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„As Israel\u2019s Dependence on U.S. Shrinks, So Does U.S. Leverage
\nIsrael has quietly sought, and perhaps achieved, a large measure of autonomy from its half-century of reliance on the United States.<\/p>\n
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A man waving the flags of Israel and the United States in front of a rally in support of Palestine last week in Copley Square in Boston.
\nA man waving the flags of Israel and the United States in front of a rally in support of Palestine last week in Copley Square in Boston.Credit…Joseph Prezioso\/Agence France-Presse \u2014 Getty Images
\nMax Fisher
\nBy Max Fisher
\nPublished May 24, 2021
\nUpdated May 25, 2021, 6:51 a.m. ET
\nIsrael, a small country surrounded by adversaries and locked in conflict with the Palestinians, depends absolutely on American diplomatic and military support. By giving it, the United States safeguards Israel and wields significant leverage over its actions.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the conventional wisdom, anyway. For decades, it was true: Israeli leaders and voters alike treated Washington as essential to their country\u2019s survival.<\/p>\n
But that dependence may be ending. While Israel still benefits greatly from American assistance, security experts and political analysts say that the country has quietly cultivated, and may have achieved, effective autonomy from the United States.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re seeing much more Israeli independence,\u201d said Vipin Narang, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology political scientist who has studied Israeli strategy.<\/p>\n
Israel no longer needs American security guarantees to protect it from neighboring states, with which it has mostly made peace. Nor does it see itself as needing American mediation in the Palestinian conflict, which Israelis largely find bearable and support maintaining as it is.<\/p>\n
Once reliant on American arms transfers, Israel now produces many of its most essential weapons domestically. It has become more self-sufficient diplomatically as well, cultivating allies independent of Washington. Even culturally, Israelis are less sensitive to American approval \u2014 and put less pressure on their leaders to maintain good standing in Washington.<\/p>\n
ImageIsraeli ground forces at the Gaza Border, Israel Sunday, May 16, 2021.
\nIsraeli ground forces at the Gaza Border, Israel Sunday, May 16, 2021. Credit…Dan Balilty for The New York Times
\nAnd while American aid to Israel remains high in absolute terms, Israel\u2019s decades-long economic boom has left the country less and less reliant. In 1981, American aid was equivalent to almost 10 percent of Israel\u2019s economy. In 2020, at nearly $4 billion, it was closer to 1 percent.<\/p>\n
Washington underscored its own declining relevance to the conflict last week, calling for a cease-fire only after an Egyptian-brokered agreement was nearing completion, and which Israeli leaders said they agreed to because they had completed their military objectives in a 10-day conflict with Gaza. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken will visit the region this week, though he said he did not intend to restart formal Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.<\/p>\n
The change comes just as a faction of Democrats and left-wing activists, outraged over Israel\u2019s treatment of Palestinians and bombing of Gaza, are challenging Washington\u2019s long-held consensus on Israel.<\/p>\n
Yet significant, if shrinking, numbers of Americans express support for Israel, and Democratic politicians have resisted their voters\u2019 growing support for the Palestinians.<\/p>\n
The United States still has leverage, as it does with every country where it provides arms and diplomatic support. Indeed, former President Donald J. Trump\u2019s unalloyed embrace of the Israeli government demonstrated that Israel still benefits from the relationship. But American leverage may be declining past the point at which Israel is able and willing to do as it wishes, bipartisan consensus or not.<\/p>\n
Steps Toward Self-Sufficiency
\nWhen Americans think of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, many still picture the period known as the Second Intifada, when Israeli tanks crashed through Palestinian towns and Palestinian bombs detonated in Israeli cafes and buses.<\/p>\n
But that was 15 years ago. Since then, Israel has re-engineered the conflict in ways that Israeli voters and leaders largely find bearable.<\/p>\n
Violence against Israelis in the occupied West Bank is rarer and lower-level, rarer still in Israel proper. Though fighting has erupted several times between Israel and Gaza-based groups, Israeli forces have succeeded in pushing the burden overwhelmingly on Gazans. Conflict deaths, once three-to-one Palestinian-to-Israeli, are now closer to 20-to-one.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Israeli disaffection with the peace process has left many feeling that periodic fighting is the least bad option. The occupation, though a crushing and ever-present force for Palestinians, is, on most days and for most Jewish Israelis, ignorable.<\/p>\n
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\n\u201cIsraelis have become increasingly comfortable with this approach,\u201d said Ya\u00ebl Mizrahi-Arnaud, a research fellow at the Forum for Regional Thinking, an Israeli think tank. \u201cThat\u2019s a cost that they are willing to accept.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a status quo that Israel can maintain with little outside help. In past years, its most important military tools were American-made warplanes and other high-end gear, which required signoff from Congress and the White House.<\/p>\n
Now, it relies on missile defense technology that is made and maintained largely at home \u2014 a feat that hints at the tenacity of Israel\u2019s drive for self-sufficiency.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you had told me five years ago,\u201d said Mr. Narang, the M.I.T. scholar, \u201cthat the Israelis would have a layered missile defense system against short-range rockets and short-range ballistic missiles, and it was going to be 90 percent effective, I would have said, \u2018I would love what you\u2019re smoking.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Image
\nStreaks of smoke from Israel\u2019s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepting rockets launched from the Gaza Strip toward Israel, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel, on May 15.
