Israel’s Special Relationship With the US Can’t Depend Solely on a Cold Account of Interests
Ma’ariv, Israel, August 22
Does the American abandonment of Afghanistan teach us anything about the future of our relationship with the United States? Apparently, there is no analogy between the Israeli case and the Afghan case. There, the military relied on American forces. The day US troops withdrew, the entire Afghan military collapsed. Here, in contrast, we have the IDF, the Mossad, the Shin Bet – which have all recorded glorious achievements over the years that astonished the entire world. Indeed, Israel is a strategic asset for the United States: an island of stability and progress in a problematic part of the world. If this is the case, why should the American decision to abandon Afghanistan bother us? The answer lies in the considerations of abandonment. The United States has made a decision based on a cold weighing of interests. The term “interest” reappears five times in President Joe Biden’s withdrawal speech. Biden articulated a changing American agenda: the United States has no interest in adding or wasting resources in Afghanistan, as other interests await around the world. The account of interests is well used by Israel’s harsh critics in the United States. Professor Stephen Walt of Harvard, for example, recently published an article titled “The time has come to end the special relationship with Israel.” There, he substantiates his claims through arguments taken from the world of weighting interests. But Israel’s special relationship with the United States doesn’t depend solely on a cold account of interests. Rather, it is founded on common values: liberty, democracy and human rights. Afghanistan’s lesson of abandonment necessitates examining whether our alliance with the United States still rests on these common values rather than cold military calculations that can change overnight. But such an examination reveals the deepening cracks between our two nations across two main lines. The first is the bipartisan support for Israel: The deep sense of shared destiny and value identity between Israel and the United States has long enjoyed bipartisan consensus in America. But in recent years, in which Israel has been portrayed as favoring the Republican Party, criticism against Israel has intensified, especially in the Democratic camp, and it has been argued that Israel is abandoning its liberal values. The second is solidarity with American Jewry: American Jewish support has been at the core of Israel’s support in the United States for many years. But, today, many Jews don’t feel proud to be identified with Israel. The Netanyahu era instilled in the hearts of the supporters of the Jewish Democratic Party (70% of all American Jews) that Israel gave up on them. Ultimately, what threatened to rupture the special relationship we have with the United States in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – the continued occupation and control of another people without rights. It is this reality that cracks our common values, that undermines our ability to preserve bipartisan support in Congress, and challenges the solidarity between Israel and American Jewry. But Israel does not appear to be troubled by it. This alarming trend must stand in the eyes of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on his forthcoming visit to Washington. The special relationship with the United States is our most valuable strategic asset. This property is conditional on the support of American Jewry and the cultivation of common values that are resistant to transient considerations of interest. The change in the rhetoric of the new Israeli government is welcome, but it is not enough. It must not be mistaken for illusions: The continuation of the occupation poisons our relations with American Jewry and threatens our special relations with the United States. – Avi Gil (translated by Asaf Zilberfarb)
