America's Israel. Kenneth Kolander

      Introduction

      The United States and Israel share an uneasy alliance. On the one hand, the two countries need each other. The United States provides Israel with vital military and political protection that ensures its place in the Middle East. Israel serves as a dependable and important ally for the United States in a turbulent region marked by a considerable amount of anti-Westernism. Many Americans feel a cultural connection to Israel and appreciate having a U.S. stronghold in the region. Many Israelis are deeply grateful for American help, especially given Europe’s history of anti-Semitism, and dread the thought of ever losing U.S. support.

      On the other hand, the two countries have divergent national interests that often lead to conflicts. American officials have criticized Israel for dealing unjustly with Arabs within and beyond its borders, and fear that Israel intends to hold onto substantial tracts of territory it took during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. These longstanding issues complicate U.S. relations with the Arab world and weaken America’s global image. Israeli officials believe that U.S. policymakers are naïve about Arab attitudes toward Israel and fear that U.S. aid and political support can be used to strongarm Israel into accommodating Arab states and nations that are bent on Israel’s destruction. Quite certainly, U.S.-Israel relations have an abundance of consensus, conflict, and anxiety.

      This uneasy alliance did not happen all at once, but instead grew out of a “special relationship” and a Cold War strategic alliance. The United States formed a special relationship with the State of Israel many years ago, on May 14, 1948, the day of Israel’s modern founding. The special relationship, rooted in powerful cultural factors, amounts to an unshakable American commitment to ensure the survival of Israel. After the Holocaust, U.S. policymakers, along with many everyday Americans, felt a moral obligation to protect Israel. The special relationship required American political support and foreign assistance to secure Israel’s permanency in the Middle East.

      The two countries also developed a strategic alliance during the Cold War. Time and time again, Israeli officials told their American counterparts of Israel’s strategic value in the Middle East. They could point to practical results. For example, the Israeli intelligence organization Mossad managed to flip an Iraqi pilot, Munir Redfa, who agreed to fly a Soviet MiG 21 from Iraq to Israel in August 1966. Israel eventually shared that technology with the United States, which helped American military planners, and especially U.S. pilots, to understand the capabilities of the Soviet fighter plane.¹ At the behest of the Richard Nixon administration, Israeli forces mobilized in defense of King Hussein of Jordan during Black September in 1970. Although Israel did not directly intervene in the crisis, which ended in a decisive Jordanian victory over Palestinian and Syrian forces, the move signaled to Moscow that an American ally stood ready to act, if necessary, and also demonstrated to Washington that Israel could be counted on to advance American objectives in the region.

      Israeli officials emphasized