America’s relationship with Israel may be undergoing a stunning historical reversal. In 1948, most Americans supported the Jewish state, while leading generals and diplomats scoffed. Today, Israel and America have never been so intertwined militarily, politically, diplomatically – yet many Americans are scoffing.
Analysts enjoy comparing America and Israel to old, squabbling married couples who will never divorce. This analogy minimizes the mismatch between the red-white-and-blue superpower, 350 million strong, insulated from its worst enemies by two oceans, and this blue-and-white Jewish-democratic state of 10 million, surrounded by enemies seeking its destruction.
America is more like a global shopping-center developer, managing properties worldwide. Israel, America’s anchor tenant in the Middle East, is essential to the enterprise’s success – no matter how annoying or unwilling to follow presidential diktats it might be, occasionally.
Fragile state
In 1948, Israel was more like a family-run kiosk, fighting to survive. Insiders like secretary of state George Marshall urged president Harry Truman not to recognize the Jewish state. They wondered, logically: Why support an embattled, fragile, state of 600,000 Jews and risk offending the oil-rich Arab world of 70 million, let alone 350 million Muslims?
Truman believed supporting Israel was morally compelling, politically wise during an election year, and strategically necessary to outflank the Soviet Union. Truman most emphasized the values resonance. He cherished the Bible and felt, along with 59% of Americans surveyed, that the Jewish people had suffered enough, from homelessness to Holocaust.
Dwight Eisenhower was more skeptical and felt betrayed when Israel joined Great Britain and France in the 1956 Sinai Campaign, independently. Still, while pressuring Israel to retreat, Eisenhower affirmed their common need as democracies to fight Communism, because “the people of Israel, like those of the United States, are imbued with a religious faith and a sense of moral values.”
John F. Kennedy would be the first president to sell defensive weapons to Israel. It took Lyndon Johnson and the threats to destroy Israel culminating in the 1967 war, for America to become Israel’s central arms supplier.
Shortly after the Six Day War, Johnson hosted Soviet premier Alexei Kosygin. Johnson recalled Kosygin saying “he couldn’t understand why we’d want to support the Jews – three million people, when there are a hundred million Arabs. I told him that numbers do not determine what was right.”
Sentimental and shrewd, Johnson bound America and Israel together with an idea David Ben-Gurion articulated. In 1953, Israel’s founding prime minister estimated the population ratio between Israel and the Arabs as 1 to 60; the territorial ratio was 1 to 3,000. Ben-Gurion concluded that Israel must maintain a qualitative military edge (QME) over such mammoth adversaries.
LBJ made the QME a fundamental American commitment – in weaponry, soldiering, and strategy. In 2008, Congress codified this promise, obligating every president to ensure Israel’s QME, guaranteeing Israel “superior military means.”
Essential partnership
While establishing the foundations of the US-Israel partnership, these four administrations inspired what I call in my forthcoming The Essential Guide to the US-Israel Partnership four benchmarks for assessing any alliance:
The Truman Test: Does supporting Israel – or any ally – align with American values?
The Marshall Test: Does supporting Israel – or any ally – strengthen America militarily?
The Eisenhower Test: Does supporting Israel – or any ally – advance America’s diplomatic agenda and enhance its global standing?
The JFK-LBJ “vibe” test: Does supporting Israel – or any ally – feel right, in the White House, in Congress, on the American street? Are the two nations true friends?
In 1973, under president Richard Nixon, another turning point occurred. Israel’s swift comeback from the Yom Kippur War surprise attack – aided by America’s airlift – provided the Pentagon with warehouses of Soviet weaponry and insights from Israeli strategies defeating Soviet-trained Arab fighters. America’s military community flipped. Former skeptics suddenly appreciated Israel’s flow of intelligence, technology, expertise, and experience. America’s F-16 jet fighter incorporated over 600 Israeli-initiated modifications, saving the manufacturer Lockheed Martin billions in research-and-development dollars.
Since then, the relationship keeps strengthening both democracies. Israel is the DIY (Defend it Yourself) ally and the ROI ally, offering America the best return on its relatively minimal investment. By the 1980s, Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, Gen. Alexander Haig – once suspicious – branded Israel “America’s largest aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk.” The Air Force Intelligence chief Gen. George Keegan called Israel’s intelligence contribution “equal to five CIAs.”
Remarkably, despite various political and strategic tensions with every administration, the two countries keep growing more intertwined, militarily, diplomatically, culturally, existentially. The cooperation since October 7, especially during the two Iran wars, has been remarkable.
Right to exist
Paradoxically, the systematic campaign questioning Israel’s right to exist and demonizing its war of self-defense against Hamas has softened popular support. No one knows whether this is a temporary response to today’s anti-Zionist mania, left and right, or a permanent shift.
Older Americans and more religious Americans remain most supportive. Many recognize how anti-Americanism feeds much anti-Zionism, as the haters burn American and Israeli flags together.
Shared values, interests, and – today – challenges connect these two modern democracies. Five “languages of love” capture five gates different Americans enter, building this friendship:
Biblical Zionism sees Israel and America as two entwined promised lands.
Liberal-democratic Zionism celebrates both countries as “over the rainbow” democracies, driven by catalytic, world-changing, ideas: “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” … “to be a free people in our homeland.”
National-security Zionism affirms, as president Joe Biden said, that “if there were not an Israel, we’d have to invent one.”
Progressive Zionism protects Israel, the only democracy amid a sea of Middle Eastern totalitarians.
Transactional Zionism simply appreciates, as Vice President JD Vance said in 2024, that “we want our allies to be like Israel – strong, independent, and capable of defending their own interests so we don’t have to.”
No one knows whether Israel’s popularity will rebound. But, as America celebrates its 250th, Israelis – and lovers of democracy worldwide – keep saying “God Bless America” in appreciation, even as most Americans still say “and God bless Israel, too.”■
The writer is an American presidential historian and a senior fellow in Zionist thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem. Last year he published To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream and The Essential Guide to Zionism, Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism and Jew-hatred, available on the JPPI website. This month, he will publish The Essential Guide to the US-Israel Partnership, the 250th Edition.