As we count the days until the inauguration of President-Elect Donald Trump, we should devote careful thought to Israel’s future relations with the new administration and to attaining Israel’s long-standing strategic objectives.
The president-elect describes his personal approach, as follows: “In my life, there are two things I’ve found I’m very good at: overcoming obstacles and motivating good people to do their best work. One of the challenges ahead is how to use those skills as successfully in the service of others as I’ve done, up to now, on my own behalf.” Trump made this statement in 1977, in his best-seller, The Art of the Deal. At the end of 2024, it is clear that he has remained consistent throughout his election campaign and in his choice of nominees for the new cabinet.
Furthermore, as far as Israel is concerned, we must recall President Trump’s past accomplishments. He kept his promise and moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and sponsored the Abraham Accords. As a leader and entrepreneur, he is accustomed to thinking big, on a large and ambitious scale. For example, his vision includes the rebuilding of American industry, the exploration of space and space travel.
What does this mean for the Jewish State and its strategic needs? According to the fifteenth-century Florentine political thinker, Niccolò Machiavelli, one should ask powerful men for big things, because it is just as easy for them to grant large requests as small ones.
An episode in our history proves this point, namely, the meeting on March 18, 1948 between President Harry S. Truman and Dr. Chaim Weizmann. President Truman’s grandson, Clifton Truman Daniel, tells the story, as follows: “…. On May 14, 1948, President Harry S. Truman made one of the most momentous decisions of his presidency: recognizing the new state of Israel just minutes after its founding. My grandfather is justly celebrated for providing the legitimacy this nascent democracy required to survive, but his WWI buddy and former business partner, Eddie Jacobson, deserves credit, as well. This installment of ‘First Family Stories’ is dedicated to a friendship that changed the world.”
It is well known that President Truman overcame both the opposition of Secretary of State George Marshall and the long-standing hostility of the American foreign policy establishment. Over the years, such attitudes have persisted. Most recently, the Obama/Biden foreign policy, while nominally positive toward Israel, has been ambivalent and, on occasion, downright nasty.
A recent example was President Biden’s arm twisting of
Israel to end the Hamas war by accepting a ceasefire and a compromise, which drew a false equivalence between a terrorist aggressor that had launched a war against a legitimate state and an American ally.
On July 24, 2024, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress at the invitation of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson of Louisiana. On the following day [July 25], the Prime Minister’s meeting with President Biden ended in a bust up. The President warned Netanyahu that “the time has come to end this war,” to which he replied, “Mr. President, we will end this war when we win it!”
From a historical perspective, this type of episode was not an isolated occurrence. American policy makers have frequently misunderstood the ways of our region and, consequently, have made costly mistakes that have harmed their own interests as well as those of Israel.
II.
The careful study of our past, particularly the Israeli decision-making process before the Six-Day War, provides valuable insights for the present and the future. The late Yoash Tsiddon-Chatto (1926-2015) was Chief of Planning and Operational Requirements of the Israel Airforce (IAF) prior to the Six-Day War (1967) and a well-informed insider. Several years before the Six-Day War, he visited France, which supplied Israel with Mirage jet fighters. On one of his visits, his colleagues discreetly informed him that the French government planned to end its special relationship with Israel. Subsequently, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol authorized Tsiddon-Chatto to negotiate Israel’s first purchase of an American light attack aircraft, the A4 Skyhawk, manufactured by McDonnell Douglas. Furthermore, it was Tsiddon-Chatto who discovered the American spy-ship, USS Liberty, standing still in the Mediterranean off Sinai during the Six-Day War.
As a military strategist, Tsiddon-Chatto made several basic observations: 1) America failed to distinguish between its friends and its enemies; 2) America refused to let Israel win a war; 3) When writing about pro-active defense and the decision in June 1967 to preempt the war, he emphasized the crucial importance of the dimension of time.
While the circumstances have changed over the past decades, Tsiddon-Chatto’s description of Israel’s situation is timely, as for example, President Biden’s forceful demand of July 25, 2024, that Prime Minister Netanyahu accept a ceasefire in Gaza instead of a decisive victory.
His statements have been gently edited as follows:
…. Since the ‘Czech arms deal’ of 1955, and the Soviet position [of] consolidation in the ME following the Eisenhower / Dulles handling [of] the Anglo-French in the Suez Crisis of 56/7, there was no question in the ME who is on the US and who on the Soviet side. The US seemed to be the only ones oblivious of reality, thus unwittingly reinforcing Soviet penetration in the ME. Moreover, the US, which related to Israel as if it were a millstone on its neck until the Six Day War … [The Americans] “discovered” only as a result of this war that Israel is the major regional power, unconditionally pro-US, and an inexhaustible source of intelligence on Soviet assets, captured in large numbers and handed over. [Author’s bold].
Tsiddon-Chatto had a basic complaint regarding American policy toward Israel, namely, that the U.S. consistently prevented Israel from achieving a decisive victory on the battlefield in order “to placate Arabia which, as it proves since 9/11, is implacable…. It should make sense to see the US picture of Vietnam and [the] ME as just two interacting sectors of the Cold War. There is abundant evidence to prove this, and that the US has, and probably is to this day, misunderstanding the Arab manipulative ways.”
Writing in general terms about the task of the strategist, Yoash describes his methodology and then emphasizes the dimension of time as the most important factor in the decision to preempt a war:
Planning must relate to all possible scenarios. The plan … must respond to the scenarios [which have] the highest probability of materializing, while assuring a response to the most pessimistic scenarios.
