I am writing about how I believe that the most important piece of Israeli foreign policy is keeping the USA as the strongest ally. This is a second annotated bibliography. So I would like to use the same writer in about two weeks for a 15-16 page paper on the subjuect. This includes how lobby’s are affecting this and here are some comments after my first topic discussion. Craig,

One of the key arguments you’ll have to overcome is Waltz’s unitary actor argument. Since states are unitary actors, interest groups are assumed not to matter. Of source I’d look at is

Smith, A et al. (2005). The logic of political survival. MIT press. While technical, this book, and it’s many less technical article shootoffs, should provide a good introduction to how domestic politics can influence something like foreign policy.

Also, I’d look into the numerous citations in the syllabus in regard to domestic politics and foreign policy.

The Walt and Mearshiner book was pretty heavily criticized – you may want to read some book reviews of it to get a sense of what arguments you’ll need to answer when writing your paper.

To get a sense of public support for Isreal you can look at Pew and Gallup polling data – both good sources. As for how you’re going to aggregrate the polling results and relate them to lulls and rises in Israeli military action is up to you. Perhaps you can do some simple cross tabs, maybe even just some simple line graphs would work well.

I’d also echo Kyle’s warning. You may be picking up a spurious relationship by looking at AIPAC since they seem to be adminantly pro-Israeli anyway. I’d look for a more neutral source.

Here is the instructions we received for this second annotated bibliography.:
"Students,
Just a reminder that the 2nd annotated bibliographies were assigned today. They are due on the Friday of Week 14 at 11:59 pm. We are currently on Week 12, so you have three weeks in total to complete these bibliographies.
The instructions for completing these bibliographies are EXACTLY the same as the first bibliographies. They are to be formatted the same way, and should include all information from your first bibliography. In fact, you way wish to simply add on to the word file of your first bibliography – just begin a section with a different heading notifying me that this section is the 2nd bibliography.
I want to see additional sources added to your first bibliography. These sources should, of course, be relevant to your project. Ideally, you will have integrated my past comments regarding your earlies bibliography and done some revisions. I’d like to see about 10 or so NEW sources. You should have a firm research question in mind now, and ideally, you should be working on the project already.
I will go through these bibliographies as well in order to give last minute feedback while you complete your research papers.
So, to summarize, research 10 or more additional sources for your second round of bibliography revisions. You should incorporate my comments on your earlier drafts into this round of revisions. Separate the new section from your old section. The formatting of the bibliography is still the same so you can look at the style guide posted on BB to refamialiarize yourself with formatting procedures. If you have any questions, feel free to email me."

My first was a poor attempt and was rushed here it is: 1. Cite: Quigley, John (2005). The case for Palestine : an international law perspective. Duke University Press
Summary:
Quigley starts at the beginning of the Zionist movement that met with success, not from a groundswell of support from any Jewish community, but from the persuasion of British officials that a client state near the Suez Canal and oil fields would be useful to British interests. The British requested the British Mandate in 1922 which allowed the Zionist state to develop safely.
Quigley shows that the real start of Israel was not from the UN but was from US President Harry Truman. The UN General Assembly Resolution 181, which laid out a partition of Palestine in 1947 was merely a recommendation. The US had decided that the proposed partition was unworkable and its UN delegates were about to help draw up a trusteeship for Palestine when President Truman stunned everyone by recognizing Israel after Israel declared itself a state in May of 1948. According to Quigley, Israel had neither title nor legal claim to any part of Palestine until Arafat’s recognition at the 1993 Oslo Accords.=

Quigley notes that the rationale for Israel’s existence as a Jewish refuge was enhanced by Zionist and Israeli actions. Jewish immigration after WW II was often as a result of either the lobbying of foreign governments to curtail the opportunities for refugees to move to countries other than Israel or Israeli intelligence operations that created the belief that Jews were under attack in various countries.
Quigley not only notes that Israel was the aggressor in the 1967 Six Day War which started the occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territory, but also discounts the Israeli rationale for its aggression, putting this instead in the context of Israel’s various attempts to expand its territory.
Quigley describes the current grim situation of Palestinian civilians under occupation noting the legal legitimacy of their armed resistance to occupation forces, a resistance that is too often described as "terrorism" in our media. He notes that world judicial bodies give more legitimacy to those seeking their self-determination than to colonizers trying to maintain their power.
Assesment:
John Quigley, professor of Law at Ohio State University and a leading American expert in humanitarian law, has written a 2005 update of his 1990 Palestine and Israel, An International Law Perspective. . . . The book is highly readable, despite numerous but unobtrusive academic footnotes; the story Quigley relates will stun many who thought they understood much of this historical background. I think it is important to assess the validity of the Israel claim when it comes to looking at the US lobby.
2. Cite: Dershowitz, Alan M. (1987). Chutzpah. Little Brown and Co.
Summary:

3. Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, et al. (2003). The Logic of Political Survival. MIT Press
Summary: The Logic of Political Survival is a rigorous academic treatise that lays out its theory in a formal mathematical framework, examines its propositions through statistical testing, and offers many historical case studies to support its arguments. The statistical evidence supports the authors’ theory that the sizes of the selectorate and of the winning coalition determine political outcomes, rather than the alternative theory that democracy by itself is the determining factor. The statistical work was a challenge for the authors because of some problems in defining political variables, and it is subject to some questions of interpretation; it holds up well overall, however, and adds some heft to the book’s thesis. The authors also take into account and build on a substantial academic literature in public choice and political economy, and the book includes a long list of references.
Assessment: The book fits in well with the existing literature on public choice, and it advances that discipline by providing explanations for political phenomena that are not well explained in the previous literature.
4. Mearshimer, John, and Walt, Stephen (2008). The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, Middle East Policy, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 29-87
Summary: No other special interest group has managed to skew US foreign policy in the directions that they have wanted more than the Israel lobby. Diverting US foreign policy away from US interest according to Mearsheimer and Walt.
Assessment: This is what my paper will be examining. What is the continued support here in the US and where can we see it going.

