[Originally published in the Rutland Herald and Barre Times-Argus.]
Since Israel declared independence in May 1948 as a Zionist (democratic and Jewish) nation, the United States has been its most loyal friend on earth. As other nations have vacillated in their support, ours has never faltered. Since World War II, Israel has been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance in the world. The U.S. has provided billions of dollars in grants to Israel.
U.S. bilateral military aid provides Israel with privileges unequalled by any other recipient country. Israel can use some U.S. military assistance both for research and development in the U.S. and for military purchases from Israeli manufacturers.
In addition, all U.S. foreign assistance earmarked for Israel is delivered in the first 30 days of the fiscal year. Most other recipients normally receive aid in installments. Congress also appropriates funds for joint U.S.-Israeli missile defense programs.
In August 2007, the Bush administration announced it would increase U.S. military assistance to Israel by $6 billion over the next decade. The agreement called for incremental annual increases in foreign military financing to Israel, reaching $3 billion a year by 2012. The Obama administration requested $2.775 billion in foreign military financing to Israel for 2010.
Although we have provided assistance with nuclear delivery systems, France, not the U.S., was most heavily involved in supporting Israel’s development of nuclear weapons. Nevertheless, we have had a consistent policy for Israeli nuclear activities of looking the other way. That policy, and the concessions we have made to Israel to persuade it not to use nuclear weapons over the years, have validated its nuclear arsenal’s existence.
In the international political arena, the U.S. has been unstinting in its support of Israel. In 1972, George H.W. Bush cast the first U.S. veto in the U.N. Security Council. Between 1972 and 2009, the U.S. cast 48 vetoes and negative votes on every issue that was in any way critical of Israel.
We have vetoed resolutions proposed by our allies, Spain and France, and by our then enemy, the USSR, as well as resolutions with signatures from three to 20 nations.
This history reflects the fact that there are millions of Jewish and non-Jewish Americans, particularly those who were alive and aware of the Holocaust, who genuinely support the existence of a democratic, Jewish Israel and continue to do so.
The situation became more complicated in the aftermath of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, largely as a result of Israel’s West Bank and East Jerusalem settlement policies and by the political emergence in Israel of the Jewish emigration from the USSR, a country that, along with its citizens, never really understood much about democracy.
The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 forbids resettlement by an occupying power of its own civilians on territory under its military control.
On July 9, 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled that “Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, are illegal and an obstacle to peace and to economic and social development [… and] have been established in breach of international law.”
By acceding to Israel’s every wish, the U.S. has enabled an Israel that believes it can act with impunity, without making any adjustment to the international, regional and national realities that face her. Her own imperatives far outweigh those of her neighbors and her people. This situation encourages aggressive behavior, as in the Gaza War and its aftermath, the ongoing settlement program, and a knee-jerk military reaction to perceived threats.
Although the Obama administration, doggedly searching for the elusive two-state solution, has slightly hardened the position of this government on Israeli settlement policies, all of the requests made by the administration have either been ignored, or flat-out rejected by the Netanyahu government.
But the two-state solution is the only one that preserves a Zionist (democratic and Jewish) Israel. Demographic realities show clearly that Jews in Israel will soon be outnumbered by Arabs, forcing Israel to choose between democracy and Jewishness. The situation worsens as the settlements absorb the West Bank and more and more Arabs. In the longer run, it is doubtful that Americans will support an expansionist, apartheid, and/or non-democratic Israel.
Our ongoing uncritical backing has enabled Israel to behave in a self-absorbed and counterproductive way. Israel lives in a “safe” world constructed with U.S. economic bricks and mortar, surrounded by a U.S. political moat and protected by U.S. military hardware. This uncritical support has permitted Israel to behave in ways that have weakened her morally in the eyes of the world, left her in a perpetual state of war with her neighbors and with a highly questionable Zionist future.
This is hardly what sensitive and thoughtful Americans would have done for Israel if we truly had cared about her future as Zionist state. In terms of Israel’s future viability, we have not behaved like her true friend.
Haviland Smith is a retired CIA station chief who served in Eastern and Western Europe and the Middle East and as chief of the counterterrorism staff.
