The United States' relationship with the Middle East prior to World War I was limited, although commercial ties existed even in the early 19th century. The U.S. engaged in a military conflict with Ottoman Tripolitania from 1801 to 1805 during the Tripolitan War regarding tributary payment which president Thomas Jefferson refused to pay. President Andrew Jackson established formal ties with the Sultan of Muscat and Oman
in 1833. (The Sultan saw the U.S. as a potential balance to Britain's
overwhelming regional influence.) Commercial relations opened between
the U.S. and Persia in 1857, after Britain persuaded the Persian
government not to ratify a similar agreement in 1851.
Britain and France took control of most of the former Ottoman
Empire after defeating it in World War I. They held mandates from the
League of Nations. The United States refused to take any mandates in the
region and was "popular and respected throughout the Middle East". Indeed, "Americans were seen as good people, untainted by the selfishness and duplicity associated with the Europeans."
American Christian missionaries brought modern medicine and set up
educational institutions all over the Middle East as an adjunct to their
religious proselytizing. Moreover, the United States had provided the
Middle East with highly skilled petroleum engineers.
Thus, there were some connections made between the United States and
the Middle East before the Second World War. Other examples of
cooperation between the U.S. and the Middle East are the Red Line Agreement signed in 1928 and the Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement
signed in 1944. Both of these agreements were legally binding and
reflected an American interest in control of Middle Eastern energy
resources, mainly oil, and moreover reflected an American "security
imperative to prevent the (re)emergence of a powerful regional rival".
The Red Line Agreement had been "part of a network of agreements made
in the 1920s to restrict the supply of petroleum and ensure that the
major [mostly American] companies ... could control oil prices on world
markets".
The Red Line agreement governed the development of Middle East oil for
the next two decades. The Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement of 1944 was
based on negotiations between the United States and Britain over the
control of Middle Eastern oil. Below is shown what the American
President Franklin D. Roosevelt had in mind for a British Ambassador in 1944:
Persian oil ... is yours. We share the oil of Iraq and Kuwait. As for Saudi Arabian oil, it's ours.
On August 8, 1944, the Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement was signed,
dividing Middle Eastern oil between the United States and Britain.
Consequently, political scholar Fred H. Lawson remarks, that by
mid-1944, U.S. officials had buttressed their country's position on the
peninsula by concluding an Anglo-American Petroleum Agreement that
protected "all valid concession contracts and lawfully acquired rights"
belonging to the signatories and established a principle of "equal
opportunity" in those areas where no concession had yet been assigned.
Furthermore, political scholar Irvine Anderson summarizes American
interests in the Middle East in the late 19th century and the early 20th
century noting that, "the most significant event of the period was the
transition of the United States from the position of net exporter to one
of net importer of petroleum."
By the end of the Second World War, Washington had come to
consider the Middle East region as "the most strategically important
area of the world." and "one of the greatest material prizes in world history," argues Noam Chomsky. For that reason, it was not until around the period of World War II that America became directly involved in the Middle East
region. At this time the region was going through great social,
economic, and political changes and as a result, internally the Middle
East was in turmoil. Politically, the Middle East was experiencing an
upsurge in the popularity of nationalistic politics and an increase in
the number of nationalistic political groups across the region, which
was causing great trouble for the English and French colonial powers.
Historian Jack Watson explains that "Europeans could not hold these lands indefinitely in the face of Arab nationalism".
Watson then continues, stating that "by the end of 1946 Palestine was
the last remaining mandate, but it posed a major problem".
In truth, this nationalistic political trend clashed with American
interests in the Middle East, which were, as Middle East scholar Louise
Fawcett argues, "about the Soviet Union, access to oil and the project for a Jewish state in Palestine". Hence, Arabist Ambassador Raymond Hare
described the Second World War, as "the great divide" in United States'
relationship with the Middle East, because these three interests would
later serve as a backdrop and reasoning for a great deal of American
interventions in the Middle East and thus also come to be the cause of
several future conflicts between the United States & the Middle
East.
Israel is designated by the United States as a major non-NATO ally. Israel–United States relations
are an essential factor in the United States foreign policy in the
Middle East. Congress has placed significant importance on the
maintenance of a close relationship with Israel. Analysts maintain that
Israel is a strategic ally for the United States, and that relations
with the former will strengthen the latter's influence in the Middle
East. Former US senator Jesse Helms
argued that the military foothold offered by Israel in the region alone
justified the expense of American military aid. He referred to Israel
as "America's aircraft carrier in the Middle East".
In 1947, the U.S. and the Truman administration, under domestic political pressure, pushed for a solution and resolution on the Arab–Israeli conflict,
and in May 1948 the new state of Israel came into existence. This
process was not without its fights and loss of lives. Nevertheless, "the
first state to extend diplomatic recognition to Israel was the United
States; the Soviet Union and several Western nations quickly followed
suit. No Arab state, however, recognized Israel." The United States denounced the Arab invasion of former Mandatory Palestine that took place shortly after the Israeli Declaration of Independence.
Following the US policy of supporting Israel, the United States House
of Representatives has approved the Republican plan, which designates
$14.5bn in military aid for Israel. Furthermore, Israel has been the
recipient of the largest sum of military assistance from the US in
comparison to any other nation since World War II, surpassing $124bn in
aid.
Syria became an independent republic in 1946, but the March 1949 Syrian coup d'état, led by Army Chief of Staff Husni al-Za'im,
ended the initial period of civilian rule. Za'im met at least six times
with CIA operatives in the months prior to the coup to discuss his plan
to seize power. Za'im requested American funding or personnel, but it
is not known whether this assistance was provided. Once in power, Za'im
made several key decisions that benefitted the United States. He
approved the Trans-Arabian Pipeline
(TAPLINE), an American project designed to transport Saudi Arabian oil
to Mediterranean ports. Construction of TAPLINE had been delayed due to
Syrian intransigence. Za'im also improved relations with two American
allies in the region: Israel and Turkey. He signed an armistice with Israel, formally ending the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and he renounced Syrian claims to Hatay Province,
a major source of dispute between Syria and Turkey. Za'im also cracked
down on local communists. However, Za'im's regime was short-lived. He
was overthrown in August, just four and a half months after seizing
power.
Opposed to foreign intervention in Iran and a keen nationalist, Mohammed Mosaddeq
became the prime minister of Iran in 1951. Thus, when Mosaddeq was
elected he chose to nationalize the Iranian oil industry, where
previously British holdings had generated great profits for Britain
through the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Furthermore, prior to the nationalization of Iranian oil, Mosaddeq had also cut all diplomatic ties with Britain. The Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
was opposed to the nationalization of Iranian oil as he feared this
would result in an oil embargo, which would destroy Iran's economy and
thus, the Shah was very concerned with the effect of Mosaddeq's policies
on Iran. Equally worried were workers in the Iranian oil industry, when
they experienced the economic effect of the sanctions on Iranian oil
exports which Mosaddeq's policies had resulted in, and riots were
happening across Iran.
Thus, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi asked Mosaddeq to resign, as was the
Shah's constitutional right, but Mosaddeq refused, which resulted in
national uprisings. The Shah, fearing for his personal security, fled
the country but nominated General Fazlollah Zahedi
as the new Prime Minister. Although General Fazlollah Zahedi was a
nationalist, he did not agree with the Mosaddeq's lenient attitude
towards the communist Tudeh
party, which the United States had also become increasingly concerned
with, fearing Soviet influence spreading in the Middle East. Therefore,
in late 1952, the British government asked the U.S. administration for
help with the removal of Mohammed Mosaddeq. President Harry S. Truman thought Mossadeq was a valuable bulwark against Soviet influence. However, Truman left office in January 1953, and the new administration of Dwight Eisenhower
shared British concern over Mossadeq. Allen Dulles, the director of the
CIA, approved one million dollars on April 4, 1953, to be used "in any
way that would bring about the fall of Mossadegh"
Consequently, after a failed attempt on August 15, "on August 19, 1953,
General Fazlollah Zahedi succeeded [with the help of the United States
and Britain] and Mossadegh was overthrown. The CIA covertly funneled
five million dollars to General Zahedi's regime on August 21, 1953."
This CIA operation, often referred to as Operation Ajax and led by CIA officer Kermit Roosevelt Jr., ensured the return of the Shah on August 22, 1953.
Although accepting large sums of military aid from the United States in 1954, by 1956 Egyptian leader Nasser
had grown tired of the American influence in the country. The
involvement that the U.S. would take in Egyptian business and politics
in return for aid, Nasser thought "smacked of colonialism."
Indeed, as political scholar B.M. Bleckman argued in 1978, "Nasser had
ambivalent feelings toward the United States. From 1952 to 1954 he was
on close terms with U.S. officials and was viewed in Washington as a
promising moderate Arab leader. The conclusion of an arms deal with the
USSR in 1955, however, had cooled the relationship between Cairo and
Washington considerably, and the Dulles-Eisenhower decision to withdraw
the offer to finance the Aswan High Dam
in mid-1956 was a further blow to the chances of maintaining friendly
ties. Eisenhower's stand against the British, French and Israeli attack
on Egypt in October 1956 created a momentary sense of gratitude on the
part of Nasser, but the subsequent development of the Eisenhower
Doctrine, so clearly aimed at 'containing' Nasserism, undermined what
little goodwill existed toward the United States in Cairo."
"The Suez Crisis of 1956 marked the demise of British power and its
gradual replacement by the USA as the dominant power in the Middle
East." The Eisenhower Doctrine became a manifestation of this process. "The general objective of the Eisenhower Doctrine, like that of the Truman Doctrine formulated ten years earlier, was the containment of Soviet expansion."
Furthermore, when the Doctrine was finalized on March 9, 1957, it
"essentially gave the president the latitude to intervene militarily in
the Middle East ... without having to resort to Congress."
indeed as, Middle East scholar Irene L. Gerdzier explains "that with
the Eisenhower Doctrine the United States emerged "as the uncontested
Western power ... in the Middle East."
In response to the power vacuum in the Middle East following the Suez
Crisis, the Eisenhower administration developed a new policy designed
to stabilize the region against Soviet threats or internal turmoil.
Given the collapse of British prestige and the rise of Soviet interest
in the region, the president informed Congress on January 5, 1957, that
it was essential for the U.S. to accept new responsibilities for the
security of the Middle East. Under the policy, known as the Eisenhower Doctrine,
any Middle Eastern country could request American economic assistance
or aid from U.S. military forces if it was being threatened by armed
aggression. Though Eisenhower found it difficult to convince leading
Arab states or Israel to endorse the doctrine, he applied the new
doctrine by dispensing economic aid to shore up the Kingdom of Jordan, encouraging Syria's neighbors to consider military operations against it, and sending U.S. troops into Lebanon to prevent a radical revolution from sweeping over that country.
The troops sent to Lebanon never saw any fighting, but the deployment
marked the only time during Eisenhower's presidency when U.S. troops
were sent abroad into a potential combat situation.
Though U.S. aid helped Lebanon and Jordan avoid revolution, the
Eisenhower doctrine enhanced Nasser's prestige as the preeminent Arab nationalist. Partly as a result of the bungled U.S. intervention in Syria, Nasser established the short-lived United Arab Republic, a political union between Egypt and Syria. The U.S. also lost a sympathetic Middle Eastern government due to the 1958 Iraqi coup d'état, which saw King Faisal I replaced by General Abd al-Karim Qasim as the leader of Iraq.
Meanwhile, in Jordan nationalistic anti-government rioting broke out and the United States decided to send a battalion of marines to nearby Lebanon
prepared to intervene in Jordan later that year. Douglas Little argues
that Washington's decision to use the military resulted from a
determination to support a beleaguered, conservative pro-Western regime
in Lebanon, repel Nasser's pan-Arabism, and limit Soviet influence in
the oil-rich region. However Little concludes that the unnecessary
American action brought negative long-term consequences, notably the
undermining of Lebanon's fragile, multi-ethnic political coalition and
the alienation of Arab nationalism throughout the region.
To keep the pro-American King Hussein of Jordan in power, the CIA sent
millions of dollars a year of subsidies. In the mid-1950s the U.S.
supported allies in Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia and sent
fleets to be near Syria.
However, 1958 was to become a difficult year in U.S. foreign policy; in
1958 Syria and Egypt were merged into the "United Arab Republic",
anti-American and anti-government revolts started occurring in Lebanon,
causing the Lebanese president Chamoun to ask America for help, and the
very pro-American King Feisal the 2nd of Iraq was overthrown by a group
of nationalistic military officers.
It was quite "commonly believed that [Nasser] ... stirred up the unrest
in Lebanon and, perhaps, had helped to plan the Iraqi revolution."
In June 1967 Israel fought with Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the Six-Day War. As a result of the war, Israel captured the West Bank, Golan Heights, and the Sinai Peninsula.
