PThe closer the US presidential election gets, the more the two candidates compete in commitments of unwavering support for Israel, and even in assurances that such support will increase further. Donald Trump constantly presents himself as the best ally Israel has ever had in the White House, while multiplying statements that are more embarrassing than convincing: Jewish voters who would not vote for him. “ they should have their heads examined »and a victory for the current vice president would mean the disappearance of Israel “ after two years ».
But Kamala Harris is not far behind, she hits every time. “Israel’s right to defend itself”. Certainly, the Democratic candidate prefers to insist on “the important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people” instead of mentioning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump’s historical partner, and whose relations with President Joe Biden are notoriously tense.
However, it remains unlikely that the United States, whoever wins the November 5 elections, will substantially reduce its now colossal aid to Israel.
Increasingly massive support
The United States was the first country to recognize Israel, just hours after the proclamation of the Jewish State’s independence in May 1948. But we too often forget that, despite this decisive support, Washington has long refused time to take sides in the dispute arising from the first Arab-Israeli war, as well as the exodus of some 750,000 Palestinian refugees.
It was, furthermore, American diplomacy that promoted, in December 1948, the adoption by the UN General Assembly of resolution 194, which allows a “right of return” for these Palestinians, offering them the alternative between repatriation and compensation. And it was again the United States who, a year later, laid the foundations for UNRWA, the UN agency in charge of helping these Palestinian refugees until such a dispute is resolved. During the first Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip, in November 1956, Republican President Dwight Eisenhower demanded and obtained the unconditional withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Palestinian enclave, as well as from the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.
It was not until June 1964 that an Israeli prime minister, Levi Eshkol, was officially welcomed into the White House by a Democratic president, Lyndon Johnson. From this time date the first military shipments from the United States to an Israeli army still largely equipped with French material. This trend increased after the June 1967 war and Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, as well as the Egyptian Sinai and the Syrian Golan.
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