The Water's Edge and Beyond: Defining the Limits to Domestic Influence on United States Middle East Policy (review)

134 SHOFAR Summer 1994 Vol. 12, No.4 there was recognition of "Israel's place in a region where three continents ... and 65 percent of the world's proven oil reserves now intersected." He sees the American-Israeli relationship that history has already made special as one that "would continue to be more special than most." Schoenbaum's book is a sound, insightful, and distinctly worthwhile study which should be valuable reading for academics and the educated general public who are interested in U.S.-Israeli relations. Scott D. Johnston Department of Political Science Hamline University The Water's Edge and Beyond: DefIning the Limits to Domestic Influence on United States Middle East Policy, by Mitchell Geoffrey Bard. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1991. 313 pp. $32.95. Mitchell Bard states that the purpose of his study"... is to determine the forces that affect whether the Israeli lobby is in fact able to exert influence over American Middle East policy and the conditions under which they operate" (p. 2). In order to achieve this objective, Bard relies on a methodological combination of historical, theoretical, and statistical analyses. The theoretical perspectives include versions ofthe realist, bureaucratic politics, and pluralistic models which Bard surveys for both strengths and weaknesses as each relates to his study. His investigation leads him to propose that "the individual models each describe important components of the decision-making process, but need to be integrated to provide an accurate picture of how U.S. Middle East policy is made" (p. 5). In examining a series of case studies, the author writes that "it is possible to see, in historical context, how these models interact and then, by using aggregate data collected on U.S. Middle East policy decisions for the 1945-1984 period, it will be possible to define the limits of Israeli lobby influence" (p. 6). Bard's case studies are followed by "an analysis of an aggregation of U.S. Middle East policies for the postwar period, which will document the statistical relationship between a series of domestic political variables and the Israeli lobby's success in achieving its objective" (p. 25). The Israeli lobby (and Arab lobby which is peripherally analyzed) consists of both formal and informal elements. Foreign policy typologies are defined by decision arena, Le., the executive or the legislative Book Reviews 135 branches, while policy types may be propelled by either security or economic interests. The body of the text is divided into three parts. Part I is devoted to the Israeli lobby's influence at the legislative level. The cases utilized consist of the United States' arms sales to Saudi Arabia, the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, and the Antiboycott Bill. Part II examines the executive branch as the locus of decision-making, employing as its case studies the U.S. recognition of the State of Israel by President Truman, the Johnson administration's sale of Phantom jets to Israel, and the Carter-brokered Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty. The final section begins with chapter 9 and includes the author's Middle East Policy Data Set followed by an analysis in the next chapter. In Chapter 9, Bard explains how he developed his data set detailing both the source of his data and his coding scheme. The book ends with the author's assessment of his findings. Although t~e construct of the Israeli lobby is defined, Bard does not provide an explicit definition of the term lobby. The absence of a clear and precise theoretical definition eliminates the boundary line separating lobby activities ("formal" is Bard's word) from other pro-Israel variables which the author lumps under the heading of informal elements. Issue areas pertaining to the lobby's agenda are not always specific. In some places the State ofIsrael and the Israeli lobby's interests are presented as one (p. 47), while elsewhere Israel alone sets the lobby's agenda (p. 206). Because Bard's book is laden with history rather than driven by theory, this reviewer was more inclined to scrutinize the text for historical accuracy and search for the author's intrinsic bias as those historical elements relate to specific people, places, and events. The author's narrative about...