The United States and Israel: Two Halves of a Toxic Whole |
Photograph Source: James Emery – CC BY 2.0
America’s close partnership with Israel has been costly. Tel Aviv’s expansionist policies in Palestine and pursuit of military dominance over its neighbors have driven instability in the Middle East and distorted once predictable international institutions and norms.
The United States, banking on its regional proxy, has followed Israel into the abyss, destroying the framework of international law, human rights and the rules-based order it created, to its own interests, following the Second World War.
For decades, the United States has thrown the full weight of its political, economic and military might behind Israel. It has done so, to ensure that Palestine is never liberated, knowing that a free sovereign Palestine would mean the end of its Zionist proxy and the beginning of liberation movements throughout the Arab world.
Washington’s adherence to a policy of strategic opportunism has morphed into an imbalanced Israel-first agenda that has had calamitous consequences for the Palestinian people, the United States and the world.
A 2025 report titled, “U.S. Security Cooperation with Israel,” issued by the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, detailed how deeply intertwined, at all levels, Washington and Tel Aviv have become. Under U.S. law, Israel is on the short-list of America’s major “non-NATO allies,” with unprecedented privileged access to the most advanced U.S. military platforms, support and technologies.
Although Israel is ranked the 14th richest (per capita) country in the world, it has received over $317 billion (adjusted for inflation) in economic and military assistance from the United States; making it the largest cumulative recipient of foreign assistance since 1946. Concomitantly, the government has neglected the basic needs of the American people.
Despite America’s exhaustive support, most Israelis tend to believe that American officials and public are inherently “dupable and naive”, especially about the Middle East.
In order to envision a different narrative, it is important to reflect on the U.S.-Israel “special relationship” and how it has enfeebled America’s global leadership. Although Israel’s efforts to gain unilateral advantage in the region have harmed U.S. interests, Tel Aviv continues to count on the United States to do its heavy lifting.
There are many cases that illustrate how Israel has undermined and/or ignored Washington. I will, however, analyze significant examples, beginning with the forever wars it has drawn America into and continues to demand.
Forever Wars and Endless Violence
According to Brown University’s “Cost of War” project, America’s post-9-11 wars (2001 to 2022) have killed at least 4.5 to 4.7 million people and have cost taxpayers approximately $8 trillion.
The United States has paid in flesh and fortune in wars with enemies Tel Aviv has invented or created by its occupation of Palestine and seizure of the territory of its neighbors.
Tel Aviv and Washington have designated national liberation groups or countries that have opposed Israeli hegemony, as terrorists or “threats to national security;” beginning with Iraq in 2003 and followed by others.
As prime minister from 1996 to 1999, then as a private citizen, Benjamin Netanyahu strongly lobbied Washington for preemptive military action against Iraq, claiming falsely that its leader, Saddam Hussein, was developing nuclear weapons.
In a 1996 paper written for Netanyahu, titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” influential U.S. pro-Israel neoconservatives—some serving in President George W. Bush’s administration—urged Israel to shape the region to its strategic advantage by removing “hostile” regimes. It advocated for a radical vision of a new Middle East and focused on containing Iraq, Syria and Iran.
Netanyahu, in September 2002, testified before a U.S. Congressional Committee imperiously arguing for the invasion and overthrow of the Iraqi regime; deceitfully stating, “If you take out Saddam…, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region. And, I think that people........