The U.S. is withholding arms from Israel, again.
Indeed, military aid is provided as a means of leverage. Always has been and always will be.
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This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called out the Biden administration for allegedly withholding weapons shipments to Israel, claiming in an interview published today that he had tried to resolve the issue privately for months with no success.
The public spat apparently shocked the Biden administration, which has insisted that it had no idea what Netanyahu was talking about. I have no doubt that there are domestic politics at play here from all sides, but it seems bizarre to me that Netanyahu, out of nowhere, would publicly make such a big deal about this as if the man has nothing better to do with his time.
U.S. Congressman Tom Cotton came out and took Israel’s side, charging that the Biden administration has held up deliveries of fighter jets, tactical vehicles, mortars, tank shells, and other munitions.
Unsurprisingly — or perhaps surprisingly for those in the crowd who naively think that the United States is Israel’s “bestie” as the kids call it nowadays — this is not the first time that America has leveraged military aid against Israel. Indeed, military aid is provided as a means of leverage. Always has been and always will be.
In the Jewish state’s early years, the United States’ policy towards Israel was characterized by cautious support. Sure, the U.S. was one of the first countries to recognize the new state following Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948, but this recognition did not immediately translate into military support.
Truth be told, the Truman administration imposed an arms embargo on Israel and the Arab states, aiming to prevent an arms race in the volatile Middle East.
Despite the embargo, Israel managed to procure arms from other sources, including Czechoslovakia, which played a crucial role in Israel’s survival and initial victories in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The U.S. embargo remained in place until the mid-1950s, reflecting Washington’s reluctance to become deeply involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The Suez Crisis of 1956 marked a turning point in U.S.-Israeli relations. Israel, along with Britain and France, launched a military campaign against Egypt following President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal. The Eisenhower administration, wary of Soviet influence in the region and advocating for international law, pressured Israel to withdraw its forces.
In the aftermath of the Suez Crisis, the U.S. began to view Israel as a potential ally against Soviet encroachment in the Middle East. However, arms sales remained limited. It was not until the Kennedy administration in the early 1960s that the U.S. started to provide significant military aid to Israel, including the sale of advanced weaponry like the Hawk anti-aircraft missiles.
In 1967, the Six-Day War marked a significant shift in U.S. arms policy towards Israel. In the lead-up to the war, Israel faced an arms embargo from France, its primary supplier of advanced weaponry (included a plutonium reactor that paved the way for Israel’s nuclear weapons). The United States, under President Lyndon B. Johnson, decided to lift its restrictions and provided Israel with crucial military support, including tanks and aircraft.
Israel’s swift and decisive victory in the Six-Day War — which resulted in the capture of the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank), and East Jerusalem — solidified its strategic importance to the U.S. in the Cold War context. This victory also marked the beginning of a more consistent and substantial flow of American military aid to Israel.
But that did not stop the U.S. from using military aid as a point of leverage against Israel. In 2014, for instance, President Barack Obama’s administration temporarily suspended the delivery of Hellfire missiles to Israel, expressing concerns over the high number of civilian casualties during its mini war with Hamas, which the terror group started (again). Sound familiar?
This is the same Obama who, that same year, felt the Americans were causing too many civilian casualties in the Syrian civil war, so he sent the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Israel for what was called the “Lessons Learned” program: to study how Israel habitually keeps civilian casualties as low as it does — including in densely populated urban areas, where civilians are almost always used by terrorists as human shields.1
Go figure.
It seems that after Israel became demonstrably more powerful following its victory in the 1967 Six-Day War, the American-led West’s policy greatly shifted regarding the Jewish state. The policy might look something like this: “Israel can be allowed to defend itself, but it can no longer be permitted to win wars outright.”
(I imagine that the Arabs, unable to defeat Israel militarily decade after decade, have something to do with this policy shift, leveraging their disproportionate influence across the West.)
For example, in the lead-up to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir wanted to preemptively strike Syrian assets, but U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and President Nixon consistently warned Meir that she must not be responsible for initiating a Middle East war. According to Kissinger, had Israel struck first it would not have received “so much as a nail.”
Israel was badly bruised during the first few days of this war, and an alarmed Israeli Minster of Defense, Moshe Dayan, told Meir that “this is the end of the Third Temple.” He was warning of Israel’s impending total defeat, but “Temple” was also the code word for Israel’s nuclear weapons. Dayan raised the nuclear topic in an Israeli cabinet meeting, warning that the country was approaching a point of “last resort.”
