What is behind US-Israel tensions?
- By Jin Liangxiang
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E-mail China.org.cn, March 3, 2015
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) 2015 Policy Conference, March 2, 2015 in Washington, DC. [Xinhua photo] |
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, is due to make a speech before the United States Congress on March 3. Obviously, Netanyahu will make a last-ditch effort to disrupt a potential Iran nuclear agreement that Barack Obama's administration is negotiating. The United States is working toward a nuclear agreement with Iran together with China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany, while Israel regards any such agreement as a historic mistake. Netanyahu holds that such an agreement will ultimately lead to the weaponization of Iran's nuclear program.
President Obama, a democrat, was angry about Netanyahu's visit and has refused to meet with him, causing new tensions between the two allies. The official excuse for this diplomatic snub is that Netanyahu is running in the upcoming election on March 17 and the U.S. does not wish to meddle in Israel's domestic politics.
Though triggered by differences over the Iran nuclear issue, the tensions between the U.S. and Israel are actually deeply rooted in the relative decline in U.S. power and influence in the Middle East. Though the trend is obvious, it seems that Israel is not ready to adapt to the new reality.
Israeli scholars argue that Israel has long served as a strategic partner for the United States, first against the expansion of the former Soviet Union during the Cold War and later against the spread of terrorism after the Cold War. I accepted this point when I was a student of Middle East affairs, but further and more detailed studies have delivered different arguments. Israel actually has never been a worthy strategic ally of the U.S. but has in fact been a strategic burden.
Israel did help to prove that U.S. weapons were better in quality than those made by the former Soviet Union. Israel, armed with U.S. weapons, defeated united Arab forces armed with Soviet weapons in several Middle East wars.
But beyond that, little evidence indicates that Israel has been a worthy ally. Israel was not a capable ally for the U.S. against the former Soviet Union in terms of either geographic or demographic size. Though Israel did win several wars against its neighbors, its forces never moved beyond its neighboring areas. How could it have stopped the expansion of the former Soviet Union in the vast area we call West Asia and North Africa?
