- Republicans and Democrats
disagree about practically everything.
But there's one thing that both sides seem to agree on.
- Israel. - Israel.
- Every four years, presidential candidates
make a point to show how much they support Israel.
They emphasize the strong bonds between the two countries,
in terms of history, bilateral trade,
and strategic alliances.
It's true each president has enacted
pretty different policies toward Israel.
George Bush Sr. had a tumultuous relationship
with the Jewish state.
Bill Clinton and George W. Bush
struck close friendships
with their prime minister counterparts.
Barack Obama didn't always see eye-to-eye
with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
while Donald Trump usually does.
Yet despite these differences, every president,
Democrat or Republican, has fundamentally supported Israel,
in office and on the campaign trail.
So if presidential races are all about
distinguishing yourself from your opponent,
why do all these candidates sound more or less the same
when it comes to Israel?
It might be surprising to learn
that the United States and Israel
haven't always been close allies.
In the mid-1950s, during the height of the Cold War,
President Dwight Eisenhower
didn't really care about the Jewish state.
His focus was on the newly independent Arab countries,
which he worried would be scooped up by the Soviet Union.
During the Suez Crisis of 1956, Britain, France,
and Israel formed an alliance
against the most influential Arab country, Egypt,
who found itself in the middle of a global tug of war.
Eisenhower decided to condemn his country's Western allies
and side with Egypt instead.
But even after Britain, France, and Israel backed down,
Egypt sided with the Soviets anyway,
and the USSR became a dominant power in the Middle East.
Years later, Eisenhower supposedly called this
one of his biggest regrets as president.
JFK supported Israel more than Eisenhower
and became the first U.S. president
to sell weapons to Israel.
But it wasn't until Israel won the Six-Day War in 1967
that the U.S. realized what a powerful ally
the little country could be.
By the '70s, it was obvious
that the United States and Israel
shared more than just a Cold War enemy.
The two countries were built on very similar values.
Both were democracies that valued freedom of speech
and equality before the law.
Both countries still struggle with actualizing these ideals,
but they're clearly on the same side
when compared to the world's non-democratic alternatives.
Around this time, a new political movement arose in America,
Christian Zionism.
Most evangelical Christians
believe that Jews must return to Israel
in order to fulfill a biblical prophecy
bringing about the return of Jesus.
In 1975, a Pentecostal minister laid the groundwork
for what would become the nation's biggest pro-Israel lobby,
Christians United for Israel.
Another pro-Israel lobby,
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC,
had been around since 1963.
But it wasn't until the 1980s that its campaigns began
influencing local elections,
mostly because the government,
and, for the first time, a majority of American voters,
had begun to realize the value of America's alliance
with Israel.
Around this same time, the U.S. government
started to formalize its military relationship with Israel.
Ronald Reagan explicitly talked up Israel's
qualitative military edge,
ensuring Israel would always have better defense technology
than its regional neighbors.
These advancements were incremental.
The big shift came in the new millennium,
9/11 and Bush's war on terror.
If America had one ally who understood
self-defense against terrorism, it was Israel.
All this brings us to the main reason
Israel has become a bipartisan campaign tactic.
If there is anything that politicians care about
during an election year, it's public opinion.
Every poll since the '80s
has shown that the majority of Americans
have a favorable view of Israel, rarely dipping below 50%.
In a 2019 Gallup poll,
American sympathies towards the Jewish state
in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
dropped to its lowest point in a decade,
but even that was 59%.
Support for Israel is one subject presidential candidates
can safely campaign on.
After decades of complex history built on public support,
foreign policy alignment, religious interests,
and defense goals, boosting the Jewish state
remains a popular bipartisan strategy in American politics.
Peace in the Middle East
for American presidents.
Obviously, it would be a feather in any president's cap,
a feather about the size of a Nobel Peace Prize.
But it would also strengthen the deep, fundamental,
and constantly growing bond
shared by Israel and the United States.
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