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ABRAHAM BEN-ZVI:
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The US & us

The controversies that dominate the scene of US-Israel relations — revolving around such issues as the specific demarcation lines of the security fence Israel has been constructing in the West Bank and the fate of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat — should not be construed as conclusive evidence of a major rift between Washington and Jerusalem.

Despite recurrent instances of disagreement between the US and Israel on both procedural and substantive issues in the Palestinian zone, including those which reflect the parties’ different interpretations of the "road map" and of the necessary preconditions for its implementation, the fact that both the Bush administration and the Sharon government have remained fully committed to a common strategic agenda in seeking to combat terrorism and reshape the regional environment according to quintessential democratic premises and values, should not be overlooked.

Indeed, the 9/11 trauma — which made the Bush high-policy elite acutely sensitive to the dangers of international terrorism and radicalism (and irrevocably committed to confronting them as a springboard for reconstructing the international environment) — further enhanced the bonds of solidarity and empathy already existing within the American-Israeli framework.

Against this backdrop of basic strategic compatibility which was evident from the inception of the Bush presidency, and which became even more pronounced in the aftermath of 9/11, one should distinguish between crises which unfold under such harmonious circumstances, and crises which develop in a far less benign setting, with the parties divided by irreconcilable visions of the regional landscape and the policies to be pursued, and with the atmosphere within the American-Israeli framework continuously permeated with tension and fraught with misunderstanding.

Such was the case during the 1950s, when Israel was perceived by the Eisenhower administration as a strategic liability and as a major obstacle en route to the formation of a broadly-based security system in the region (comprising both Egypt and Iraq) for the purpose of containing Soviet penetration and encroachment. This vision precipitated a highly-reserved American posture toward the Ben-Gurion government. This was predicated upon its overriding desire to win the support of all major Arab powers for the American strategic designs (which revolved around the concept of the "Baghdad Pact‘) by convincing such leaders as Egypt’s president Gamal Abdel Nasser of Washington’s ’even-handedness" in addressing the Arab-Israeli predicament.

UNDER SUCH adverse strategic circumstances, crises which erupted in American-Israeli relations (such as the Water Crisis of 1953 and the Suez Crisis of 1956) were severe, with president Eisenhower and secretary of state John Foster Dulles demonstrating an unabated willingness to resort to harsh and far-reaching coercive measures vis-à-vis the Israeli government (including the immediate and complete suspension of economic assistance) in order to secure its compliance with American demands.

It was only in the early 1960s, when it became abundantly clear to American decision-makers that this initial strategy of accommodation toward the Arab world had not borne fruit, and that most principal Arab actors had defected to the Eastern sphere of influence, that this reliance upon the tools of coercive diplomacy and economic pressure toward Israel was largely abandoned.

Israel thus came to be gradually perceived as a strategic asset to the US on the basis of cold and unsentimental considerations and calculations, and only after it had conclusively proved its credentials and value to the West in a series of acutely-menacing regional crises — particularly those which posed a clear and immediate danger to the Hashemite Kingdom — which exposed the growing vulnerability of the remaining pro-Western strongholds in the area.

Indeed, with Egypt becoming increasingly hostile to the West in the course of the 1950s, with Syria embarking upon an equally radical and defiant course, and with Iraq tilting toward the East in the immediate aftermath of the July 1958 revolution, Israel emerged as the only viable guardian of Western interests. It was prepared to take considerable risks, as was the case during the Jordanian Crisis of July 1958, when it permitted the British and American airlift to cross its airspace en-route to Amman despite Soviet pressure not to do so, for the sake of helping to contain the advancing forces of radicalism and revolution.

IT IS hardly surprising, then, that against the backdrop of this transformed regional landscape, future administrations did not feel compelled any longer to distance themselves from Jerusalem and had little to fear from the repercussions, as by 1958 the Arab Middle East had already been largely lost to the West. It is also hardly surprising that — since the Kennedy era — not only did Israel become the recipient of advanced weapons systems, but that the very essence and structure of the crises which occasionally developed within the American-Israeli dyad changed drastically in juxtaposition with the Eisenhower period.

Far from directly threatening core Israeli security interests (as was the case in the 1950s), most of these crises comprised nothing more than a nuisance or a distraction which reflected transient and tactical disagreements rather than a major strategic incompatibility or rift, which could threaten the very core of the alliance.

In view of this durable vision of Israel as a reliable bulwark in the omnivorous struggle against the regional forces of militancy, radicalism and recalcitrance (which has remained largely intact in the course of the last four decades), occasional misunderstandings and sources of friction between the two allies have been almost invariably subordinated to, and outweighed by, these broader concerns, priorities and perceptions of the regional landscape.

It is therefore safe to predict that this basic strategic compatibility will remain essentially unchanged in the foreseeable future — with tactical skirmishes unlikely to transform a highly-consensual framework into an emotion-laden, highly-charged and fractured relationship.

Israel and the US will therefore continue to bargain, disagree and occasionally even quarrel, but as true and intimate friends and without seeking to turn the clock back to the 1950s.

More specifically, the parties will continuously attempt to jointly manage and defuse sources of friction and dispute long before they threaten to escalate and overshadow the congruent and cooperative infrastructure of the American-Israeli framework. Even in the absence of an early and complete agreement on such issues as the demarcation line of the security fence, they will resort to such tactics as procrastination, obfuscation, segmentation and incrementalism in the hope that the matter in dispute will eventually subside into the background without damaging even the margins of the relationship.

The writer is professor of political science, head of the security studies program and senior research associate at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University. His most recent book is John F. Kennedy and the Politics of Arms Sales to Israel (Frank Cass under the auspices of the Jaffee Center).