American Dad

This week: What’s the deal with Israel-United States relations? Why do they change? (Do they change at all?) And why is a tank not a romantic gift?

The relationship between the state of Israel and the United States of America consists of uncompromising loyalty (although with compromises), of warm and supportive closeness (which gets colder and pricklier twice a week), of total exclusivity (when it feels like it), of sincere concern (for budgets), of justice (with vested interests, though), of charisma (like a flowerpot), of constant (and changing) cooperation, of common fields of interest (fear), of real ideological belief (in the need for money and for the military) and of hugs (bear ones) every time they meet. In short, one can generally conclude that Israel-U.S. relations are like the relationship of a couple who has been married for a while.

About Romantics and Tanks

The affair between the U.S. and the Jews began long before the establishment of the state of Israel. Already, by the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, there was the beginning of great waves of immigration from Europe to the U.S. And just like every cool trend originated by goys, the Jews, too, very quickly joined the celebration.

Over the years, the U.S. moved from being a savage country, where people chased each other armed with forks and tried to skewer one another, into the world’s largest palace of democratic justice (where the people chase each other armed with forks and try to skewer one another). And along with the growing strength of the U.S., Jews in the U.S. gathered strength as well, and, in time, became one of the most important groups in American politics.

Eventually, the state of Israel was established, but the U.S. did not pull her hand out of the Mediterranean plate. At the beginning of the merry ‘60s, the relationship between the U.S. and Israel got especially warm, and the U.S. has become Israel’s Number One world partner. In 1962, President Kennedy announced an upgrade in the status of the Israel-U.S. relationship to the level of “a special relationship” (second only to the U.S. relationship with Britain and Canada), and from that point, the golden age in the relationship between Israel and the U.S. began: Like two 16-year-olds in love, the two countries were leaping over hills and mountains, hand in hand, intoxicated with happiness, getting together for long meetings and supplying each other with lots of armored tanks and guided missiles (you know, like every typical 16-year-old couple).

At the beginning of the ‘80s, Israel and the U.S. experienced their first quarrel. Instead of arguing about the U.S. throwing her panties in the middle of the living room, about Israel not cleaning up after herself, or about Washington having forgotten Jerusalem’s birthday, the dispute was about a horrible slaughter which took place at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, when the Israeli Army was in charge of the area.

But the two countries got over the crisis quickly and were back to their lovely intimacy. This intimacy kept warming up, in the course of the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf war, and reached its climax after the Rabin assassination, when Bill Clinton, the American president, rose and eulogized Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin with the famous words he pronounced in Hebrew: “Shalom haver” (Goodbye, friend).

The second quarrel between Israel and the U.S. occurred during Benjamin Netanyahu’s first term, when Clinton and Bibi — how can we put this delicately — did not see eye to eye. The relationship improved when Ehud Barak rose to power in 1999, but hasn’t returned to its happy days.

Obama. Hussein Obama

In the Olmert-Bush epoch, it looked like the relationship was warming up again; however, as soon as their terms were over, new leaders rose in both countries, who also, shall we say, didn’t really see the world in the same way. Overseas, Americans celebrated the election of the first black president, while on our side, in a little more modest manner, our acquaintance — Benjamin Netanyahu — climbed onto the prime minister’s chair. Again.

But contrary to Clinton, Obama seemed to understand something new. Bibi, as he discovered, and all of Israel, are quite in need of the U.S. And if they need us so much, the president told himself, let them sweat a bit. Obama began again to pressure the state of Israel to sit for serious negotiations with the Palestinians, in order to solve the conflict in the region. Surely, Bibi made sounds of refusal, but finally has agreed to American terms, and has even frozen building in the settlements, in the face of Israeli right-wing protests.

Certain bodies in the radical-Israeli right wing have made extraordinary efforts to blacken Obama’s face (Yes, yes — a pun). They claimed (and are still claiming) that Obama is a Muslim (because his father — an atheist, as of today — grew up as a Muslim, and because of his middle name, Hussein), nicknamed him the “Destroyer of Israel” (because of the demands he set for Israelis to open negotiations), and even “worse than Hitler” (‘cause he has a little mustache and is particularly ugly, short, with black hair and is yelling in German something about Jews. Ah, just a moment … Actually, no).

Nonetheless, in spite of the protests, the government managed to maintain reasonable relations with the U.S., despite the significant deterioration that continues to worsen. Should this deterioration lead to a considerable rift in relations, the state of Israel would be likely to find itself without the American support it has learned to rely on so much. It may be that some Israelis aren’t too concerned about that possibility, even setting their sights on the new economic world giant — China. That means the only question left is: Are you ready to switch all the McDonald’s branches in Israel to portable noodle stands a la Chow Mein?