An arms deal as a bargaining chip: Israel and the AWACS deal

It was a fierce battle between the executive and the legislature, which it appeared that U.S. President Ronald Reagan would lose. The battle raged for months, during which both the majority of the House of Representatives and Senate voted against the President’s bill. However, as the final and decisive vote in the Senate plenum came closer, the President mastered all of his political skills and power of conviction and managed to persuade eight senators to change their minds. After the votes were counted, it turned out that fifty-two senators voted in favor of the President’s bill for the supply of the surveillance and command center planes known as the Airborne Warning and Control System—AWACS—to Saudi Arabia and forty-eight senators voted against it. Discussing the President’s success, scholars have raised several issues that came out of the affair. One issue was the battle between Reagan and the Jewish lobby over the right to act on what he deemed as a national security matter. Another issue was the right of the legislative branch to take an active role in the making of U.S. foreign policy, a domain the President considered as his purview. Scholars have given special attention to the President’s political skills, and the way he managed to convince senators to swing and support the bill.