Choices Facing the United States: Greater Israel or Global Israel?

Zionism is, arguably, the most successful movement of national liberation in the last 100 years, and Israel is, inarguably, one of the most potent states globally in terms of security, economy, and society. Israel has absorbed millions of immigrants from diverse geographical and cultural milieus, built a thriving economy, developed a powerful army and achieved a remarkable degree of social cohesion, all this while living in a neighborhood in which all but two countries still consider themselves in a state of war with Israel.

To be sure, there have been and continue to be problems that Israel has not been able to fix or to which Israeli policy has contributed. Chief among them are the unresolved issue of the territories that Israel occupied in 1967 (the so-called Palestine question), significant and growing inequalities in the distribution of wealth within Israeli society, endemic tensions between religious and secular Jews, and questions about the durability of Israel’s democracy raised by recent legislative initiatives designed to curb activities and funding of those on the political left.

The United States has been a proud and significant supporter of Israel, providing significant resources to fund military and security requirements, participating in joint research and development in advanced defense and related technologies, and, for many years, providing an economic safety net that allowed Israel to take hard decisions related to economic development. The United States has been an active participant and advocate in promoting peace between Israel and its neighbors, has helped Israel build its international ties, and has defended Israel in international fora.

The prognosis for Israel and for U.S.-Israeli ties is excellent, as the two countries continue to find ways to deepen and strengthen bilateral cooperation. However, there are some worrying signs ahead that should prompt significant attention to the fabric of the relationship. A look ahead at the promise and problems would be facilitated by a deep look back at the first seventy years of Israeli sovereignty and of U.S.-Israeli relations.

The conventional method for assessing the bilateral relationship between Israel and the United States has been to look at shared values and shared interests, including shared threat assessments. In the United States, Israel has been popularized as a liberal democracy, committed to openness and the advancement of rights and liberties. The United States and Israel have usually tended to share a similar appreciation of the threats that Israel faces—ranging from terrorism and violence emanating from within the occupied territories; terrorism and incessant missile fire from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and from Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza; and over-the-horizon threats from Iraq (before 2003) and more recently from Iran. While the mutual understanding of threats did not always result in a common policy approach, the two countries benefitted greatly from the intelligence sharing and overall strategic cooperation that was set in place to try to deal with the threats. More tangibly, the United States has made unprecedented long-term commitments to provide Israel with substantial amounts of security assistance plus additional aid that Congress continues to authorize for special purposes such as anti-missile development.

The values aspect of this relationship has come under strain of late, as the attitudes of some American Jews have shifted. For example, large swaths of American Jewry associate with the conservative and reform religious movements; Israel’s religious affairs ministry, under the control of ultra-orthodox rabbis, has set standards for conversion, marriage, and recognition of Jewish identity that place many of these American Jews outside the pale. The dispute over prayer space at the Western Wall has exacerbated this split.

As noted in several recent books, more American Jews have become critical of Israeli policy vis-à-vis the Palestinian issue, especially the continued building of settlements. For younger Jews, the Israel they have grown up with is the Israel of the Lebanon war and of occupation, unlike their parents who grew up with the mythic image of the Israel of Leon Uris’ Exodus.

The United States and Israel also now differ fundamentally about several critical security issues and...