This is the first book in English to discuss the changing attitudes of the Chilean Right toward Jewish immigrants and the State of Israel from the 1930s onwards. Jewish Chileans have ascended rapidly from the status of undesirable immigrants to middle and upper-middle class, facing less obstacles than their Argentine coreligionists. Particular emphasis is given to the failed struggle to extradite war criminal Walther Rauff and to the years of the military dictatorship headed by General Augusto Pinochet. By the 1970s, Israel seemed a strong pro-Western barrier to the expansion of communism and Islamic fundamentalism.
Scholarship on ethnicity in modern Latin America has traditionally understood the region’s various societies as fusions of people of European, indigenous, and/or African descent. These are often deployed as stable categories, with European or “white” as a monolith against which studies of indigeneity or blackness are set. The role of post-independence immigration from eastern and western Europe—as well as from Asia, Africa, and Latin-American countries—in constructing the national ethnic landscape remains understudied. The contributors of this volume focus their attention on Jewish, Arab, non-Latin European, Asian, and Latin American immigrants and their experiences in their “new” homes. Rejecting exceptionalist and homogenizing tendencies within immigration history, contributors advocate instead an approach that emphasizes the locally- and nationally-embedded nature of ethnic identification.
Aside from the prominent perpetrators such as Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele or Klaus Barbie, there were numerous other cases of Nazis and Nazi sympathizers from Germany and Austria who ended up in Latin America after 1945. Their life trajectories, professional activities, and contacts to local elites in their new homes have hardly been subject to systematic research to date. Their new lives in Latin America, their careers e.g. as diplomats, secret service agents or scientists are therefore a main focus of this volume. The biographies of these people and their networks are woven into the larger political, social, and scientific contexts of postwar Europe and Latin America, especially in the early Cold War period.
Paul Merkley draws on the published literature of the World Council of Churches, the Middle East Council of Churches, the Roman Catholic Church, and other Christian organizations that have an interest in the question of Israel's past, present, and future, and on interviews with numerous key figures within the government of Israel, spokesmen for the Palestine Authority, and leaders of all the major pro and anti-Zionist Christian organizations to demonstrate that Christian attitudes towards Israel remain remarkably polarized. To most evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, loyalty to Israel is a kind of second patriotism, nurtured by the conviction that Israel's restoration is a part of God's plan for history. However mainstream Protestantism champions "Palestinian nationalism" and, drawing on the rhetoric of the Middle East Council of Churches, does not hesitate to portray Israel as an Aoppressor." Merkley concludes that Christian attitudes towards Israel reflect fundamental theological attitudes that must be studied against the long historical background of Christian attitudes towards Judaism and Islam.
Edy Kaufman, Department of International Relations, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Yoram Shapiro, Latin American Studies Department, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Joe] Barromi, Director, UN Department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, IsraelInteraction with Latin America has held varying degrees of importance in Israel's foreign relations. This study aims to present a comprehensive analysis of the patterns of continuity and change in Israel's relations with Latin America over a twenty-five year period, from the creation of the state to the 1973 October War,The authors provide a factual survey of major developments in Israeli-Latin American relations since 1948 - and evaluate the attitudes of Latin American decision makers toward Israel. This latter evaluation is accomplished by studying patterns of behavior, grouping nations according to levels of support for Israel, and analyzing the influence of different variables on the policymaking process both for each of the states involved and their interaction.The work is divided into two basic units: background inputs and analysis of international and state relations. This division is utilized as the basis for the outputs of data and analysis on a multilateral as well as bilateral level, culminating in a detailed analysis of Latin American voting in the United Nations General Assembly.Quite distinctive in subject and perspective. It is timely in its relevance to the Middle East conflict and the recent bid by Latin American Jead-ers for greater influence in Third World politics.
