo-Israeli relations during the era of the Oslo Accords
Part Five: New Labour Era May 1997 - May 2007
WEEK TWENTY: Blair, Israel and the Foreign Office.

Coursework Essays

Choose One of the following questions.
Answer in 4,000 words.

Essay due on Tuesday 19th March 2013.

Remember to read the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Departmental Style Sheet for writing essays.

1. Examine the major obstacles to the establishment of good Anglo-Israeli bi-lateral relations in the period from 1948-51.
2. In what ways did the Suez War damage Anglo-Israeli relations?
3. To what extent was the British arms sales policy towards the Arabs and Israel responsible for the poor state of relations between the two countries between 1955 and 1958?
4. Examine the role of the dispute between Israel and the Arabs over the diversion of the waters of the River Jordan in shaping British policy towards Israel prior to the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
5. Assess the Foreign Office’s definition of ‘British interests’ in the Middle East. How did these change over the years?
6. To what extent was 1976 a key turning point in Anglo-Israeli relations?
7. In what ways did Britain’s membership of the EEC complicate its bi-lateral relations with Israel?
8. How did the rise of the Likud in Israel complicate Anglo-Israeli relations from 1977-1982?
9. Examine the Thatcher Government’s attitude to Israel. In what ways, if any, did if differ from the attitude of the Foreign Office towards Israel?
10. To what extent did Tony Blair contribute to putting Anglo-Israeli relations on a more normal footing that was less influenced by history?

Preliminary Reading List

These texts are designed to provide you with a general introduction to the core issues and events that you will cover in greater detail during your course of study.

Read at least ONE from each of the following sections

The General histories of Israel

• Beilin Yossi, Israel: a Concise Political History, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1992. [ISBN 0-297-82126-1].
• Gilbert, Martin, Israel: a History, Doubleday, London, 1998. [ISBN 0-385-40401-8].
• O’Brien, Conor Cruise, The Siege: the Story of Israel and Zionism, Paladin, London, 1986. [ISBN 0-586-08645-5].
• Sachar Howard, A History of Israel: from the Rise of Zionism to Our Time, Knopf, New York, 1979. [ISBN 0-394-73679-6].
• Sachar Howard, A History of Israel Volume 2: from the Aftermath of the Yom Kippur War, Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1987. (NB: students need to read both volumes). [ISBN 0-19-504623-4].

Arab-Israeli conflict

• Herzog Chaim, The Arab-Israeli Wars, Vintage Books, New York, 1984. [ISBN 0-394-71746-5].
• Karsh Efraim (edited), From Rabin to Netanyahu: Israel’s Troubled Agenda, Frank Cass, London and Portland, 1997. [ISBN 0-7146-4831-0].
• Lochery Neill, The Difficult Road to Peace: Netanyahu, Israel and the Peace Process, Ithaca Press, Reading, 1999. [ISBN 0-86372-217-2]
• Quandt William, Peace Process: American Diplomacy and the Arab-Israeli Conflict since 1967, University of California Press, Berkeley, 2001. [ISBN 0-520-22515-5].
• Tessler Mark, A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1994. [ISBN 0-253-35848-5]

Specific reading
The main text for the course will be Neill Lochery, Loaded Dice: The Foreign Office and Israel (Continuum Academic, London and New York).

Autobiographies and Memoirs

• Arens Moshe, Broken Covenant: American Foreign Policy and the Crisis between the US and Israel, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1995.
• Beilin Yossi, The Path to Geneva: the Quest for a Permanent Agreement, 1996-2004, RDV/Akashic, New York, 2004.
• Dayan Moshe, Breakthrough: a Personal Account of Egypt-Israel Negotiations, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1981.
• Dayan Moshe, Diary of the Sinai Campaign, Da Capo Press, New York, 1966.
• Eban Abba, Personal Witness: Israel Through My Eyes, Jonathan Cape, London, 1993.
• Eban Abba, The New Diplomacy: International Affairs in the Modern Age, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1983.
• Eban Abba, My Country, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1972.
• Heath Edward, The Autobiography: The Course of My Life, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1998.
• Herzog Chaim, Living History: The Memoirs of a Great Israeli Freedom-Fighter, Soldier, Diplomat and Statesman, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1997.
• Hurd Douglas, Memoirs, Little Brown, London, 1993.
• Major John, The Autobiography, Harpers Collins, London, 1999.
• Meir Golda, My Life: The Autobiography, Futura, London, 1976.
• Nott John, Here Today: Gone Tomorrow, Politico’s, London, 2002.
• Peres Shimon, Battling for Peace: Memoirs, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1995.
• Rabin Yitzhak, The Rabin Memoirs, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1996.
• Raviv Moshe, Israel at Fifty, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1998.
• Ross Dennis, The Missing Peace: the Inside Story of Fight for Middle East Peace, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2004.
• Thatcher Margaret, The Downing Street Years, Harpers Collins, London, 19
• Thatcher Margaret, The Path to Power, Harpers Collins, London, 1995.
• Weizmann Ezer, The Battle for Peace, Bantam Books, London, 1981.

