Since the 1960s, the relationship between Israel and the United States has grown into a close alliance in economic, strategic and military aspects. The U.S. has provided strong support for Israel; it has played a key role in the promotion of good relations between Israel and its neighbouring Arab states. In turn, Israel provides a strategic American foothold in the region as well as intelligence and advanced technological partnerships. Relations with Israel are an important factor in the U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.
Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid: up to February 2022, the U.S. had provided Israel US$150 billion (non-inflation-adjusted) in assistance.US Foreign Aid to Israel . Updated February 18, 2022 The United States' first free trade agreement was with Israel, in 1985. In 1999, the U.S. government signed a commitment to provide Israel with at least US$2.7 billion in military aid annually for ten years; in 2009 it was raised to $3 billion; and in 2019 raised to a minimum of US. The bulk of the U.S. money that Israel receives is used to buy military equipment from American companies. Since 1972, the U.S. has also extended loan guarantees to Israel to assist with housing shortages, absorption of new Jewish immigrants and economic recovery.
In addition to financial and military aid, the U.S. provides large-scale political support, having used its United Nations Security Council veto power 42 times against resolutions condemning Israel, out of 83 times in which its veto has been used. Between 1991 and 2011, out of the 24 vetoes invoked by the U.S., 15 were used to protect Israel. , the United States remains the only permanent member of the United Nations Security Council to have recognized the Golan Heights as non-occupied Israeli sovereign territory, recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and moved its embassy there from Tel Aviv in 2018. Israel is designated by the United States as a major non-NATO ally.
Bilateral relations have developed from an early American policy of sympathy and support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in 1948 to a partnership that connects the United States – a superpower seeking to balance competing interests in the Middle East – with Israel, a small but militarily powerful nation. Late U.S. senator Jesse Helms argued that the military foothold offered by Israel justifies the expense of American military aid, referring to Israel as "America's aircraft carrier in the Middle East".
Country comparison Leaders of Israel and the United States from 1950
History
Support for Zionism among American Jews was minimal, until the involvement of Louis Brandeis in the Federation of American Zionists,Josef Fraenkel, Patriot, Judge, and Zionist starting in 1912 and the establishment of the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs in 1914; it was empowered by the Zionist Organization "to deal with all Zionist matters, until better times come".Jeffrey S. Gurock, American Zionism: mission and politics, p. 144, citing Jacob De Haas, Louis D. Brandeis (New York: 1929) and Chaim Weizmann, Trial and Error (Philadelphia:1949). vol. I, p. 165
Woodrow Wilson, who was sympathetic to the plight of Jews in Europe and favorable to Zionist objectives (giving his assent to the text of the Balfour Declaration shortly before its release) stated on March 2, 1919, "I am persuaded that the Allied nations with the fullest concurrence of our own Government and people are agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundation of a future Jewish commonwealth" and on April 16, 1919, corroborated the U.S. government's "expressed acquiescence" in the Balfour Declaration.Walworth (1986) 473–83, esp. p. 481; Melvin I. Urofsky, American Zionism from Herzl to the Holocaust, (1995) ch. 6; Frank W. Brecher, Reluctant Ally: United States Foreign Policy toward the Jews from Wilson to Roosevelt. (1991) chapters 1–4. Wilson's statements did not result in a change in policy of the U.S. State Department in favor of Zionist aims. However, the U.S. Congress passed the Lodge–Fish Resolution,Walter John Raymond, Dictionary of politics: selected American and foreign political and legal terms, p. 287 the first joint resolution stating its support for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" on September 21, 1922.John Norton Moore, ed., The Arab Israeli Conflict III: Documents, American Society of International Law (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974), p. 107–8 The same day, the Mandate of Palestine was approved by the Council of the League of Nations.
