An inflection point on Israel?
Why its so hard for the U.S. to disentangle from an alliance that is showing strategic and political vulnerabilities.
“If I was an Arab leader, I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural: we have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs…There has been anti-semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?”
— David Ben-Gurion, one of the primary founders of Israel and its first prime minister, speaking in 1956
Seven months into the war against Hamas in Gaza also falls just seven months before an American presidential election, in which the incumbent’s success is heavily reliant on turning out youth who are wholly turned off by the United States’ unbending loyalty to Israel.
When you recall the barbaric carnage of Oct. 7, the impregnable allegiance appears both moral and rational. The lone democracy in the hornet’s nest of the Middle East suffered an indiscriminate attack at the hands of a terrorist group that also acts as a dysfunctional governing body for a simultaneously suffering and hostile people next door.
Of course we’d stand with Israel.
But like most every war, its popularity wanes with time. As with most domestic issues, politicians, albeit often slowly, acquiesce to public opinion. And like every conflict in the Middle East, there’s a long, messy history undergirding the current moment that’s often discarded, if not wholly forgotten.
As President Biden issues a vague threat to change U.S. policy unless Israel takes steps to curtail civilian bloodshed (at the lowest estimates, at least 18,000 non-combatants have been killed) and Congress slow-walks additional aid for Israel’s defense, it’s worth dissecting the history explaining the unparalleled ties binding the two countries, exploring how long the “indispensable” allyship is politically tenable and asking whether it should be.
“This is an important inflection point. But it also did not start in just the last few months,” said Brett Bruen, the director of global engagement in the Obama administration.
It’s a rare point of agreement between unlikely and even undesirable actors.
“History didn’t start on Oct. 7,” Hamas leader Basem Naim recently told HuffPost in a rare interview, framing the horrors of that day as an act of defense.
It started with the birth of Israel a full 76 years ago, time equal to the average American lifespan.
Guilt can act as a powerful motivator.
The origins of national fidelity to Israel was borne out of a strong sense that the United States should have done more during the Second World War to prevent the atrocities committed against the Jews.
This feeling – however genuine and well-intentioned – has hamstrung American political officials from reining in Israel for decades, even when its actions were a clear liability for the U.S.
Flashpoints in history
This argument is laid out in detail in “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” written by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt a full 17 years ago.
Examples by the decade:
As Israel began developing its nuclear program in the 1960s, neither Presidents Kennedy nor Johnson was willing to withhold U.S. support, even as Israel refused to disclose its plans to us.
As the Cold War progressed into the 1970s, Henry Kissinger confessed that “it is difficult to claim that a strong Israel serves American interests because it prevents the spread of communism in the Arab world. It does not.”
In 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon, instead of sanctioning Israel or penalizing it,