\nStreaks of smoke from Israel\u2019s Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepting rockets launched from the Gaza Strip toward Israel, as seen from Ashkelon, Israel, on May 15.Credit…Amir Cohen\/Reuters
\nThough heavy American funding under President Barack Obama helped stand up the system, it now operates at a relatively affordable $50,000 per interceptor.<\/p>\n
Israel began working toward military autonomy in the 1990s. Cool relations with the George H.W. Bush administration and perceived American failure to stop Iraqi missiles from striking Israel convinced its leaders that they could not count on American backing forever.<\/p>\n
This belief deepened under subsequent presidents, whose pressure to strike peace with the Palestinians has run increasingly counter to Israeli preferences for maintaining control of the West Bank and tightly blockading Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe political calculus led to seeking independent capabilities that are no longer vulnerable to U.S. leverage and pressure,\u201d Mr. Narang said, adding that Israel has also sought independent intelligence gathering. \u201cIt certainly appears they\u2019ve been able to get to that point.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u2018Other Friends Policy\u2019
\nThere is another existential threat from which Israel no longer relies so heavily on American protection: international isolation.<\/p>\n
Israel once sought acceptance from Western democracies, which demanded that it meet democratic standards, but bestowed legitimacy on a country that otherwise had few friends.<\/p>\n
Today, Israel faces a much warmer international climate. \u201cAnti-imperialist\u201d powers that once challenged Israel have moved on. While international attitudes toward it are mixed, and tend starkly negative in Muslim-majority societies, Israel has cultivated ties in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America.<\/p>\n
Even nearby Arab states, such as Jordan and Egypt, once among its greatest enemies, now seek peace, while others have eased hostilities. Last year, the so-called Abraham Accords, brokered under President Trump, saw Israel normalize ties with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Israel subsequently normalized ties with Morocco and reached a diplomatic agreement with Sudan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe used to talk about a diplomatic tsunami that was on its way. But it never materialized,\u201d said Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli political analyst and pollster.<\/p>\n
Ms. Scheindlin runs an annual tracking poll asking Israelis to rank national challenges. Security and the economy reliably come first. Foreign relations are now near the very bottom.<\/p>\n
Even as European diplomats warn of consequences that never come and Democrats debate the future of the alliance, she said, Israelis view their international standing as excellent.<\/p>\n
On diplomacy, too, Israel has sought independence from the Americans.<\/p>\n
In the mid-2010s, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel\u2019s prime minister, all but directly campaigned against President Obama\u2019s re-election because of his Middle East policies, sending relations plunging.<\/p>\n
Since then, Mr. Netanyahu has cultivated a network of illiberal democracies that, far from condemning Israel\u2019s treatment of Palestinians, treat it as admirable: Brazil, Hungary, India and others.<\/p>\n
Image
\nIsrael\u2019s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, left, was welcomed by Brazil\u2019s president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, at the Copacabana fort in Rio de Janeiro in 2018.
\nIsrael\u2019s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, left, was welcomed by Brazil\u2019s president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, at the Copacabana fort in Rio de Janeiro in 2018.Credit…Pool photo by Leo Correa
\nMs. Scheindlin calls it the \u201cother friends policy.\u201d As a result, Israelis no longer see American acceptance as crucial to survival.<\/p>\n
At the same time, rising nationalism has instilled a greater willingness to shrug off international criticism.<\/p>\n
Washington\u2019s support for Israel\u2019s democratic credentials, a soft kind of leverage long wielded by American diplomats, means less every year.<\/p>\n
Risking the Consensus
\nOne of the top jobs of any prime minister, it has long been said in Israel, is safeguarding Washington\u2019s bipartisan consensus in support of the country.<\/p>\n
So when Mr. Netanyahu aligned Israel with Republicans in the mid-2010s, even haranguing Mr. Obama from the floor of Congress, he was expected to pay a political cost at home.<\/p>\n
But Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats did little to modulate their support. Americans then elected Donald J. Trump, who catered to Mr. Netanyahu more than any previous president.<\/p>\n
The episode instilled a \u201csense of impunity,\u201d Ms. Scheindlin said. \u201cIsraelis have learned that they can handle the heat, they can handle a little bit of rocky relations.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a series of focus groups conducted since President Biden\u2019s election, Ms. Scheindlin said she had found that Israelis no longer fear reprisal from American politicians.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are just not that moved,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re like, \u2018It\u2019s America. Biden will be fine.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
At the same time, many Israelis have lost interest in the peace process. Most see it as doomed, polls show, and growing numbers consider it a low priority, given a status quo that much of the Israeli public sees as tolerable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat changes the nature of the relationship to the U.S.,\u201d Ms. Mizrahi-Arnaud said.<\/p>\n
Because Israeli leaders no longer feel domestic pressure to engage in the peace process, which runs through Washington, they do not need to persuade the Americans that they are seeking peace in good faith.<\/p>\n
Image
\nPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participating with President Donald J. Trump in an Abraham Accords signing ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House on Sept. 15, 2020.
\nPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participating with President Donald J. Trump in an Abraham Accords signing ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House on Sept. 15, 2020.Credit…Doug Mills\/The New York Times
\nIf anything, leaders face declining pressure to please the Americans and rising demands to defy them with policies like expanding settlements in the West Bank, even annexing it outright.<\/p>\n
Israel is hardly the first small state to seek independence from a great-power patron. But this case is unusual in one way: It was the Americans who built up Israel\u2019s military and diplomatic independence, eroding their own influence.<\/p>\n
Now, after nearly 50 years of not quite wielding that leverage to bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it may soon be gone for good, if it isn\u2019t already.<\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael feels that they can get away with more,\u201d said Ms. Mizrahi-Arnaud, adding, to underscore her point, \u201cWhen exactly is the last time that the United States pressured Israel?\u201d“<\/p>\n