How the U.S. has benefited from it's relationship with Israel

Gil Ehrenkranz
MERIA Journal
Vol. 14 Number 2
June '10

This article reviews Israel's value as an American ally since 1967. It highlights the actions taken by Israel on behalf of the United States, including accommodating U.S. national interests at the expense of Israeli interests. The article explores the myth of Holocaust guilt as the primary reason for Israel's creation and contrasts the actions of other regional U.S. allies with those of Israel. The steadily declining tangible support for U.S. policies by American allies in the twenty-first century has served to magnify Israel's importance to the United States.

Amidst a budding nuclear arms race in the Middle East, the Obama administration is seen by many as “resetting” the relationship between the United States and its long-time ally, Israel. This recalibration of the U.S.-Israel alliance is occurring while Israel is facing the first genuine threat to its existence since the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The threat emanates from the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Iranian quest for nuclear arms production capability is nearly complete as most analysts estimate that Iran will have mastered the ability to produce nuclear weapons by 2013.

[1] Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated pronouncements of his hope that Israel will disappear are simply a more bellicose statement of the policy Iran has had towards Israel since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.[2] Yet with Iran on the verge of acquiring an ability to produce nuclear weapons, Israel can no longer afford to ignore Iranian intentions. This article will focus on the history of Israel as a partner in its alliance with the United States.

OCCASIONAL FRICTION IN U.S.-ISRAEL RELATIONS

Tensions in the relationship between the United States and Israel are nothing new. While Ronald Reagan’s tenure as president is remembered as being very pro-Israel, few remember that his first two years in office were filled with serious disagreements with Israel. In 1981, he embargoed the delivery of F-16 aircraft to Israel in response to Israel’s raid on the Osirak reactor in Iraq.[3] A year later, his administration unveiled a unilateral blueprint for Middle East peace without consulting Israel. When it was finally presented simultaneously to Israel and its Arab neighbors, Prime Minister Begin was livid at Reagan’s failure to consult with Israel. Reagan also suspended diplomatic agreements with Israel following the Israeli Knesset vote to extend Israeli law to the Golan Heights. The Reagan approach to Israel began to change, however, following the almost universal rejection of his peace plan among Arab states as well as Hizballah’s attack, which killed hundreds of U.S. Marines in Beirut in 1983. Thus, Reagan’s preconceived notions about the causes of Middle Eastern instability and the lack of peace did not survive his experience. To his credit, Reagan recognized this and was able to shift U.S. policy from confrontation with Israel to one of cooperation.

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