Israel–United States relations
Since the 1960s, the United States has been a strong supporter of Israel. It has played a key role in the promotion of good relations between Israel and its neighbouring Arab states—notably Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt—while holding off hostility from countries such as Syria and Iran. Relations with Israel are an important factor in the U.S. government's overall foreign policy in the Middle East, and the U.S. Congress has placed considerable importance on the maintenance of a supportive relationship.
Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid: up to February 2022, the US had provided Israel US$150 billion (non-inflation-adjusted) in assistance. In 1999, the US 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$3.8 billion. Since 1972, the US has also extended loan guarantees to Israel to assist with housing shortages, absorption of new Jewish immigrants and economic recovery. Moreover, the United States is Israel's largest trading partner; two-way trade totaled nearly $50 billion by 2023.
Quotes
- Mr. Speaker, Perhaps the greatest challenge Israel and the United States face at this time together is the Iranian nuclear program. Let there be no doubt: Iran does not strive to attain nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Iran -- Iran is building nuclear capabilities that pose a threat to the stability of the Middle East and beyond. Every country or region controlled or infiltrated by Iran has experienced utter havoc. We have seen this in Yemen, in Gaza, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Iraq. In fact, we have seen this in Iran itself, where the regime has lost its people and is suppressing them brutally. Iran has spread hatred, terror, and suffering throughout the Middle East and beyond, adding fuel to the disastrous fire and suffering in Ukraine.
- Isaac Herzog, Address to a Joint Meeting of the U.S. Congress, delivered 19 July 2023, U.S. Capitol Building, Washington, D.C.
- Nearly all the words and phrases used by the Democrats, Republicans and the talking heads on the media to describe the unrest inside Israel and the heaviest Israeli assault against the Palestinians since the 2014 attacks on Gaza, which lasted 51 days and killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, including 551 children, are a lie. Israel, by employing its military machine against an occupied population that does not have mechanized units, an air force, navy, missiles, heavy artillery and command-and-control, not to mention a U.S. commitment to provide a $38 billion defense aid package for Israel over the next decade, is not exercising “the right to defend itself.” It is carrying out mass murder. It is a war crime.
- Chris Hedges, Israel, the Big Lie Scheerpost, May 14, 2021
- The International Criminal Court (ICC's) mandate to investigate war crimes has thus been hampered by the unwillingness of the world’s sole superpower to commit to the organization.... Recent statements...suggest that the United States is now preparing to go to war against the ICC itself, motivated largely by an effort to silence investigations into alleged American war crimes committed in Afghanistan, as well as alleged crimes committed by Israel during the 2014 war in the Gaza Strip....The unwillingness or inability of U.S. courts to seriously investigate war crimes carried out by American citizens is part of why the ICC mandate in Afghanistan has been viewed as an important effort to bring a minimum level of accountability over the conflict.
- We have negotiated one of the most complicated issues of the last hundred years. We are grateful to the United States for its support and leadership. We are grateful to both President Clinton and Secretary Christopher for their crucial role. We appreciate the Egyptian role and the Norwegian encouragement, the European involvement and serious contribution [for] the Asian support and blessing. May we now have the right to say to other people in conflict: "Don't give up. Do not surrender to old obsessions and do not take fresh disappointments at face value." What we did others can do as well. Mr. President, we are determined to make the agreement with the Palestinians into a permanent success. Israel would consider an economic success of the Palestinians as though it were its own; and I believe that a newly-achieved security will serve the aspirations of the Israelis and the necessities of the Palestinians. Gaza, after 7,000 years of suffering, can emancipate itself from want. Jericho, without her fallen walls, can see her gardens blossom again.
- Shimon Peres, 48th United Nations General Assembly Address, delivered 28 September 1993, New York, NY
- The U.S. corporate media usually report on Israeli military assaults in occupied Palestine as if the United States is an innocent neutral party to the conflict. In fact, large majorities of Americans have told pollsters for decades that they want the United States to be neutral in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But U.S. media and politicians betray their own lack of neutrality by blaming Palestinians for nearly all the violence and framing flagrantly disproportionate, indiscriminate and therefore illegal Israeli attacks as a justifiable response to Palestinian actions.
- Anziska quotes the Israeli intellectual Amos Oz: “After Lebanon, we can no longer ignore the monster, even when it is dormant, or half-asleep, or when it peers out from behind the lunatic fringe … It dwells, drowsing, virtually everywhere...” ... Anziska reminds us that America has always shared responsibility for the lopsided competition between Israel and the Palestinians... The US has been complicit in far too many of...[Israel's] useless “victories”.