The U.S. supported Israel with weapons and continued to support Israel
financially throughout the 1970s. On September 17, 1970, with U.S. and
Israeli help, Jordanian troops attacked PLO guerrilla camps, while Jordan's U.S.-supplied air force dropped napalm from above. The U.S. deployed the aircraft carrier Independence and six destroyers off the coast of Lebanon and readied troops in Turkey to support the assault.
The American interventions in the years before the Iranian
revolution have all proven to be based in part on economic
considerations, but more so have been influenced and led by the
international Cold War context.
Ted Koppel's ABC News broadcast of July 1992 points out the US cooperation with Iraq, by sending money, armaments, dual-use technology and if necessary, the provision of emergency action plans against Iran. According to revealed CIA files, the United States supported Hussein's Iraq even to the point of a US awareness of Iraqi use of chemical armaments. This violated the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which Iraq did not approve. Moreover, the US Defense Intelligence Agency provided Iraq with satellite positions of Iranian troops to help keep track of the enemies. American position in the war played "a secretly but unambiguously" pro-Iraq support.
Several scholars have argued the US gave a "green light" to Hussein's
attack on Iran. Yet, considering now available US and Iraqi papers, the
"green light" hypothesis is "more a myth than reality". US did not
provide an initial encouragement to let the war begin as well as
Hussein's attack was independent of the US.
US-Iran relations drastically changed since the Iranian 1979 revolution. It marked the fall of the Shah and its closeness with the Western world and the takeover of Khomeini with a return to Islamic law. In 1979 the US Embassy in Teheran was caught by protesters, and American civilians were taken hostages.
In 1980, the US changed policy to allow Israel to sell American
armament to Iran during the war. The deal between US and Israel was
coordinated by the State Department Counselor, McFarlane, with US Secretary of State Alexander Haig Jr. and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin agreeing to a 6 to 18 months period weapons' provision.
This support to Iran was first explained as a way to have back the
American hostages. Yet, the hostages were delivered before the US supply
of weapons to Iran. In addition, this armament provision lasts for more than the established period. Indeed, this was later known as the Iran-Contra Affair publicly divulgated in November 1985. US supplied weapons to Iran through Israel, and the profit gained went to finance the Contra rebels, opponents to the Nicaragua Sandinista Front.
The
Gulf War in 1991 opposed a coalition of 35 countries led by the United
States against Iraq after it invades Kuwait. Iraq had been an ally of
the Soviet Union during the Cold War, resulting in little relation with
the US. After Iraq threatened to invade Kuwait, the US said they would
also protect their allies in the region against Iraq's invasion. After the invasion in 1990, economic sanctions are implemented when the US request a meeting of the United Nations Security Council and adopt Resolution 660. The US rejected the proposal of the Iraqi army to leave Kuwait if a solution for Palestine is found. Military means are employed by the US in 1991, as Resolution 678 allows.
Also, the coalition is created, with 73% of the armed force being
American. The United States armed forces lead many attacks on the Iraqi
army in several battles, through air strikes and land battles.
Saudi Arabia and the United States are strategic allies, but relations with the U.S. became strained following September 11 attacks.
Foreign policies of the US in Saudi Arabia started with the Quincy Agreement
in 1945, in which the US agreed to provide Saudi Arabia with military
security in exchange for secure access to supplies of oil. Military aid
was provided to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War, and almost 500,000
soldiers were sent to protect Saudi Arabia from Iraq.
In March 2015, President Barack Obama declared that he had authorized U.S. forces to provide logistical and intelligence support to the Saudis in their military intervention in Yemen, establishing a "Joint Planning Cell" with Saudi Arabia. The report by Human Rights Watch stated that US-made bombs were being used in attacks indiscriminately targeting civilians and violating the laws of war.
Both countries have an interest in fighting terrorism and are allies.
In 2017, an agreement aiming to provide Saudi Arabia with $115 billion
of weapons containing tanks, combat ships and missile defence systems
was announced by President Donald Trump.
In 2018, the Saudi Government had purchased over $14.5 billion of
weapons to the US. Also in 2018, the Saudi-led coalition fighting
terrorism in Yemen bombed a school bus killing 40 children, with a bomb
provided by the United States. Many criticized the United States'
support for Saudi intervention in Yemen which contributed to the killing
of 10,000 children. In December 2018, the end of American assistance to Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen in voted by senators.
The lack of support from the US for the Saudi-led coalition
interventions in Yemen stained the relationship of the two countries,
causing Saudi Arabia to refuse the US's request of increasing oil
production.
The US established diplomatic relations with Yemen in 1947 when it became a member of the United Nations. The Yemen Arab Republic is created in 1962 and recognized by the US the same year. In 1967, the US recognize the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen.
The 20th century's Us policies in Yemen support the unification and are
largely concentrated on humanitarian aid and some military operations.
In the 1990s, the US develop a $42 million program in Yemen subsidizing
agriculture, education and health. In return, the Yemeni government cooperates with US oil companies. US-Yemen relationship deteriorates when both take different sides during the Kuwait crisis
21st century
Al-Qaeda's
terrorist attacks in the United States have transformed US's policies
in Yemen. The US has engaged in many military actions against the
terrorist group but also humanitarian help and cooperation with other
actors. Also, the Yemeni government improved its cooperation in
dismantling the terrorist group with the US government after this event.
Over the last decades, the US has responded to Yemen's
humanitarian crisis caused by the war. The reported funding in the
country from the US has increased this past decade from $115m in 2012 to
almost a billion in 2019. It funds sectors like the supply of food
security, health, education and protection.
But the blockade of access to the country by the Saudi-led coalition,
which has received support from the United States, prevents humanitarian
aid to be fully applied.
Military policies in Yemen have increased since the replacement of the previous president Ali Abdullah Saleh by Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi,
far more cooperative in fighting terrorism in Yemen. Military policies
are characterized by the training of the military by the US forces, the
supply of weapons but also air strikes. The US also concluded an
agreement with Saudi Arabia in 2015 which engages the US in supplying
weapons to Saudi Arabia for counterterrorist actions in Yemen.
2011 saw several anti-governmental protests arising in many Arab countries, known as the Arab Spring. Syria opposed the Assad government through demonstrations which were put down fomenting a civil war.
US involvement in the Syrian civil war started under the Obama presidency, with the involvement of US troops in 2015.
US troops' involvement continued under the Trump presidency, although
Trump stated on several occasions that he did not want "boots on the
ground" in Syria for much longer, asking the army to retire altogether,
which never happened. US continued to lead an alliance of up to 74
countries to fight against ISIS
terrorist organization, but also with peacekeeping and patrolling of
oilfields missions. The situation became more complicated in 2019, after
Turkey struck an agreement with Russia, whose army also got directly
involved. The US and the Western coalition got involved in multiple
fights, mostly on the side of the Kurdish led YPG and SDF liberation army, causing therefore tensions with Turkey, which fundamentally never stopped fighting Kurds in Syria. Trump's presidency has not made things any easier for US troops deployed in Syria, moving from showing little interest
to showing interest in the oilfields located in the North-Eastern
province of Syria, to finally showing signs of appropriating a victory
that did not really happen. But the situation remains far from clear for the US army in Syria
with its presence continuing under the Biden presidency, with focus on
military operations and airstrikes shifting towards the East, to better
fight Iran supported militias.
The Turkish government accused the coup leaders of being linked to the Gülen movement, which is designated as a terrorist organization by the Republic of Turkey and led by Fethullah Gülen,
a Turkish businessman and cleric who lives in Pennsylvania, United
States. Erdoğan accuses Gülen of being behind the coup—a claim that
Gülen denies—and accused the United States of harboring him. President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused the head of United States Central Command, chief General Joseph Votel of "siding with coup plotters," (after Votel accused the Turkish government of arresting the Pentagon's contacts in Turkey).
Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid: until February 2022, the United States had provided Israel US$150 billion (non-inflation-adjusted) in bilateral assistance.
In 1999, the US government signed a Memorandum of Understanding through
which it committed to providing Israel with at least US$2.67 billion in
military aid
annually, for the following ten years; in 2009, the annual amount was
raised to US$3 billion; and in 2019, the amount was raised again, now
standing at a minimum of US$3.8 billion that the US is committed to providing Israel each year.
Since 1972, the United States has also extended loan guarantees
– a form of indirect U.S. assistance to Israel, as they enable Israel
to borrow from commercial US banks at lower rates – to Israel to assist
with housing shortages, Israel's absorption of new Jewish immigrants and
its economic recovery following the 2000–2003 recession, caused in part
by the Second Intifada.
Moreover, the United States is Israel's largest trading partner, and
Israel is the United States' 25th-largest trading partner; two-way trade
totaled some $36 billion in 2013. Bilateral trade increased to nearly $50 billion by 2023.
In addition to financial and military aid, the United States also
provides large-scale political support to Israel, having used its United Nations Security Council veto power 42 times against resolutions condemning Israel, out of a total 83 times in which its veto has ever been used. Between 1991 and 2011, out of the 24 vetoes invoked by the United States, 15 were used to protect Israel.
The United States' readiness to stand on behalf of Israel has, among other factors, been linked to the influence of Zionist lobbies in U.S. politics, most notably AIPAC.
Bilateral relations have evolved from an initial American policy of sympathy and support for the creation of a Jewish homeland in 1948, to a partnership that links a small but powerful Israeli state with an American superpower attempting to balance influence against other competing interests in the region, namely those of Russia and its allies.
Some analysts maintain that Israel is a strategic ally for the United
States, and that relations with the former will strengthen the latter's
influence in the Middle East. Israel is designated by the United States as a major non-NATO ally,
and was the first country to be granted this status alongside Egypt in
1987; Israel and Egypt remain the only countries in the Middle East to
have this designation. Then senator Jesse Helms,
argued that the military foothold offered by Israel in the region alone
justified the expense of American military aid; referring to Israel as
"America's aircraft carrier in the Middle East". As of 2021, the United States remains the only permanent member of the United Nations Security Council to have recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and moved its embassy to the disputed city from Tel Aviv in 2018. The United States is also the only country to have recognized the Golan Heights (designated as Israeli-occupied Syrian territory by the United Nations) as non-occupied Israeli sovereign territory, doing so via a presidential proclamation under the Trump administration in 2019. However, under the subsequent Biden administration, the U.S. State Department’s annual report on human rights violations around the world once more refers to the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights as territories that are occupied by Israel. Nevertheless, in June 2021, in response to a claim by The Washington Free Beacon that it had "walked back" its recognition, the Near Eastern Affairs account of the U.S. State Department tweeted that "U.S. policy regarding the Golan has not changed, and reports to the contrary are false."
Woodrow Wilson,
who was sympathetic to the plight of Jews in Europe and favorable to
Zionist objectives (giving his assent to the text of the Balfour
Declaration shortly before its release) stated on March 2, 1919, "I am
persuaded that the Allied nations with the fullest concurrence of our
own Government and people are agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the
foundation of a future Jewish commonwealth" and on April 16, 1919,
corroborated the U.S. government's "expressed acquiescence" in the
Balfour Declaration. Wilson's statements did not result in a change in policy of the U.S. State Department in favor of Zionist aims. However, the US Congress passed the Lodge-Fish resolution, the first joint resolution stating its support for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" on September 21, 1922. The same day, the Mandate of Palestine was approved by the Council of the League of Nations.
During World War II, while US foreign policy decisions were often ad hoc
moves and solutions dictated by the demands of the war, the Zionist
movement made a fundamental departure from traditional Zionist policy
and its stated goals, at the Biltmore Conference in May 1942.
Previous stated policy towards establishing a Jewish "national home" in
Palestine were gone; these were replaced with its new policy "that
Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth" like other nations,
in cooperation with the United States, not Britain.
Two attempts by Congress in 1944 to pass resolutions declaring US
government support for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine
were objected to by the Departments of War and State, because of wartime
considerations and Arab opposition to the creation of a Jewish state.
The resolutions were permanently dropped.
Following the war, the "new postwar era witnessed an intensive
involvement of the United States in the political and economic affairs
of the Middle East, in contrast to the hands-off attitude characteristic of the prewar period. In Truman's administration
the United States had to face and define its policy in all three
sectors that provided the root causes of American interests in the
region: the Soviet threat, the birth of Israel, and petroleum."
Recognition of the State of Israel
Telegram on recognition of the State of Israel, May 1948
Previous American presidents, although encouraged by active support
from members of the American and world Jewish communities, as well as
domestic civic groups, labor unions, and political parties, supported
the Jewish homeland concept, alluded to in Britain's 1917 Balfour Declaration,
they officially continued to "acquiesce". Throughout the Roosevelt and
Truman administrations, the Departments of War and State recognized the
possibility of a Soviet-Arab connection and the potential Arab
restriction on oil supplies to the US and advised against US
intervention on behalf of the Jews. With continuing conflict in the area and worsening humanitarian conditions among Holocaust survivors in Europe, on November 29, 1947, and with US support, the United Nations General Assembly adopted as Resolution 181, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, which recommended the adoption and implementation of a Plan of Partition with Economic Union. The voting was heavily lobbied by Zionist supporters, which Truman himself later noted, and rejected by the Arabs.