That night, Meir authorized the assembly of 13 tactical nuclear weapons. They would be used if absolutely necessary to prevent total defeat, but the preparation was done in an easily detectable way, likely as a signal to the United States.
Kissinger learned of the nuclear alert within a matter of hours, and on the same day, President Nixon ordered the commencement of Operation Nickel Grass, an American airlift to replace all of Israel’s material losses, and Israel pulled from behind to stave off defeat.
Fast-forward to today, it appears that Hezbollah is unwilling to abide by UN Security Council Resolution 1701, passed in 2006 in the wake of its war against Israel.
This resolution prohibited “armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government of Lebanon” and called for “disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon, so that … there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese State.”
An Islamist terrorist organization defying diplomatic “rules of engagement” — what a shocker!
Thus, Israel’s only realistic option is to attack Hezbollah so that thousands of Israelis can return to their homes near the Israeli-Lebanon border. Currently they feel it is unsafe to do so, and I don’t blame them; Hezbollah opened up a second front against Israel right after the Hamas-led massacres on October 7th, yet most people mistakenly talk about this conflict as if it is just a one-front war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
In all likelihood, Hezbollah is being instructed by its chief sponsor (the Islamic Republic of Iran) to not move an inch, because Hezbollah is there to serve one paramount purpose: to help deter Israel from attacking Iranian nuclear facilities as it becomes a nuclear threshold state, which promises to further destabilize the Middle East.
To prevent Israel from militarily taking care of business against Hezbollah, the U.S. is probably hearing through Iranian backchannels that any Israeli offensive against Hezbollah will include Iranian proxy attacks against American assets in the Middle East. You don’t have to be a post-doctorate political scientist to realize that the Biden administration presumably wants none of this just a few months ahead of a landmark election.
Therefore, the U.S. is withholding military aid from Israel as its only real point of leverage, which ultimately weakens Israel’s immediate defense, reinforces a dangerous precedent, and emboldens the Jewish state’s enemies longterm.
As British writer Douglas Murray so pointedly described it: “For Israel seems to be the only country in the world never allowed to win a conflict. It is allowed to fight a conflict to a draw, but rarely to a win. Which is one reason why the wars keep occurring.”2
Daniel Pomerantz on i24NEWS
“The Easy Politics of Criticizing Israel.” Sapir.
I'm a US citizen, but I've always stood up for Jews and Israel! Our God (Messiah) is a Jew, and I was raised to support them because they are God’s people.
I'm with you when you stated that Netanyahu would not make this up. Indeed, he does have better things to be doing with his time.
This current administration has been the worst by far of any president in my lifetime. His failure to support Israel means all of us in the US will pay for it by the hand of God. This is not all of Joe Biden's issues, though.
1. He has caused terribly high inflation.
2. Making house buying a dream only.
3. Non-sanctioning Iran.
4. Created open borders, where illegals have raped and murdered little girls and young women.
5. ISIS members have been allowed into our country.
6. Valenzuela gangs have been allowed into the country.
7. Over a million men between 25-45 from Asia and other parts have been allowed in the country (mostly fighters for the UN in the event of another medical crisis caused by the government and Fauci).
8. He's pushing globalist government on us which will force us out of a democracy. He's a pure socialist!
He definitely should have been charged with treason. Our country is falling apart at the seams. He doesn't even know where he is anymore. His mind is absent. The only way out of this mountain of a mess is a different President in the November election. If this doesn't happen, and this administration wins, WE ARE DOOMED! Please know that some people here support Jews and Israel 🇮🇱. May our God the Messiah be with us all!
Josh, if you are right that “the U.S. is probably hearing through Iranian backchannels that any Israeli offensive against Hezbollah will include Iranian proxy attacks against American assets in the Middle East” and that “the Biden administration presumably wants none of this just a few months ahead of a landmark election” Bibi (or the Mossad) should get proof of this and threaten to expose this if Biden doesn’t send the military aid that he is withholding PRONTO. I am sure the American public doesn’t want to know how vulnerable the US is – and susceptible to blackmail – by Iran.
So if Biden is succumbing to blackmail from Iran, he’ll succumb to blackmail from Bibi. Worth a try?