Zionist FAQs: The Myth of the Strategic Asset: How Unconditional Support for Israel Compromised American Foreign Policy

Official UN Map: It was updated in August 1950, showing that Palestinians STILL OWN 94% of the lands

For over half a century, a single dogma has dictated Washington’s approach to the Middle East: that the United States and Israel share an inviolable "strategic alliance," and that Israel acts as an indispensable, land-based aircraft carrier protecting Western interests in a volatile region.

This narrative is comfortable, ubiquitous, and bipartisan. It is also a historical fiction.

When examined through the cold lens of realpolitik and declassified archival records, the U.S.–Israel relationship was never born of grand strategic necessity. Rather, it is the byproduct of domestic political pressures that locked Washington into a self-defeating feedback loop. Far from acting as an asset, unconditional American support for Israeli regional hegemony has consistently transformed potential regional allies into bitter adversaries, wrecked the American economy, catalyzed radical ideologies, and dragged Washington into avoidable regional catastrophes.

I. Domestic Political Engineering: The Post-1967 Consolidation

Browse thousands of pre-Nakba pictures.

The idea that Washington embraced Israel in 1948 or 1967 due to cold realpolitik ignores the warnings of America’s premier strategists at the time. Secretary of State George Marshall, George Kennan, and the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs of Staff all vehemently opposed unconditional backing of Israel in the late 1940s, correctly predicting that it would alienate 100 million Arabs, jeopardize access to energy, and invite Soviet penetration into the region.

The pivot occurred after the 1967 Six-Day War, but not because Washington suddenly discovered a brilliant strategic partner. Instead, 1967 marked the rapid consolidation of single-issue lobbying power in Washington, epitomized by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

In the decade following 1967, AIPAC and associated political networks transformed American campaign finance. The political calculus for members of Congress became brutally simple:

1. Unquestioned backing of Israeli military policies guaranteed crucial campaign financing, positive press coverage, and electoral safety.

2. The slightest dissent brought primary challenges, aggressive ad campaigns, and career destruction.

To justify this domestic political surrender, Washington policy shops and think tanks invented the "strategic asset" doctrine post-facto. Framing massive foreign military grants as a shrewd investment in a regional "gendarme" provided high-minded, national-security cover for what was fundamentally a domestic political compromise.

II. Debunking the Foundations: The 1970 "Black September" Myth

Herzl Died Thinking Israel Would Have Been in Uganda, not in "empty" Palestine

Whenever defenders of the "strategic asset" theory are pressed for a historical example of Israel protecting American interests, they almost universally point to September 1970 ("Black September"). The standard story claims that when Syrian armored columns invaded northern Jordan to assist Yasser Arafat’s PLO against King Hussein, Israeli military mobilization deterred Damascus, saved the pro-Western Jordanian monarchy, and prevented a Soviet-backed takeover of the region.

Declassified records from Syrian, Israeli, and U.S. archives tell a completely different story.

The Syrian armored column that entered Jordan was driven by a radical Ba'athist faction led by Salah Jadid. It failed not because of Israeli posturing, but because Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad--who commanded the Syrian Air Force--refused to provide air cover to Jadid’s tanks. Assad recognized that Jadid's ideological adventure was reckless, and he deliberately left the Syrian tanks exposed to the Royal Jordanian Air Force, which hammered the columns on the ground in Irbid.

Assad used the resulting humiliation in Jordan to launch a bloodless coup two months later, imprisoning Jadid and seizing power. The claim that Israeli deterrence saved Jordan and prevented a soviet expansion was an exaggerated post-hoc narrative constructed by Henry Kissinger and Israeli diplomats to sell Congress on the necessity of record-breaking military aid packages. In fact, the US Air Force and the 82nd Airborne could have done exactly what the Israelis "allegedly" could have done but from their bases in KSA or the British base in Cyprus. In fact, that was contemplated by Nixon and Kissinger at the time.

III. The Soviet Fallacy: How Washington Drove the Arab World to Moscow

Remind us, please: Who shall push whom into the sea? Haifa's Palestinians are being loaded onto ships out of their homes, April 1948

A central pillar of the "strategic asset" myth is that Israel served as a vital bulwark against Soviet expansion in the Middle East. This argument reverses cause and effect.

The Arab world in the 1950s and 1960s was not inherently pro-Soviet or anti-American. Conservative Gulf monarchies were deeply anti-communist, and secular nationalist leaders like Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser were fiercely independent nationalists who mistrusted atheistic Marxism. Their primary political goal was throwing off European colonial rule.

It was Washington’s unconditional alignment with Israel--and its refusal to sell defensive weapons to Arab nations--that forced Arab leaders to turn to Moscow as a last resort.

• During the 1956 Suez Crisis, when Israel conspired with Britain and France to invade Egypt, President Dwight D. Eisenhower correctly recognized the invasion as a colonial disaster. When David Ben-Gurion’s government subsequently refused to withdraw from Sinai and Gaza in early 1957, Eisenhower threatened severe economic retaliation--including suspending government aid, shutting down private tax-exempt donations and bond sales, and supporting punitive UN economic sanctions--forcing an unconditional Israeli retreat.

