Why Israel and the US still need each other more than ever
The reality is that America benefits in many ways from its close relationship with Israel. Perhaps the most obvious is in enhanced national security and deterrence on the world stage.
7 Since the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel, the Jewish nation has helped redrawn the Middle Eastern political map, mostly to the benefit of the US.
SHAWN THEW/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Simply put, Israel's enemies are America's enemies.
Time and again, we see Israel take military or covert action against opponents who have American blood on their hands.
Consider, as but one example, the American tragedy at the remote Tower 22 military outpost, located in the far northeastern corner of Jordan near the tripoint with Syria and Iraq.
7 Pres. Biden's policy of appeasement allowed anti-American factions to operate in the Middle East — often with deadly results.
REUTERS
On January 28, 2024, Iran-backed terrorist militias in Iraq launched a drone assault at Tower 22—one attack drone evaded the outpost's aerial defenses, striking the base and killing three US soldiers while injuring 47 more.
The soldiers' deaths were needless but all-too-predictable, coming as they did after the Biden administration refused, for months, to respond to more than 160 separate Iran-backed attacks on US military bases in the Middle East in the months following Hamas' attack on Israel.
7 Israel's denotation of thousands of pagers in Lebanon used by Hezbollah operatives was a master-stroke in strategic and tactical planning and execution.
@Osint613
On April 1, 2024, the Israel Defense Forces eliminated a top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, in a targeted strike on an auxiliary building adjoining the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria.
Even if Zahedi was not the one who literally ordered that precise drone launch, the deterrent effect against Iran-backed Islamist thugs seeking to maim and kill American military assets overseas was the same.
Truthfully, this same dynamic holds every time Israel takes out an Iranian military or intelligence asset.
Iran is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers and Marines via its infamous roadside improvised explosive devices deployed during the Iraq War. Via its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah, it was also unequivocally culpable for the April 1983 US embassy bombing in Beirut and the October 1983 Beirut barracks bombings that killed 63 innocent civilians and 241 US Marine Corps personnel, respectively.
Other than al-Qaeda and perhaps the Iranian regime itself, no terrorist organization has more American blood on its hands than Hezbollah.
7 The pager operation had been in development for years and took out thousands of Hezbollah fighters.
Abaca Press/INSTARimages
On July 30, 2024, the Israel Defense Forces eliminated top-ranking Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut. Shukr was not merely responsible for the mass murder of 12 Druze (Israeli-Arab) children playing soccer in the Golan Heights the weekend prior, he was also one of the top-ranking Hezbollah officials culpable for the Beirut barracks mass slaughter of US Marines. The State Department had long labeled Fuad Shukr a 'Specially Designated Global Terrorist' and put a $5 million bounty on his head after the Marine barracks bombing.
Decades of inaction followed, but the IDF delivered the goods on July 30, 2024, sending an arch-terrorist with American blood on his hands to the ash heap of history.
History repeated itself less than two months later when the IDF finally decided to escalate meaningfully its military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon after nearly a year of rocket fire that had systematically depopulated the Israeli north.
7 A satellite image of Tower 22, a US military base in Jordan attacked by the Islamic State; three US soldiers were killed.
Planet Labs/AFP via Getty Images
On September 20, 2024, another Israeli airstrike in Beirut eliminated senior Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil. Aqil, like Shukr, had long been classified by the State Department as a 'Specially Designated Global Terrorist' due to his instrumental role in the lethal truck bombing at the US embassy in Beirut. Aqil's bounty, in fact, was two million dollars higher than Shukr's.
One week later, the IDF delivered the Hezbollah grand prize: Hassan Nasrallah, who had led the outfit for more than three decades as its secretary-general, was eliminated in a massive Beirut blast just minutes after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finished a fiery speech at the United Nations.
The Nasrallah strike, in turn, came on the heels of a daring, sophisticated, and brilliant Mossad operation carried out against Hezbollah commandos in Lebanon and Syria: mass Israeli-orchestrated explosions of Hezbollah-held personal pagers, walkie-talkies, and other handheld devices.
Overall, Israel decimated nearly the entirety of Hezbollah's organizational leadership in a matter of weeks in September 2024.
