How Strong is the American-Israeli Relationship?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Calgary, AB] Jewish Free Press

 

The relationship between Israel and the United States is, at the moment, very strong – but for how long?

It has not always been as close as it is today. Until the late 1960s, the relationship was actually quite limited. Only in the aftermath of the Six-Day War of 1967 did it begin to evolve into the strategic “special relationship” of today.

Today it encompasses military, political, economic, diplomatic, and cultural relations.

Economically, the United States is Israel’s single biggest trading partner. Militarily, total American assistance to Israel up to 2016 has amounted to $124 billion, making it the largest recipient of American military aid in the entire post-1945 period. And since 1981, this has been in the form of grants, not loans. 

Hari Sastry, the Director of the Office of U.S. Foreign Assistance Resources at the State Department, announced on Feb. 12 that Israel will receive $3.3 billion in funding under President Donald Trump’s Fiscal Year 2019 budget request.

He noted that Israel will receive a bump of $200 million in aid under the proposed budget. Last September the two nations signed a ten-year memorandum of understanding providing $38 billion in defence aid through 2028.

U.S. aid has constituted 17-20 per cent of Israel’s defence budget in recent years. Also, Israel generally has access to the latest American military technologies.

Washington also shields Israel diplomatically, in the United Nations and elsewhere, and it has used its veto on the Security Council to block anti-Israeli resolutions numerous times.

Also, while the Obama administration perceived Iran as part of the solution to Middle East instability, now Washington is defining Tehran as a contributor to the region’s problems. 

This of course is the Israeli view as well; it fears growing Iranian power as an existential threat to its very existence.

But will the American-Israeli relationship remain as robust as it is today? Some analysts foresee future changes that may prove detrimental to it.

Israel’s image as a liberal democracy has been increasingly called into question. For growing segments of the American population, Israel’s character as a vibrant, peace-loving democracy is no longer a given.

American support for Israel has been historically bipartisan. But that’s no longer the case. Republicans and conservatives are now far more supportive of Israel, by wide margins, than liberals and Democrats.

On Jan. 23, the Pew Survey Center released a study confirming that the partisan divide in Middle East sympathies is now wider than at any point since 1978. 

Currently, 79 per cent of Republicans say they sympathize more with Israel than the Palestinians, compared with just 27 per cent of Democrats.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), long the foremost lobby group on behalf of the Jewish state, also faces increasing difficulty. 

The perception that AIPAC represents a consensus among American Jews has always been a key to its political influence. Its annual policy conference in early March tried to highlight its commitment to bipartisan support for Israel, but that is crumbling.

There has also been a significant decline in support for Israel among younger Americans. Israel’s image has become one of a brutal occupier. Some 25 per cent of American students believe Israel to be an apartheid state.

Even younger American Jews have become more distant. Whereas more than half of older members of the community consider Israel a very important component of their Jewish identity, this holds true for just a third of younger people. 

In any case, low birth rates and assimilation means the American Jewish community will become relatively more marginal in the U.S. in the future. 

The alliance between Israeli leaders and Christian evangelicals may also be weakening. 

Groups such as Christians United for Israel, advocating views that are in agreement with the Israeli right, have had a major influence on American foreign policy. 

Protestants like these believe that God has conveyed a universal message by means of a particular people and a particular land, whose particularity is never to be superseded.

However, recent polls indicate that younger American evangelicals are growing less attached to Israel. 

Falling support among U.S. evangelicals younger than 30 “ought to keep every Israeli awake at night,” remarked Yoav Fromer, who teaches politics at Tel Aviv University.

At the same time, Hispanics and the religiously unaffiliated, for both of whom Israel is a low priority, is a growing segment of the U.S. population.