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The U.S.-Israel Relationship: A Look Back at 60 Years of Friendship and Partnership

5/1/2008

Full Text:

Seated behind a sign on his desk that read, “The buck stops here,” President Harry Truman was faced with a historic choice—one that only a president could make. Should he recognize the newly created State of Israel?

The day was May 14, 1948, and the American people were waiting for his decision. Truman’s top advisors had all warned him that recognizing the Jewish state would lead to a global catastrophe.

But 11 minutes after Israel declared its independence, Harry Truman made the United States the first nation on earth to recognize Israel. In the years following that historic decision, the U.S.-Israel alliance would become the cornerstone of American policy in the Middle East, and Israel would emerge as one of America’s greatest strategic assets.

The United States Maintains Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge

Three years after President Truman recognized Israel, Congress approved the first aid package to Israel—$65 million to help the Jewish state absorb Holocaust survivors and Jewish refugees from Arab countries.

However, the United States did not sell Israel any arms until 1961, when President John F. Kennedy lifted the embargo and sold Israel crucial Hawk missiles—the only effective defense against Soviet-made bombers. Kennedy’s decision established an important precedent: The United States would act to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge over its potential adversaries.

Following the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel routed its enemies and captured advanced Soviet weaponry, the strategic relationship deepened. The United States became the chief supplier of weaponry to Israel and began providing significant amounts of foreign aid.

President Lyndon Johnson followed Kennedy’s example by selling Phantom fighter jets to Israel in 1968. Similarly, during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, President Richard Nixon provided Israel with a massive airlift, helping the Jewish state overcome initial setbacks on the battlefield.

As a result of strong U.S. influence in the region after the Yom Kippur War, Egypt—long Israel’s strongest enemy—left the Soviet sphere of influence, aligned itself with the United States and signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. Israel withdrew from the entire Sinai Peninsula—an area three times its size—after receiving U.S. security guarantees.

The United States and Israel Face Common Threats

At the end of the 1970s and into the beginning of the 1980s, the United States was faced with an increasingly volatile Middle East. It was during this decade that the danger of radical Islam and terrorism emerged.

In Iran in 1979, radical Islamists overthrew the Shah, a key U.S. ally in the region. The same year, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, threatening Pakistan, a U.S. ally. A few years later in 1983, Hizballah killed more than 240 U.S. marines in Lebanon.

Due to the growing regional instability, the United States sought a stable regional ally; it found one in Israel. The Jewish state had both the willingness and the necessary infrastructure to provide American troops with a safe base of operations in the event of a regional crisis.

Furthermore, Israel was proving that its military could strike far from its borders. For example, in 1981, Israel destroyed Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor, enabling the United States, ten years later, to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait without having to confront a nuclear-armed Iraq. Israel further demonstrated its military prowess when its U.S.-equipped air force downed 82 Soviet-made Syrian jet fighters without losing a single plane.

As a result of Israel’s accomplishments, the United States began to view Israel as a vital strategic partner. The alliance was hardened in 1988 when President Ronald Reagan and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir signed an agreement designating Israel as “a major non-NATO ally of the United States.” The memorandum cemented Israel’s position as an anchor for U.S. influence in the Middle East.

While the U.S. originally viewed Israel as an asset because of its strategic location in an unstable region, America would also grow to rely on the Jewish state for its many talents.

Israeli Ingenuity Saves U.S. Lives

The U.S.-Israel relationship has evolved into a mutually beneficial alliance. The close partnership between the two nations has yielded military technologies, helping to protect American and Israeli lives.

The most important of these technologies is the Arrow, a missile defense system that is currently deployed in Israel. Jointly developed by the two allies, it is the only operational system that has consistently proven that one missile can shoot down another at high altitude and speed.

Strategic cooperation has made important Israeli military innovations available to the United States, which uses them in real combat. For example, the U.S. military regularly uses Israeli-developed Hunter unmanned arial vehicles to gather critical intelligence and kill terrorists—all without endangering pilots.

In addition, U.S. planes have been equipped with the Litening targeting pod, an Israeli-made system with infrared sensors that identifies ground targets and enables pilots to fly at night and in bad weather. The Litening made it possible for American fighter pilots to deliver the munitions that killed al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Furthermore, U.S. armored personnel carriers are protected by Israeli-developed reactive armor tiles, which explode outward upon impact, diffusing the force of incoming fire. So far, more than 800 U.S. troops have avoided injury or death as a result of the reactive tiles. The United States and Israel continue to work together to reduce the threat of improvised explosive devices, which have been responsible for the majority of U.S. casualties in Iraq.

On top of all of this, Israel regularly shares intelligence on American adversaries that has proven extremely useful for the United States. No other U.S. ally has developed such extensive intelligence on Middle Eastern regimes as Israel has been forced to do for 60 years, and no other nation has shared such intelligence with the United States more frequently than has Israel.

The Two Nations Cooperate on Homeland Security

Since the 9/11 attacks, the United States and Israel have intensified their cooperation in the field of homeland security. Israel is one of five countries participating in the U.S. Counterterrorism Technical Support Working Group, whose experts collaborate to develop anti-terrorism technology.

American law enforcement agencies are increasingly studying Israel’s battle against terrorism. Israel frequently hosts delegations of American police chiefs, sheriffs and emergency responders. These U.S. lawmen have returned to infuse their departments’ training with lessons on how Israeli security forces prevent terrorist attacks such as suicide bombings.

Washington and Jerusalem have come a long way together since Truman first recognized the Jewish state in 1948. Today, the alliance is built to last. In the years ahead, the two nations will continue their joint efforts to counter global threats as they work together to seek peace. •NER•

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