The BESA Center held an international conference in May 2015 to mark publication of center associate Prof. Jonathan Rynhold’s book The Arab-Israel Conflict in American Political Culture (Cambridge U. Press, 2015). The conference was cosponsored by the Argov Center for the Study of Israel and the Jewish People, headed by Rynhold.
The conference looked at the domestic foundations of the US-Israel relationship, US foreign policy in the Middle East, and US-Israel relations into the future – towards a post-Obama era. A great deal of the discussion centered on the growing partisanship in US politics and in discussion of Israel – an issue that Prof. Rynhold studies closely in his new book.
Among the participants were Mr. Elliott Abrams, former US Deputy National Security Advisor in the George W. Bush administration; Ambassador Sallai Meridor, former Israeli Ambassador to the US; Prof. Walter Russell Mead of Bard College; Mr. David Makovsky of Washington Institute of Near East Policy; former Israeli ambassador to the US Danny Ayalon; Dr. Amnon Cavari of the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya; Avinoam Bar-Yosef of the Jewish People Policy Institute; Dr. Faydra Shapiro of the Jezreel Valley College; and BESA Center associates Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaacov Amidror, Prof. Eytan Gilboa, Prof. Efraim Inbar and Prof. Shmuel Sandler. Details of their remarks can be found in the document below. (No video available).