In recent months, many of the American headlines about the Middle East come not from the Gaza Strip, southern Lebanon or the Red Sea, but from American college campuses. The pro-Palestinian protests that rocked UCLA, USC, and Columbia (among others) have generated a lot of commentary about free speech, anti-Semitism, violence, and higher education. The attention paid to these issues, important as they are, has obscured a deeper and arguably more significant development: the relationship between the United States and Israel is changing.
Joe Biden is not the first president to describe the United States' relationship with Israel as “special”; That phrase has been a tradition since the presidency of John F. Kennedy. For many years, this language was uncontroversial because Israel was popular among Americans. That popularity translated, among other things, into decades of bipartisan votes in Congress for generous U.S. military and economic assistance (the last of which ended in 2007), as well as diplomatic support for Israel in the United States. United and beyond.
However, the American consensus on Israel began to break down in the 2010s. Between 2008 and 2014, Israel and Hamas fought three wars, during which some 2,500 Palestinian civilians were killed and parts of Gaza's infrastructure were destroyed, mostly with weaponry. supplied by the United States. During this period, Israel continued to build settlements in the West Bank (aside from a brief pause after President Obama took office in 2009), as well as infrastructure to support them. This de facto annexation appeared to be aimed at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state, which became an official goal of US policy in 2002.
Relations between the United States and Israel deteriorated further in 2015, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech to a joint session of Congress opposing the Obama administration's signature foreign policy achievement: the Iran nuclear deal. The speech, delivered at the invitation of Republican House Speaker John Boehner, was not coordinated with the White House, a stunning violation of diplomatic and political norms that many prominent Democrats have not forgotten, much less forgiven.
This period of conflict, settlement expansion and diplomatic tension coincided with the publication of two books: “The Israeli lobby and American foreign policy” by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt and “The crisis of Zionism” by Peter Beinart, which raised difficult questions about the relationship, including whether Israel had come to exert undue influence on American policymakers and whether carte blanche support for Jerusalem was still in Washington's interest.
This was not the first time that leading American thinkers had openly criticized Israel. But the combination of bloodshed in Gaza, Israel's persistent settlement building in defiance of American policy, Netanyahu's recklessness, and a broader public acceptance of once-fringe skepticism about the special relationship helped sow the seeds of change. political. A decade later, the impact of those events is becoming evident, especially among Democrats.
While Republican support for Israel remains strong and overall public support for Israel remains strong, many Democrats are clearly reconsidering. A Gallup poll last year revealed that, for the first time, More Democrats sympathize with the Palestinian cause who supported Israel. And in Congress, despite consistently lopsided votes in favor of Israel, even centrist Democrats are discussing conditioning future US military aid on Israel's conduct in the West Bank and Gaza, something that was previously unthinkable.
The cruelty of Israel's response to the shocking Hamas attack on October 7 has only increased Democratic misgivings. Some lawmakers are looking for ways to punish the Israeli government.
But doing so in the middle of a war is unlikely to affect Israeli decision-making. There is a better way for Washington to recalibrate the relationship after this crisis.
Despite declining support for Israel among Democrats, most U.S. officials feel the bilateral relationship is worth preserving. Cooperation and coordination between the United States and Israel in defense, technology and intelligence continue to benefit both countries. But the degree to which the countries share interests and values has come under greater scrutiny, and Biden's recent decision to withhold military aid may be a harbinger of what is to come under a president less friendly to Israel. If the relationship is still important, then something needs to change.
Given the reality of strong Republican support for Israel, proposals to condition or even cut aid are unrealistic. But to avoid what would likely be a nasty, polarizing and politically damaging fight over Israel in the United States, Washington and Jerusalem should agree to phase out American military aid over the next 10 years. Instead, countries could agree to a series of treaties and agreements that ensure cooperation on security, technology and intelligence.
Israel is a rich country. Its gross domestic product per capita was approximately $55,000 in 2022, more than some of our NATO allies. The Israelis don't need the aid of course, although Washington could continue to provide it in some form in times of crisis.
The benefits of such a change should be obvious. By no longer relying on aid increasingly unpopular with Democrats, Israel would cease to be a political football in the United States. If Washington helps ensure Israeli security through deals rather than billions of dollars in aid, it will likely temper the impulse among lawmakers to punish Jerusalem for real and perceived transgressions.
Meanwhile, for the United States, more normal bilateral relations with Israel would likely decrease the moral costs of military assistance. That, in turn, would mitigate the radicalizing nature of the ties that have turned American universities into battlegrounds.
Steven A. Cook is senior fellow for Middle East and African studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of “The End of Ambition: America's Past, Present, and Future in the Middle East.”
