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Israel–United States relations are a very important factor in the United States government's overall policy in the Middle East, and Congress has placed considerable importance on the maintenance of a close and supportive relationship. The main expression of Congressional support for Israel has been foreign aid.〔 Since 1985, it has provided nearly $3 billion in grants annually to Israel, with Israel being the largest annual recipient of American aid from 1976 to 2004 and the largest cumulative recipient of aid ($121 billion, not inflation-adjusted) since World War II.〔(US Foreign Aid to Israel ) (Adapted from the summary of a report by Jeremy M. Sharp, specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs. 16 September 2010)〕 Seventy-four percent of these funds must be spent purchasing US goods and services.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=US Senator Rand Paul set to visit Israel )〕 More recently, in fiscal year 2014, the US provided $3.9 billion in foreign military aid to Israel.〔 Israel also benefits from about $8 billion of loan guarantees.〔 Congress has monitored the aid issue closely along with other issues in bilateral relations, and its concerns have affected Administrations' policies.〔 Almost all US aid to Israel is now in the form of military assistance, while in the past it also received significant economic assistance. Strong congressional support for Israel has resulted in Israel receiving benefits not available to other countries.〔 In addition to financial and military aid, the United States also provides political support to Israel, having used its United Nations Security Council veto power 42 times with respect to resolutions relating to Israel, out of a total 83 times in which its veto has ever been used. Between 1991 and 2011, 15 vetos were used to protect Israel out of 24 in total.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=RUSI - Middle East Peace: The Principles behind the Process )〕 Bilateral relations have evolved from an initial US policy of sympathy and support for the creation of a Jewish homeland in 1948 to an unusual partnership that links a small but militarily powerful Israel, dependent on the United States for its economic and military strength, with the American superpower trying to balance other competing interests in the region. Others maintain that Israel is a strategic ally, and that US relations with Israel strengthen the US presence in the Middle East.〔(Israeli-United States Relations ) (Adapted from a report by Clyde R. Mark, Congressional Research Service. Updated 17 October 2002)〕 Israel is one of the United States' two original major non-NATO allies in the Middle East. Late Republican Senator Jesse Helms used to call Israel "America's aircraft carrier in the Middle East", when explaining why the United States viewed Israel as such a strategic ally, saying that the military foothold in the region offered by the Jewish State alone justified the military aid that the United States grants Israel every year. Currently, there are seven major non-NATO allies in the Greater Middle East. ==Attitude toward the Zionist movement== Support for Zionism among American Jews was minimal, until the involvement of Louis Brandeis in the Federation of American Zionists,〔() 〕 starting in 1912 and the establishment of the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs in 1914; it was empowered by the Zionist Organization "to deal with all Zionist matters, until better times come".〔Jeffrey S. Gurock, ''American Zionism: mission and politics'', p. 144, citing Jacob De Haas, ''Louis D. Brandeis'' (New York: 1929) and Chaim Weizmann, ''Trial and Error'' (Philadelphia:1949). vol. I, p. 165〕 While Woodrow Wilson was sympathetic to the plight of Jews in Europe, he repeatedly stated in 1919 that US policy was to "acquiesce" to the Balfour Declaration but not officially support Zionism.〔Walworth (1986) 473–83, esp. p. 481; Melvin I. Urofsky, ''American Zionism from Herzl to the Holocaust'', (1995) ch. 6; Frank W. Brecher, ''Reluctant Ally: United States Foreign Policy toward the Jews from Wilson to Roosevelt.'' (1991) chapters 1–4.〕 However, the US Congress passed the Lodge-Fish resolution,〔Walter John Raymond, ''(Dictionary of politics: selected American and foreign political and legal terms )'', p. 287〕 the first joint resolution stating its support for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" on 21 September 1922.〔John Norton Moore, ed., ''The Arab Israeli Conflict III: Documents, American Society of International Law'' (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974), p. 107–8〕 The same day, the Mandate of Palestine was approved by the Council of the League of Nations. During World War II, while US foreign policy decisions were often ''ad hoc'' moves and solutions dictated by the demands of the war, the Zionist movement made a fundamental departure from traditional Zionist policy and its stated goals, at the Biltmore Conference in May 1942.〔''American Jewish Year Book'' Vol. 45 (1943–1944) (Pro-Palestine and Zionist Activities, pp. 206–214 )〕 Previous stated policy towards establishing a Jewish "national home" in Palestine were gone; these were replaced with its new policy "that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth" like other nations, in cooperation with America, not Britain.〔Michael Oren, ''Power, Faith and Fantasy'', Decision at Biltmore, pp. 442–445: Convening in the art deco dining halls of New York's Biltmore Hotel in May 1942, Zionist representatives approved an eight-point plan that, for the first time, explicitly called for the creation of a "Jewish Commonwealth integrated in the structure of the new democratic world". Gone were the proposals for an amorphous Jewish national home in Palestine, for carving out Jewish cantons and delineating autonomous regions with an overarching Arab state. Similarly, effaced was the long-standing Zionist assumption that Palestine's fate would be decided in London. Instead, the delegates agreed that the United States constituted the new Zionist "battleground" and that Washington would have the paramount say in the struggle for Jewish sovereignty. Henceforth the Zionist movement would strive for unqualified Jewish independence in Palestine, for a state with recognized borders, republican institutions, and a sovereign Army, to be attained in cooperation with America.〕 Two attempts by Congress in 1944 to pass resolutions declaring US government support for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine were objected to by the Departments of War and State, because of wartime considerations and Arab opposition to the creation of a Jewish state. The resolutions were permanently dropped.〔Rubenberg, p.27-28〕 Following the war, the "new postwar era witnessed an intensive involvement of the United States in the political and economic affairs of the Middle East, in contrast to the hands-off attitude characteristic of the prewar period. Under Truman the United States had to face and define its policy in all three sectors that provided the root causes of American interests in the region: the Soviet threat, the birth of Israel, and petroleum." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Israel–United States relations」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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