It’s hard not to see some symbolism in the coinciding of three events this week: Israeli Independence Day, a rainstorm over areas of Israel scorched by a raging wildfire, and the U.S. and Ukraine signing a mineral deal.
To back up: Today is Yom Ha’atzmaut, the day Israelis celebrate the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish people’s ancient land. Because Israel is still relatively young as a nation state—77 years—Jews around the world each year still contemplate the meaning of that independence. It’s worth noting that current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu became, in 1996, the first Israeli premier to have been born in the state after it achieved statehood. Indeed, Israel was not yet 18 months old when Bibi was born.
So as strong and successful as Israel has become in those 77 years, its existence isn’t taken for granted. And each year, I wonder how it would fare in today’s political climate were it to be born under the same war conditions.
Israel was subject to a wide arms embargo when five combined Arab armies set upon it at birth. If Israel were to start from scratch today, it would meet plenty of hostility from the West. The pressures of internal Democratic Party politics would make siding with Israel a nonstarter. Progressives have increasingly turned away from a two-state solution toward acceptance of the idea that Israel simply doesn’t deserve to belong to the family of nations, and a do-over would give them the opportunity to right what they have come to see as a historical wrong.
Republicans, meanwhile, have become the more reliable pro-Israel party, a turn that arguably began in earnest after 9/11 drove home for many Americans the commonalities between the two states’ strategic and moral concerns. But Israel’s strength makes it a more attractive ally to an influential portion of the GOP than it might otherwise be.
Last May, JD Vance—now the vice president—gave a speech to an isolationist think tank in which he made the case for U.S. support for Israel. This in itself was a positive development, because the isolationist/retrenchment wing of the conservative movement needed to be told that while some of the winds of change were blowing within the conservative coalition, going forward Israel would remain a cherished ally of the United States.
But Vance’s defense of Israel was pitted against his distaste for Ukraine as an ally. And it wasn’t hard to see the conditional nature of his defense of Israel lurking beneath the kind words:
“Israel is one of the most dynamic, certainly on a per capita basis, one of the most dynamic and technologically advanced countries in the world…. We have to sort of ask ourselves, what do we want out of our Israeli allies? And more importantly, what do we want out of all of our allies writ large? Do we want clients who depend on us, who can’t do anything without us? Or do we want real allies who can actually advance their interests on their own with America playing a leadership role.”
Pre-state Israel was far from the Start-up Nation it is today. Would an isolationist-leaning rising Republican star in 1948 have given anything like this speech?
There was a version of Oct. 7 in which Israel was fully prepared for Hamas’s planned attack, and countered it deftly. But there is also a version of that day in which Israel’s very existence was put at risk: Had Iran’s proxies in Lebanon and the West Bank and perhaps even Yemen and Syria joined the war at the moment of launch, along with—as Jonathan Foreman pointed out on the COMMENTARY podcast recently—intifada-style uprisings within Israel’s borders, the Jewish state might have been on its back foot fighting for its life.
Vance’s approach toward allyship is very clearly seen in the Trump administration’s dealings with Ukraine. The minerals deal signed between Ukraine and the U.S. yesterday was far better than earlier iterations of the agreement suggested it would be. That is a pleasant surprise. But nonetheless underpinning the deal is the idea that the U.S. must get some tangible benefit out of even being associated with Ukraine, for the days of significant military aid to Kiev are surely over. What would happen if Israel were in a similar position?
And yet, all is not so bleak. After all, in 1948 the U.S. security establishment (which today is supportive of Israel) and its diplomatic corps (which today is still shot-through with obnoxious borderline anti-Zionism) thought recognizing Israel’s existence at the moment of its founding would be a colossal strategic error. Gen. George Marshall, one of the heroic figures of America’s 20th century rise to power, shared this timidness.
But his boss didn’t. And here is where the miraculous-seeming rain on Israel’s worst wildfire in memory comes in. Harry Truman became president through an unusual combination of factors. Yet there he was, in May 1948, ordering the United States government to recognize the fledgling state of Israel 11 minutes after it was born.
America has a history of producing great men and women at the moments they are needed. Israel’s success is itself a story of greatness—but also of miracles. The past 77 years have been a great credit to the Jewish people and the American people, vindicating all those who kept the faith in good times and bad.
