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A Grownup Relationship with Israel

Israel is a brave country and the Israelis are a brave and admirable people. So, it is entirely appropriate for an American president to go to Israel to celebrate the country's 60th anniversary, as President Bush did this week.

However, it is also well past time to adjust the U.S.-Israel relationship. The current relationship serves the interests of neither country.

The United States has long offered a de facto security guarantee to Israel. Bush referred to it in his speech to the Knesset, when he said: "Israel's population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because the United States of America stands with you."

This de facto security guarantee is not a neocon invention. It enjoys broad bipartisan support. Hillary Clinton recently said explicitly that the United States itself would retaliate massively if Iran attacked Israel.

Indeed, Israel has been in some respects a protectorate of the United States since its inception. The United States, under Truman, was the first country in the world to recognize Israel after it declared its statehood. The United States has provided Israel over $100 billion in economic and military assistance over the years.

Israel, however, is now a grownup country. It has the 38th biggest economy in the world. Although the reputation of the Israeli military was damaged in the recent incursion into Lebanon, there remains little doubt that it is the most potent fighting force in the region. That Israel has nuclear weapons is a quite transparent secret.

Israel is clearly an ally of the United States. During the Cold War, there was an argument that Israel was a strategically important ally.

The Soviet Union assiduously sought influence in the region, for a while with considerable success. Israel was a useful geopolitical counterweight.

Today, however, the blunt truth is that Israel is not particularly strategically important or useful to the United States.

In his speech, Bush tried to manufacture an important strategic value to the relationship through his false depiction of Islamic radicalism and terrorism as a monolith. Hence, Israel's enemies are necessarily our enemies. However, Israel's most immediate enemies, Hamas and Hezbollah, have primarily regional ambitions that don't necessarily threaten the United States.

Let us assume, for sake of argument, that because of oil the United States has a strategic interest in the geopolitics of the Middle East. The greatest threat to stability in the region, and hence to the continued production of oil, isn't the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It's the struggle for regional influence between Shiite Iran and the major Sunni powers, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Israel is a sidebar in that contest.

With his penchant for false alternatives, Bush said in his speech: "Some people suggest if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away." Breaking ties with Israel isn't the true alternative. Remaining close allies while increasing the space for independent action by both countries is.

With the current relationship, Arab countries hold the United States accountable for the actions of Israel and expect the United States to put pressure on Israel to change its behavior. That is to the disadvantage of both the United States and Israel.

The United States should not be pressuring Israel to do things Israel believes threaten its security. Nor does it serve any security interest of the United States to be put in the position of being responsible for settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Here is what a grownup relationship with Israel that serves the best interests of both countries would look like.

First, financial assistance from the United States to Israel would be phased out. Economic assistance was phased out beginning in the late 1990s. This year, the United States is providing Israel with $2.4 billion in military assistance. The Bush administration has proposed that such assistance be increased over the next ten years. Instead, it should be terminated.

The United States, however, should permit American defense contractors to sell Israel whatever military equipment Israel thinks it needs to defend itself.

The United States should continue to embrace Israel as an ally and be willing to defend Israel against calumnies in international confabs. The United States should get out of the business of second-guessing security decisions Israel makes. If Arab countries have problems with Israel's behavior, the United States should tell them to take that up with Israel.

And the United States should tell the Palestinians that if they want their own state, they need to elect a government dedicated to making peace with Israel, not one dedicated to its destruction. Both the United States and Israel would benefit from a greater degree of strategic independence.

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Related Topics: foreign policy | israel | middle east | palestine |

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