Crossroads: the Future of the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Haim Malka Foreword by Samuel W
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Malka Crossroads: The Future of the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Haim Malka Foreword by Samuel W. Lewis The U.S.-Israel partnership is under unprecedented strain. The relationship is deep and coopera- tion remains robust, but the challenges to it now are more profound than ever. Growing differ- ences could undermine the national security of both the United States and Israel, making strong cooperation uncertain in an increasingly volatile and unpredictable Middle East. This volume explores the partnership between the United States and Israel and analyzes how political and strategic dynamics are reshaping the relationship. Drawing on original research and dozens of interviews with U.S. and Israeli officials and former officials, the study traces the development CROSSROADS of the U.S.-Israel relationship, analyzes the sources of current tension, and suggests ways for- ward for policymakers in both countries. The author weaves together historical accounts with current analysis and debates to provide insight into this important yet changing relationship. It is a sobering and keen analysis for anyone concerned with the future of the U.S.-Israel partner- ship and the broader Middle East. Haim Malka is deputy director and senior fellow of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Crossroads The Future of the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership HAIM MALKA ISBN 978-0-89206-660-5 FOREWORD BY SAMUEL W. LEWIS Center for Strategic and International Studies Washington, D.C. Ë|xHSKITCy066605zv*:+:!:+:! CSIS 2011 C ROSSROADS ABOUT CSIS At a time of new global opportunities and challenges, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) provides strategic insights and bipartisan policy solutions to decisionmakers in government, in- ternational institutions, the private sector, and civil society. A biparti- san, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., CSIS conducts research and analysis and develops policy initiatives that look into the future and anticipate change. Founded by David M. Abshire and Admiral Arleigh Burke at the height of the Cold War, CSIS was dedicated to finding ways for America to sustain its prominence and prosperity as a force for good in the world. Since 1962, CSIS has grown to become one of the world’s preemi- nent international policy institutions, with more than 220 full-time staff and a large network of affiliated scholars focused on defense and security, regional stability, and transnational challenges ranging from energy and climate to global development and economic integration. Former U.S. senator Sam Nunn became chairman of the CSIS Board of Trustees in 1999, and John J. Hamre has led CSIS as its pres- ident and chief executive officer since 2000. CSIS does not take specific policy positions; accordingly, all views expressed herein should be understood to be solely those of the author(s). Center for Strategic and International Studies 1800 K Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 Tel: (202) 775-3119 Fax: (202) 775-3199 Web: www.csis.org C ROSSROADS T HE F U T URE O F T HE U . S .-I SRAEL S T RA T EG ic P AR T NERSH ip HAIM MALKA FOREWORD BY SAMUEL W. LEWIS Center for Strategic and International Studies Washington, D.C. © 2011 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved. Cover photo credit: Israeli and American flags fly as Secretary of De- fense Robert M. Gates arrives in Tel Aviv, Israel, April 18, 2007. DoD photo by Cherie A. Thurlby, http://www.defenseimagery.mil/imagery. html;jsessionid=71590B75F0001D960485D24A148C265C#a=search &s=gates%20israel%20&chk=6cfe0&p=10&guid=b5179fd4ddb57b08 085e375ef3829e11a3eb81ed ISBN 978-0-89206-660-5 pbk ISBN 978-0-89206-661-2 e-Pub ISBN 978-0-89206-662-9 Mobi Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Malka, Haim. Crossroads : the future of the U.S.-Israel strategic partnership / Haim Malka ; foreword, Samuel W. Lewis. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-89206-660-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. United States--Foreign relations- -Israel. 2. Israel--Foreign relations--United States. I. Title. JZ1480.A57I75 2011 327.7305694--dc23 2011033305 CONTENTS Foreword vii Acknowledgments xi Executive Summary xiii Introduction xv 1 FOUNDATIONS OF THE U.S.-ISRAEL PARTNERSHip 1 2 dEMOGRAPHICS AND POLITICS IN ISRAEl 19 3 U.S. POLITICAL DYNAMics 41 4 sTRATEGIC DYNAMICS AND DEBATEs 56 5 dEBATES OVER MODELS FOR COOPERATION 82 6 KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONs 99 About the Author 111 FOREWORD Any serious effort to project the future course of U.S.