Por M. Reza Behnam
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Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain |
To examine the unyielding multi-billionaire dollar shield that the United States provides Israel is to confront the coarse mechanics of modern empire.
Washington has, for decades, maintained a posture of absolute defense, supplying advanced weaponry, providing diplomatic immunity, and rationalizing actions that human rights organizations and international courts characterize as war crimes, apartheid and genocide.
The mainstream narrative has relentlessly framed the U.S.-Israel alliance through the comforting lens of shared democratic values and mutual defense. This rendering, however, crumbles under the weight of reality. Nothing has dissuaded Washington from its entente with and acquiescence to Israel—not the regime’s racist policies; not even genocide.
Every U.S. administration has backed its brutal regimes, because they have buttressed American power and interests in the Middle East. This fatal alignment evokes the question: what exactly is Israel’s role, and whose interests are being served?
Israel has long functioned as an imperial agent for Western powers seeking regional dominance. Initially, the British Empire was crucial in helping its Zionist proxies secure a foothold in Palestine during and after World War I. In the mid-20th century, the United States seized the geopolitical mantle from Britain, taking control of the resource-rich region and becoming Israel’s primary benefactor.
Since the 1950s, Washington has viewed the Middle East—a vital nexus of global energy routes, trade corridors and geopolitical leverage—through the lens of dominance and resource control.
Lacking permanent colonial possessions in the heart of the Islamic world, Washington engineered an alternative: a heavily subsidized, fortified and technologically advanced military outpost. For the Pentagon and State Department, Israel has functioned as an unsinkable aircraft carrier; a military stronghold to project force, suppress independent anti-colonial movements, and to act as a counterweight to Iranian regional influence.
The Washington-Tel Aviv partnership is reinforced by the military-industrial economy of the United States that thrives on perpetual conflict to drive demand.
Defense spending fuels the domestic economy. The billions in military aid funneled to Israel are, in practice, massive subsidies paid directly to U.S defense conglomerates like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. U.S.-Israeli wars have contributed substantially to the financial survival of these industries.
Occupied Gaza and the West Bank have long served as testing laboratories for advanced weaponry, surveillance technology and crowd-control systems.
Surveillance and weapons systems that have been battle-tested on captive civilian populations are subsequently marketed globally as “combat proven.”
This multi-billion-dollar defense network closely connects the interests of the U.S. military sector with the continuation of Israel’s military operations. It also ensures fierce bipartisan resistance in Washington to any meaningful arms embargo or policy shifts, since almost every congressional district in the country is tied in some way to the defense industry.
American politicians aggressively safeguard Israeli “exceptionalism” and fiercely buffer it from accountability. Robust networks of well-financed lobbying groups, political action committees and institutional gatekeepers ensure that unwavering support for Israel is a requisite for political survival in Washington.
When elected officials dissent from established foreign policy positions or condemn the slaughter of civilians, they become the targets of well-funded, organized efforts to end their political careers. As a result, domestic priorities are sidelined as Congress aligns itself with a powerful military lobby rather than the American public; a growing majority of whom oppose unconditional foreign military aid.
At its core, the relationship between Israel and the United States is rooted in a shared historical consciousness and legacy. Both countries developed as settler-colonial states built upon the systemic erasure, confinement and dispossession of native populations.
Allegations of apartheid, genocidal violence, and systemic racism leveled against Israel deeply resonate within the American political landscape, mirroring its own foundational legacy.
U.S. policymakers connect Israel’s regional supremacy directly to the preservation of Western influence and global dominance. Racism is not a mistake in the alliance; it is a core function. It ensures that non-Western, non-white casualties are viewed as dispensable; essentially acceptable “collateral damage” in the pursuit of geopolitical objectives.
America’s alignment with Israel is a product of strategic utility, not moral blindness. Washington’s defense of Tel Aviv’s brutal policies exposes the vacuity of Western rhetoric around human rights, international law and democracy. When imperial power, corporate profit and geopolitical dominance are threatened, universal human rights are treated as entirely disposable.
The “indispensable ally” narrative is foundering, as is the U.S. imperium. Israel’s U.S.-subsidized genocide and devastating wars on Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Iran have sparked intense global outrage and blowback, signaling the beginning of the end of American global dominance.
History will record that when major powers rely on the blunt instrument of war to “manage” a complex world—rather than to live in it as one among equals—they ultimately subvert the stability they claim to protect.
Dr. M. Reza Behnam is a political scientist who specializes in comparative politics with a focus on West Asia.
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