The first event in a three-part lecture series on the relationship between the United States and Israel. In this webinar, Professor David Tal will discuss how the relations between the two nations were constructed on idealism, political culture and strategic ties.

About the Book & Talk

Laying the foundation for an understanding of US-Israeli relations, this lively and accessible book provides critical background on the origins and development of the "special" relations between Israel and the United States. Questioning the usual neo-realist approach to understanding this relationship, David Tal instead suggests that the relations between the two nations were constructed on idealism, political culture and strategic ties. Based on a diverse range of primary sources collected in archives in both Israel and the United States, The Making of an Alliance discusses the development of relations built through constant contact between people and ideas, showing how presidents and Prime Ministers, state officials, and ordinary people from both countries, impacted one another. It was this constancy of religion, values, and history, serving the bedrock of the relations between the two countries and peoples, over which the ephemeral was negotiated. This event is co-sponsored by the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations.

About the Author

Professor David Tal is the Yossi Harel Chair in Modern Israel Studies at the University of Sussex, UK since 2013. Prior to that, he was the Kahanoff Chair in Israel Studies at the University of Calgary, Canada. His main fields of expertise are Israel’s military and diplomatic history, the Israel-US relationship and US disarmament policy. He authored more than 40 articles on these subjects, five books, and edited two. His authored books are Israel’s Conception of Current Security- Origins and Development, 1949-1956, Ben Gurion University Press, 1998; War in Palestine, 1948: Strategy and Diplomacy, Routledge, 2004; The American Nuclear Disarmament Dilemma, 1945-1963, Syracuse University Press, 2008 and US Strategic Arms Policy in the Cold War: Negotiation and Confrontation over SALT, 1969-79, that will be published by Routledge in May 2017. He edited the following books: The 1956 War: Collusion and Rivalry in the Middle East, London, 2001 and Israel Identity: Between East and West, Routledge, 2013. His most recent, fifth, book, The Making of Ally: The History of the Israel-US Special Relationship was published by Cambridge University Press in January 2022.

DISCLAIMER: The views or opinions of our guest speakers and the content of their presentations do not necessarily reflect the views of the UCLA Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. Hosting speakers does not constitute an endorsement of the speaker's views or opinions.