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Israel’s Evolution into a Force-Multiplier for the USA

Pre-1967

In 1948, the CIA opposed the reestablishment of the Jewish State, contending that it would be a feeble entity, unable to withstand an all-out Arab war – which would yield a second Holocaust in less than ten years – fully dependent on US soldiers for its survival, jeopardize US ties with the Arab World, imperil US access to Persian Gulf oil, and probably join the Soviet Bloc.

The State Department and the Pentagon, along with the New York Times and Washington Post, seconded the CIA assessment.

On the other hand, Clark Clifford, President Truman’s trusted advisor, who dedicated much time to studying the track record of Jewish sovereignty in Middle East history, impressed upon the President that an independent Jewish State would be a most effective military power, reliable, stable and inherently pro-US.

Clifford was absolutely right, while the State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA, the New York Times and the Washington Post were resoundingly wrong.

Following the impressive Israeli military performance in the 1948/49 War of Independence, General Omar Bradley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff, recommended that Israel be considered a favored strategic ally, since “the Israeli army would be the most effective force south of Turkey, which could be utilized to delaying action [in the case of a Soviet invasion]….”

The 1967 Six Day War

Since the 1967 Six Day War Israeli military victory over Egypt, Syria and Jordan, the US national security establishment has recognized the potency of Israel to advance regional and global US national security interests, which supersede the Palestinian issue.

Unlike NATO, South Korea and Japan, Israel has extended the strategic arm of the US with no need for US military personnel.

Thus, Israel has been transformed from a misperceived geo-strategic hinderance to a proven geo-strategic force-multiplier for the USA.

The June 1967 military victory dramatically transformed Israel from a strategic liability/burden to a strategic asset for the US.  The Israeli victory devastated the Egyptian military, at a time when the pro-Soviet Egyptian President Nasser was on his way to become the pan-Arab leader.  Nasser actively attempted to topple the highly-vulnerable regimes in Saudi Arabia and all other pro-US Arab oil-producing countries, at a time when the US was heavily dependent upon the importation of Persian Gulf oil.  Moreover, 70,000 Egyptian soldiers were involved in a civil war in Yemen, attempting to employ Yemen as a springboard to topple the House of Saud in Riyadh. The resounding Israeli victory aborted Nasser’s anti-US plan and led the way to the demise of the anti-US Nasser era. It spared the US a huge economic and national security setback, and denied the USSR a climactic geo-strategic gold mine.

25 US military experts went to Israel for three months to study the lessons of the 1967 Six Day War, including the scrutiny of advantages and disadvantages of the captured Soviet military systems, returning to the US with top heavy information, which upgraded the performance of the US armed forces and defense industries.

Post-1967

As a result of the benefits derived by the US, a team of 50 experts arrived in Israel for six months following the 1973 War, collecting thicker volumes of information, which benefited the US militarily and industrially, and bolstered the US defense of Europe in the face of Soviet threats.

The December 1969 “Operation Rooster 53” – during the War of Attrition between Egypt and Israel – highlighted Israel’s unique intelligence and battle tactic capabilities, which have been shared with the US.  An Israeli commando unit snatched from Egypt a game-changing Soviet P-12 radar system, which was superior to similar US systems, and was stationed throughout the world. The Soviet radar was studied by Israel and transferred to the US, as was the case with additional Soviet military systems, enhancing the capabilities of the US intelligence, armed forces and defense industries.

According to the late Senator Daniel Inouye (HI-D), who was a Chairman of the Appropriations and Intelligence Committees, the value of the Soviet radar to the US defense industries and armed forces was around $3bn.

In 1966 and 1989 Israel acquired Mig-21 and Mig-23 Soviet combat planes through Iraqi and Syrian pilots, who found refuge in Israel. The planes were shared with the US, impacting the global balance of power and the US Air Force performance.

In 1970, Israel manifested its posture of deterrence, when buttressing its military presence on the Syria-Israel-Jordan border (Golan Heights) in response to a pro-Soviet Syrian invasion of the pro-US Jordan. The Israeli deployment convinced Syria to pull back its invading troops from militarily-inferior Jordan. The Israeli show of force spared the US either a loss of an Arab ally (the late King Hussein), or the need to get involved militarily in an intra-Arab war. The potential toppling of the Hashemite regime in Jordan could have triggered ripple effects into the neighboring Arabian Peninsula, threatening the existence of the pro-US Arab oil-producing regimes, handing the USSR a geo-strategic bonanza.

The lessons of the 1976 Entebbe Operation – which underscored Israel as a role model of counter-terrorism – were shared with the US intelligence and special operations forces.

The 1978/79 toppling of the Shah of Iran (“the US policeman of the Gulf”) and the 2003 rise of Erdogan to the presidency of Turkey – two countries, which were transformed from key allies of the US to key enemies/adversaries – reflected the inherently transient allegiance of Middle East regimes, unlike the uniquely reliable, effective and democratic nature of Israel.

The 1981 Israeli destruction of Iraq’s nuclear reactor – in defiance of fierce US opposition – spared the US the potential devastation of a nuclear confrontation during the 1991 Gulf War. It saved the pro-US oil-producing Arab regimes from the jaws of Saddam Hussein.

The 2007 Israeli destruction of the Syria-North Korea-Iran nuclear reactor, spared the region and the globe the potential of a nuclearized civil war in Syria

The 1982 Israeli destruction of 29 Soviet surface-to-air missile batteries operated by Syria – stationed in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and perceived to be impregnable – along with the downing of 82 Soviet Mig combat planes, reinforced Israel’s role as a unique force-multiplier for the US in the areas of critical intelligence, game-changing battle tactics and jamming technologies.

