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America-Israel mutual defense treaty? A really bad idea

A mutual, US-Israel defense treaty? Counterproductive in theory and practice

What could be wrong with an America-Israel mutual defense treaty?  The idea, formulated and promoted by the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs, and apparently receiving an initial, warm welcome in the Trump administration, would seem to strengthen Israel and the US alike.

If Iran, for example, knew that if it attacked Israel, it would be countered not only by Israel but by the full faith and power of the US, wouldn’t that be wonderful? If the US knew that if it were attacked by forces in the Middle East, and it could rely on experienced Israeli forces already in the area, wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Actually, no. It would not be wonderful. It would be terrible. Here are many reasons why:

• Israel would be hamstrung. Before undertaking any military action in its self-defense, Israel would need American approval. Maybe not formally, but that’s the way it would inevitably work. Israel would lose her independence of action and risk her existence. Nobody but tiny Israel can understand the huge forces aligned against it.

• It would make not the slightest difference if the mutual defense treaty were limited to carefully defined “exceptional circumstances.” The definitions can never be refined in sufficient detail to guarantee that the US will come along for a military ride if Israel sees its existence threatened and demands American adherence to the treaty. The minute the formulators of such a pact need to dive into all kinds of exceptions and qualifications and clauses and subclauses in order to meet the objections to such a pact, it means that the pact can never be carried out in practice.

• Mutual defense treaties have the effect, especially the more powerful ones, of achieving the opposite of what they intend — of throttling mutual defense. Everybody knows that NATO — the world’s largest mutual defense pact — is never going to go to war with Russia just because one of NATO’s members is attacked. The best the West can come up with in response is economic sanctions, which punish, to be sure, but do not change policy. Post-communist Russia has used the sterility of NATO to its full advantage to mount all kinds of aggressive steps in armaments and invasions.

Another case in point: Iran. Although there is no formal treaty between the US and Saudi Arabia, the alliance between the two countries is a major one, and Saudi oil is important to the world economy. Yet, when Saudi Arabian oil fields take a major military from Iran, look how fast, i.e., how slow, the US is to react. The same would be true if Israel were in trouble — there would be no US military response — and tiny Israel is many dimensions of magnitude more vulnerable than Saudi Arabia.

• And what if, contrary to what we’ve just said, the US actually came to Israel’s military aid? Just great: American soldiers dead on the battlefields of Gaza, or American soldiers dead in Jerusalem or anywhere else in the world where Israel decided it needed to wage war. The anti-Semites in this country would have a field day. Just look at how anti-Semitism has increased in the US because Israel defends itself against Palestinian terrorists in Gaza — a war that seems to have no end and in which no American soldiers are asked to fight. The current level of anti-Semitism in the US would retrospectively look like child’s play if the US were to send its soldiers to fight and die alongside Israelis.

• Even short of that, even if a mutual defense would be nothing but a piece of paper with no actionable, military consequences, and even if Israel would retain its capacity to undertake military actions without explicit or implicit throttles applied by the US, the mere existence of such a treaty would severely exacerbate the current partisan bickering over Israel. Such a treaty would require approval by a two-thirds majority in the US Senate. Imagine the anti-Israel voices, in or out of the Democratic party, that the search for those votes would pull out of the woodwork.

We are currently living in the most delicate moment in US-Israel relations since former Sec. of State Henry Kissinger’s “suspension” of US support for Israel in 1975. One couldn’t pick a worse time to propose a mutual defense pact because it would have much more than military significance. It would become a symbol. It would become a concrete, blatant target of attack by anti-Israel forces unlike any that exists today. It would be a gift to these forces more powerful than any they can now even imagine.

But wait a minute. If such a pact were vital to Israel’s security, shouldn’t all of these potential downsides be ignored? Does one have the luxury taking into account political and PR considerations if Israel’s existence is at stake? Such questions divert the discussion from the primary reality: The US can and already does play a most vital role  in Israel’s security. The USsupplies Israel with arms on a massive scale so that Israel can retrain its qualitative military edge over all of its enemies.

Within this framework, Israel retains the right to decide for itself when its vital interests are threatened. All language in a proposed mutual defense treaty that guarantees this to Israel to the contrary notwithstanding, it will never happen. It can’t. An American president, and for that matter an American Congress, cannot  responsibly let an Israeli perspective on Israeli self-defense rule American decision-making. Who is kidding whom? Did the US stand up for Israel’s decision to go to war for its own independence in 1947? Did the US stand up for Israel during the Six Day War? Or in Lebanon in 1982? And what about all those American complaints about “disproportionate” Israeli attacks on Arab terrorists in Gaza and elsewhere?

This is not, repeat, not, to express any complaints about the US support for Israel, but only to acknowledge the inevitably, dramatically different perspectives on war and peace in a very tiny country like Israel, no bigger than New Jersey, and in an ocean-locked, huge country like the US.

Take yes for an answer. Leave the nature of the American-Israeli military relationship alone.

Keep American armaments coming to Israel.

Keep American financial support for Israeli missile defense systems (Iron Dome, Arrow, David’s Sling) coming.

Keep the good wishes from the majority of Congress coming.

Keep the good will of the majority of the American public

They work. Take yes for an answer.

Nip all this talk about a mutual US-Israel defense treaty in the bud. The sooner the better.

Copyright © 2019 by the Intermountain Jewish News




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