-Israeli relations encounters daunting unknowns. The past provides numerous lessons, a roller coaster of highs and lows, of crises both real and manufac- tured for political purposes, of periods of seemingly smooth sailing, and of long-range societal trends tending in contradictory directions. The present appears fraught with incompatible leadership styles and cultural contrasts between Jerusalem and Washington, even while the broader Middle East region seems suddenly, after years of stasis, to be navigating a surging torrent of actual or impending political up- heaval whose outcome cannot be foreseen from either capital. Military and intelligence cooperation between our two governments currently reaches historic highs, obscured to the public by statements from cool, sometimes provocative political leaders who talk past one another, sometimes seemingly deliberately. More and more the objective ana- lyst is driven to underscore the clash between national and on occasion vital interests of two such different nation-states. Overlapping interests are indeed substantial, but their respective histories, sizes, locations, and threat perceptions offer such huge contrasts that maintaining close working relations between the governments of this unique but “un- written alliance” will continue to exhaust and frustrate leaders in both capitals for as long as one can see into the future. Therefore, the task of the author of this study seems on its face hopeless. That makes his effort all the more admirable. In surpris- ingly few pages he has delved below the surface of the platitudes and VII VIII Crossroads: The Future of the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership pseudo-analyses that fill too many monographs and indeed volumes produced over the years about this elusive quarry. In particular, his description of diverging societal trends in both nations, and the ways in which those are reshaping public attitudes toward the political re- lationship, provides a provocative backdrop for the discussion of the strategic particulars. The analysis in this study is as creative and thoughtful an effort as I have seen, worthy of careful reading and reflection, carrying a sober- ing message for anyone genuinely concerned about the future of Israel in a world with enduring enemies. For most Americans, how we arrived at the current interweaving of Israeli and American politics, military establishments, joint intelli- gence operations, and diplomatic dilemmas has been mostly forgotten, if ever known. The chapter recounting that evolving story should be must reading for those who blithely assume that the unwritten alli- ance has always been with us and that Israel has, for all the more than six decades of its existence as a modern state, been dependent on the United States for survival, the largest U.S. foreign aid recipient, and also a mighty political force in Congress and the executive branch. In fact, after Harry Truman’s dramatic decision for diplomatic recogni- tion at the very moment of the birth of the new state, the relationship was usually cool and quite distant before the 1960s. The present very close ties have their origin in the mid-1960s, springing in part from unsuccessful efforts by both President Kennedy and President Johnson to head off David Ben-Gurion’s search for nuclear weapons to provide ultimate security for the lonely Jewish state. But the relationship only began to ripen into a close if unwritten alliance well after the 1967 June War and its bloody offspring, the surprise of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. President Nixon and Henry Kissinger introduced Israel into the role of potential Cold War ally; their concept of Israel as a strategic ally and sometime asset grew in the minds of most of their successors and members of Congress, with the notable exception of President Carter, during both Republican and Democratic administrations. Only in re- cent years has the long impasse over the Palestinian issue begun to undermine support for the unquestioning alliance relationship, espe- cially among younger Americans who never knew the lonely “David,” the isolated, courageous Israel of the early years, and who never saw the movie Exodus. Israelis long accustomed to being regarded as the Foreword IX brave victims find themselves now too often depicted as brutal occu- piers, thanks in part to the all-seeing cameras of the new media age. And, although most Israelis believe that the United States remains Is- rael’s only reliable ally and friend, history has taught Jews bitter lessons about the constancy of even best friends. Throughout those decades, diplomatic-political crises erupted pe- riodically, often over Israel’s stubborn determination to exert its sover- eign right of self-defense, sometimes against the wishes of American administrations that deeply resented Israel’s offhand disregard of potential damage to Washington’s own interests in the broader Arab world. This study highlights a few examples of conflict stemming from our differences in geopolitical perspective. Today they are central in the debate over how to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. For Americans, behind wide oceans, the Iran threat is deadly serious, pri- marily however in its implications for the future of the whole region and for global nonproliferation policy; but for Israelis, the threat of nu- clear missiles is seen as truly existential for them, which means that in extremis military force is the only answer.