In righteously eliminating so many high-ranking Hezbollah leaders in such a short span, the IDF performed a remarkable public service for the United States military and the American people—a just retribution for the terrible deeds of murderous arch-jihadists with tremendous American blood on their hands, decades in the making on all counts.
Nor was the IDF, during this crucial 2024 stretch, preoccupied with Hezbollah to the exclusion of other jihadist outfits. In a stunning but largely unrelated targeted assassination that followed the Fuad Shukr assassination in Beirut less than 12 hours later, Israel also eliminated Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, one of the masterminds of the October 7, 2023, massacre, in Tehran.
Israel did it again on October 16, 2024, eliminating Yahya Sinwar—the chief architect of the Simchat Torah Massacre and the longtime organizational leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip—during a chance encounter in Rafah, Hamas's southernmost stronghold in the Gaza Strip.
7 Author Josh Hammer.
Courtesy of Josh Hammer
Notably, Israel would not have been able to hunt down Sinwar if Prime Minister Netanyahu had listened to weak-minded Western leaders, such as President Biden, who adamantly opposed an IDF incursion into Rafah.
The overall message sent by Israel from these high-profile 2024 strikes could not have been clearer: We can, and we will, come after you—no matter where you try to hide.
Pure, unadulterated power is the lingua franca of Middle East geopolitics—a point often lost on many Americans and other holier-than-thou Westerners, but rarely lost on hardheaded Israelis.
And if America adopts a similar sober approach to Islamism, that would be yet another tremendous gift of the US-Israel relationship.
Happy independence day, Israel. Keep on fighting the bad guys. By doing so, you're actually helping all of us.
Josh Hammer is Newsweek senior editor-at-large and author of the new book, 'Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West' (Radius Book Group), from which this is adapted.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
American Press
18 minutes ago
- American Press
Trump placing Washington police under federal control, deploying National Guard
President Donald Trump is promising new steps to tackle homelessness and crime in Washington including deployment of the National Guard, prompting the city's mayor to voice legal concerns about who would be patrolling the streets in the nation's capital. Trump said at a Monday news briefing that he was 'deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law order and public safety in Washington, D.C., and they're going to be allowed to do their job properly.' The Republican president compared crime in the American capital with that in other major cities, saying Washington performs poorly on safety relative to the capitals of Iraq, Brazil and Colombia, among others. 'We're getting rid of the slums, too,' Trump said, adding that the U.S. would not lose its cities and that Washington was just a start. For Trump, the effort to take over public safety in Washington reflects a next step in his law enforcement agenda after his aggressive push to stop illegal border crossings. But the move involves at least 500 federal law enforcement officials as well as the National Guard, raising fundamental questions about how an increasingly emboldened federal government will interact with its state and local counterparts. Combating crime The president has used his social media and White House megaphones to message that his administration is tough on crime, yet his ability to shape policy might be limited outside of Washington, which has a unique status as a congressionally established federal district. Nor is it clear how his push would address the root causes of homelessness and crime. Trump said he is invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to deploy members of the National Guard. About 500 federal law enforcement officers are being tasked with deploying throughout the nation's capital as part of the Trump administration's effort to combat crime, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Monday. More than 100 FBI agents and about 40 agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are among federal law enforcement personnel being assigned to patrols in Washington, the person briefed on the plans said. The Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Marshals Service are also contributing officers. The person was not authorized to publicly discuss personnel matters and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity. The Justice Department didn't immediately have a comment Monday morning. Focusing on homelessness Trump in a Sunday social media post had emphasized the removal of Washington's homeless population, though it was unclear where the thousands of people would go. 'The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,' Trump wrote Sunday. 