ABSTRACT
The Arab-Israeli conflict played a decisive role for the American movement. By making Israel appear a strategic asset for the United States, it enhanced the legitimacy of the Jewish state and the causes defended by the diaspora. In the Soviet Union, the Six-Day War strengthened Zionist sentiment, spurred Jewish activism, and for the first time gave rise to coordination with Jewish communities elsewhere in the world. In the United States, this episode put an end to lukewarm feelings toward Zionism, both within and indeed beyond the organized community. The violent reactions of Israel and the American Jewish community are not by themselves sufficient to explain the Nixon administration's subsequent about-face. For sociologist Nathan Glazer, Israel became "the new religion of American Jews": support for the Jewish state would from then on constitute a new way of expressing one's Judaism. The Black Panthers rebelled against the disproportionate number of whites—and, among them, Jews—heading organizations that were supposed to represent them.
