Near the end of the Israel-Iran War, and just after Iran’s Fordow enrichment center, the president of the United States gave some unusual criticism to Israel. According to him, a day later, he was effusive in his praise for the prime minister of Israel and the famous war criminal Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu, but given the control of the death that Israel has about US politics, the fact that any criticism has been done in sight is interesting.
We now know that many US presidents have taken exactly together with Israel’s leaders and, in fact, have had problems with many of Israel’s actions, but this is generally done behind closed doors.
If I had one hundred dollars for every time I read a ‘filtration’ or ‘internal first’ about how disgusted, angry or even livid, former President Joe Biden had been with Netanyahu during the genocide of Gaza in progress, could withdraw a good part of Pakistan’s debt. Of course, the military, economic and diplomatic support of the United States for Israel reached new heights under Biden, so private criticisms, if there are, do not really matter.
Obama himself once avoided visiting Israel after his Cairo’s speech, and it is known that his own relations with Netanyahu were tense, but this had no real effect on the American-Israeli relationship.
Bill Clinton was very similar, with many experts and journalists talking about his private frustration with Netanyahu about the so -called peace process, but private opprobrium never resulted in public action.
But the further back you go, you see that there was a time when the words coincided with the action, or at least for the threat of action. In this case, we can refer when George HW Bush threatened to retain loans worth $ 10 billion of Israel in 1992 if he persisted with buildings settlements in occupied West Bank.
But it is Ronald Reagan who obtains the greatest credit between the presidents after 1973 for a slightly standing to Israel after the Osirak reactor of Iraq bombed in 1981. He suspended the delivery of F-16 planes and voted in favor of a resolution of the Security Council that condemns Israel. A year later, when Israel invaded Lebanon, Reagan not only demanded an immediate withdrawal but also temporarily restricted military aid.
That help had become crucial for Israel’s own existence; The 1973 Arab-Israeli war was a turning point in the American-Israeli relationship, with Nixon launching operation Nickel Grass, an air bridge of military supplies that perhaps exceeded the volume of Berlin’s rear. These supplies allowed Israel to continue fighting war and marked the moment when the United States completely committed to Israel’s protection.
Things have not always been soft between Israel and the United States.
Before this, there were severe strains that were close to derailing, but never derailed, the central relationship. Like when Kennedy led Israel to the task about its nuclear program, insisting that it allows inspections of its Dimona nuclear installation.
If this would have led to a serious dispute is now a purely academic question, since Kennedy was killed shortly after. Interestingly, Republican and Hardcore Maga congresswoman adherent to Marjorie Taylor Greene recently alluded to that murder in a tweet, writing: “Once upon a time there was a great president that the US people loved.
A few years after that, during the 1967 War, the Israeli Navy and the Air Force attacked a US Navy ship. Uu., The freedom of the USS, which was parked north of the Peninsula of the Sinai of Egypt. In an assault that lasted more than an hour, 34 crew members were killed and about 200 injured. While Israel to this day states that this was a case of wrong identity, the survivors of the attack insist that it was deliberate, and that the ship was clearly marked as an American. Compensation was paid and the matter was effectively covered.
But the lowest point in relations between the United States and Israel had already gone and came in the form of the 1956 Suez crisis, when Israel associated with Great Britain and France to invade Egypt. The colonial-seter state had been hungry for land since its inception, and Great Britain and France wanted to cling to their remaining colonial glory.
However, the president of the United States, Eisenhower, had none of that, and issued orders to march to the triple invaders, forcing a retirement. Of course, the United States was also motivated by his fear of being involved in a largest cold war conflict at this stage.
At the same time, the Pro-Israel elements were working diligently to expand Israel’s influence in the United States, especially founding Aipac in 1954, partly to counteract the ‘negative reactions’ to the massacre of Palestinian Aldeans of Israel the same year.
Since then, Aipac has become a formidable force, but it is increasingly immune to criticism, and we have seen hardcore magic as the aforementioned Greene and Thomas Massie publicly criticize their influence and methods.
The writer is a journalist.
X: @zarrakhuhro
Posted in Dawn, June 30, 2025
