On a matter crucial to Israel’s security — that is, to Israel’s existence — there is, observers say, a rare public gap between Israel and the US. Israel sees Iran’s new president as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, offering to “talk,” as Iran has talked endlessly before, while pursuing a nuclear weapon ceaselessly. The US sees the declared willingness of Iran’s new president to talk through the issue, while also saying that Iran is not about to give up its nuclear pursuit, as worth pursuing. Worth talking about. Worth “engagement.” Even some — not all — of Israel’s staunch friends in Congress say that it is worth talking to the new government in Iran, while keeping the sanctions intact.
This, say observers, is unprecedented: Israel facing an existential threat, and the US disagreeing.
Not so. This is hardly unprecedented. It is a rose-colored version of US-Israel relations to say that on matters vital to Israel’s security the US has always seen things the way Israel did.
Item: From 1949-1956, Israel faced ceaseless terrorist attacks from the Gaza Strip, aided and abetted by Egypt. In 1956, Israel went to war to put a stop to these attacks, and captured the Sinai Peninsula. The US, under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, forced Israel to return the Sinai to Egypt. This, of course, was a move that threatened Israel’s existence, as was made abundantly clear in 1967 when Egypt moved its troops right up to the Gaza border and threatened to drive Israel into the sea. That would not have happened had Israel held onto the Sinai.
Item: In May and June, 1967, when Egypt threatened Israel with extinction, with Syria and other Arab nations joining in the bloodthirsty cries of Egypt, President Lyndon Johnson neither supported an Israeli move toward war nor supplied advanced fighter planes to Israel. At perhaps the most precarious moment in its existence, the gap between the US and Israel was wide indeed.
Item: From 1967 to 2011, the US demanded that Israel return the Golan Heights to Syria. Countless American politicians, including at least two who became president (George W. Bush and Barack Obama), visited the Golan Heights and personally saw how the security of Israel’s north was literally impossible without control of the Golan Height above. Yet, for 44 years, the US demanded that Israel return the Golan Heights to Syria for the sake of “peace.” No matter that only under Israeli control of the Heights was there ever peace between Israel and Syria. It took the brutal Syrian mass murder of its own citizens, beginning in 2011, for the US to stop talking about “land for peace” between Israel and Syria.
Item: In 1981, Israel bombed the nuclear reactor in Iraq just before it became “hot.” Israel was denounced around the world, not least by President Ronald Reagan. Here was a certified madman — Saddam Hussein — on the cusp of obtaining nuclear weapons, and the US could not even back Israel after-the-fact. Of course, years later, when Iraq invaded Kuwait and US found it necessary to wage war against Hussein in 1991, the US changed its tune and expressed gratitude to Israel. But at the time, yes, there was a vast gap indeed between the US and Israel on a security issue.
This should not be surprising. The two countries, notwithstanding their special relationship and extraordinary close security cooperation, are, after all, different countries. Their perceptions will not always coincide, even when their interests do. Albeit only on rare occasions, their interests will diverge, too. Israel, whose existence is threatened by Iran, will understandably be skeptical of an Iran — just as it’s ready to go nuclear — suddenly wanting to talk, just long enough to go nuclear.
Copyright © 2013 by the Intermountain Jewish News