President Truman meeting on May 8, 1951, with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion (right) and Abba Eban (center)
As the end of the mandate approached, the decision to recognize the
Jewish state remained contentious, with significant disagreement between
PresidentTruman, his domestic and campaign adviser, Clark Clifford, and both the State Department and Defense Department. Truman, while sympathetic to the Zionist cause, was most concerned about relieving the plight of the displaced persons; Secretary of State George Marshall feared US backing of a Jewish state would harm relations with the Muslim
world, limit access to Middle Eastern oil, and destabilize the region.
On May 12, 1948, Truman met in the Oval Office with Secretary of State
Marshall, Under Secretary of State Robert A. Lovett,
Counsel to the President Clark Clifford, and several others to discuss
the Palestine situation. Clifford argued in favor of recognizing the new
Jewish state in accordance with the partition resolution. Marshall
opposed Clifford's arguments, contending that they were based on
domestic political considerations in the election year. Marshall said
that, if Truman followed Clifford's advice and recognized the Jewish
state, then he would vote against Truman in the election. Truman did not
clearly state his views in the meeting.
MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: I have the
honor to notify you that the state of Israel has been proclaimed as an
independent republic within frontiers approved by the General Assembly
of the United Nations in its Resolution of 29 November 1947, and that a
provisional government has been charged to assume the rights and duties
of government for preserving law and order within the boundaries of
Israel, for defending the state against external aggression, and for
discharging the obligations of Israel to the other nations of the world
in accordance with international law. The Act of Independence will
become effective at one minute after six o'clock on the evening of 14
May 1948, Washington time.
With full knowledge of the deep bond of sympathy which has
existed and has been strengthened over the past thirty years between the
Government of the United States and the Jewish people of Palestine, I
have been authorized by the provisional government of the new state to
tender this message and to express the hope that your government will
recognize and will welcome Israel into the community of nations.
The text of the United States recognition was as follows:
This Government has been informed
that a Jewish state has been proclaimed in Palestine, and recognition
has been requested by the provisional Government thereof.
The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel.
(sgn.) Harry Truman
Approved,
14 May 1948
6.11
With this unexpected decision, US representative to the United Nations Warren Austin, whose team had been working on an alternative trusteeship proposal,
shortly thereafter left his office at the UN and went home. Secretary
of State Marshall sent a State Department official to the United Nations
to prevent the entire United States delegation from resigning. De jure recognition came on January 31, 1949.
Following UN mediation by American Ralph Bunche, the 1949 Armistice Agreements ended the 1948 Arab Israeli War. Related to enforcement of the armistice, the United States signed the Tripartite Declaration of 1950
with Britain and France. In it, they pledged to take action within and
outside the United Nations to prevent violations of the frontiers or
armistice lines; outlined their commitment to peace and stability in the
area and their opposition to the use or threat of force; and reiterated
their opposition to the development of an arms race in the region.
Under rapidly changing geopolitical circumstances, US policy in
the Middle East was generally geared toward supporting Arab states'
independence; aiding the development of oil-producing countries;
preventing Soviet influence from gaining a foothold in Greece, Turkey, and Iran; and preventing an arms race and maintaining a neutral stance in the Arab–Israeli conflict. US policymakers initially used foreign aid to support these objectives.
Foreign policy of US government
Eisenhower Administration (1953–1961)
Prime Minister Ben Gurion with Vice President Richard Nixon in 1960
During these years of austerity,
the United States provided Israel moderate amounts of economic aid,
mostly as loans for basic foodstuffs; a far greater share of state
income derived from German war reparations (86% of Israeli GDP in 1956) which were used for domestic development.
France
became Israel's main arms supplier at this time and provided Israel
with advanced military equipment and technology. This support was seen
by Israel to counter the perceived threat from Egypt under President Gamal Abdel Nasser with respect to the "Czech arms deal" of September 1955. During the 1956 Suez Crisis, the Israeli Defense Forces invaded Egypt and were soon followed by French and British forces. For differing reasons, France, Israel and Britain signed a secret agreement
to topple Nasser by regaining control of the Suez Canal, following its
nationalization, and to occupy parts of western Sinai assuring free
passage of shipping (for Israel) in the Gulf of Aqaba.
In response, the US, with support from the Soviet Union at the UN
intervened on behalf of Egypt to force a withdrawal. Afterward, Nasser
expressed a desire to establish closer relations with the United States.
Eager to increase its influence in the region, and prevent Nasser from
going over to the Soviet Bloc, US policy was to remain neutral and not
become too closely allied with Israel. At this time, the only assistance
the US provided Israel was food aid. In the early 1960s, the US would
begin to sell advanced, but defensive, weapons to Israel, Egypt, and Jordan, including Hawk anti-aircraft missiles.
As president, Kennedy initiated the creation of security ties with Israel, and he was the founder of the US–Israeli military alliance.
Kennedy, basing his policy decision on his White House advisors,
avoided the State Department with its greater interest in the Arab
world. A central issue was the status of Palestinians, split among
Israel, Egypt and Jordan.
By 1961 there were 1.2 million Palestinian refugees living in Jordan,
Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. The Soviet Union, although it initially
supported the creation of Israel, was now an opponent, and looking to
the Arab world to build support. The United Nations General assembly was
generally anti-Israel,
but all decisions were subject to American veto power in the Security
Council. According to international law, UNGA resolutions are not
legally binding while UNSC resolutions are. Kennedy tried to be
evenhanded, but domestic political pressures pushed him to support
Israel.
I had forecast that once the Algerian War was over, France would drop Israel
like a hot coal and renew its ties with the Arab world. And that, of
course, is exactly what happened – Israel adopted the US instead.
Kennedy ended the arms embargo that the Eisenhower and Truman
administrations had enforced on Israel. Describing the protection of
Israel as a moral and national commitment, he was the first to introduce
the concept of a 'special relationship' (as he described it to Golda Meir) between the U.S. and Israel.
President John F. Kennedy in 1962 sold Israel a major weapon system, the Hawk antiaircraft missile.
Professor Abraham Ben-Zvi of Tel Aviv University argues that the sale
resulted from Kennedy's "need to maintain – and preferably broaden and
solidify – the base of Jewish support of the administration on the eve
of the November 1962 congressional elections." As soon as the decision
was made White House officials told American Jewish leaders about it.
However, historian Zachary Wallace argues that the new policy was driven
primarily by Kennedy's admiration of the Jewish state. It deserved
American support in order to achieve stability in the Middle East.
Kennedy warned the Israeli government against the production of nuclear materials in Dimona,
which he believed could instigate a nuclear arms-race in the Middle
East. After the existence of a nuclear plant was initially denied by the
Israeli government, David Ben-Gurion stated in a speech to the Israeli Knesset on December 21, 1960, that the purpose of the nuclear plant at Beersheba was for "research in problems of arid zones and desert flora and fauna."
When Ben-Gurion met with Kennedy in New York, he claimed that Dimona
was, for the time being, being developed to provide nuclear power for
desalinization and other peaceful purposes. In 1962, the US and Israeli
governments agreed to an annual inspection regime. Despite this
inspection policy [agreement], Rodger Davies, the director of the State Department's Office of Near Eastern Affairs, concluded in March 1965 that Israel was developing nuclear weapons. He reported that Israel's target date for achieving nuclear capability was 1968–1969. In 1966, when defecting Iraqi pilot Munir Redfa landed in Israel flying a Soviet-built MiG-21 fighter jet, information on the plane was immediately shared with the United States.
During Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency, US policy shifted to a whole-hearted, but not unquestioning, support for Israel. In the lead up to the Six-Day War
of 1967, while the Johnson Administration was sympathetic to Israel's
need to defend itself against foreign attack, the US worried that
Israel's response would be disproportionate and potentially
destabilizing. Israel's raid into Jordan after the 1966 Samu Incident was very troubling to the US because Jordan was also an ally and had received over $500 million in aid for construction of the East Ghor Main Canal, which was virtually destroyed in subsequent raids.
The primary concern of the Johnson Administration was that should
war break out in the region, the United States and the Soviet Union
would be drawn into it. Intense diplomatic negotiations with the nations
in the region and the Soviets, including the first use of the Hotline, failed to prevent war. When Israel launched preemptive strikes against the Egyptian Air force, Secretary of State Dean Rusk was disappointed as he felt a diplomatic solution could have been possible.
During the Six-Day War, Israeli jets and torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty,
a US Navy intelligence ship in Egyptian waters, killing 34 and wounding
171. Israel stated that the Liberty was mistaken as the Egyptian vessel
El Quseir, and it was an instance of friendly fire.
The US government accepted it as such, although the incident raised
much controversy, and some still believe it to be deliberate.
Prior to the Six-War Day, US administrations had taken
considerable care to avoid giving the appearance of favoritism. Writing
in American Presidents and the Middle East, George Lenczowski
notes, "Johnson's was an unhappy, virtually tragic presidency",
regarding "America's standing and posture in the Middle East", and
marked a turning point in both US–Israeli and US–Arab relations.
He characterizes the Middle Eastern perception of the US as moving from
"the most popular of Western countries" before 1948, to having "its
glamour diminished, but Eisenhower's standing during the Arab–Israeli
Suez Crisis convinced many Middle Eastern moderates that, if not
actually lovable, the United States was at least a fair country to deal
with; this view of US fairness and impartiality still prevailed during
Kennedy's presidency; but during Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency
America's policy took a definite turn in the pro-Israeli direction". He
added: "The June war of 1967 confirmed this impression, and from 1967 on
[writing in 1990] the United States emerged as the most distrusted if
not actually hated country in the Middle East."
Following the war, the perception in Washington was that many
Arab states (notably Egypt) had permanently drifted toward the Soviets.
In 1968, with strong support from Congress, Johnson approved the sale of
Phantom
fighters to Israel, establishing the precedent for US support for
Israel's qualitative military edge over its neighbors. However, the US
continued to provide military equipment to Arab states such as Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, to counter Soviet arms sales in the region.
During the Israeli–Egyptian War of Attrition, Israeli commandos captured a Soviet-built P-12 radar station in an operation code-named Rooster 53. Previously unknown information was subsequently shared with the US.
When the French government imposed an arms embargo on Israel in 1967, Israeli spies procured designs of the Dassault Mirage 5 from a Swiss Jewish engineer in order to build the IAI Kfir. These designs were also shared with the United States.
Qualitative Military Edge
Qualitative Military Edge (QME) is a concept in US foreign policy. The U.S. commits itself to maintain Israel's qualitative military edge (QME) – that is, the technological, tactical, and other advantages that allow it to deter numerically superior adversaries. This policy is defined in current US law.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported in 2019 that, throughout the spring and summer of 1963, the leaders of the United States and Israel – President John F. Kennedy and Prime Ministers David Ben-Gurion and Levi Eshkol – were engaged in a high-stakes battle of wills over Israel's nuclear program.
The tensions were invisible to the publics of both countries, and only a
few senior officials, on both sides, were aware of the severity of the
situation. According to Yuval Ne'eman, Eshkol,
Ben-Gurion's successor, and his associates saw Kennedy as presenting
Israel with a real ultimatum. According to Ne’eman, the former Israel
Air Force commander Maj. Gen. (res.) Dan Tolkowsky, seriously entertained the fear that Kennedy might send U.S. airborne troops to Dimona, the home of Israel's nuclear complex.
On March 25, 1963, President Kennedy and CIA Director John A. McCone
discussed the Israeli nuclear program. According to McCone, Kennedy
raised the "question of Israel acquiring nuclear capability," and McCone
provided Kennedy with Kent's
estimate of the anticipated negative consequences of Israeli
nuclearization. According to McCone, Kennedy then instructed National
Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy to guide Secretary of State Dean Rusk,
in collaboration with the CIA director and the AEC chairman, to submit a
proposal "as to how some form of international or bilateral U.S.
safeguards could be instituted to protect against the contingency
mentioned." That also meant that the "next informal inspection of the
Israeli reactor complex [must] ... be undertaken promptly and ... be as
thorough as possible."
This presidential request was translated into diplomatic action,
on April 2, 1963, Ambassador Barbour met Prime Minister Ben-Gurion and
presented the American request for his "assent to semi-annual visits to
Dimona perhaps in May and November, with full access to all parts and
instruments in the facility, by qualified U.S. scientists." Ben-Gurion,
apparently taken by surprise, responded by saying the issue would have
to be postponed until after Passover, which that year ended on April 15.
To highlight the point further, two days later, Assistant Secretary Talbot summoned Israeli Ambassador Harman
to the State Department and presented him with a diplomatic démarche on
the inspections. This message to Ben-Gurion was the first salvo in what
would become "the toughest American-Israeli confrontation over the
Israeli nuclear program".
