Should The U.S. Commit To Israel’s Defense?

By Allen J Duffis
Published: February 14, 2006

No matter how you look at it someone, somewhere, will hurl accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ at me for even posing such a question.  Well I don’t care!  The question is important and needs to be aired and I will not shy away from it because of controversy.

In response to verbal threats aimed at Israel from Iran’s new president, and that country’s suspected buildup to nuclear weaponry, on February 1, 2006 President Bush stated, “Israel is a solid ally of the United States.  We will rise to Israel’s defense if need be.”  Asked whether he meant the United States would rise to Israel’s defense militarily?  “You bet,” he stated defiantly,  “we’ll defend Israel.”

This brash statement was the most explicit commitment to Israel’s defense ever made by any U.S. President. 

From its formation in 1948, Israel has actively sought some form of a military alliance with the United States.  But a succession of presidents have ‘shadowboxed’ with such a concept, in part out of fear of offending the Arab states.

The United States has no military alliance with Israel, even though President Bill Clinton tap-danced around such a possibility. He dangled the prospect of some sort of limited military alliance, as part of a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.  However, according to Dennis Ross, a senior Clinton advisor on the Middle East, that’s as far as it went and never actually gained wings.

Ross, a long term Washington player, said he could not recall a president stating so firmly that the United States would come to Israel’s defense.  But he did say, in the present climate, it is a ‘logical extension’ of existing policy, because Israel has never before faced the threat of a foe with a possible nuclear weapon capability.

Personally, as an American citizen, I would like a vote on such an all-encompassing commitment. This time, however, with all of the military possibilities, outcomes and inherent dangers of such an endeavor explored, well ahead of the critical moment it has be invoked.   We need this open discourse before we as a nation, once again, ride off into the valley of death.

To have any chance of a rational fathoming to the present state of affairs in the Middle East, one needs to look back on the origin of Israel.  In other words, how it came into existence in the first place.

                                                                       Historical Background    

The Canaanites, in the 3rd Millennium BC, are the earliest known inhabitants of the geography called Palestine. They became urbanized and lived in city-states, the most well known of which was Jericho; and they were know to have developed an alphabet.

Palestine’s location was at the center of routes to and from three continents.  This made it an inevitable meeting point for religious and cultural influences from Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia and Asia Minor.  And for this reason it became the battleground for the great powers of the region, and always subject to domination by adjacent empires, beginning with Egypt in that same time period.

By the 14th century BC, Egyptian power began to weaken and new invaders appeared upon the scene: the Hebrews, a group of Semitic tribes from Mesopotamia, and the Philistines, an Aegean people of Indo-European stock (after whom the country was later named).

In 1230 BC, Joshua conquered parts of Palestine, but the conquers were forced to settle in the hillsides, for they were unable to conquer all of Palestine.

In 1125 BC, the Israelites, a confederation of Hebrew tribes, eventually, defeated the Canaanites, but found the struggle with the Philistines far to difficult.  The Philistines had by this time established an independent state on the southern coast of Palestine, effectively controlling the Canaanite town of Jerusalem.

Finally, the Philistines superiority in military organization, and the advanced use of iron weapons, soundly defeated the Israelites in 1050 BC.

David, Israel’s great king finally defeated the Philistines (who eventually assimilated with the Canaanites) in and about 1000 BC. 

The unity of Israel was so strong at this point in time compared to the feebleness of adjacent empires; it enabled King David to establish a large and powerful independent state, which had its capital in Jerusalem.

That status would remain until David’s death in 922 BC whereupon, over time, the kingdom divided into Israel in the north and Judah in the south.

After a number of successive wars and occupations, effective Arab conquest of the area began when Muslim Arab armies invaded Jerusalem in 614 AD. This began 1300 years of Muslim rule in the area then known as Palestine, ending with occupation by the Turkish Ottoman Empire in 1840.

In 1897, the first Zionist congress was held in Basel, Switzerland, and from it was issued the Basel programme for the “Jewish Colonization of Palestine.”

                                                                    The Conflict in Modern Times

Aided by the Arab majority population, the British captured Palestine from the Ottoman Empire (1917 – 1918).  The Arabs revolted against the Turks, because the British had promised them the independence of their country after the war.

Unfortunately, Britain had made other conflicting commitments in the secret Sykes-Picot agreement with France and Russia in 1916, promising to divide and rule the region with its allies.

In a third agreement, the Balfour Declaration of 1917, Britain promised the Jews a Jewish “national home” in Palestine.  This promise was subsequently incorporated into the mandate conferred on Britain by the League of Nations in 1922.

During the period of their mandate (1922-1948), the British had great difficulty reconciling their contradictory promises to the Jewish and Palestinian communities. Escalating violence between the two groups and the British ensued.

The Zionist envisaged large-scale Jewish immigration, and some of the zealots among them spoke openly of a Jewish state constituting all of Palestine.

The Palestinians, however, rejected Britain’s right to promise their country to a third party, and feared dispossession by the Zionist.  And so began the geographical violence we know of today as the Middle East Conflict.

So the world now stands on this shaky precipice of what may well be the beginnings of an Armageddon, one that has been festering for 2000 years.  And its overall affects, or finality, will not be limited to that one part of the world.  These are dangerous times. 

It should be pointed out that many thinking people in this country do not trust the present administration to handle such a serious situation well.  In fact, based on past as well as ongoing performance, we fully expect them capable of adding more chaos to this deadly Middle East cocktail.

As a nation we have approached the region with a highly flawed diplomacy. One hinged more on Jewish votes and financial support for successive presidential administrations, rather than simply dealing equally with both aggrieved parties.  Our policy has been, at best, two faced and dishonest.

We refused to deal realistically with the late Yasser Arafat, or with Hammas, because of their terrorist backgrounds.  But we were willing to deal with Monachem Begin as Prime Minister of Israel (a former leader of the Jewish Terror group, Irgun, who was on the wanted lists of three countries as a terrorist), even though he was part of the Jewish terrorist group that admittedly blew up the king David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1945: resulting in a massive loss of life.

When Arab terrorists attacked the USS Cole on October 12, 2000, with the resultant deaths of 17 American seamen, we spewed outrage against the Arab States.  How different our attitude was when the Israelis made three deadly airborne attacks on a clearly marked and flagged U.S. intelligence ship, the USS Liberty, in international waters during the 1967 Arab/Israeli War. Our response was far less than outrage, even in the face of Israeli refusal to discuss a monetary settlement or offer an apology to the families of those 17 American seamen killed.

We declare there should be no nuclear weapons developed or brought into this volatile region, but look the other way at Israel’s nuclear development.  Why should the Arab states want to deal with us?  Such a politically ludicrous policy is a cultural and ethnic slap in the face!

Therefore, as we work through this mounting crisis, we must keep in mind the Chernobyl event on April 25th 1986.  The affects of the Russian nuclear disaster were felt throughout Europe and, eventually, the world.  Imagine the impact on the planet (the fishbowl we all live in) if nuclear weapons were discharged in the atmosphere over the Middle East.

As yet, should the unthinkable ever come about, no one has come forward with a valid case for America’s intervention on the side of the Israelis.

Clearly, this is the time to place such a proposal on the table for discussion - by the country as a whole, not just the politicians.  For it is too important an issue to leave solely to the politicians.

Let’s do it now, before the mushroom cloud appears over the oilfields.