A Very Short List of Times America Showed Israel Who’s Boss
Here’s a useful resource for those who think America is on Israel’s side or has been…
Some excerpts:
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.
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.
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.
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.