The 1990 disintegration of the USSR transformed the bi-polar world to a multi-polar world. While the Israeli military and technological capabilities well-served the US during the bi-polar Cold War, they have become much more significant in the emerging multi-polar world, with the proliferation of many rogue terror regimes and organizations, threatening the US and the Free World.

The 2010 eruption of tectonic violence on the Arab Street (“Arab Spring”), which is still raging, has exposed the intrinsic intra-Arab violence and the inherently unstable, unpredictable and tenuous nature of Arab regimes, contrary to the stable, reliable, effective and democratic Israel.

Israel’s 2021 posture of deterrence has constrained the military maneuverability of Iran and Russia in Syria, and has bolstered the stability of the pro-US Hashemite regime in Jordan in the face of existential threats by Palestinian, the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS terrorism. It has buttressed the national security of the pro-US Arab regimes in the Arabian Peninsula; has served as the first line of defense of Western democracies in the face of Islamic terrorism; and has spared the US the need to deploy to the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean additional aircraft carriers and ground divisions.

If there were an Israel-like entity in the Persian Gulf, the US could terminate its military presence in the region.

In 2021, US-Israel relations are a mutually-beneficial two-way-street. The US makes an annual investment in – rather than extending foreign aid to – Israel, which yields to the US taxpayer an annual rate-of-return of several hundred percent.

Support Appreciated

 

 

 




Videos

The post-1967 turning point of US-Israel cooperation

Israeli benefits to the US taxpayer exceed US foreign aid to Israel

Iran - A Clear And Present Danger To The USA

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US-sponsored anti-Israel UN Security Council statement – acumen

*The US’ co-sponsorship of an anti-Israel UN Security Council Statement reflects the return of the State Department’s worldview to the center stage of US foreign policy-making. This was the first time, in six years, that the US enabled the UN Security Council to act against Israel.

*This is not merely a worldview, which is highly critical of Israel, as has been the case since 1948, when Foggy Bottom led the charge against the re-establishment of the Jewish State.

This worldview has systematically undermined US interests, by subordinating the unilateral, independent US national security policy (on Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian issue, etc.) to a multilateral common denominator with the anti-US and anti-Israel UN and international organizations, as well as the vacillating and terrorists-appeasing Europe.

*It has sacrificed Middle East reality on the altar of wishful-thinking, assuming that the establishment of a Palestinian state would fulfill Palestinian aspirations, advance the cause of peace, reduce terrorism and regional instability; thus, enhancing US interests.

*However, the reality of the Middle East and Jordan and the rogue Palestinian track record lend credence to the assumption that a Palestinian state west of the Jordan River would doom the pro-US Hashemite regime east of the River, yielding traumatic ripple effects, regionally and globally:

^Replace the relatively-moderate Hashemite regime with either a rogue Palestinian regime, a Muslim Brotherhood regime, or other rogue regimes;
^Transform Jordan into a chaotic state, similar to Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, which would be leveraged by Iran’s Ayatollahs to intensify their encirclement of the pro-US Saudi regime;
^Convert Jordan into a major arena of regional and global Islamic terrorism;
^Trigger a domino scenario into the Arabian Peninsula, which could topple all pro-US, oil-producing Arab regimes;
^Imperil the supply of Persian Gulf oil, which would be held hostage by anti-US entities, catapulting the price at the pump;
^Jeopardize major naval routes of global trade between Asia and Europe through the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal;
^Intensify epicenters of regional and global terrorism and drug trafficking;
^Generate a robust tailwind to US’ adversaries (Russia and China) and enemies (Iran’s Ayatollahs, the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS) and a powerful headwind to US economic and national security interests.

*The State Department assumes that Palestinian terrorism – just like Islamic terrorism – is driven by despair, ignoring the fact that Palestinian terrorism has been driven (for the last 100 years) by the vision to erase the “infidel” Jewish entity from “the abode of Islam,” as stated by the charters of Fatah (1959) and the PLO (1964), 8 and 3 years before the Jewish State reunited Jerusalem and reasserted itself in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).

*Aspiring for a Palestinian state, and viewing Israel’s control of Judea and Samaria as an obstacle to peace, ignores the Arab view of the Palestinians as a role model of intra-Arab subversion, terrorism, corruption and treachery. Moreover, the State Department has held the view that the Palestinian issue is the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict and a central to Arab interests, which has been refuted by the Abraham Accords. The latter ignored the State Department, sidestepped the Palestinian issue and therefore came to fruition.

*The State Department overlooks the centrality of the Palestinian Authority’s hate education, which has become the most effective production-line of terrorists, and the most authentic reflection of the Palestinian Authority’s worldview and vision.

*The State Department has also taken lightly the Palestinian Authority’s mosque incitement, public glorification of terrorists and monthly allowances to families of terrorists, which have documented its rogue and terroristic nature (walk), notwithstanding its peaceful diplomatic rhetoric (talk).

*The State Department’s eagerness to welcome the Palestinian issue in a “red carpet” manner – contrary to the “shabby doormat” extended to Palestinians by Arabs – and its determination to promote the establishment of a Palestinian state, along with its embrace of Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood, have been interpreted by rogue regimes and organizations as weakness.

Experience suggests that weakness invites the wolves, including wolves which aim to bring “The Great Satan” to submission throughout the world as well as the US mainland.

Support Appreciated

 




Videos

The post-1967 turning point of US-Israel cooperation

Israeli benefits to the US taxpayer exceed US foreign aid to Israel

Iran - A Clear And Present Danger To The USA

Exposing the myth of the Arab demographic time bomb