During World War II, while U.S. foreign policy decisions were often ad hoc moves and solutions dictated by the demands of the war, the Zionist movement made a fundamental departure from traditional Zionist policy and its stated goals, at the Biltmore Conference in May 1942.American Jewish Year Book Vol. 45 (1943–1944) Pro-Palestine and Zionist Activities, pp. 206–214 Previous stated policy towards establishing a Jewish "national home" in Palestine were gone; these were replaced with its new policy "that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth" like other nations, in cooperation with the United States, not Britain.Michael Oren, Power, Faith and Fantasy, Decision at Biltmore, pp. 442–445: Convening in the art deco dining halls of New York's Biltmore Hotel in May 1942, Zionist representatives approved an eight-point plan that, for the first time, explicitly called for the creation of a "Jewish Commonwealth integrated in the structure of the new democratic world". Gone were the proposals for an amorphous Jewish national home in Palestine, for carving out Jewish cantons and delineating autonomous regions with an overarching Arab state. Similarly, effaced was the long-standing Zionist assumption that Palestine's fate would be decided in London. Instead, the delegates agreed that the United States constituted the new Zionist "battleground" and that Washington would have the paramount say in the struggle for Jewish sovereignty. Henceforth the Zionist movement would strive for unqualified Jewish independence in Palestine, for a state with recognized borders, republican institutions, and a sovereign Army, to be attained in cooperation with America. Two attempts by Congress in 1944 to pass resolutions declaring U.S. government support for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine were objected to by the Departments of War and State, because of wartime considerations and Arab opposition to the creation of a Jewish state. The resolutions were permanently dropped.Rubenberg, p.27-28
Following the war, the "new postwar era witnessed an intensive involvement of the United States in the political and economic affairs of the Middle East, in contrast to the hands-off attitude characteristic of the prewar period. In Truman's administration the United States had to face and define its policy in all three sectors that provided the root causes of American interests in the region: the Soviet threat, the birth of Israel, and petroleum."
The United States was the first country to recognize the State of Israel on May 14, 1948.
Recognition of the State of Israel
Previous American presidents, although encouraged by active support from members of the American and world Jewish communities, as well as domestic civic groups, labor unions, and political parties, supported the Jewish homeland concept, alluded to in Britain's 1917 Balfour Declaration, they officially continued to "acquiesce". Throughout the Roosevelt and Truman administrations, the Departments of War and State recognized the possibility of a Soviet-Arab connection and the potential Arab restriction on oil supplies to the U.S., and advised against U.S. intervention on behalf of the Jews. With continuing conflict in the area and worsening humanitarian conditions among Holocaust survivors in Europe, on November 29, 1947, and with U.S. support, the United Nations General Assembly adopted as Resolution 181, the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, which recommended the adoption and implementation of a Plan of Partition with Economic Union. The voting was heavily lobbied by Zionist supporters, which President Harry Truman later noted,Lenczowski, American Presidents and the Middle East, p. 28, cite, Harry S. Truman, Memoirs 2, p. 158. The facts were that not only were there pressure movements around the United Nations unlike anything that had been seen there before, but that the White House, too, was subjected to a constant barrage. I do not think I ever had as much pressure and propaganda aimed at the White House as I had in this instance. The persistence of a few of the extreme Zionist leaders—actuated by a political motive and engaging in political threats—disturbed and annoyed me. and rejected by the Arabs.
As the end of the mandate approached, the decision to recognize the Jewish state remained contentious, with significant disagreement between Truman, his domestic and campaign adviser, Clark Clifford, and both the State Department and Defense Department. Truman, while sympathetic to the Zionist cause—and personally lobbied for recognition by old friend Eddie Jacobson—was most concerned about relieving the plight of the displaced persons; Secretary of State George Marshall feared U.S. backing of a Jewish state would harm relations with the Muslim world, limit access to Middle Eastern oil, and destabilize the region. On May 12, 1948, Truman met with Secretary of State Marshall, Under Secretary of State Robert A. Lovett, Counsel to the President Clark Clifford, and others to discuss the Palestine situation. Clifford argued in favor of recognizing the new Jewish state in accordance with the partition resolution. Marshall opposed Clifford's arguments, contending that they were based on domestic political considerations in the election year. The Secretary of State said that, if Truman followed Clifford's advice and recognized the Jewish state, then Marshall would vote against Truman in the election. Truman did not clearly state his views in the meeting.
Two days later, on May 14, 1948, the United States, under Truman, became the first country to extend any form of recognition. This happened within hours of the Jewish People's Council gathering at the Tel Aviv Museum and David Ben-Gurion declaring "the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel". The phrase "in Eretz Israel" is the only place in the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel containing any reference to the location of the new State.
The text of the communication from the provisional government of Israel to Truman was as follows:
The text of the United States recognition was as follows:
With this unexpected decision, U.S. representative to the United Nations Warren Austin, whose team had been working on an alternative trusteeship proposal, shortly thereafter left his office at the UN and went home. Secretary of State Marshall sent a State Department official to the United Nations to prevent the entire United States delegation from resigning. De jure recognition came on January 31, 1949.
Following UN mediation by American Ralph Bunche, the 1949 Armistice Agreements ended the 1948 Arab Israeli War. Related to enforcement of the armistice, the United States signed the Tripartite Declaration of 1950 with Britain and France. In it, they pledged to take action within and outside the United Nations to prevent violations of the frontiers or armistice lines; outlined their commitment to peace and stability in the area and their opposition to the use or threat of force; and reiterated their opposition to the development of an arms race in the region.