Israel-U.S. Relations: Stronger But Not Safer

By William Dale

Twenty years ago, as today, American Embassy officials could see Jerusalem's ancient walls—last rebuilt by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1538—every time we motored up from Tel Aviv. Once you have marveled at those splendid ramparts, the city and the troubled region around it are never entirely absent from your mind.

The changes that have taken place in Israel's relations with the rest of the world over the 20 years since I was stationed there are amazing, and frightening. As a nation born in conflict, its military associations are paramount. In 1966 Israel had a special military relationship with France. Its forces won the June War the next year with French-built Mystere and Mirage planes, The Deputy Defense Minister, Shimon Peres, who is now Prime Minister, was specifically charged with cooperation with the French, who built the Dimona nuclear reactor, the cornerstone of Israel's nuclear weapons program.

A fringe benefit of all this military cooperation then was that the French Air Attache was permitted to have a plane, while, to his annoyance, the American Attache was not.

Twenty years ago, our government did not provide military or economic aid to Israel. We did spend Israeli currency, owned by our government as a result of previous food aid, on worthy projects such as the Encyclopedia Judaica. But that was all.

The Israeli economy, however, was no more viable 20 years ago than it is today. The gap between production and consumption was made up by generous Jewish communities all over the world. American Jews, being the most numerous, gave the most, but Israeli officials were proudest of the South Africans whose per capita contribution was higher. Money collected in the U.S. for Israel by the United Jewish Appeal was treated as a tax deductible contribution by the Internal Revenue Service in 1966 just as it is today.

Twenty years ago American citizens could travel in the Arab World without fear of terrorist attack. Israel was considered the great enemy of the Arabs, but the U.S. was not yet so closely identified with it. The anti-Western violence of Moslem fundamentalism was still a phenomenon of the future.

The PLO existed 20 years ago, but under the inefficient leadership of Ahmed Shukeiri it accomplished little. When its military arm, Al Fatah, carried out occasional acts of violence along the Armistice lines, Israeli troops retaliated on a ten teeth for a tooth basis, further embittering the dispossessed Palestinians and hastening the day of the next incident. UN observers investigated each incident then and assigned responsibility. If Israel's retaliation was judged excessive, the United Nations Security Council would condemn it. Then, unlike today, our government would sometimes vote with the majority against Israel.

Over the past 20 years relations have undergone a fundamental change. President Charles de Gaulle snapped France's close military connection with Israel in the 1967 War when Israel attacked Egypt against his advice. Now, as Israel's sole source of military supply, the United States provides Israel with planes, bombs and other weapons. The $3.7 billion in U.S. economic and military aid we provided tiny Israel last year absorbed nearly a third of our world-wide foreign aid budget and dwarfed American Jewish donations.

President Reagan has instituted a strategic agreement with Israel for coordinating military plans, and our intelligence agencies have close working relations with their Israeli counterparts. There now exists a free trade agreement between our two countries so that within 10 years each will be able to export its goods to the other without restriction. In the United Nations we operate as Israel's faithful watchdog, vetoing resolutions which criticize the actions of our new "best friend."

All this results from a change in the distribution of political power within the United States, but I had to go all the way to Israel two years ago to understand it. As liberal Israeli friends opposed to the then ruling Likud coalition saw it, American Zionists are identifying ever more closely with hard-line American conservatives, and are increasingly sympathetic to right-wing extremists in Israel. Israelis cited the Reagan Administration's permissive handling of Ariel Sharon's invasion of Lebanon as an example of Zionist influence over our foreign policy. Since my Israeli friends considered that invasion an unmitigated disaster for Israel, they were understandably dismayed at the growing power exerted on U.S. policy, supposedly on Israel's behalf, by America's Zionists.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), even more than the older Zionist organizations, coordinates its lobbying activities in Washington with grass roots Zionists in congressional districts. Now, if a congressman does not vote as AIPAC instructs him, he will hear from Zionists at home. Recently AIPAC has been immensely strengthened by the creation of more than 70 covert pro-Israel Political Action Committees, which provide funds for congressmen who support Israel and for the opponents of those who don't. Israel, then, is no longer a supplicant client state, although it remains more dependent than ever on our aid. We live in a state of co-dependency.

In spite, or perhaps because of, Zionist ascendency in the U.S. Congress, my Israeli friends were worried about their future. They asked two questions. In another Arab-Israeli war, if the Soviets make good on their threats to intervene on Syria's behalf, will America risk nuclear war to support Israel?

Their second question was whether it was good for Israel over the long run to receive so much aid from us. If Israel is always bailed out, how can it develop a self-reliant attitude? What incentive is there to develop a viable economy, or pursue a compromise peace with the Palestinians and Israel's Arab neighbors?

These questions would not have arisen 20 years ago, before our relationship became so intimate. But they are questions both we and the Israelis will have to answer in the next 20 years.

William Dale was U.S. Ambassador to the Central African Republic. He was Deputy Chief of Mission in the US Embassy in Tel Aviv from 1964 to 1968.