5. Walt, Stephen M. (2009). "What Osama Bin Laden didn’t understand about The Israel Lobby." Foreign Policy. 15 September 2009.
Summary: Bin Laden could have easily quoted the late Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) who wrote in his memoirs that "I was never put under greater pressure than by the Israeli lobby … it’s the most influential crowd in Congress by far." Or he could have cited former Senator Ernest ("Fritz") Hollings (D-SC), who said that "you can’t have an Israel policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here." He might have invoked notorious terrorist sympathizer Newt Gingrich (R-GA), who called AIPAC "the most effective general interest group … across the entire planet," or even former Senate Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) who told AIPAC’s annual conference that "without your constant support … the U.S.-Israeli relationship would not be." Heck, bin Laden could even have brought up Alan Dershowitz, who once wrote that "my generation of Jews … became part of what is perhaps the most effective lobbying and fundraising effort in the history of democracy." In short, he didn’t need our book to tell people there’s an Israel lobby with a powerful influence on U.S. Middle East policy.
Assessment: This is why I am writing this paper. This article is part of what I want to either prove or disprove in my theory.

6. Cohen, Richard (2007). "Why does America support Israel?". Denver Post.
Summary: This is a review of Mearsheimer and Walt The Israel Lobby . It is just an interesting tidbit of insight of a popular common news source that will help me with my subject matter.
7. Borger, Julian. "US professors accused of being liars and bigots over essay on pro-Israeli lobby", The Guardian, March 31, 2006.
Summary: Dershowitz and other professors and administrators have took Mearsheimer and Walt to town calling them names and attacking their research.
Assessment: So where do we stand now?

I would like the next to be much better and concise on the points here are the instructions

Annotated Bibliography Instructions

A bibliography is a list of sources a researcher has used for researching a topic. The bibliography references all sources referenced in the article. An annotation is a summary or evaluation. Therefore an annotated bibliography is a more extensive bibliography that includes a summary and/or evaluation of each of the referenced sources.

To generate your thinking about your future research project that is due at the end of the semester, I am having you complete two annotated bibliographies during the semester. One you will complete by the end of Week 7, the other is due at the end of Week 14. These annotated bibliographies will help you organize your thoughts regarding your research paper now so that you are not scrambling to collect your thoughts at the end of the semester.

Directions:
You are to pick a topic that has some interest to you and that is related to some aspect of Israeli foreign policy. Using sources from the syllabus, online journal databases like JSTOR, Project MUSE, Lexis-Nexis, etc.…and materials available at Criss Library, construct an annotated bibliography of no less than ten (10) sources related to your topic of interest. This annotated bibliography is due on the Friday of Week 7 at 11:59 pm. It is to be uploaded to Blackboard. This assignment will hopefully get you thinking about your research topic and will assist you in summarizing your sources now so that you can more easily remember them later, and therefore construct a better research paper.

First, correctly cite the source according to APSA (American Political Science Association) guidelines. For APSA guidelines please see the syllabus. Second, provide a summarization of the source. List the author’s main argument, evidence used to support that argument, and conclusions. Third, you may choose (and probably should do so, as it will make the framing of your final paper much easier) to critique or otherwise assess the arguments made in that source. Fourth, you may provide helpful notes to yourself as to how you plan to use this source in your paper. You may vary the length of each source according to your preference, or the importance you attach to that source.

An example of an annotated bibliography for one source appears on the following page.

Example:
Cite: Waltz, Kenneth (1979), [2010]. Theory of International Politics. Waveland Press, Long Grove Illinois.
Summary:
Waltz provides an overview of his theory of International Politics – a theory that would come to be known as neo-realism. Waltz contends that IR must be studied from a systemic perspective. Because the ordering principle of IR is anarchy, and because all states are more or less functionally equivalent, Waltz contends that variation in the international system must be caused by the distribution of capabilities among the constituent units of the international system. This distribution of capabilities Waltz calls the balance of power. Changes in the balance of power drive periods of peace and conflict in the international system as well as define the stability or polarity of that system.

Assessment:
While appropriate for studying the international behavior of Great Powers, Waltz’s theory breaks down somewhat when attempting to explain the behavior of regional actors, less powerful states, and the actors inside states. One might gain quite a bit of insight into Israel’s international strategy through neo-realism, but Waltz’s theory has difficulty explaining how Israeli domestic issues may affect its foreign policy. For instance, Waltz’s theory cannot explain Sharon’s decision to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza. The theory also has trouble accounting for the behavior of non-state actors – obviously a crucial aspect of Israel’s foreign policy. Waltz’s theory, for instance, does not account for the behavior of non-state actors, like Hamas – since only states comprise the units of the international system. Also, one variable, the balance of power, accounts for all the variation in the system. This theory, while it seems to explain quite a bit despite its simplicity, may be perhaps a bit too simplistic.
Notes:
This is a useful starting point to analyze Israeli foreign policy – systemic factors seem to play an important role in explaining Israel’s foreign policy. But, the theory can’t account for all aspects of Israeli foreign policy. If I’m going to be interested in the religious aspects of Israeli foreign policy – I need to look somewhere else for a proper theory to frame my argument.

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