If I Were Jewish
5 min read
Tucker Carlson and John Mearsheimer claimed they couldn't think of a single time in the last 40 years when the US chose its own interests over Israel's. I decided to jog their memory.
Tucker Carlson and John Mearsheimer, two men who present themselves as serious foreign policy thinkers, were recently asked whether the United States has ever prioritized its own interests over Israel's. They couldn't think of a single example. Not one. In the last 40 years.
Let me help them out.
After the 1982 war, Israel had pushed the PLO out of Lebanon and wanted to maintain a buffer zone to prevent future attacks. The United States leaned hard on Israel to withdraw. Israel pulled back to a narrow security strip. America's interest won. Israel's didn't.
Saudi Arabia was, at the time, in a formal state of war with Israel. America sold them AWACS planes, sophisticated radar systems capable of monitoring the entire Israeli Air Force in real time. Later came advanced F-15s that eroded the qualitative military edge Israel depends on for its survival. America made billions. Israel paid the security cost.
When Saddam Hussein fired Scud missiles at Israel, Israel prepared to respond with airstrikes to hunt down the launchers. The George H.W. Bush administration blocked them. America needed Arab countries in its coalition, and an Israeli military operation would have blown it apart. So Israel sat there, absorbing missile after missile, because that's what America needed. Not what Israel needed.
Israel needed American-backed loan guarantees, not a single penny in actual funds, just a backstop so it could borrow commercially to absorb a million Soviet Jewish immigrants arriving after the collapse of the USSR. George H.W. Bush refused, using the guarantees as leverage to pressure Israel on settlement policy. Israel eventually got the guarantees under Clinton. But Bush made his point: America's interest came first.
Israel had agreed to sell Falcon radar systems to China. America blocked the sale, concerned the technology could be used against Taiwan. Israel lost the contract, the money, and a lot of goodwill in Beijing. When Israel tried to repair the relationship a few years later with a smaller upgrade deal, America blocked that too and imposed new restrictions on Israeli defense exports. Israel paid the diplomatic price. America enforced its China policy.
Israel's government concluded that Iran's nuclear program posed an existential threat and prepared to strike. The Obama administration ran a coordinated, behind-the-scenes campaign to stop it, working with Israeli political figures to publicly argue against the strike. The effort was, by several accounts, deliberately timed around Obama's reelection campaign. America didn't want the chaos. So Israel stood down.
Across the Israeli political spectrum, left and right, virtually every voice opposed the deal. The agreement let Iran pause its nuclear program for ten years in exchange for sanctions relief and billions of dollars, money that went straight into funding Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran's ballistic missile program. Israel fought it with everything it had. Obama signed it anyway.
The Obama administration chose not to veto a Security Council resolution harshly condemning Israeli settlements, breaking with decades of American policy. It was a deliberate signal. Washington decided its interests were better served by letting the resolution pass.
Hamas was firing rockets at Israel. Israel was focused on degrading Hamas military infrastructure. The Biden administration pressed hard for a ceasefire and held back full diplomatic cover at the UN. America wanted regional de-escalation. Israel wanted to finish the job.
The Biden administration publicly opposed Israel's internal judicial reform debate, delayed a White House invitation for the prime minister, and, by multiple accounts, channeled funding, directly or indirectly, to opposition groups inside Israel. Whatever you think of the reform itself, a foreign government trying to shape Israel's internal politics against the wishes of its elected government is not acting in Israel's interest.
America backed Israel heavily after October 7. But when the Biden administration decided it was in its interest to limit certain arms transfers, it did exactly that. Support, yes, but conditional support. American interest, first.
None of this is a scandal. America is a sovereign country and it acts like one. When American and Israeli interests align, they work together. They align most of the time because the two countries share deep values rooted in the same civilizational tradition: a democracy, a rule of law, an insistence on human dignity. America's Founding generation drew heavily on the Hebrew Bible. Israel, when it was established, deliberately modeled itself on American democratic values. That common foundation is real and it matters.
Tens of millions of Americans want their country to protect democracies around the world. That's why America stations troops in South Korea, spends hundreds of billions defending Europe, and backs Israel. Tens of millions of American Christians feel a genuine connection to the land of the Bible. These are not small things. The relationship is deep, and Israel is genuinely grateful for it.
But the relationship is between two countries with their own interests. When those interests diverge, the bigger power does what bigger powers do. That is not surprising. That is how the world works.
What is surprising is that two people who claim expertise in Middle East foreign policy sat down on camera and couldn't recall a single instance of it happening. Not in 40 years. Not once.
The record is right there. All you have to do is look.
The prophet Jeremiah wrote (17:5 and 17:7): "Cursed is one who places their trust in human beings... Blessed is one who places their trust in God." Alliances matter. History matters. But ultimately, none of this is in our hands alone, and we would do well to remember it.
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