Israeli aggression threatens to fray its financial and diplomatic lifeline to the United States
Emboldened by unstinting U.S. support during its devastation of Gaza, and with American forces by its side in attacking Iran, Israel is moving with disorienting speed on multiple fronts. Mr. Netanyahu attributes his country’s aggression to the bloody lessons of Oct. 7, which he insists was an attack not just by Hamas but “by the Iran axis, to try to annihilate us through a noose of death.”
“I said, ‘We’re going to change the Middle East,’” Mr. Netanyahu told CBS’s “60 Minutes” in an interview last month. “We’re going to change this condition where they’re ganging up on us, thinking they’re going to wipe out the one and only Jewish state.”
This bellicose stance has a whiff of delusion. Fractured, infighting neighbors may look less daunting than the hostile gallery of autocracies that ringed Israel back when Saddam Hussein, Muammar el-Qaddafi and the Assad dynasty still ruled. But failed states nurture terrorists and seed future violence. Gobbling up land deepens resentment.
Most of all, an assumption of impunity and the willingness to use violence as a political tool are turning Israel into a pariah. Flush with U.S. aid, Mr. Netanyahu simply brushes aside the outstanding international arrest warrant accusing him of war crimes in Gaza. But Israeli aggression also threatens to fray the small country’s financial and diplomatic lifeline to the United States.
Between the carnage in Gaza and the widespread (and not unfounded) perception that President Trump started an unpopular war in Iran at Mr. Netanyahu’s prodding, U.S. public opinion has soured radically, and perhaps irrevocably, against Israel. Sixty percent of U.S. adults now have an unfavorable view of Israel; half of U.S. voters believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
“That is a huge threat to Israel’s national security,” said Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security adviser in Israel. “Israel needs the U.S. for everything.”
Mr. Netanyahu has argued that Israel, for years the world’s top recipient of U.S. foreign aid, is now wealthy enough to wean itself off American military aid. He may be right. But cash is just one element of crucial U.S. support. The United States allows Israel access to a sophisticated arsenal that can’t be bought elsewhere (the F-35 stealth fighter jet, for example), overlooking U.S. laws that bar weapon sales to foreign military units committing serious human rights violations. Israel also leans heavily on the United States for intelligence, not to mention the U.S. veto at the United Nations Security Council that has repeatedly saved Israel from censure or sanction.
Without that veto, Mr. Freilich said, “Israel would have been under comprehensive sanctions decades ago.” [Continue reading…]