{"id":182976,"date":"2025-11-20T11:05:16","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T09:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.nli.org.il\/?p=182976"},"modified":"2025-11-23T16:12:04","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T14:12:04","slug":"jfk_and_israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blognli2026.moonsite.co.il\/en\/jfk_and_israel\/","title":{"rendered":"John F. Kennedy and Israel: A Look Back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From Harry Truman\u2019s diplomatic recognition of Israel within minutes of the country\u2019s declaring independence to Donald Trump\u2019s brokering of a deal to end the October 7 war, American presidents have played crucial roles in the Jewish state\u2019s brief history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John F. Kennedy is not often mentioned in discussions of consequential U.S. presidents in the two countries\u2019 bilateral relationship, but he made a strong imprint on what became, and remains, a deep and multifaceted alliance. And he did so during a brief White House tenure, less than three years before he was assassinated, on November 22, 1963.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kennedy \u201cliked Israel. He was very sympathetic to Israel,\u201d said Eytan Gilboa, a professor at Reichman University who is teaching a course this semester on American presidents\u2019 policies regarding Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several streets in Israel are named for U.S. presidents, including Washington, Lincoln, Truman and Kennedy. But only Kennedy was honored with a memorial, opened in 1966 in a forest near Jerusalem.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"997009869411205171\"
Young Israelis pose for a photo<\/a> in front of the country’s John F. Kennedy Memorial, just outside Jerusalem, 1976. This item is part of the Israel Archive Network project (IAN) and has been made accessible thanks to the collaborative efforts of the Kibbutz Beit HaShita Archive, the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage and the National Library of Israel.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Kennedy made his mark on Israeli-U.S. ties in two primary ways: as the first president to sell arms to Israel and the first to describe American-Israeli ties as a \u201cspecial relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Pho1391089
A young John F. Kennedy, during a visit to Mandatory Palestine in 1939. Photo by Zvi Oron, the Central Zionist Archives<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

He visited Israel twice: in 1939, as a Harvard University student; and in 1951, as a third-term congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives. (Not until Richard Nixon in 1974, 26 years after Israel\u2019s founding, did a sitting American president visit Israel.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Kennedy
Congressman John F. Kennedy (right) meets with Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion (left) in 1951. Between them sits Congressman Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr. – photo courtesy of GPO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As president, Kennedy twice met with Israeli leaders: with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion at New York\u2019s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on May 30, 1961, four months after being inaugurated; and with Foreign Minister Golda Meir in Palm Beach, Fla., on December 27, 1962.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Kennedymeir\"
Israeli Foreign Minister Golda Meir meets with President Kennedy in Palm Beach, Florida, December, 1962<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