Edy Kaufman, Department of International Relations, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Yoram Shapiro, Latin American Studies Department, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Joe] Barromi, Director, UN Department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Israel Interaction with Latin America has held varying degrees of importance in Israel's foreign relations. This study aims to present a comprehensive analysis of the patterns of continuity and change in Israel's relations with Latin America over a twenty-five year period, from the creation of the state to the 1973 October War, The authors provide a factual survey of major developments in Israeli-Latin American relations since 1948 -- and evaluate the attitudes of Latin American decision makers toward Israel. This latter evaluation is accomplished by studying patterns of behavior, grouping nations according to levels of support for Israel, and analyzing the influence of different variables on the policymaking process both for each of the states involved and their interaction. The work is divided into two basic units: background inputs and analysis of international and state relations. This division is utilized as the basis for the outputs of data and analysis on a multilateral as well as bilateral level, culminating in a detailed analysis of Latin American voting in the United Nations General Assembly. Quite distinctive in subject and perspective. It is timely in its relevance to the Middle East conflict and the recent bid by Latin American Jead-ers for greater influence in Third World politics. I consider it a valuable addition to the literature. John J. Bailey, Associate Professor of Government, Georgetown University This book fills a majorgap in the study of Israel's foreign relations. It has thefurther merit of exploring a very large topic, both in time and space, within a structured systematic framework of analysis. The book is highly informative and stimulating. Michael Brecher, Professor of Political Science, McGill University Contents: Introduction / External Setting / Internal Setting / Israel's Instruments / The Latin American Decision-Makers and Their Psychological Environment / Multilateral Level: Latin American Voting at the U.N. General Assembly / Bilateral Level / Concluding Remarks
This is the first book explicitly to compare extreme right-wing organizations, ideas, and actions in different national settings in Latin America. It shows how extreme rightist class and gender composition, motives, programs, and activities varied over time and between countries. It concludes by demonstrating the importance of the analysis for understanding present conditions.
Israel has had an unusual experience as both a recipient of foreign aid and as a donor country. Although it is small in area and population, it has developed the political, economic, and military capacities of a middle-range power. It has thus been able to offer expertise to others while it has continued to develop at a rapid pace. In terms of location and ethnic background of the majority of the population, Israel belongs to Asia and therefore is an integral part of the Third World of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Israel's economic, cultural, and political interactions with the Third World are the focal points of this volume. The articles reflect the evolution of Israel's position in the Third World, the range of its programs and activities, and the problems and constraints of its international relations. Many of the contributors are Israelis who have been personally connected with diplomatic, economic, or technical assistance activities. In addition to this practical treatment, Israeli and American scholars have tried to offer a more detached and objective view of the situation. The contributors indicate the contrasting conditions that have affected interchanges with Asian, African, and Latin American states. These views outline the possibilities and limitations of a small or middle-range power engaged in a persistent regional conflict to interact normally with other developing countries and share the benefits of its own development experiences. Contributors: Moshe Alpan, Shimeon Amir, Ehud Avriel, Joel Barromi, Michael Brecher, Michael Curtis, Samuel Decalo, Ephraim Dubek, Akiva Eger, Jacques Fomerand. Eli Ginzberg, Susan Aurelia Gitelson, Irving Louis Horowitz, Eliyahu Kanovsky, Edy Kaufman, Ran Kochan, Mordechai E. Kreinin, Netanel Lorch, Meron Medzini, Benjamin Rivlin, Dan Segre, Yoram Shapira, Yaacov Shimoni.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler's subsequent declaration of war upon the United States, Chile's reluctance to sever diplomatic ties with Nazi Germany allowed Germany to maximize its opportunities there, influencing Chilean politicians, military operations, and the popular media. This is the story of Chile, of its efforts to maintain neutrality, its abandonment of neutrality, and the significance-long-term and short-term-of those actions. Based on documentary evidence from the archives of the Chilean Foreign Office, and from U.S., British, German, and, intercepted, Japanese documents, Mount is one of the first authors to provide evidence of the events and circumstances surrounding Chile's refusal to comply with the will of the White House and the State Department, in 1942, that they sever diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan. According to his findings, this refusal, fueled by bribes to influential politicians and journalists, a respect for the German-Chilean electorate in a presidential election year, a fear of what Nazi submarines might do to Chilean shipping and the Chilean coastline, and a desire to demonstrate independence, allowed these countries to use their embassies as centres of espionage that radiated as far north as Canada and threatened Allied shipping. Mount concludes that although the government of President Rios finally did make the break, sympathy for the Nazis and their values did not disappear but continued to have an impact upon Chile into the era of Augusto Pinochet, Chilean head of state from 1973 to 1990. Graeme S. Mount teaches history at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. He is author of many books dealing with Canada-United States relations. His most recent include The Caribbean Basin: An International History,/I> and Invisible and Inaudible in Washington: American Policies toward Canada during the Cold War.