'We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don't have to move out. We're going to put you in jail where you belong.' Last week, the Republican president directed federal law enforcement agencies to increase their presence in Washington for seven days, with the option 'to extend as needed.' On Friday night, federal agencies including the Secret Service, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service assigned more than 120 officers and agents to assist in Washington. Trump said last week that he was considering ways for the federal government to seize control of Washington, asserting that crime was 'ridiculous' and the city was 'unsafe,' after the recent assault of a high-profile member of the Department of Government Efficiency. The National Guard Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, questioned the effectiveness of using the Guard to enforce city laws and said the federal government could be far more helpful by funding more prosecutors or filling the 15 vacancies on the D.C. Superior Court, some of which have been open for years. Bowser cannot activate the National Guard herself, but she can submit a request to the Pentagon. 'I just think that's not the most efficient use of our Guard,' she said Sunday on MSNBC's 'The Weekend,' acknowledging it is 'the president's call about how to deploy the Guard.' Bowser was making her first public comments since Trump started posting about crime in Washington last week. She noted that violent crime in Washington has decreased since a rise in 2023. Trump's weekend posts depicted the district as 'one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World.' For Bowser, 'Any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false.' Crime statistics Police statistics show homicides, robberies and burglaries are down this year when compared with this time in 2024. Overall, violent crime is down 26% compared with this time a year ago. Trump offered no details in Truth Social posts over the weekend about possible new actions to address crime levels he argues are dangerous for citizens, tourists and workers alike. The White House declined to offer additional details about Monday's announcement. The police department and the mayor's office did not respond to questions about what Trump might do next. The president criticized the district as full of 'tents, squalor, filth, and Crime,' and he seems to have been set off by the attack on Edward Coristine, among the most visible figures of the bureaucracy-cutting effort known as DOGE. Police arrested two 15-year-olds in the attempted carjacking and said they were looking for others. 'This has to be the best run place in the country, not the worst run place in the country,' Trump said Wednesday. He called Bowser 'a good person who has tried, but she has been given many chances.'
USA Today
18 minutes ago
- USA Today
Can the president deploy soldiers on American streets? California court set to decide
A landmark trial kicks off on Aug. 11 over the Trump administration's use of National Guard troops to support its deportation efforts and quell protests in Los Angeles, in a legal challenge highlighting the president's break from long-standing norms against deploying soldiers on American streets. The three-day non-jury trial before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco will determine if the government violated a 19th-century law that bars the military from civil law enforcement when it deployed troops to Los Angeles in June. Los Angeles suffered days of unrest and protests sparked by mass immigration raids at places where people gather to find work, like Home Depot stores, a garment factory and a warehouse. The administration denies troops were used in civil law enforcement and plans to show they were protecting federal property and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Many of the troops have been withdrawn, but California's Attorney General Rob Bonta said on Aug. 11 that 300 National Guard members are still going on immigration raids and restricting civilian movements in the state. "The federal government deployed military troops to the streets of Los Angeles for the purposes of political theater and public intimidation," Bonta said in a statement. "This dangerous move has no precedent in American history." A ruling against the government could restrict those troops' activities and constrain President Donald Trump if he tries to deploy troops to police American cities in the future. The trial before Breyer will have limited impact, however, on the Trump administration's plan to deploy hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington as part of a crackdown on violent crime in the U.S. capital city. Unlike in California and every other state, where the governor typically decides when to activate Guard troops, the president directly controls the National Guard in Washington. California and Gov. Gavin Newsom have asked Breyer to prohibit the troops from directly participating in domestic law enforcement activities. California and Newsom say the National Guard is accompanying ICE agents on raids and assisting in arrests, in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 and other laws that forbid the U.S. military from taking part in civilian law enforcement. Trump ordered 700 Marines and 4,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles in June against Newsom's wishes. Trump's decision to send troops into Los Angeles prompted a national debate about the use of the military on U.S. soil and inflamed political tension in the country's second-most-populous city. California sued the Trump administration over the troop deployment, arguing it violates federal law and state sovereignty. A U.S. appeals court has allowed Trump to retain control of California's National Guard during the legal challenge. California's lawsuit ultimately seeks a ruling that would return its National Guard troops to state control and a declaration that Trump's action was illegal.