On April 26, 1963, more than three weeks after the original U.S.
demand concerning Dimona, Ben-Gurion responded to Kennedy with a
seven-page letter that focused on broad issues of Israeli security and
regional stability. Claiming that Israel faced an unprecedented threat,
Ben-Gurion invoked the specter of "another Holocaust," and insisted that
Israel's security should be protected by joint external security
guarantees, to be extended by the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Kennedy,
however, was determined not to let Ben-Gurion change the subject. On May
4, 1963, he replied to the prime minister, assuring him that "we are
watching closely current developments in the Arab world". As to
Ben-Gurion's proposal for a joint superpower declaration, Kennedy
dismissed both its practicality and its political wisdom. Kennedy was
much less worried about an "early Arab attack" than he was by "a
successful development of advanced offensive systems which, as you say,
could not be dealt with by presently available means."
Kennedy, would not budge on Dimona, and the disagreements became a "pain in the neck" for him, as Robert Komer
later wrote. The confrontation with Israel escalated when the State
Department transmitted Kennedy's latest letter to the Tel Aviv embassy
on June 15 for immediate delivery to Ben-Gurion by Ambassador Barbour.
In the letter Kennedy fleshed out his insistence on biannual visits with
a set of detailed technical conditions. The letter was akin to an
ultimatum: If the U.S. government could not obtain "reliable
information" on the state of the Dimona project, Washington's
"commitment to and support of Israel" could be "seriously jeopardized."
But the letter was never presented to Ben-Gurion. The telegram with
Kennedy's letter arrived in Tel Aviv on Saturday, June 15, the day
before Ben-Gurion's announcement of his resignation, a decision that
stunned his country and the world. Ben-Gurion never explained, in
writing or orally, what led him to resign, beyond citing "personal
reasons." It is widely believed that the Lavon Affair,
a botched Israeli spy mission in Egypt, was the impetus for his
resignation. He denied that his move was related to any specific policy
issues, but the question of the extent to which Kennedy's Dimona
pressure played a role remains open to discussion to the present day.
On July 5, less than 10 days after Levi Eshkol succeeded
Ben-Gurion as prime minister, Ambassador Barbour delivered to him a
first letter from President Kennedy. The letter was virtually a copy of
the undelivered letter of June 15 to Ben-Gurion.
As Yuval Ne’eman stated, it was immediately apparent to Eshkol and his
advisers that Kennedy's demands were akin to an ultimatum, and thus
constituted a crisis in the making. A stunned Eshkol, in his first and
interim response, on July 17, requested more time to study the subject
and for consultations. The premier noted that while he hoped that
U.S-Israeli friendship would grow under his watch, "Israel would do what
it had to do for its national security and to safeguard its sovereign
rights." Barbour, apparently wanting to mitigate the bluntness of the
letter, assured Eshkol that Kennedy's statement was "factual": Critics
of strong U.S.-Israel relations might complicate the diplomatic
relationship if Dimona was left uninspected.
On August 19, after six weeks of consultations that generated at
least eight different drafts, Eshkol handed Barbour his written reply to
Kennedy's demands. It began by reiterating Ben-Gurion's past assurances
that Dimona's purpose was peaceful. As to Kennedy's request, Eshkol
wrote that given the special relationship between the two countries, he
had decided to allow regular visits of U.S. representatives to the
Dimona site. On the specific issue of the schedule, Eshkol suggested –
as Ben-Gurion had in his last letter to Kennedy – that late 1963 would
be the time for the first visit: By then, he wrote, "the French group
will have handed the reactor over to us and it will be undertaking
general tests and measurements of its physical parameters at zero
power."
Eshkol was vague on the proposed frequency of visits. Eshkol
disregarded Kennedy's demand for biannual tours, while avoiding a
frontal challenge to Kennedy's request. "Having considered this request,
I believe we shall be able to reach agreement on the future schedule of
visits," Eshkol wrote. In sum, the prime minister split the difference:
To end the confrontation, he assented to "regular visits" by U.S.
scientists, but he did not accept the idea of the prompt visit that
Kennedy wanted and avoided making an explicit commitment to biannual
inspections. Kennedy's appreciative reply did not mention these
divergences, but assumed a basic agreement on "regular visits."
In the wake of Eshkol's letter, the first of the long-sought
regular inspection visits to Dimona took place in mid-January 1964, two
months after Kennedy's assassination.
The Israelis told the American visitors that the reactor had gone
critical only a few weeks earlier, but that claim was not accurate.
Israel acknowledged years later that the Dimona reactor became
operational in mid-1963, as the Kennedy administration had originally
assumed.
It turned out that Kennedy's insistence on biannual visits to
Dimona was not implemented after his death. U.S. government officials
remained interested in such a schedule, and President Lyndon B. Johnson did raise the issue with Eshkol, but he never pressed hard on the subject the way that Kennedy had.
In the end, the confrontation between President Kennedy and two
Israeli prime ministers resulted in a series of six American inspections
of the Dimona nuclear complex, once a year between 1964 and 1969. They
were never conducted under the strict conditions Kennedy laid out in his
letters. While Kennedy's successor remained committed to the cause of
nuclear nonproliferation and supported American inspection visits at
Dimona, he was much less concerned about holding the Israelis to
Kennedy's terms. In retrospect, this change of attitude may have saved
the Israeli nuclear program.
Nixon and Ford Administrations (1969–1977)
On June 19, 1970, Secretary of State William P. Rogers formally proposed the Rogers Plan, which called for a 90-day cease-fire and a military standstill zone on each side of the Suez Canal, to calm the ongoing War of Attrition. It was an effort to reach agreement specifically on the framework of UN Resolution 242,
which called for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967
and mutual recognition of each state's sovereignty and independence.
The Egyptians accepted the Rogers Plan, but the Israelis were split and
did not; they failed to get sufficient support within the "unity
government". Despite the Labor-dominant Alignments, formal acceptance of UN 242 and "peace for withdrawal" earlier that year, Menachem Begin and the right wingGahal alliance were adamantly opposed to withdraw from the Palestinian Territories; the second-largest party in the government resigned on August 5, 1970.
Ultimately, the plan also failed due to insufficient support from Nixon
for his Secretary of State's plan, preferring instead the position of
his National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, not to pursue the initiative.
No breakthrough occurred even after President Sadat of Egypt in
1972 unexpectedly expelled Soviet advisers from Egypt, and again
signaled to Washington his willingness to negotiate.
On February 28, 1973, during a visit in Washington, D.C., the then Israeli prime minister Golda Meir agreed with the then U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger's peace proposal based on "security versus sovereignty": Israel would accept Egyptian sovereignty over all Sinai, while Egypt would accept Israeli presence in some of Sinai strategic positions.
Faced with this lack of progress on the diplomatic front, and
hoping to force the Nixon administration to become more involved, Egypt
prepared for military conflict. In October 1973, Egypt and Syria,
simultaneously attacked Israel, thus starting the Yom Kippur War.
US President Richard Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir meeting on March 1, 1973, in the Oval Office. Nixon's National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger is to the right of Nixon.
Despite intelligence indicating an attack from Egypt and Syria, Prime Minister Golda Meir
made the controversial decision not to launch a pre-emptive strike.
Meir, among other concerns, feared alienating the United States, if
Israel was seen as starting another war, as Israel only trusted the
United States to come to its aid. In retrospect, the decision not to
strike was probably a sound one, though it is vigorously debated in
Israel to this day. Later, according to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, had Israel struck first, they would not have received "so much as a nail". On October 6, 1973, during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur,
Egypt and Syria, with the support of Arab expeditionary forces and with
backing from the Soviet Union, launched simultaneous attacks against
Israel. The resulting conflict is known as the Yom Kippur War. The
Egyptian Army was initially able to breach Israeli defenses, advance
into the Sinai, and establish defensive positions along the east bank of
the Suez Canal,
but they were later repulsed in a massive tank battle when they tried
to advance further to draw pressure away from Syria. The Israelis then
crossed the Suez Canal. Major battles with heavy losses for both sides
took place. At the same time, the Syrians almost broke through Israel's
thin defenses in the Golan Heights, but were eventually stopped by
reinforcements and pushed back, followed by a successful Israeli advance
into Syria. Israel also gained the upper hand in the air and at sea
early in the war. Days into the war, it has been suggested that Meir
authorized the assembly of Israeli nuclear bombs. This was done openly,
perhaps in order to draw American attention, but Meir authorized their
use against Egyptian and Syrian targets only if Arab forces managed to
advance too far.
The Soviets began to resupply Arab forces, predominantly Syria. Meir
asked Nixon for help with military supply. After Israel went on full
nuclear alert and loaded their warheads into waiting planes, Nixon
ordered the full scale commencement of a strategic airlift operation
to deliver weapons and supplies to Israel; this last move is sometimes
called "the airlift that saved Israel". However, by the time the
supplies arrived, Israel was gaining the upper hand.
Again, the US and Soviets feared that they would be drawn into a
Middle East conflict. After the Soviets threatened intervention on the
behalf of Egypt, following Israeli advances beyond the cease-fire lines,
the US increased the Defense Condition
(DEFCON) from four to three, the highest peacetime level. This was
prompted after Israel trapped Egypt's Third Army east of the Suez canal.
Kissinger realized the situation presented the United States with
a tremendous opportunity—Egypt was totally dependent on the US to
prevent Israel from destroying the army, which now had no access to food
or water. The position could be parlayed later into allowing the United
States to mediate the dispute, and push Egypt out of Soviet influences.
As a result, the United States exerted tremendous pressure on the
Israelis to refrain from destroying the trapped army. In a phone call
with Israeli ambassador Simcha Dinitz,
Kissinger told the ambassador that the destruction of the Egyptian
Third Army "is an option that does not exist". The Egyptians later
withdrew their request for support and the Soviets complied.
After the war, Kissinger pressured the Israelis to withdraw from
Arab lands; this contributed to the first phases of a lasting
Israeli-Egyptian peace. American support of Israel during the war
contributed to the 1973 OPEC embargo against the United States, which was lifted in March 1974.
The Reassessment Crisis
In early 1975, the Israeli government turned down a US initiative for
further redeployment in Sinai. President Ford responded on March 21,
1975, by sending Prime Minister Rabin a letter stating that Israeli
intransigence has complicated US worldwide interests, and therefore the
administration will "reassess" its relations with the Israeli
government. In addition, arms shipments to Israel halted. The
reassessment crisis came to an end with the Israeli–Egyptian
disengagement of forces agreement of September 4, 1975.
Carter administration (1977–1981)
President Carter, Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Zbigniew Brzezinski in September, 1978
The Carter administration was characterized by very active US involvement in the Middle East peace process. With the May 1977 election of Likud's Menachem Begin
as prime minister, after 29 years of leading the Israeli government
opposition, major changes took place regarding Israeli withdrawal from
the occupied territories. This led to friction in US–Israeli bilateral relations. The two frameworks included in the Carter-initiated Camp David process were viewed by right-wing elements in Israel as creating US pressures on Israel to withdraw from the captured Palestinian territories,
as well as forcing it to take risks for the sake of peace with Egypt.
The Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty was signed at the White House on March
26, 1979. It led to Israeli withdrawal from Sinai by 1982. Likud
governments have since argued that their acceptance of full withdrawal
from the Sinai as part of these accords and the eventual Egypt–Israel peace treaty fulfilled the Israeli pledge to withdraw from Sinai. President Carter's support for a Palestinian homeland
and for Palestinian political rights particularly created tensions with
the Likud government, and little progress was achieved on that front.
Israeli supporters expressed concerns early in the first Ronald Reagan
term about potential difficulties in US–Israeli relations, in part
because several Presidential appointees had ties or past business
associations with key Arab countries (for example, Secretaries Caspar Weinberger and George P. Shultz were officers in the Bechtel Corporation, which has strong links to the Arab world; see Arab lobby in the United States.) However, President Reagan's personal support for Israel, and the compatibility between Israeli and Reagan perspectives on terrorism, security cooperation, and the Soviet threat, led to considerable strengthening in bilateral relations.
In 1981, Weinberger and Israeli Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon signed the Strategic Cooperation Agreement,
establishing a framework for continued consultation and cooperation to
enhance the national security of both countries. In November 1983, the
two sides formed a Joint Political Military Group,
which meets twice a year, to implement most provisions of that
agreement. Joint air and sea military exercises began in June 1984, and
the United States constructed two War Reserve Stock
facilities in Israel to stockpile military equipment. Although intended
for American forces in the Middle East, the equipment can be
transferred to Israeli use if necessary.
US–Israeli ties strengthened during the second Reagan term. Israel was granted "major non-NATO ally"
status in 1989, giving it access to expanded weapons systems and
opportunities to bid on US defense contracts. The United States
maintained grant aid to Israel at $3 billion annually and implemented a
free trade agreement in 1985. Since then all customs duties between the
two trading partners have been eliminated. However, relations soured
when Israel carried out Operation Opera, an Israeli airstrike on the Osirak nuclear reactor in Baghdad.
