The Trump administration’s direct negotiations with Hamas have broken precedent and angered Israel. Envoy Adam Boehler defended them to CNN saying the U.S. is “not an agent of Israel,” but how much daylight exists between the allies?
Tom Friedman created minor shockwaves when he wrote the Biden administration is “reassessing” the U.S.-Israeli relationship, but actual U.S. policy remains committed to Israel and the “shared fiction” that the occupation is temporary .
The Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli military outfit housed at Tel Aviv University, just delivered its strategic assessment report, and the main takeaway is that Israel’s “special relationship” with the US is in danger.
The change is attributed to a generational shift in American politics due to “the influence that the progressive young generation has had in denying the legitimacy of Israel and Zionism, which they see as expressions of white-colonialist supremacy.”
Fresh off the House resolution condemning boycotts of Israel that passed by 398-17, Republicans call on Democrats to put real teeth in the measure by enabling state laws that forbid contracts with BDS supporters.
Gil Maguire’s new novel, “The Exodus Betrayal,” imagines a US president siding with Iran after Israel attacks Iran, and it is intended to get Americans out of love with Israel, much as “Exodus” got us in love back in 1958. “I am trying to show how harmful our relationship with Israel has become and how the so-called special relationship is based on a myth of Israel’s importance,” Maguire says.
Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer says that Israel will be the most important ally to the U.S. in the 21st century because of security threats from the Middle East and because Israel is in the “elite” of technology innovating countries, surpassing Britain.
Ambassador David Friedman’s religious remarks in Jerusalem Tuesday went well beyond his comment that Israel is “on the side of God.” Friedman likened the US-Israel relationship to the “altar” in the original Jewish temple in Jerusalem and called the embassy a “shrine” that people pray to and thank God for, and said the U.S. and Israel need to advance the relationship toward greater “holiness.”