The dimension of time is a matter of decisive importance. If the threat increases and becomes more acute with time, it means that the danger grows every day, and it is possible that there will be a time when our weakness will compel us to take the initiative to the point of a preemptive strike, even if the preparations for war have not been completed. (Yoash Tsiddon-Chatto, Be-Yom, be-Lail be-Arafel [By Day, By Night, through Haze and Fog] (Jerusalem: Keterpress, 1995, in Hebrew): 306.
Tsiddon-Chatto describes the public mood in Israel at the end of May 1967, during the days prior to the outbreak of the Six-Day War. The Egyptian army was waiting on Israel’s border and the civilian reserves had been mobilized. This state of affairs could not be maintained for too long and paralyzed Israel’s economy. Thus, the dimension of time became the key variable in the equation: “… Were the Arab Coalition to open hostilities first, using their much superior air forces in the way we foresaw, the State of Israel would have ceased to exist….”
It is not well known that, at this critical moment, the U.S. vigorously opposed a pre-emptive strike. (See [Meir] Amit’s report of his meeting of May 25, 1967, with [John] Hadden, the CIA man in Israel. (Rosh be-Rosh (Head On), [Or Yehuda: Hed Arzi, 1999, Hebrew]: 235).
Meir Amit, Director of the Mossad, gives the real backstory of this episode. He wrote that a “tough conversation” took place at midnight in his home. [Also present were Efraim Halevy, a senior member of the Mossad, and Brigadier General David Carmon, Deputy Chief of Military Intelligence.] There was shouting, and even shots of whisky did not calm the tense atmosphere. Amit tried hard to convince Hadden that the situation was really critical and that Israel would have to act as soon as possible. But Hadden threatened that if Israel pre-empted the war, America would send forces to fight on the Egyptian side. He held the firm conviction that we had to wait and warned: “Don’t create a situation in which we will be forced to go against you.”
Meir Amit describes how his urgent mission to Washington ultimately resulted in the decision of the government to pre-empt the war:
On the morning of May 29, we gathered [as we did] every day in the office of Eshkol to discuss the ongoing situation. Abba Eban participated at this meeting; as well as the Director of the Prime Minister’s Office, Dr. Yaakov Herzog; the Head of Military Intelligence, General Aharon Yariv; and I. All of us had the feeling that things had gone too far, and it was necessary to do something to break the stalemate in which we were stuck. During this discussion, the head of military intelligence proposed that the head of the Mossad go to Washington immediately in order to bring us a reliable picture of what is going on.
‘Meir,’ Areleh [Aharon Yariv] said: ‘You are a member of the household there. Dick Helms, Head of the CIA is a personal friend of yours. In an informal chat, you will be able to hear directly from him what is really happening.’ (Amit, 237).
When he arrived in Washington, Amit discovered that his professional colleagues were understanding and well disposed. Meeting with Richard Helms, he learned that his assessment of the facts coincided with those of the CIA. Helms arranged an appointment for Meir Amit with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara who grasped the situation immediately and made an important recommendation.
During this meeting, McNamara received two phone calls from President Johnson, asking to be updated on these talks. At a certain point, Amit asked the Secretary of Defense for advice:
‘What should I do now? Wait here a day of two?’
‘He cut me short with a brief sentence, “Go home, your place is there now.”’
Amit learned that America had no intention to help and concluded that time was against Israel. He recommended that Israel open hostilities immediately. (Amit, 241).
Amit added a most important fact — that precisely during the time he was in Washington, it became known that President Johnson received a message from former President Eisenhower reminding him that the Americans had a moral obligation to Israel which was given at the time of its withdrawal from Sinai in 1957. The Americans had undertaken to preserve the demilitarization of the Sinai Peninsula and to assure freedom of navigation through the Straits of Eilat. (Amit, 242).
III.
As we look forward, it is possible to make several cautious predictions based upon past history and recent experience. We can return to the stated preferences of President-Elect Donald Trump and take note of his choices. Frequently, there is a link between domestic and foreign policy. Therefore, we may try to understand the outlook and policy goals of the new administration, and, at the same time, consider some recent changes in Israel’s defense policy.
As he has proclaimed, Donald Trump’s big idea is to “Make America Great Again.” Interestingly, his model has been the promising economic reform program of Javier Milei, President of Argentina. One of Milei’s innovations was to launch a Ministry of Deregulation, an idea which Trump adopted enthusiastically. His new approach embodies the rejection of the hard-left policies of the Obama/Biden administrations. Among his policies are: achieving American energy independence; rebuilding American industry; ending unrestricted immigration; and fighting rampant crime. It is a matter of record that Trump plans to end the Obama/Biden policy toward Iran, which had been consistently lenient and uncritical. It would be reasonable to expect that the new administration would continue some of the policies in our region and expand the framework of the Abraham Accords.
After the Hamas invasion and atrocities of October 7, 2023 and the war which followed, it is clear that Israel will have to be prepared to defend itself on its own and invest in its armaments industry. The entire situation has been transformed by the fact that war has been forced on Israel as an unavoidable policy option, that is, “diplomacy by other means.” This implies a change of approach. Israel must defend itself proactively, as was the case with the recent initiatives in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran. Of course, the possibility should not be ruled out that the United States could change its policy and help Israel decisively win this war (in which America has a vital interest).
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the movement