Reagan suspended a shipment of military aircraft to Israel, and harshly
criticized the action. Relations also soured during the 1982 Lebanon War, when the United States even contemplated sanctions to stop the Israeli siege of Beirut.
The US reminded Israel that weaponry provided by the US was to be used
for defensive purposes only, and suspended shipments of cluster
munitions to Israel. Although the war exposed some serious differences
between Israeli and US policies, such as Israel's rejection of the
Reagan peace plan of September 1, 1982, it did not alter the
Administration's favoritism for Israel and the emphasis it placed on
Israel's importance to the United States. Although critical of Israeli
actions, the United States vetoed a Soviet-proposed United Nations Security Council resolution to impose an arms embargo on Israel.
In 1985, the US supported Israel's economic stabilization through
roughly $1.5 billion in two-year loan guarantees the creation of a
US–Israel bilateral economic forum called the U.S.–Israel Joint Economic Development Group (JEDG).
The second Reagan term ended on what many Israelis considered to
be a sour note when the United States opened a dialogue with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in December 1988. But, despite the US–PLO dialogue, the Pollard
spy case, and the Israeli rejection of the Shultz peace initiative in
the spring of 1988, pro-Israeli organizations in the United States
characterized the Reagan Administration (and the 100th Congress) as the
"most pro-Israel ever", and praised the positive overall tone of
bilateral relations.
In the midst of the first Intifada, Secretary of State James Baker told an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobby group) audience on May 22, 1989, that Israel should abandon its "expansionist policies". President Bush raised the ire of the Likud government when he told a press conference on March 3, 1991, that East Jerusalem was occupied territory and not a sovereign part of Israel as Israel says. Israel had annexed
East Jerusalem in 1980, an action which did not gain international
recognition. The United States and Israel disagreed over the Israeli
interpretation of the Israeli plan to hold elections for a Palestinian
peace conference delegation in the summer of 1989, and also disagreed
over the need for an investigation of the Jerusalem incident of October
8, 1990, in which Israeli police killed 17 Palestinians.
Amid the Iraq-Kuwait crisis and Iraqi
threats against Israel generated by it, former President Bush repeated
the US commitment to Israel's security. Israeli–US tension eased after
the start of the Persian Gulf war on January 16, 1991, when Israel became a target of Iraqi Scud
missiles, suffering over 30 strikes during the war. The United States
urged Israel not to retaliate against Iraq for the attacks because it
was believed that Iraq wanted to draw Israel into the conflict and force
other coalition members, Egypt and Syria
in particular, to quit the coalition and join Iraq in a war against
Israel. Israel did not retaliate, and gained praise for its restraint.
Following the Gulf War, the administration immediately returned
to Arab-Israeli peacemaking, believing there was a window of opportunity
to use the political capital generated by the US victory to revitalize
the Arab-Israeli peace process. On March 6, 1991, President Bush
addressed Congress in a speech often cited as the administration's
principal policy statement on the new order in relation to the Middle
East, following the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Michael Oren
summarizes the speech, saying: "The president proceeded to outline his
plan for maintaining a permanent U.S. naval presence in the Gulf, for
providing funds for Middle East development, and for instituting
safeguards against the spread of unconventional weapons. The centerpiece
of his program, however, was the achievement of an Arab–Israeli treaty
based on the territory-for-peace principle and the fulfillment of
Palestinian rights." As a first step, Bush announced his intention to
reconvene the international peace conference in Madrid.
However, unlike earlier American peace efforts, no new aid
commitments would be used. This was both because President Bush and
Secretary Baker felt the coalition victory and increased US prestige
would itself induce a new Arab–Israeli dialogue, and because their
diplomatic initiative focused on process and procedure rather than on
agreements and concessions. From Washington's perspective, economic
inducements would not be necessary, although these did enter the process
when Israel injected them in May. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's request for $10 billion in US loan guarantees added a new dimension to US diplomacy and sparked a political showdown between his government and the Bush administration.
Bush and Baker were thus instrumental in convening the Madrid
peace conference in October 1991 and in persuading all the parties to
engage in the subsequent peace negotiations. It was reported widely that
the Bush Administration did not share an amicable relationship with the
Likud government of Yitzhak Shamir. However, the Israeli government did win the repeal of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism with racism. After the conference, in December 1991, the UN passed United Nations General Assembly Resolution 46/86; Israel had made revocation of resolution 3379 a condition of its participation in the Madrid peace conference. After the Labor party
won the 1992 election, US–Israel relations appeared to improve. The
Labor coalition approved a partial housing construction freeze in the
occupied territories on July 19, something the Shamir government had not
done despite Bush Administration appeals for a freeze as a condition
for the loan guarantees.
Israel and the PLO exchanged letters of mutual recognition on
September 10, and signed the Declaration of Principles on September 13,
1993. President Bill Clinton
announced on September 10 that the United States and the PLO would
reestablish their dialogue. On October 26, 1994, President Clinton
witnessed the Jordan–Israeli peace treaty signing, and President Clinton, Egyptian President Mubarak, and King Hussein of Jordan witnessed the White House signing of the September 28, 1995, Interim Agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
President Clinton attended the funeral of assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
in Jerusalem in November 1995. Following a March 1996 visit to Israel,
President Clinton offered $100 million in aid for Israel's anti-terror
activities, another $200 million for Arrow anti-missile deployment, and about $50 million for an anti-missile laser weapon.
President Clinton disagreed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
policy of expanding Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories,
and it was reported that the President believed that the Prime Minister
delayed the peace process. President Clinton hosted negotiations at the Wye River
Conference Center in Maryland, ending with the signing of an agreement
on October 23, 1998. Israel suspended implementation of the Wye
agreement in early December 1998, when the Palestinians violated the Wye
Agreement by threatening to declare a state (Palestinian statehood was
not mentioned in Wye). In January 1999, the Wye Agreement was delayed
until the Israeli elections in May.
Ehud Barak
was elected Prime Minister on May 17, 1999, and won a vote of
confidence for his government on July 6, 1999. President Clinton and
Prime Minister Barak appeared to establish close personal relations
during four days of meetings between July 15 and 20. President Clinton
mediated meetings between Prime Minister Barak and Chairman Arafat at the White House, Oslo, Shepherdstown, Camp David, and Sharm al-Shaykh in the search for peace.
President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon established good relations in their March and June 2001 meetings. On October 4, 2001, shortly after the 11 September attacks,
Sharon accused the Bush Administration of appeasing the Palestinians at
Israel's expense in a bid for Arab support for the US anti-terror
campaign.
The White House said that the remark was unacceptable. Rather than
apologize for the remark, Sharon said that the United States failed to
understand him. Also, the United States criticized the Israeli practice
of assassinating
Palestinians believed to be engaged in terrorism, which appeared to
some Israelis to be inconsistent with the US policy of pursuing Osama bin Laden "dead or alive".
Nonetheless, it was later revealed that Sharon obtained an
understanding from the Bush administration that the U.S. government
would provide support for Israel while it undertook an extensive
campaign of targeted assassinations against Palestinian militants, in exchange for an Israeli undertaking to desist from continuing with the creation of further settlements in the West Bank.
In 2003, in the middle of the Second Intifada
and a sharp economic downturn in Israel, the US provided Israel with $9
billion in conditional loan guarantees made available through 2011 and
negotiated each year at the US–Israel Joint Economic Development Group.
All recent US administrations have disapproved of Israel's
settlement activity as prejudging final status and possibly preventing
the emergence of a contiguous Palestinian state. However, President Bush
noted in an April 14, 2002 Memorandum which came to be called "the Bush
Roadmap"
(and which established the parameters for subsequent Israel-Palestinian
negotiations) the need to take into account changed "realities on the
ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers", as
well as Israel's security concerns, asserting that "It is unrealistic
to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be full and
complete return to the armistice lines of 1949." He later emphasized that, within these parameters, details of the borders were subjects for negotiations between the parties.
At times of violence, US officials have urged Israel to withdraw
as rapidly as possible from Palestinian areas retaken in security
operations. The Bush Administration insisted that United Nations Security Council
resolutions be "balanced" by criticizing Palestinian as well as Israeli
violence, and it vetoed resolutions which did not meet that standard.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
did not name a Special Middle East Envoy and did not say that she would
not get involved in direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations of issues.
She said that she preferred to have the Israelis and Palestinians work
together, traveling to the region several times in 2005. The
Administration supported Israel's disengagement from Gaza
as a way to return to the Road Map process to achieve a solution based
on two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and
security.
The evacuation of settlers from the Gaza Strip and four small
settlements in the northern West Bank was completed on August 23, 2005.
On July 14, 2006, as the 2006 Lebanon War
broke out, the US Congress was notified of a potential sale of $210
million worth of jet fuel to Israel. The Defense Security Cooperation
Agency noted that the sale of the JP-8 fuel, should it be completed,
will "enable Israel to maintain the operational capability of its
aircraft inventory", and that "The jet fuel will be consumed while the
aircraft is in use to keep peace and security in the region". It was reported on July 24 that the United States was in the process of providing Israel with "bunker buster" bombs, which would allegedly be used to target the leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrilla group and destroy its trenches.
American media also questioned whether Israel violated an
agreement not to use cluster bombs on civilian targets. Although many of
the cluster bombs used were advanced M-85 munitions developed by Israel Military Industries,
Israel also used older munitions purchased from the US. Evidence during
the conflict, hitting civilian areas, although the civilian population
had mostly fled. Israel asserts that civilian damage was unavoidable, as
Hezbollah ensconced itself in highly populated areas. Simultaneously,
indiscriminate Hezbollah rocket fire turned many of its northern towns
into virtual ghost towns, in violation of international law. Many
bomblets remained undetonated after the war, causing hazard for Lebanese
civilians. Israel said that it had not violated any international law
because cluster bombs are not illegal and were used only on military
targets.
Opposing immediate unconditional ceasefire
On July 15, the United Nations Security Council again rejected pleas
from Lebanon that it call for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and
Lebanon. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the US was the only member of out the 15-nation UN body to oppose any council action at all.
On July 19, the Bush administration rejected calls for an immediate ceasefire. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that certain conditions had to be met, not specifying what they were. John Bolton,
US Ambassador to the United Nations, rejected the call for a ceasefire,
on the grounds that such an action addressed the conflict only
superficially: "The notion that you just declare a ceasefire and act as
if that is going to solve the problem, I think is simplistic."
On July 26, foreign ministers from the US, Europe, and the Middle
East that met in Rome vowed "to work immediately to reach with the
utmost urgency a ceasefire that puts an end to the current violence and
hostilities". However, the US maintained strong support for the Israeli
campaign, and the conference's results were reported to have fallen
short of Arab and European leaders' expectations.
U.S. veto of Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities
In September 2008, The Guardian reported that the U.S. vetoed Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's plan to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities the previous May.
Israeli–US relations came under increased strain during Prime Minister Netanyahu's second administration and the new Obama administration. After he took office, President Barack Obama
made achieving a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians a major
goal, and pressured Prime Minister Netanyahu into accepting a
Palestinian state and entering negotiations. Netanyahu eventually
conceded on July 14, 2009. In accordance with US wishes, Israel imposed a
ten-month freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank. As the
freeze did not include East Jerusalem,
which Israel regards as its sovereign territory, or 3,000 pre-approved
housing units already under construction, as well as the failure to
dismantle already-built Israeli outposts,
the Palestinians rejected the freeze as inadequate, and refused to
enter negotiations for nine months. Palestinian negotiators signaled a
willingness to enter into negotiations weeks before the end of the
construction freeze if they were to be extended, but this was rejected
by the Israelis.
In 2009, Obama became the first US president to authorize the
sale of bunker buster bombs to Israel. The transfer was kept secret to
avoid the impression that the United States was arming Israel for an
attack on Iran.
In February 2011, the Obama administration vetoed a UN resolution declaring Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal. In 2011, the Obama administration paved the way for the development and production of the Iron Dome missile defense system for Israel, contributing $235 million to its funding.
In March 2010, Israel announced that it would continue to build
1,600 new homes that were already under construction in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo, during Vice President Joe Biden's visit to Israel. The incident was described as "one of the most serious rows between the two allies in recent decades". Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that Israel's move was "deeply negative" for US–Israeli relations.
East Jerusalem is widely considered by the international community to
be occupied territory, while Israel disputes this, as it annexed the
territory in 1980. Obama was reported to be "livid" over the announcement.