During the meeting with Meir, Kennedy said, \u201cIt is quite clear that in case of an Arab invasion, the United States would come to the support of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Golda
From the January 11, 1963 issue of The Intermountain Jewish News<\/a><\/em>, the Historical Jewish Press Collection at the National Library of Israel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It was one of Kennedy\u2019s many statements as president affirming his administration\u2019s commitment to Israel\u2019s security. But in his 2005 book John F. Kennedy and Israel<\/a><\/em>, an American professor of history, Herbert Druks, stated that Israeli officials, including Shimon Peres, the deputy defense minister, believed that the United States would not defend Israel militarily if needed. Israel thus sought from the president a stronger public declaration and even a formal defense alliance, both of which Kennedy declined out of concern that his country\u2019s relations with Arab states would suffer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was in the Meir meeting that Kennedy spoke of the United States\u2019 \u201cspecial relationship with Israel,\u201d one he said is \u201creally comparable only to that which it has with Britain over a wide range of world affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As if to link the biblical and the strategic, Kennedy added: \u201cWe are interested that Israel should keep up its sensitive, tremendous, historic task.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kennedy\u2019s trips to Israel – especially the first one, in the pre-state era – seemed to strike a human chord. The 22-year-old was impressed by the sheer determination of the local Jews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a 1960 campaign speech, he called Israel a \u201ctriumphant reality\u201d of Herzl\u2019s vision and recalled his 1939 visit, when he witnessed Jews developing the country \u201cunder conditions of the utmost difficulty by labor and sacrifice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can feel a sense of dedication \u2026 and a willingness to endure hardship,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Kennedy
“Israel is the bright light now shining in the Middle East. We, and ultimately Israel’s neighbors, have much to learn from this center of unprecedented economic development, of human pioneering and intelligence and preserverence.<\/em>” – This quote from John F. Kennedy originally appeared in his 1960 book The Strategy of Peace<\/a><\/em>. It was reprinted here, in the December 30, 1960 issue of The Intermountain Jewish News<\/em><\/a> – part of the Historical Jewish Press Collection at the National Library of Israel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some historians believe that Kennedy felt an emotional pull to Israel, others that he was a canny politician mindful of securing the Jewish vote ahead of the 1962 congressional elections and his expected re-election campaign in 1964.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calculated or not, his decision in August 1962 to sell HAWK short-range anti-aircraft missiles to Israel was well-timed, coming three months ahead of the November midterms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kennedy did so over the objections of the U.S. State Department, which traditionally was (and some believe remains) a bastion of pro-Arab policymaking, and some members of his own National Security Council. This, despite the HAWK system\u2019s being a defensive weapon. Indeed, Kennedy initially opposed the sale, which Ben-Gurion had proposed, telling the prime minister in their meeting that although the HAWK was defensive, and while the Americans wanted \u201cclose and harmonious\u201d relations with the Israelis, it still was a missile. Kennedy was wary both of instigating a Middle East arms race and sending Egypt more tightly into the embrace of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Missiles\"
This article notes the tensions within the Kennedy Administration over the sale of HAWK missiles to Israel. From the October 5, 1962 issue of The American Jewish World<\/em><\/a>, the Historical Jewish Press Collection at the National Library of Israel<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

He gradually came around, in no small part due to the urging of a key aide, a Jewish man, who\u2019d undergone a similar about-face on the HAWK sale: Myer Feldman, who was Kennedy\u2019s deputy special counsel, advised the president on domestic policy matters and was his liaison to the American Jewish community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weeks after Kennedy\u2019s decision, Feldman met American-Jewish communal officials and lauded the sale \u2014 it included a $23 million loan to be repaid over 10 years \u2014 as \u201cthe most important policy move initiated by an American administration since 1948.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sale also involved a carefully proposed American effort to extract an Israeli commitment to repatriate some Palestinians displaced during the 1948 war. Ben-Gurion rebuffed the initiative, and the administration later withdrew it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Separately, Kennedy, concerned about the danger of nuclear proliferation and aware of the Dimona facility then under construction, pressed Israel for assurances that it wasn\u2019t developing nuclear weapons. Israel maintained that it would be producing energy for peaceful purposes, but it acceded to Kennedy\u2019s request that American scientists be admitted for annual visits to the site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue had occupied the previous president, Dwight Eisenhower, too. As a senator, Kennedy lobbied the administration to lift its arms embargo on Israel and opposed Eisenhower\u2019s support for United Nations sanctions against Israel following the 1956 Sinai war.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"American
The November 29, 1963 issue of The American Jewish World<\/em><\/a>, from the Historical Jewish Press Collection at the National Library of Israel<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy as president, would become the first U.S. leader to sell offensive weapons \u2014 the Phantom fighter jet \u2014 to Israel in 1968. The American package of economic and military aid to Israel would, a generation later, reach more than $3 billion annually. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, a New York-based think tank, $500 million per year in American aid now goes to develop Israeli and joint U.S.-Israeli missile defense programs. In 1981, President Ronald Reagan oversaw the signing of a strategic-cooperation agreement between the countries, just short of a formal defense alliance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of it, and more, grew out of Kennedy\u2019s HAWK sale, a move that was \u201cvery meaningful,\u201d Gilboa said, \u201cbecause of the special relations that followed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writer-editor Hillel Kuttler can be reached at <\/em>hk@HillelTheScribeCommunications.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recalling the 35th president’s impact on American-Israeli relations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":450,"featured_media":182977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[217],"tags":[1737,1827,6050,1232,306],"tags2":[2784,2709,3067,6051,2656],"class_list":["post-182976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-land-of-israel","tag-american-jewry","tag-david-ben-gurion","tag-golda-meir","tag-history-of-israel","tag-unitedstates"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJohn F. 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