The shameful imbalance in US-Israel relations

On 8 June, 1967, during the Israeli aggression against Egypt, Syria and Jordan, the US military spy ship USS Liberty was attacked in international waters off the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula by several jet fighters and three gunboats. This resulted in the deaths of 34 and the injuries of 171 crew members aboard the ship, which was severely damaged. It wasn’t long before it became clear that Israel was the one that had launched the attack, while it claimed that it had mistaken it for an Egyptian warship.

Although US investigations proved beyond reasonable doubt based on the interception of Israeli communications on the day of the attack that at least someone in the Israeli government knew the true identity of the ship, according to US government documents declassified years ago, President Lyndon Johnson administration chose to close the file, on the grounds that the attack was: “An innocent mistake, caused by incorrect target identification and faulty data analysis, due to the ambiguities end pressures of the situation in which Israel was involved.”

This incident is the tip of the iceberg in the process of repeated US complicity and weakness when it comes to the Jewish state, even if the cost is the lives of US soldiers and not just US citizens, as in the cases of Rachel Corrie, Omar Asaad and Shireen Abu Akleh. Moreover, at the time, according to the same documents, the Zionist lobby was blackmailing Johnson and even threatened him following a statement by the official US State Department spokesperson on 5 June, 1967, that the US position was “neutral in thought, word and deed” in the 1967 war. The lobby threatened that the Jewish demonstrations planned at that time in support of Israel in front of the White House on 8 June would turn into a protest against Johnson. The irony is that Johnson and members of his administration rushed to appease the Zionist lobby and the American Jews who supported Israel on the day the US was declaring mourning for its dead and wounded American soldiers who were deliberately killed by Israel on board the USS Liberty ship.

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Another example of the US’ humiliating withdrawal dates back to July 2009. At that time, President Barack Obama had only been in office for seven months, and it was clear that the relationship between him and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had become strained, given their different approaches to the settlement process with the Palestinians, which Obama supported, and Netanyahu opposed. In an effort to avoid any disagreements between Washington and Tel Aviv, leaders of American Jewish Zionist organisations requested a meeting with Obama, which took place at the White House. During the meeting, one of the attendees told Obama: “If you want Israel to take risks, then its leaders must know that the United States is right next to them.” Obama’s response was: “Look at the past eight years. During those eight years, there was no space between us and Israel, and what did we get from that? When there is no daylight, Israel just sits on the sidelines, and that erodes our credibility with the Arab states.” Once Obama’s statement was leaked, a storm erupted against him in Washington. Members of his administration made statements, one after another, “clarifying” what the president meant and confirming that there was no space in the position between the two countries. The rest of the story is well known, as Netanyahu did everything he could to insult Obama, even though it was Obama who raised the volume of annual US military aid to Israel from $3.1 billion to $3.8 billion. But that did not spare him.

We know that since its establishment as a state, Israel has relied primarily on US support. It could not have continued without its American supporter and cannot survive without the American antidote. It is enough to refer in this regard to the absolute and unlimited US support that restored Israel’s balance after the sudden Al-Aqsa Flood operation on 7 October. Had the US not sent military reinforcements to the region to prevent the conflict from expanding regionally, Israel would now be facing challenges of another kind: greater and more dangerous, if not existential. If it weren’t for the military air and sea bridges launched by Washington, Israel would have run out of the fatal ammunition it uses to commit atrocities in the Gaza Strip. If it weren’t for US immunity in the Security Council, Israel would have found itself before international war crimes courts. However, complicit Washington has not allowed any of this, although Tel Aviv doesn’t miss an opportunity to insult it and its president, which it has done for 75 years. It is a decades-old dysfunctional relationship that has allowed a needy agent to bully its handler and benefactor.

Today, President Joe Biden’s administration is trying in vain to convince Israel to reduce the huge number of Palestinian civilian victims of its aggression in the Gaza Strip by curbing its indiscriminate bombing. The US is urging Israel to avoid causing massive destruction in the south of the Gaza Strip, as it did in the north. It is appealing to it to allow more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza and begs for Israel to agree to “temporary humanitarian truces”. The US administration justifies its demands by saying it strengthens its ability to defend Israel before the international community, which has started to run out of patience with Israel’s horrific brutality and no longer hides its dissatisfaction with Washington’s positions. However, Tel Aviv continues to turn a deaf ear. In fact, Israel is right not to care about what the US wants from it because it knows that it has no choice but to stand with it. For example, while Washington places these demands before the Israeli government and, from time to time, raises its tone and alludes to “red lines” that Israel should not cross in its aggression, we find Washington continuing to provide unlimited military and diplomatic support. Therefore, how is it possible for the Biden administration to demand that the Netanyahu government reduce losses among Palestinian civilians and avoid destroying the southern part of the Gaza Strip, while at the same time seeking to give Israel $14 billion, mostly in military aid? This does not include the fact that Washington supplies Israel with the deadliest weapons, missiles, destructive missiles and large bombs in order to continue its aggression.

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The explanation for this is simple and has three aspects. The first is that the US has been a partner in Israel’s crimes since its inception and is not merely complicit in them. Second, the US internal political disputes and blackmail by the Democratic and Republican parties against one another, as well as the Zionist lobby, often enable Israel to rebel against the US and even harm its major interests. Third, there are US politicians who have a true personal sentiment for Israel, including Biden himself. All of this does not mean that the US is unable to control Israel and curb its aggression if it desires, but that it requires the state institutions to agree on a vital American interest, as well as the administration having a solid political will. However, by the time this is achieved, it will have wreaked havoc on Earth.

This article first appeared in Arabic in Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed on 8 December 2023

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.