• Yet, in subsequent years, as Washington abandoned Eisenhower’s balanced posture and funded Israeli military dominance, leaders in Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad were left with no choice but to seek Soviet military hardware to restore regional balance.

By blindly backing Israel, Washington created the exact Soviet footprint in the Middle East that it then claimed Israel was needed to counter.

IV. The Coalition Paradox: The 1991 Gulf War and the "Sideline" Bribe

Fake Valor: Why Did Zionist Jews Hoist Nazis Flag on Their Ships in the 1930s?

The ultimate test of any "strategic asset" or "land-based aircraft carrier" occurs during a major international war involving the patron nation’s core strategic interests. In 1991, during Operation Desert Storm, the U.S. assembled a coalition to expel Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

Far from acting as an asset, Israel became an immediate operational liability.

Saddam Hussein fired 39 Scud missiles into Tel Aviv and Haifa, explicitly calculated to provoke an Israeli military retaliation. Hussein understood that if Israel entered the war, the broad U.S.-led coalition--which depended on Arab military participation from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syria--would instantly collapse.

To keep the coalition alive, Washington had to treat its supposed "strategic asset" as a diplomatic crisis that needed to be contained:

1. Military Shielding: The U.S. military was forced to divert critical Patriot missile defense batteries and American crews to defend Israeli cities, prioritizing Israel's protection over frontline coalition operations. This exact operational liability was mirrored during the war against Iran, when Washington once again had to deploy scarce U.S. air defense systems (including Patriot and THAAD batteries) and interceptor stockpiles to shield Israel, diverting high-tier strategic assets from other global theaters.

2. The Financial Bribe: To prevent Israeli retaliation, Washington bribed the Israeli government with massive financial concessions, including approval for $10 billion in U.S. housing loan guarantees (originally requested for Soviet Jewish resettlement). Much of this financial assistance was absorbed with minimal long-term accountability or repayment to American taxpayers.

When a superpower must pay billions of dollars and deploy its own troops to keep a client state on the sidelines during a major war, that client state is not an asset--it is a strategic impediment.

V. Midwife of Radicalism: From Secularism to Political Islam

Faluja-Gaza, 1949, Ethnically Cleansed Palestinians on their way to Hebron

Kinetic military dominance generates its own ideological opposition. By helping Israel crush conventional Arab state militaries, the United States did not secure the region; it simply altered the nature of the threat, midwifing far more dangerous and fanatical ideological movements.

1. The Destruction of Secular Nationalism (1967): The catastrophic Arab defeat in the Six-Day War permanently shattered the credibility of secular, Western-style Arab nationalism. In its place grew the radical Islamist refrain: "Islam is the Solution."

2. The Birth of Non-State Asymmetric Warfare: Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon was aimed at destroying the secular PLO. Instead, the brutal occupation of Southern Lebanon birthed Hezbollah. Similarly, the ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands sidelined secular diplomats and empowered Hamas.

3. Transnational Jihadism: Unconditional U.S. diplomatic protection for Israeli military campaigns--especially the vetoing of over 40 UN Security Council resolutions--served as the primary recruitment tool for transnational jihadist networks, including Al-Qaeda, which explicitly cited American complicity in Palestinian suffering as its primary grievance for targeting the U.S. homeland.

VI. The Economic Price Tag: From 1973 Stagflation to the 2026 Crisis

A true strategic asset enhances the patron nation’s economic and physical security. Israel has repeatedly done the opposite, forcing the American public to pay an astronomical economic price for its tactical actions.

In October 1973, Henry Kissinger’s massive military airlift (Operation Nickel Grass) to resupply Israeli forces directly triggered the OAPEC Arab Oil Embargo. The quadrupling of global oil prices launched a decade of crippling "stagflation" that eroded the purchasing power of the American middle class, crippled industrial manufacturing, and altered the U.S. economic trajectory for a generation. American economic stability was sacrificed to guarantee a regional client's battlefield advantage.

Decades later, history repeats itself. The current conflict involving Iran mirrors the exact reckless dynamics of 1973. Once again, Washington finds itself dragged into regional escalation, facing severe supply-chain shocks, soaring energy prices, and the looming threat of global economic disruption--all to insulate a client state from the consequences of its own diplomatic and military overreach.

Conclusion: Reclaiming American Realpolitik

The historical record is clear: Israel is not a land-based aircraft carrier, a regional stabilizer, or a strategic asset. It is a profound geopolitical liability.

Unconditional support for Israeli military hegemony has alienated 400 million Arabs and 1.8 billion Muslims, wrecked the U.S. economy through energy shocks, fueled anti-American extremism, and destroyed the credibility of Western international law.

The alliance survives not because it serves the national security of the United States, but because American politicians fear the domestic political consequences of telling the truth. Until a U.S. administration breaks free from domestic political intimidation and evaluates the Middle East through the cold, unvarnished lens of actual American national interest, Washington will remain trapped in a suicide pact of its own making.

Related Links

• The threat of sanctions worked against Israel in 1956 -- and it can work again
• Eisenhower Reveals His 1957 Aims to Penalize Israel on Sinai Issue
• Obama-Netanyahu tensions: Not as bad as 5 other US-Israel low points
• The Unsanitized Origins of AIPAC: Power, Leverage, and the Post-War Pivot