Los Angeles Times
18 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Israel targets and kills Al Jazeera correspondent in Gaza as journalist toll grows
JERUSALEM — Israel's military targeted and killed an Al Jazeera correspondent and others with an airstrike late Sunday in Gaza, after press advocates said an Israeli 'smear campaign' stepped up when Anas al-Sharif cried on air over starvation in the territory. Both Israel and hospital officials in Gaza City confirmed the deaths of al-Sharif and colleagues, which the Committee to Protect Journalists and others described as retribution against those documenting the war in Gaza. Israel's military asserted that al-Sharif had led a Hamas cell — an allegation that Al Jazeera and al-Sharif previously dismissed as baseless. It was the first time during the 22-month war that Israel's military swiftly claimed responsibility after a journalist was killed in a strike. Observers have called this the deadliest conflict for journalists in modern times. Officials at Shifa Hospital said those killed while sheltering outside Gaza City's largest hospital complex also included Al Jazeera correspondent Mohamed Qreiqeh. The strike also killed four other journalists and two other people, hospital administrative director Rami Mohanna told The Associated Press. The strike damaged the entrance to the hospital complex's emergency building. The airstrike came less than a year after Israeli army officials first accused al-Sharif and other Al Jazeera journalists of being members of the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In a July 24 video, Israel's army spokesperson Avichay Adraee attacked Al Jazeera and accused al-Sharif of being part of Hamas' military wing. Al Jazeera called the strike a 'targeted assassination' and accused Israeli officials of incitement, connecting al-Sharif's death to the allegations that both the network and correspondent had denied. 'Anas and his colleagues were among the last remaining voices from within Gaza, providing the world with unfiltered, on-the-ground coverage of the devastating realities endured by its people,' the Qatari network said in a statement. Apart from rare invitations to observe Israeli military operations, international media have been barred from entering Gaza for the duration of the war. Al Jazeera is among the few outlets still fielding a big team of reporters inside the besieged strip, chronicling daily life amid airstrikes, hunger and the rubble of destroyed neighborhoods. Al Jazeera is blocked in Israel and soldiers raided its offices in the occupied West Bank last year, ordering them closed. The network has suffered heavy losses during the war, including 27-year-old correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi, killed last summer, and freelancer Hossam Shabat, killed in an Israeli airstrike in March. Like al-Sharif, Shabat was among the six that Israel accused of being members of militant groups last October. Al-Sharif's death comes weeks after a U.N. expert and the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Israel had targeted him with a smear campaign. Irene Khan, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression, on July 31 said that the killings were 'part of a deliberate strategy of Israel to suppress the truth, obstruct the documentation of international crimes and bury any possibility of future accountability.' The U.N. human rights office on Monday condemned Sunday's airstrike targeting the journalists' tent 'in grave breach of international humanitarian law.' The Committee to Protect Journalists said on Sunday that at least 186 journalists have been killed in Gaza, and Brown University's Watson Institute in April said the war was 'quite simply, the worst ever conflict for reporters.' Al-Sharif reported a nearby bombardment minutes before his death. In a social media post that Al Jazeera said was written to be posted in case of his death, he bemoaned the devastation and destruction that war had wrought and bid farewell to his wife, son and daughter. 'I never hesitated for a single day to convey the truth as it is, without distortion or falsification,' the 28-year-old wrote. Hundreds of people, including many journalists, gathered Monday to mourn al-Sharif, Qreiqeh and their colleagues. The bodies lay wrapped in white sheets at the Shifa Hospital complex. Ahed Ferwana of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said reporters were being deliberately targeted and urged the international community to act. Al-Sharif began reporting for Al Jazeera a few days after war broke out. He was known for reporting on Israel's bombardment in northern Gaza, and later for the starvation gripping much of the territory's population. In a July broadcast, al-Sharif cried on air as a woman behind him collapsed from hunger. 'I am talking about slow death of those people,' he said at the time. Qreiqeh, a 33-year-old Gaza City native, is survived by two children. Both journalists were separated from their families for months earlier in the war. When they managed to reunite during the ceasefire earlier this year, their children appeared unable to recognize them, according to video footage they posted at the time. The Committee to Protect Journalists said Sunday it was appalled by the airstrike. 'Israel's pattern of labeling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom,' Sara Qudah, the group's regional director, said in a statement. Metz and Magdy write for the Associated Press. Magdy reported from Cairo.
