Israel's alliance with the US needs protection - opinion

There are three pivotal moments among many others in Israeli history that can be credited with boosting the Israeli defense industry.

The first was the embargo that French President Charles De Gaulle imposed on Israel after the Six Day War in 1967, ending an almost 20-year alliance during which France supplied Israel with all of its advanced weaponry, from missiles to fighter jets and even a nuclear reactor.

There were two results of De Gaulle’s embargo. Until then, while Israel had a strong relationship with the United States, it was nothing like it is today. Only five years earlier did the Kennedy administration agree to sell Israel the Hawk missile, the first significant American arms deal with the Jewish state. With France out of the picture, America was able to step up.

The second result was just as important. Without French missiles, avionics, and aircraft, Israel had to find other ways to obtain these systems. One of them was a decision to invest in its own R&D infrastructure and to create companies and laboratories in Israel that could develop and manufacture its own weapon systems.

The second pivotal moment was the decision in 1987 to cancel the Lavi, the ambitious aircraft project undertaken by Israel that was started five years earlier and had cost over a billion dollars.

While the Lavi cancellation was a big blow for Israel Aerospace Industries, which had to lay off hundreds of engineers, work on a combat jet provided Israel with institutional knowledge that it was able to apply to the country’s other burgeoning projects: satellites, missile defense systems, and drones. The talent that had been focused on a single aircraft suddenly spread like wildfire throughout Israel’s defense and hi-tech industries.

And then there was the third moment – the mass immigration of around one million people from the former Soviet Union that began in the late 1980s. This influx of educated manpower, including doctors, physicists, and engineers, was a massive boost to the Israeli defense sector, giving companies like IAI, Rafael, Elbit, and others a new pool of talent that could upgrade their product lines.

Altogether, these three moments in Israeli history helped position the Jewish state as one of the world’s leading weapons manufacturers and arms exporters, reaching, in 2022, as an example, more than $12 billion in sales.

Israel is, without question, still dependent on the US

EVEN WITH all of this independence and innovation, there is no question today that Israel is also heavily dependent on the US. When the war broke out and certain countries started to call on Israel to show restraint, one senior government official explained how it all did not really matter. “In the end, if we have America, we are fine,” he said at the time.

The reason is simple. While Israel would prefer that French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak continue to support the IDF offensive in Gaza, neither of them provides Israel with $3.8 billion in annual military aid or has pledged to provide another $14 billion since the beginning of the war. If the UK or France decide to downgrade ties, the direct impact will not be that bad.

As important as these other countries are, none of them is sending shipments of munitions, interceptors, and spare parts, without which Israel would not be able to keep flying its Apache helicopters or operate its Iron Dome batteries. Without a steady flow of these munitions and spare parts, Israel cannot fight a war like the one that it is currently waging against Hamas, or prepare for a future war that might erupt one day with Hezbollah.

Let us just imagine for one moment what might have happened here had the US not sent aircraft carriers and strike groups to the Middle East as it did immediately after the October 7 attacks. The thought of what might have happened – in one of Israel’s weakest and darkest moments – should frighten us all.

There is another side to this. Since Israel needs America, that gives the US leverage that other countries do not have. This is why, when President Joe Biden asked Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza including fuel that keeps Hamas in the tunnels, Israel complied. It is why Israel paused its fighting to allow humanitarian corridors and why Israel is considering shifting to a low-intensity stage of the war.

It is also why, when and if the Americans tell Israel to wind down the ground offensive, Israel will not be able to ignore that request. It will be able to argue and try to negotiate but this is the price a country pays when it is the recipient of this level of aid. It is also the cost of having such an intimate and unique relationship.

All this is important to keep in mind due to voices on both sides of the political spectrum – from the Right and the Left – who are attacking both governments for the way the relationship has functioned throughout the war. Israelis on the Right look at Biden’s historic wartime visit to Israel and are impressed. But, they do not like the tone that they sometimes feel is patronizing from Washington or have a hard time understanding why Israel doesn’t stand up more to Biden and refuse to allow fuel and other aid into Gaza.

On the Left, there are people who want to see Biden crack down harder on Israel and the Netanyahu government. They think that Israel needs to follow American orders and that if it doesn’t, then either Biden needs to cut off the aid and if he doesn’t do that, then he is complicit in what the IDF is doing.

That is why people on the Right, for example, are calling for Israel to stop relying on the US for its munitions and for the country to create a domestic capability to manufacture all of the supplies that it needs to be able to fight a long war. On the other side, it is why there are people who want to see the US give Israel nothing – not a cent or even one bomb – that can be used by the IDF in the Gaza Strip.

The Left and Right are playing a dangerous game with the Israel-US relationship

BOTH SIDES are playing a dangerous game that can have a dire impact on the security of the State of Israel. One side is obviously looking to weaken Israel and control it, but even the other side – the so-called Right – is causing damage with its calls right now to break away from the US. This is an important conversation that should be had but now – in the middle of a war that requires regular shipments of weapons, regular diplomatic cover at the United Nations, and the sharing of intelligence – is not the right time.

The Israel-US relationship has always had its ups and downs. There have been moments when it seemed that nothing could get between the two countries, and other times when there was clear “daylight” – as one president called it – between the two nations.

It has stood the test of time because of an understanding, at its foundation, that Israel is not subservient to US policy and will make decisions that Washington will not always like but that America will also not always stand by everything that Israel will do. This is best characterized as the type of mutual respect and disagreement found among good friends. They don’t have to agree on everything, but they can respect one another even when they differ.

Israel should do what it can to create independence in as many areas of defense as are possible. While I support continued military aid to Israel, there is nothing wrong with having a debate on the issue once the war is over.

What should be a clear red line though, is when politicians start to use the relationship for political gain. That should never be tolerated, not now as IDF soldiers are risking their lives in Gaza, and not even once the war is over and the events of the last 80 days are dissected. Israel is a country under unprecedented threat. Now is not the time to play with our national security.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute and a former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post.