US
President Barack Obama meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu shortly after arriving on a visit to Israel in March 2013
Shortly afterward, President Obama instructed Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton to present Netanyahu with a four-part ultimatum: that
Israel cancel the approval of the housing units, freeze all Jewish
construction in East Jerusalem,
make a gesture to the Palestinians that it wants peace with a
recommendation on releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, and agree
to discuss a partition of Jerusalem and a solution to the Palestinian refugee
problem during the negotiations. Obama threatened that neither he nor
any senior administration official would meet Netanyahu and his senior
ministers during their upcoming visit to Washington.
On March 26, 2010, Netanyahu and Obama met in the White House.
The meeting was conducted without photographers or any press
statements. During the meeting, Obama demanded that Israel extend the
settlement freeze after its expiration, impose a freeze on Jewish
construction in East Jerusalem, and withdraw troops to positions held
before the start of the Second Intifada.
Netanyahu did not give written concessions on these issues, and
presented Obama with a flowchart on how permission for building is
granted in the Jerusalem Municipality to reiterate that he had no prior
knowledge of the plans. Obama then suggested that Netanyahu and his
staff stay at the White House to consider his proposals so that he could
inform Obama right away if he changed his mind, and was quoted as
saying: "I'm still around, let me know if there is anything new".
Netanyahu and his aides went to the Roosevelt Room,
spent a further half-hour with Obama, and extended his stay for a day
of emergency talks to restart peace negotiations, but left without any
official statement from either side.
In July 2010, a 2001 video of citizen Netanyahu surfaced; he was speaking to a group of bereaved families in Ofra
about relations with the United States and the peace process, and
reportedly unaware he was being recorded. He said: "I know what America
is; America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right
direction. They won't get in their way." He also bragged how he undercut
the peace process when he was prime minister during the Clinton
administration. "They asked me before the election if I'd honor [the Oslo accords],"
he said. "I said I would, but ... I'm going to interpret the accords in
such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward
to the '67 borders." While it created little stir in the press, it was heavily criticized among the Left in Israel.
On May 19, 2011, Obama made a foreign policy speech in which he called for a return to the pre-1967 Israeli borders with mutually agreed land swaps, to which Netanyahu objected. The Republicans criticized Obama for the speech. The speech came a day before Obama and Netanyahu were scheduled to meet. In an address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on May 22, Obama elaborated on his May 19 speech:
It was my reference to the 1967
lines—with mutually agreed swaps—that received the lion's share of the
attention, including just now. And since my position has been
misrepresented several times, let me reaffirm what "1967 lines with
mutually agreed swaps" means.
By definition, it means that the parties themselves—Israelis and
Palestinians—will negotiate a border that is different than the one that
existed on 4 June 1967. That's what mutually agreed-upon swaps means.
It is a well-known formula to all who have worked on this issue for a
generation. It allows the parties themselves to account for the changes
that have taken place over the last 44 years.
It allows the parties themselves to take account of those changes,
including the new demographic realities on the ground, and the needs of
both sides. The ultimate goal is two states for two people: Israel as a
Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people and the state of
Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people—each state in
joined self-determination, mutual recognition and peace.
In his speech to a joint session of congress on May 24, Netanyahu adopted some of Obama's earlier language:
Now the precise delineation of those borders must be
negotiated. We'll be generous about the size of the future Palestinian
state. But as President Obama said, the border will be different than
the one that existed on 4 June 1967. Israel will not return to the
indefensible boundaries of 1967.
On September 20, 2011, President Obama declared that the US would
veto any Palestinian application for statehood at the United Nations,
asserting that "there can be no shortcut to peace".
In October 2011, the new American Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta,
suggested that Israeli policies were partly responsible for its
diplomatic isolation in the Middle East. The Israeli government
responded that the problem was the growing radicalism in the region,
rather than their own policies.
In 2012, President Obama signed into law a bill that would extend
by another three years the program of United States guarantees for
Israeli government debt.
Tony Blinken, National Security Advisor to US Vice President Joe Biden,
lamented in 2012 a tendency by US politicians to use the debate over
policy toward Israel for political purposes. Until then, Israel had been
a bastion of bipartisan consensus in the US.
In 2010 and again in July–August 2012, Israeli exports to the United States surpassed those to the European Union, usually the top destination for Israeli exports.
Reaction in Israel was mixed to the Geneva interim agreement on the Iranian nuclear program. Prime Minister Netanyahu strongly criticized it as a "historic mistake", and finance minister Naftali Bennett called it a "very bad deal". However, Kadima Party leader Shaul Mofaz, opposition leader Isaac Herzog, and former Aman chief Amos Yadlin
voiced some measure of support for the agreement and suggested that it
was more important to maintain good ties to Washington than to publicly
rebuke the agreement.
Secretary of State John Kerry with PM Netanyahu, the PM's Residence in Jerusalem, November 24, 2015
On April 2, 2014, US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power reaffirmed the administration's stand that the US opposes all unilateral Palestinian moves to statehood.
In December 2014, Congress passed the United States–Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2013.
This new category is one notch above the Major Non-NATO Ally
classification and adds additional support for defense, energy, and
strengthen cooperation business and academics. The bill additionally calls for the US to increase their war reserve stock in Israel $1.8 billion.
Bar Ilan's Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies conducted a
study in November 2014 which showed that 96% of the Israeli public feels
that the country's relations with the United States are important or
very important. It was also felt that Washington is a loyal ally and
that America will come to Israel's aid against existential threats. On
the other hand, only 37% believe that President Obama has a positive
attitude towards Israel (with 24% saying that his attitude is neutral).
On December 23, 2016, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution calling for an end to Israeli settlements; the Obama administration's UN ambassador, Samantha Power, was instructed to abstain—although the U.S. had previously vetoed a comparable resolution in 2011. President-elect Donald Trump attempted to intercede by publicly advocating the resolution be vetoed and successfully persuading Egypt's Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to temporarily withdraw it from consideration. The resolution was then "proposed again by Malaysia, New Zealand, Senegal and Venezuela"—and
passed 14 to 0. Netanyahu's office alleged that "the Obama
administration not only failed to protect Israel against this gang-up at
the UN, it colluded with it behind the scenes," adding: "Israel looks
forward to working with President-elect Trump and with all our friends
in Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, to negate the harmful
effects of this absurd resolution."
On December 28, 2016, US Secretary of State John Kerry strongly criticized Israel and its settlement policies in a speech. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu strongly criticized the UN Resolution and Kerry's speech. On January 6, 2017, the Israeli government withdrew its annual dues from the organization, which totaled $6 million in United States dollars. On January 5, 2017, the United States House of Representatives voted 342–80 to condemn the UN Resolution.
US-Israel civilian nuclear deal 2010
According to Army Radio, the US has reportedly pledged to sell Israel
materials used to produce electricity, nuclear technology, and other
supplies.
Trump was inaugurated as US president on January 20, 2017; he appointed a new ambassador to Israel, David M. Friedman. On January 22, 2017, in response to Trump's inauguration, the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his intention to lift all restrictions on construction in the West Bank.
Former United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
has said that on May 22, 2017, Benjamin Netanyahu showed Donald Trump a
fake and altered video of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas calling
for the killing of children. This was at a time when Trump was
considering if Israel was the obstacle to peace. Netanyahu had showed
Trump the fake video to change his position in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. In September 2017 it was announced that the US would open their first permanent military base in Israel.
In May 2018, President Trump withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal a few days after Netanyahu gave a presentation in which he revealed documents that Mossad smuggled out of Tehran, purportedly showing that Iran lied about its nuclear program. This was followed by a renewal of US sanctions on Iran.
Early in the Biden administration,
the White House confirmed that the U.S. Embassy would remain in
Jerusalem, which would remain recognised as the Capital. The
administration also expressed support for the Abraham Accords
while wanting to expand on them, although it shied away from using that
name, instead referring to it simply as "the normalization process".
On 13 May 2021, in the aftermath of the Al-Aqsa mosque
conflict, the Biden administration was accused of being indifferent
towards the violent conflict between Israeli statehood and the
Palestinian minority there. Critics on both sides have identified the
reaction by the White House as "lame and late".
On 21 May 2021, a ceasefire was brokered between Israel and Hamas after eleven days of clashes. According to Biden, the US will be playing a key role to rebuild damaged infrastructure in the Gaza alongside the Palestinian authority.
In July 2022, President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken visited Israel as part of a trip to the Middle East. During the official state visit in Jerusalem, Biden and Prime Minister Yair Lapid
signed a joint declaration extending a 10-year, $38 billion defense
package to Israel that had been signed in 2016 under the Obama
administration. In addition, the declaration addressed global security
issues, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and committed both sides to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
In an interview on Israel’s Channel 12, Biden stated that "if
that was the last resort" the United States would use force to achieve
this and that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would remain on the United States' Foreign Terrorist Organizations list even if that meant Iran did not return to the JCPOA under which Iran limited its nuclear program to slow its nuclear weapon program, in return for relief from economic sanctions.
Biden and Lapid also opened the first meeting of I2U2 forum, together with the President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi,
in a virtual conference during which the four countries agreed to
collaborate further on issues including food security, clean energy,
technology and trade, and reaffirmed their support for the Abraham Accords and other peace and normalization arrangements with Israel. The UAE pledged $2 billion for agricultural development in India using Israeli technologies.
On 29 December 2022, after Netanyahu's right-wing government took
office and approved the plan to change the structure of the Israeli
judiciary, the value gap between many American Jews and Israel
increased.
On 22 March 2023, The Biden government summoned Israel's ambassador to
the United States to the State Department, voicing its displeasure
following the Knesset's passage of a law allowing the resettlement of
illegal settlements in critical areas of the occupied West Bank that
were evacuated in 2005.
The Israeli press considered such a meeting between the two countries
very unusual and it reflects the deterioration of relations between the
Biden government and the Netanyahu government.On 29 March 2023, Biden announced that he does not intend to invite Netanyahu to the White House "in the near term".
After Hamas launched a surprise attack
on Israel in October 2023, Biden issued a statement condemning the
attacks and saying he was ready to offer "all appropriate means of
support to the Government and people of Israel". On 18 October 2023, President Biden arrived in Israel and was received at Ben-Gurion airport by Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Current issues
United States aid
Table from a March 1, 2023 Congressional Research Service report titled "U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel".US foreign assistance obligations to Israel by type, 1951-2022.Former Vice President Dick Cheney of the United States meets with Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni of Israel at the White House
Since the 1970s, Israel has been one of the top recipients of United States foreign aid.
In the past, a portion was dedicated to economic assistance, but all
economic aid to Israel ended in 2007 due to Israel's growing economy. Currently, Israel receives $3 billion annually in US assistance through Foreign Military Financing (FMF). Seventy-four percent of these funds must be spent on the acquisition of US defense equipment, services, and training. Thus, "United States military aid to Israel is seen by many as a subsidy for U.S. industries", according to Kenneth M. Pollack.
FMF is intended to promote US national security by contributing
to global stability, strengthening military support for democratically
elected governments and containing transnational threats, including
terrorism and trafficking of weapons. According to the United States Department of State,
these grants enable US allies to improve their defense capabilities and
foster closer military relationships between the US and recipient
nations. Meanwhile, Republican Kentucky Senator Rand Paul
has stated, in regards to US foreign military financing to Israel, that
"aid hampers Israel's ability to make its own decisions as it sees
fit".
In 1998, Israeli, congressional, and Administration officials
agreed to reduce US$1.2 billion in Economic Support Funds (ESF) to zero
over ten years, while increasing FMF from $1.8 billion to $2.4 billion.
Separate from the scheduled cuts, there was an extra $200 million in
anti-terror assistance, $1.2 billion to implement the Wye agreement, and
the supplemental appropriations bill assisted for another $1 billion in
FMF for the 2003 fiscal year. For the 2005 fiscal year, Israel received
$2.202 billion in FMF, $357 million in ESF, and migration settlement
assistance of $50 million. For 2006, the Administration has requested
$240 million in ESF and $2.28 billion in FMF. H.R. 3057, passed in the
House on June 28, 2005, and in the Senate on July 20, approved these
amounts. House and Senate measures also supported $40 million for the
settlement of immigrants from the former Soviet Union and plans to bring
the remaining Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
President Obama's Fiscal Year 2010 budget proposes $53.8 billion
for appropriated international affairs' programs. From that budget, $5.7
billion is appropriated for foreign military financing, military
education, and peacekeeping operations. From that $5.7 billion, $2.8
billion, almost 50% is appropriated for Israel.
Israel also has available roughly $3 billion of conditional loan
guarantees, with additional funds coming available if Israel meets
conditions negotiated at the U.S.-Israel Joint Economic Development
Group.
But Eli Lake, the national security correspondent of The Washington Times,
reported on September 23, 2011, that Obama had authorized at the
beginning of his presidency "significant new aid to the Israeli military
that includes the sale of 55 deep-penetrating bombs known as bunker
busters".
Former head of the Israeli Air Force, retired Major General Eitan Ben Eliyahu, has called the American sale of Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II nuclear capable stealth fighter bombers to Israel a key test of the relationship.
