All the whining and preening on antisocial media about the pro- or anti-Israel stands of the candidates for US President are missing the mark.
It’s not about their personal views, or even their public expressions.
Relations between the two countries are about shared interests.
But what about the violent antisemites who back Donald Trump? What about the pro-Hamas demonstrators who support Kamala Harris? Trump’s moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem? Harris’s Jewish husband? Is all that irrelevant?
Pretty much. History proves that.
Here’s the best example: US President Richard Nixon was in the White House from 1969 until he resigned in disgrace over the Watergate scandal in 1974. Recordings of his private conversations paint him as one of the most antisemitic leaders ever to hold a high office in the US.
It’s reported that Nixon even refused to call legendary swimmer Mark Spitz after he won seven gold medals by setting seven world records in the 1972 Olympics. Nixon was afraid that as a Jew, Spitz would support his Democratic rival in the 1972 election. (Spitz was a registered Republican.)
Shortly after, on October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria invaded Israel in a surprise attack. There were warnings, but Israeli leaders disregarded them as unlikely to come true. Israel was caught unprepared, and it quickly faced a shortage of arms and ammunition (sound familiar?).
The US was Israel’s only hope for survival, but the President was hostile to Jews in the extreme. In recordings released in 1999, Nixon is heard describing Jews: “Generally speaking, you can’t trust the bastards. They turn on you…most Jews are disloyal.” There are many other such references in the recordings.
Now a war was threatening Israel’s existence, and an enemy of the Jews was sitting in the White House. Logic indicates that I should be writing this article from somewhere other than central Israel, if I were writing it at all, after Israel was defeated and overrun in 1973.
But no. Nixon ordered an unprecedented airlift of military supplies, fighter planes, armored vehicles, rifles, and ammunition to a beleaguered Israel, saving it from destruction.
Make no mistake. I was no fan of Richard Nixon. He was the target of demonstrations my
university classmates mounted against the Vietnam War and societal injustices (not me—I was already a journalist, so I kept my views to myself). Nixon visited Israel in June 1974 and laid a wreath at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial. An announcer read a poem to him. There’s a photo of the announcer (me, aged 26) glowering at Nixon as he placed the wreath.
So why did this sworn enemy of the Jewish people rescue Israel from the edge of the abyss? You already know my answer:
Interests.
The Cold War was in full swing in 1973. The US and Russia were battling for control and influence in the Middle East. The United States could not allow the only Western-oriented Mideast nation to be swallowed whole by Russian allies (though Egypt had expelled some Russian advisers). That meant saving Israel, even from its own mistakes. Common interests, in other words.
The Cold War is long over, at least in its previous form, and now the alignments are different. Egypt and Jordan have peace treaties with Israel, and there are diplomatic relations between Israel and several Gulf Arab states. Saudi Arabia might be next, depending on how the Gaza and Lebanon conflicts are resolved.
The Middle East is realigning among the superpowers again, but this time with Iran front and center. Russia and China are cozying up to Iran, while most Sunni Muslim Arab nations, like Saudi Arabia, regard Shiite Iran as a dangerous enemy. Israel, facing attacks by Iranian proxies on three fronts, obviously fits in with the anti-Iran side, alongside the US.
That makes for common interests—up to a point. Israel needs to be careful not to stir up so much trouble that it becomes a liability to the US and the Sunni Arab states.
This is the key: Iran, Hezbollah, and especially Yemen’s Houthis are not exclusively Israel’s problems. They are challenging the West and the moderate Arab states through the nation they see as the West’s proxy—Israel.
So Israel has to make its alignment with the new coalition a key part of its overall diplomatic and military policy.
That doesn’t mean doing exactly what the US asks every time. It does mean taking into account American needs—like keeping battles short, say two or three weeks, to accommodate the short 21st-century attention span. For example, it’s doubtful if many average Americans remember the brutal Hamas attack on Israeli border villages on Oct. 7 last year.
However, Israel is doing the opposite of such accommodation. By rejecting US demands out of hand and flying to the US to lecture the Americans about the purity of Israel’s cause, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s actions are damaging—even though the facts and morals are on Israel’s side.
Israel must make a choice—which is more important, Netanyahu’s unattainable “total victory” in Gaza, or a team effort with a wide alliance to confront Iran? Growing Western opposition to Israel’s activities shows it can’t have both.
The alternative to joining forces is isolation. We’re already hearing “experts” and loudmouths in Israel and abroad pleading with Israel to carry out a pre-emptive strike against Iran—in other words, do the dirty work for the West and its allies and suffer all the consequences, starting with a brutal, bloody Iranian-Hezbollah attack and, inevitably, an international outcry against Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” in Iran and Lebanon and killing of innocent civilians.
It’s clear that Iran must be handled in a team effort. It’s in Israel’s interest to keep its eye on that large goal, even if it means allowing some Hamas terrorists to survive. If we’ve learned anything from the events that followed the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom, it’s that this is a long-term fight with no quick solutions.
Israel can live with that, but not alone.
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(Photo courtesy of Yad Vashem for “Why Are We Still Afraid?” by Mark Lavie, page 279.)
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