The pattern of relationships that characterizes
superpowers and small states is a patron-client relationship, which is
explained on a continuum, from symbiotic relations to complete
coerciveness. This is a communication bargaining process, which is
exemplified especially during crisis management. We have raised six
general assumptions to explain the framework of interactions in
patron-client relations, and proved them through the relationship
structure between the United States and Israel.
After describing the strategic situation in the
Arab-Israeli conflict, and explaining the reason for Israel’s false
self-contentment and haughtiness, we have explained the day by day
processes that shaped the battlefield in 1973, and in parallel the
conduct of relations between the United States and Israel. The issue was
the military airlift to Israel, and Kissinger, who was almost the acting
president, played the most important role. He had used the Israeli
dependency to manipulate Israel through its diplomatic representatives,
Ambassador Dinitz and Foreign Minister Eban.
The questions we have raised were: What kind of
relationship exists between Israel and the United States in this era of
crises? How can we explain the reasons for the United States conduct to
Israel during the 1973 war? What were the reasons for the prolonged
debate on military supply to Israel? Was it a deliberate holdup in order
to submit Israel to the United States global interests?
On the face of it, the issue was an internal one,
the struggle between the State Department and the Pentagon, but the real
issue was a strategic global one, between the United States and the
Soviet Union, through the eyes of Kissinger, as to the delineation of
their boundaries of interests in the Middle East.
It was Kissinger’s statement to Heikal in the
middle of November 1973, which explains our argument best:
The United States policy during the 1973 war in general,
and the airlift to Israel in particular, had nothing to do the Arabs
and/or Israeli interests. The real issue was directly the strategic
balance of power between the superpowers and changing their boundaries
of interests in the Middle East.