While United States law forbids the use of offset agreements
on FMF sales, Israel's Industrial Cooperation Authority attempts to
secure industrial participation contracts of around 35 percent of such
sales.
In fiscal year 2013, the automatic U.S. budget sequestration process took effect as required by the Budget Control Act of 2011.
The process cut appropriations for certain discretionary spending,
which reduced foreign military aid to Israel by $157 million, and also
reduced funding for Israeli and U.S.-Israeli missile defense programs by
$32.7 million.
In November 2013, Steven Strauss (a faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School)
published an editorial calling for the United States to phase out all
grant aid to Israel. Prof. Strauss argues that the United States should
retain a close relationship with Israel, but that Israel is affluent
enough to pay for the military equipment it needs.
In 2023, citing "the alarming actions of the new extreme right-wing Israeli government" against Palestinians, Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Sen. Bernie Sanders
released a letter signed by a dozen of congressional colleagues and
supported by numerous advocacy organizations demanding the Biden
administration to review the billions of dollars in largely
unconditional arms support that the United States provides Israel
annually.
The Republican plan, approved by the United States House of
Representatives, allocates $14.5bn in military aid for Israel. Also,
Israel has received the highest amount of military assistance from the
US compared to any other nation since World War II, with aid exceeding
$124bn.
The United States views the growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank
as an impediment to the success of peace negotiations, acknowledging
that most world powers view the settlements as illegal. Israel, on the
other hand, views the land as a security bulwark and religious Jewish
Israelis hold the land is a God-given inheritance. Israel says that it
plans to retain blocs of settlements in any peace treaty. In January
2015, Jewish settlers at the "Adei Ad illegal outpost"
threw stones at diplomats from a US delegation who had arrived to
inspect vandalism reported at a grove of Palestinian-owned trees in the
occupied West Bank. It was reported that recently settlers were
suspected of uprooting thousands of olive tree saplings, some of which
had been planted in honor of senior Palestinian official Ziad Abu Ein,
who collapsed and died after an altercation with an Israeli soldier.
The American consulate came to inspect the grove because some of the
land owners claim US citizenship. No injuries were reported.
A US State Department spokesman, Jeff Rathke, said: "We can confirm a
vehicle from the Consulate General was pelted with stones and confronted
by a group of armed settlers today in the West Bank, near the
Palestinian village of Turmus Ayya." He added that the US is "deeply
concerned" about the attack and that the Israeli authorities recognize
"the seriousness of the incident". A police spokeswoman said the police were investigating the incident and no arrests had been made. The US State Department has offered the Israeli authorities a videotape of the incident showing no American drew weapons. Yossi Dagan, Head of the Shomron Regional Council, urged Interior Minister Gilad Erdan to expel the American delegation, stating that they were spies.
The incident is expected to chill the relationship between the United
States and Israel, which is already strained, although this is the first
known physical attack against American diplomatic staff.
Washington pressure towards peace talks with Syria
Syria has repeatedly requested that Israel re-commence peace negotiations with the Syrian government.
There is an ongoing internal debate within the Israeli government
regarding the seriousness of this Syrian invitation for negotiations.
Some Israeli officials asserted that there had been some unpublicized
talks with Syria not officially sanctioned by the Israeli government.
The United States demanded that Israel desist from even
exploratory contacts with Syria to test whether Damascus is serious in
its declared intentions to hold peace talks with Israel. US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice
was forceful in expressing Washington's view on the matter to Israeli
officials that even exploratory negotiations with Syria must not be
attempted. For years, Israel obeyed Washington's demand to desist from
officially returning to peace talks. However, around May 2008, Israel informed the US that it was starting peace talks with Syria brokered by Turkey. Syria withdrew from the peace talks several months later in response to the Gaza War.
The United States has taken on the preeminent role in facilitating
peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The US
has been criticized as acting as the attorney of the Israeli government
rather than as an honest broker, catering and coordinating with the
Israeli government at the expense of advancing the peace talks.
For example, under the US–Israeli "no surprises" policy, the US
government must first check with the Israeli government any ideas for
advancing the negotiations before publicly proposing them, which
allegedly may have stripped the US of the "independence and flexibility
required for serious peacemaking".
Military sales to China
Over the years, the United States and Israel have regularly discussed
Israel's sale of sensitive security equipment and technology to various
countries, especially the People's Republic of China.
US administrations believe that such sales are potentially harmful to
the security of US forces in Asia. China has looked to Israel to obtain
technology it could not acquire from elsewhere, and has purchased a wide
array of military equipment and technology, including communications satellites, and Harpy Killer unmanned aerial vehicles in 1999, and which China tested over the Taiwan Strait in 2004. In 2000, the United States persuaded Israel to cancel the sale of the Phalcon.
The US was also said to have demanded that Israel provide information
on 60 recent arms deals with China, agree to US supervision of arms
deals which could be seen as "sensitive" to the US.
Maintenance contract with Venezuela
On 21 October 2005, it was reported that pressure from Washington
forced Israel to freeze a major contract with Venezuela to upgrade its
22 US-manufactured F-16 fighter jets. The Israeli government had requested US permission to proceed with the deal, but permission was not granted.
Western Wall in Jerusalem, nearby the Temple Mount, which is the most important Jewish religious siteThe old United States consulate in JerusalemNetanyahu, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump attended the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem
After capturing East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War,
Israel annexed it and incorporated it into the Jerusalem Municipality,
and has built neighborhoods and homes in Arab neighborhoods there, along
with government offices. Israel has insisted that Jerusalem is its eternal and indivisible capital. The United States does not agree with this position and believes the permanent status of Jerusalem is still subject to negotiations. This is based on the UN's 1947 Partition plan for Palestine,
which called for separate international administration of Jerusalem.
This position was accepted at the time by most other countries and the Zionist leadership, but rejected by the Arab countries. Most countries had located their embassies in Tel Aviv before 1967; Jerusalem was also located on the contested border. The Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo Accords signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization
in September 1993 similarly state that it is a subject for permanent
status negotiations. US administrations have consistently indicated, by
keeping the Embassy of the United States in Israel in Tel Aviv, that Jerusalem's status is unresolved.
In 1995, however, both houses of Congress overwhelmingly passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act
to move the embassy to Jerusalem, no later than 31 May 1999, and
suggested funding penalties on the State Department for non-compliance. Executive branch
opposition to such a move, on constitutional questions of Congressional
interference in foreign policy, as well as a series of presidential
waivers, based on national security interests, have delayed the move by
all successive administrations, since it was passed during the Clinton Administration.
The US Consulate General in Jerusalem was first established in 1844, just inside the Jaffa Gate. A permanent consular office was established in 1856 in this same building. The mission moved to Street of the Prophets in the late 19th century, and to its present location on Agron Street in 1912. The Consulate General on Nablus Road in East Jerusalem was built in 1868 by the Vester family, the owners of the American Colony Hotel. In 2006, the US Consulate General on Agron Road leased an adjacent building, a Lazarist monastery built in the 1860s, to provide more office space.
In March 2010, General David Petraeus was quoted by Max Boot saying the lack of progress in the Middle East peace process has "fomented anti-Americanism,
undermined moderate Arab regimes, limited the strength and depth of
U.S. partnerships, increased the influence of Iran, projected an image
of U.S. weakness, and served as a potent recruiting tool for Al Qaeda". When questioned by journalist Philip Klein,
Petraeus said Boot "picked apart" and "spun" his speech. He believes
there are many important factors standing in the way of peace, including
"a whole bunch of extremist organizations, some of which by the way
deny Israel's right to exist". He continued: "There's a country that has
a nuclear program who denies that the Holocaust took place. So again we have all these factors in there. This [Israel] is just one."
US-Israeli relations came under strain in March 2010, as Israel
announced it was building 1,600 new homes in the eastern Jerusalem
neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo as Vice President Joe Biden was visiting. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the move as "insulting". Israel apologized for the timing of the announcement.
On 6 December 2017 U.S. PresidentDonald Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and announced his intention to move the American embassy to Jerusalem. On 22 January 2018 Vice PresidentMike Pence in an address to the Israeli Knesset announced that the embassy would be moved before the end of 2019. On 18 October 2018, Secretary of StateMike Pompeo announced that the US Consulate-General in Jerusalem would be merged into the US Embassy in Jerusalem. Hitherto, the Consulate General had been responsible for conducting US relations with the Palestinians.
In early March 2019, the Consulate General was formally merged into the
US Embassy, ending the US practice of assigning separate missions to
the Israelis and Palestinians. The Consulate General's former Agron
Street site will be repurposed as the Embassy's new Palestinian Affairs
Unit.
Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. There is more info on Phabricator and on MediaWiki wiki.
Views on the United States in Israel.
As of July 2006, a poll stated that 44% of Americans thought that the
"United States supports Israel about the right amount", 11% thought
"too little", and 38% thought "too much". The same poll asked "In
general, do you favor or oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state
that is recognized by the United Nations?" with 42% responding in the
affirmative with 34% opposed.
Many in the United States question the levels of aid and general
commitment to Israel, and argue that a US bias operates at the expense
of improved relations with various Arab
states. Others maintain that democratic Israel is a helpful and
strategic ally, and believe that US relations with Israel strengthen the
US presence in the Middle East. A 2002–2006 Gallup Poll
of Americans by party affiliation (Republican/Democratic) and ideology
(conservative/moderate/liberal) found that, although sympathy for Israel
is strongest amongst the right (conservative Republicans), the group
most on the left (liberal Democrats) also have a greater percentage
sympathizing with Israel. Although proportions are different, each group
has most sympathizing more with Israel, followed by both/neither, and
lastly more with the Palestinians. These findings support the view that support for Israel in the US is bipartisan.
A 2007 Gallup World Affairs poll included the annual update on
Americans' ratings of various countries around the world, and asked
Americans to rate the overall importance to the United States of what
happens in most of these nations, according to that poll, Israel was the
only country that a majority of Americans felt both favorably toward
(63%) and said that what happens there is vitally important to the
United States (55%).
A 2013 Gallup poll finds 64% of Americans sympathize with Israelis and
12% with Palestinians. Analysis of the poll data showed that
Republicans, conservatives and older Americans were more likely to be
partial to Israel. Republicans (78%) were much more likely to sympathize
with Israel than Democrats (55%). Democratic support for Israel has
increased by four percent since 2001, while Republican support for the
Jewish state has jumped 18 percentage points in the same period. The
percentage of respondents favoring the Palestinians increases with
formal education, ranging from 8% of those with no college experience to
20% of postgraduates. According to Gallup, Palestinians receive the
highest sympathy from Democrats, liberals, and postgraduates, but even
among these, support tops off at 24%.According to a 2013 BBC
World Service Poll, the United States is the only Western country
surveyed holding favorable views of Israel, and the only country in the
survey with a majority of positive ratings, with 51% of Americans
viewing Israel's influence positively and 32% expressing a negative
view.
Israeli attitudes toward the US are largely positive. In several
ways of measuring a country's view of America (American ideas about
democracy; ways of doing business; music, movies, and television;
science and technology; and spread of US ideas), Israel came on top as
the developed country who viewed it most positively.
A 2012 report from The David Project,
an Israel advocacy organization in the US, found that the strongest
anti-Israel behaviour in America is found in universities. Quoting the
experience of Jewish students who felt largely comfortable in American
universities, the report denied that anti-Israeli feelings were based on
antisemitism,
as commonly believed. Instead the problem was said to lie in a
"drip-drip negativity" about Israel that threatened to erode support
over the long term, and might eventually spread from campuses to the
population at large. Amongst ethnic groups, the Hispanic and Latino population is believed to be the most hostile towards Israel, according to the Israel Project (TIP), a US nonprofit organization active in Israel advocacy. According to TIP, Israel is more popular among older Americans, Republicans, conservatives and Evangelicals and less popular among "liberal elites", African Americans and Democrats.
Mark Heller, the lead research associate at Tel Aviv's Institute for National Security Studies
believes that the American public opinion has shifted over time against
Israel and predicts that the relations between the country with the U.S
will deteriorate in the future. To compensate for this loss, he
suggests that Israel should strengthen its ties with key Asian countries
instead, because, in his view, the major Asian countries "don't seem to
indicate much interest about how Israel gets along with the
Palestinians, Arabs, or anyone else." He believes that countries like
China, India and Singapore would be less committed to the types of
liberal and humane concerns that occasionally affect Western policy and
are less inclined to protest Israel's settlement construction and its
policies towards Palestinians.
In 2012 tensions emerged between the Emergency Committee for Israel and other Jewish charities it argued are hostile to Israel.
According to Paul Berger, The group's advertisements against Jewish
charities it accuses of supporting anti-Israel organizations seemed
unsuccessful. Several people quoted in the Emergency Committee for
Israel's New York Times
advertisement immediately distanced themselves from the publicity
campaign. The Jewish groups the ads targeted reported little change in
donor support.
