If you take a step back and look at the past 40 years, one can make the case that the American policy of providing assistance to Israel has had the effect, if not the express intent, of weakening Israel's political resolve,

Golda Meir refused to launch a preemptive strike for fear of angering Washington.

making Israel more easily bend to the American will, and has also been a means to channel and at the same time control the political energy of the American Jewish community. We saw this process begin in earnest in 1973.


In 1967, Israel, with no world powers supporting it when it was being strangled by blockade and massed enemy forces on its borders, acted resolutely on its own and won a decisive victory. In 1973, a few years into the period of active American support, Israel had intelligence that Egypt and Syria were going to attack, but Golda Meir refused to launch a preemptive strike for fear of angering Washington. The result was a near catastrophe for Israel.


In the decades since, Israel has allowed itself to become highly dependent on the US, rather than rely on its own skills and resources. Israel has been willing to make huge and dangerous strategic sacrifices because a belief has been fostered that the United States is going to guarantee Israel's safety. The hostility of the US toward Israel's limited efforts to defend itself (affirming its right of self-defense, but then criticizing every actual attempt to do so) is an indicator of this.


At the same time, American policy has had the effect of duping and controlling the American Jewish community. American Jews have essentially been sold the idea that all will be well with Israel if the US keeps doling out the military aid and casting some votes at the UN. This has had the effect of causing American Jews to line up behind policies such as creating a new Arab Palestinian state and giving up vital territory, because they think they are keeping Israel strong by keeping the aid spigot open. It appears that American Jews have been made the indirect useful idiots of a policy driven by the US State Department at the behest of the Saudis and other Arab oil producers. Israeli leaders, of course, adopted these policies to curry favor with Washington, rather than making the case for keeping territory vital to Israel's safety.


Both the Clinton and Bush Administrations were quite willing to push Israel into dangerous concessions, but it was sugarcoated with words of friendship and commitment to Israel's security and healthy doses of military aid credits. The real underlying agenda is to make the Saudis happy. In May we saw President George Bush go to Riyadh, where he got down on his knees in front of his overlord, King Abdullah, to beg for more oil. Abdullah gave Bush the back of his hand this time, but the pattern that has emerged is that Israeli concessions are one of the forms of currency with which American administrations seek to buy Saudi favor.


I fear Israelis and American Jews are going to sit back and do little because of the combination of having been taken in by this notion that Mahmoud Abbas is some sort of peacenik and by Congress continuing to dutifully vote big military aid packages to Israel. While Israel is pressured to give up vital territory, they are being lulled into a

Israelis need to wake up and see this dangerous aspect to the over-dependence upon the United States.

false sense of security.


Israelis need to wake up and see this dangerous aspect to the over-dependence upon the United States. Israelis need to demand that their government take steps to end dependence on American aid and move the basis for relations with the United States to a more normal mode that exists between allies. Israel must stop putting all of its eggs in one American basket. Israel should not be viewed as a charity case. According to the CIA's statistics, Israel's GDP in 2007 was over $190 billion and it has a per household income that is comparable to states in Europe. Israel should be able to wean itself of dependence on American aid credits, which carry too high a price in other aspects of security.


Israel is not a pathetic, backward state. Israel is a strong, powerful nation and it should start acting like one. I am afraid Israelis have bought into their own public relations about being weak and needing help to the point that they have become afraid to anger America. They are wrong. Most Americans admire Israel and will respect it for standing up for itself against its enemies. Friendship and mutual respect should be the basis for the US-Israel alliance, not dependence and vassalage.


American Jewish organizations should be encouraging Israel and helping it to be more independent. Israel needs to start acting with the confidence to make decisions that benefit its interests, rather than putting Washington’s interests ahead of its own.


The "two-state solution" of two states west of the Jordan is a bill of goods. It will never work. It will create a terrorist-infested state which will put rockets in range of nearly all of Israel's population and then demand even more territory. Israel's justification for going along with this is fear of demographic problems. Studies and articles, such as those by Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger, have shown the demography fears to be unfounded especially with Israel having left Gaza. An Israel that annexes Judea and Samaria will have a stable, 67% Jewish majority. Jewish birthrates are rising (thanks to very high birthrates among Israel's most religious Jews), Arab birthrates are falling and there have been more Arabs leaving the territories than arriving.


Annexation of Judea and Samaria, coupled with dismantling of the Palestinian Authority and destruction of the terrorist organizations it aids and abets, will give Israel secure borders on the east that are defensible; close the door to millions of Arabs who would flood a Palestinian state (and then demand more of what was left of Israel). It would offer the possibility of Israeli citizenship to the Arab residents of those territories, if they are law-abiding and would like citizenship, thus ending their condition of statelessness. Such new Arab citizens of Israel would also have freedom of movement throughout this larger Israel and the ability to live in any part of the country - perhaps

Developers will flock to build in these regions, with benefits for both Jewish and Arab residents.

even in regions that they or their parents left in 1948.


Of course, Jews would be free to live anywhere in the core of the ancient homeland in Judea and Samaria. Freed from the political uncertainty of these territories, developers will flock to build in these regions, with benefits for both Jewish and Arab residents including improved infrastructure and services. Once terrorists are rooted out, there would be an end to roadblocks and removal of the disliked, but currently necessary, security barrier.


This is a solution that Israel can implement itself with no treaty. It will not be easy, but it is the best way to promote an Israel that remains a Jewish state, a democracy and that has militarily defensible borders. The so-called "two-state solution" is a plan born out of the politics of fear and despair. A policy in which Israel once and for all incorporates the heart of the ancient Jewish homeland and makes a place in its society for the inhabitants of those territories is a plan born out of hope and confidence in the strength and future of Israel as a Jewish-majority, democratic state.