Books and Articles

• Allen Roger and Mallat, Chibli (Edited), Water in the Middle East, British Academy Press, London, 1995.
• Almog Orna, Britain, Israel and the United States 1955-58: Beyond Suez, Frank Cass, London and Portland, 2003.
• Aronson Shlomo, Israel’s Nuclear Programme: the Six-Day War and its Ramifications, Kings College London Mediterranean Studies, London, 1999.
• Bailer Uri, Between East and West: Israel’s Foreign Policy Orientation, 1948-1956, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990.
• Bar-On Mordechai, The Gates of Gaza: Israel Road to Suez and Back 1955-1957, St Martin’s Press, New York, 1994.
• Ben Zvi Abraham, Decade of Transition: Eisenhower, Kennedy and the Origins of the American-Israeli Alliance, Columbia University Press, Chichester, West Sussex, 1998.
• Biswas Asit K. (Edited), International Waters of the Middle East. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994.
• Caplan Neil, Futile Diplomacy Volume Four, Operation Alpha and the Failure of Anglo-American Diplomacy in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Frank Cass, London and Portland, 1997
• Clark Alan, The Tories: Conservatives and The Nation State 1922-1997, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1998.
• Cohen Avner, Israel and the Bomb, Columbia University Press, New York, 1998.
• Cohen Michael, Churchill and the Jews, Frank Cass, London and Portland, 2003.
• Freedman Lawrence and Efraim Karsh, The Gulf Conflict 1990-1991, Faber and Faber, London and Boston, 1993.
• Gilbert Martin, Jerusalem in the Twentieth Century, Chatto and Windus, London, 1996.
• Gilbert, Martin, Israel: a History, Doubleday, London, 1998.
• Gilbert Martin, The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Routledge, London and New York, 2003.
• Gordon Haim, Looking Back at the June 1967 War, Praeger, Westport and London, 1999.
• Gorst Anthony and Lewis Johnman (Edited), The Suez Crisis, Routledge, London, 1997 (collection of documents).
• Hennessey Peter, The Prime Minister: The Office and Its Holders Since 1945, Allen Lane, London, 2000.
• Herzog Chaim, The Arab-Israeli Wars, Vintage Books, New York, 1984.
• Hillel Dan, Rivers of Eden: The Struggle for Water and the Quest for Peace in the Middle East, Oxford University Press, New York, 1994.
• Kavanagh Dennis and Anthony Sheldon, The Powers Behind the Prime Minister: The Hidden Influence of Number 10, Harpers Collins, London, 1999.
• Kedourie Elie, The Chatham House Version and Other Middle Eastern Studies, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1970.
• Kedourie Elie, The Crossman Confessions and Other Essays, Mansell, London and New York, 1984.
• Kedourie Elie, Politics in the Middle East, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992.
• Kelly Saul and Anthony Gorst (Edited), Whitehall and the Suez Crisis, Frank Cass, London and Portland, 2000.
• Kimche David and Dan Bawly, The Sandstorm, the Arab-Israeli War of June 1967: Prelude and Aftermath, Secker and Warburg, London, 1968.
• Kyle Keith, Suez, St. Martins Press, New York, 1991.
• Levey Zach, Israel and the Western Powers 1956-59, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London, 1997.
• Lucas Noah, The Modern History of Israel, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1974.
• Ramsden John, An Appetite for Power: A History of the Conservative Party Since 1830, Harpers Collins, London, 1988.
• Shlaim Avi, Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement and the Partition of Palestine, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1988
• Shlaim Avi, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, W. W. Norton and Company, New York and London, 2000.
• Tal David (Ed.), The 1956 War: Collusion and Rivalry in the Middle East, Frank Cass, London and Portland, 2001
• Yapp Malcolm, The Near East since the First World War: a History to 1995, Longman, London and New York, 1996.