In December 2014, a public opinion poll of Israelis showed a
majority of Israelis believe Israel's relationship with the US is "in
crisis". The survey found that 61.7 percent of respondents said there
was a crisis in US-Israel relations. Less than one quarter of
respondents said the relations were "stable and good." A majority of
people polled said that Netanyahu's government had "harmed" the
relationship.
Despite the positive attitudes towards the US, the poll found that
Israelis are generally mistrustful of the US president, with only 37
percent of respondents calling Obama's views of Israel "positive," while
61% characterized his attitude towards Israel as "negative" or
"neutral."
A 2015 Bloomberg Politics
poll of Americans asked "When it comes to relations between the U.S.
and Israel, which of the following do you agree with more?" 47% of
respondents chose "Israel is an ally but we should pursue America's
interests when we disagree with them." 45% of respondents chose "Israel
is an important ally, the only democracy in the region, and we should
support it even if our interests diverge." 8% were unsure.
Israel is in large part a nation of Jewish immigrants. Israel has welcomed newcomers inspired by Zionism,
the Jewish national movement. Zionism is an expression of the desire of
many Jews to live in their historical homeland. The largest numbers of
immigrants have come to Israel from countries in the Middle East and
Europe.
The United States has played a special role in assisting Israel
with the complex task of absorbing and assimilating masses of immigrants
in short periods of time. Soon after Israel's establishment, President
Truman offered $135 million in loans to help Israel cope with the
arrival of thousands of refugees from the Holocaust. Within the first
three years of Israel's establishment, the number of immigrants more
than doubled the Jewish population of the country.
Mass immigrations have continued throughout Israeli history.
Since 1989, Israel absorbed approximately one million Jews from the
former Soviet Union. The United States worked with Israel to bring Jews
from Arab countries,[citation needed] Ethiopia[citation needed] and the former Soviet Union[citation needed]
to Israel, and has assisted in their absorption into Israeli society.
In addition, there has been immigration between the two countries, with
many American Jews immigrating to Israel annually, while the United
States is the top destination for Israelis emigrating abroad (yerida) permanently or for an extended stay.
Corporate exchange
Several regional America–Israel Chambers of Commerce exist to
facilitate expansion by Israeli and American companies into each other's
markets. American companies such as Motorola, IBM, Microsoft and Intel chose Israel to establish major R&D centers. Israel has more companies listed on the NASDAQ than any country outside North America.
Israeli (left) and American (right) generals meet in Tel Aviv in 2019
The US and Israel are engaged in extensive strategic, political and
military cooperation. This cooperation is broad and includes American
aid, intelligence sharing, and joint military exercises. American
military aid to Israel comes in different forms, including grants,
special project allocations, and loans.
President Obama pledged to maintain Israel's "QME" over the other countries in the region.
Memorandum of Understanding on security
To address threats to security in the Middle East, including joint
military exercises and readiness activities, cooperation in defense
trade and access to maintenance facilities. The signing of the
Memorandum of Understanding marked the beginning of close security
cooperation and coordination between the American and Israeli
governments. Comprehensive cooperation between Israel and the United
States on security issues became official in 1981 when Israel's Defense
Minister Ariel Sharon and American Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger signed a Memorandum of Understanding
that recognized "the common bonds of friendship between the United
States and Israel and builds on the mutual security relationship that
exists between the two nations". The memorandum called for several
measures.
Missile defense program
One facet of the US–Israel strategic relationship is the joint development of the Arrow Anti-Ballistic Missile
Program, designed to intercept and destroy ballistic missiles. This
development is funded by both Israel and the United States. The Arrow
has also provided the US with the research and experience necessary to
develop additional weapons systems. So far, the development cost has
been between $2.4 and $3.6 billion, with the United States picking up 50
percent of the final costs. The US has notably provided funding for
Israel's Iron Dome short-range missile defense system: from 2011 until 2022, the United States contributed a total of US$2.6 billion to the Iron Dome defense system.
Counter-terrorism
In April 1996, President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Shimon Peres
signed the US–Israel Counter-terrorism Accord. The two countries agreed
to further cooperation in information sharing, training,
investigations, research and development and policymaking.
Homeland security
At the federal, state and local levels there is close Israeli–American cooperation on homeland security. Israel was one of the first countries to cooperate with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
in developing initiatives to enhance homeland security. In this
framework, there are many areas of partnership, including preparedness
and protection of travel and trade. American and Israeli law enforcement
officers and Homeland Security officials regularly meet in both
countries to study counter-terrorism techniques and new ideas regarding
intelligence gathering and threat prevention.
In December 2005, the United States and Israel signed an
agreement to begin a joint effort to detect the smuggling of nuclear and
other radioactive material by installing special equipment in Haifa,
Israel's busiest seaport. This effort is part of a nonproliferation
program of the U.S. Department of Energy's
National Nuclear Security Administration that works with foreign
partners to detect, deter, and interdict illicit trafficking in nuclear
and other radioactive materials.
Military bases
The United States maintains six War Reserve Stocks
inside Israel, at Airwing 7 air base and maintains some $300 million in
military equipment at these sites. The equipment is owned by the United
States and is for use by American forces in the Middle East, but can
also be transferred to Israeli use during a time of crisis. The United
States is also alleged to keep fighter and bomber aircraft at these
sites, and one of the bases is thought to contain a 500-bed hospital for
US Marines and Special Forces. According to the American military journalist and commentator William Arkin in his book Code Names,
the US has prepositioned in at least six sites in Israel, munitions,
vehicles, and military equipment, and even a 500-bed hospital, for use
by US Marines, Special Forces, and Air Force fighter and bomber aircraft
in a wartime contingency in the Middle East. Arkin in his book writes that some of the sites are located at Ben Gurion Airport, Nevatim, Ovda air base, and in Herzliya Pituah.
The sites are numbered as "site 51," "site 53," "site 54," "site 55"
and "site 56." Some of the depots are underground, others were built as
open hangars. According to Arkin, site 51 holds ammunition and equipment
in underground depots. Site 53 is munitions storage and war reserve
vehicles at Israeli Air Force bases, site 54 is an emergency military hospital near Tel Aviv with 500 beds, and sites 55 and 56 are ammunition depots.
However, Israel is not the only country in the Middle East to host US
military bases; there are American facilities in Turkey, Egypt, Jordan,
Saudi Arabia (mostly withdrawn from in 2003), Oman, and the Persian Gulf
states of Kuwait, Bahrain (headquarters of the United States Fifth Fleet),
Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The Bahrain headquarters of the
United States Fifth Fleet is meant to act as a watchdog and deterrent to
potential Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf region.
The Dimona Radar Facility is an American radar facility in the Negev desert of southern Israel, located near Dimona.
The facility has two 120-metre (400-foot) radar towers designed to
track ballistic missiles through space and provide ground-based missiles
with the targeting data needed to intercept them. It can detect
missiles up to 2,400 kilometres (1,500 miles) away. The facility is
owned and operated by the US military, and provides only second-hand
intelligence to Israel. The towers of the facility are the tallest radar towers in the world, and the tallest towers in Israel.
Intelligence relations
The United States and Israel have cooperated on intelligence matters since the 1950s. Israel was behind the disclosure of Kruschev's secret speech denouncing Stalin in 1956. Throughout the Cold War, Israel provided the US with information on Soviet-built weapons systems captured from the Arabs. Israel also provides the US with much of its Middle Eastern human intelligence. The CIA became more reliant on Israeli intelligence following the Iranian Revolution and the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing.
Meanwhile, the US provided Israel with satellite imagery, and in the
early 1980s, the CIA reportedly began giving Israel intelligence that it
denied its closest NATO allies. In particular, Israel received almost unlimited access to intelligence from the KH-11 Kennan military satellite, though Israeli access was more restricted following Operation Opera.
The National Security Agency has acknowledged that it provides to
Israel raw unfiltered information intercepts that include private
details and messages of American citizens.
American espionage against Israel
Despite intense intelligence cooperation, both countries have been heavily engaged in espionage
operations against one another. The United States has mainly tried to
penetrate Israel's political, military and intelligence circles and
gather information on Israel's alleged nuclear and non-conventional
capabilities, while Israel has also penetrated the US government, and
has engaged in industrial espionage in the United States in an attempt to boost its military and alleged nuclear capabilities. In a most notable and publicized espionage case, Jonathan Pollard,
a civilian analyst working for US naval intelligence, was arrested in
1985 and charged with conveying highly classified documents to Israeli
agents. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to deliver national
defense information to a foreign government, and was sentenced to life
imprisonment. Israel later granted him citizenship, and has periodically
requested his release.
In 1996, two espionage scandals broke. It was revealed that the National Security Agency wiretapped the phone lines to Israel's embassy in Washington
and broke the Israeli security code, exposing Israel's deepest policy
secrets to the United States. The wiretapping was discovered following
the widely publicized "Mega Scandal", when a phone call intercepted by
the NSA became public. Due to Israel's expertise in computers and
electronics and the sophistication of its electronic code system, it was
widely believed that the NSA used an Israeli mole to obtain the
security code. The resulting "Mega Scandal" was the allegation that
Israeli intelligence had a highly placed mole within the US government.
On 10 November 2004, a US submarine entered Israeli territorial waters eighteen kilometers off the coast of Haifa.
The submarine's mission was never revealed. It was thought to have been
trying to gather intelligence on the city's naval base and headquarters
and other vital infrastructure, and was also suspected of intending to
intercept Israeli naval electronic signals and test Israel's response to
an intrusion. It also may have been trying to install sensors near
Israeli naval headquarters and other vital installations. Minutes after
it entered Israeli waters, the submarine was detected and tracked by the
Israeli Navy. The submarine was initially identified as belonging to a NATO
power, and later confirmed to be American. The Israeli General Staff
refrained from ordering an attack on what was considered the asset of a
friendly nation. After several hours, the submarine submerged and fled,
presumably determining that it was under surveillance. The Israeli Navy
then sent fast patrol craft, missile boats, and helicopters in pursuit.
The submarine was not found, but military sources maintained that the
submarine had failed to complete its mission.
According to Israeli officials, such spy missions were common, and
Western spy submarines had been intercepted by Israel before.
In December 2013, documents released by whistle-blower Edward Snowden revealed that in January 2009 the NSA and its British counterpart GCHQ had spied on an email address belonging to Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, and had monitored email traffic between then-Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his chief of staff, Yoni Koren.
Israeli espionage against the United States
"The Israelis are pretty aggressive" when it comes to espionage,
including against the United States. "They're all about protecting the
security of the Israeli state and they do whatever they feel they have
to achieve that objective," according to a former senior U.S.
intelligence official. In May 2014, a National Security Agency document obtained by Snowden and published by journalist Glenn Greenwald revealed the CIA
was concerned that Israel had set up an extensive spying network in the
United States. Defense secretaries from both countries denied the claim
with Chuck Hagel saying he had no facts to substantiate the report, while Moshe Ya'alon
said he was never allowed to spy on the United States while he was head
of the Israeli intelligence services, "and as defense minister I don't
allow spying on the United States whatsoever."
After a careful study over a two-year period ending in September
2019, the United States intelligence community and FBI concluded that it
"was pretty clear that the Israelis were responsible" for cellphone
surveillance devices near the White House and other sensitive
Washington, D.C.-area locations, according to several former senior U.S.
officials. The Israeli agents placed Stingray phone trackers (international mobile subscriber identity-catcher--IMSI-catchers), miniature surveillance devices, that act like ordinary cellphone towers,
fooling cellphones in the area into providing their identity and
location data and capturing the contents of telephone calls and other
data, according to several former senior U.S. officials. The devices
were configured to gather information on the American president and his
top aides (including Rudy Giuliani),
an operation made easier by President Trump's failure to observe White
House telecommunications security protocols. Publicly unknown is whether
or to what extent Israel succeeded in gathering such information. In
response, Israeli officials categorically strongly denied the allegation
that Israel conducts espionage against the United States. President
Trump stated he finds the story "hard to believe." However, U.S.
officials with extensive intelligence experience derided the perfunctory
Israeli denials.
Visa Waiver Program
Israel applied to join the US government's Visa Waiver Program
in 2005. Under this program, citizens of selected countries can enter
the United States for up to 90 days for tourism and business purposes
without having to apply for an entry visa. The House of Representatives approved the bid, but the Senate rejected it. Israel failed to fulfill two basic requirements; not all citizens owning a biometric passport, and the entry visa rejection rate for Israelis exceeded 3%. In addition, the United States insisted that Palestinian Americans entering Israel not be subjected to any more security checks than other US citizens.
In January 2013, a new bill was submitted to the House calling for
Israel's inclusion, with its supporters saying Israel now meets the
program's current criteria. As of 2014, Israel regularly bars the entry of American citizens.
Israeli judicial reform
The Biden administration objects to the Netanyahu government plans for a "judicial reform", and has expressed as much on several occasions.
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