The anti-Israel camp does not need to win America fully to its side. Merely to neutralize it would radically alter the balance of power and put Israel in great jeopardy. The degree of Israel’s dependence on America was underscored in an interview that Eitan Haber, who had been Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s closest aide, gave to the Times of Israel in September 2013. Scoffing at the freedom politicians feel to say whatever they like when in opposition, Haber said that only when one of them becomes prime minister does he or she begin to understand the “extent the state of Israel is dependent on America [f]or absolutely everything – in the realms of diplomacy, security, even economically.”
Were that support withdrawn, Israel’s enemies would be tempted to renew their efforts to destroy it once and for all. Such are the dynamics of the “Arab street” that even governments that would prefer peace would feel pressure to support militant actions if Israel appeared vulnerable.
Of course, this scenario is unlikely – at least for the time being. With its formidable army and presumed nuclear weapons, Israel is not very destructible, at least not by conventional warfare. But this does not preclude new rounds of guerrilla fighting and terrorist strikes employing ever more lethal weapons. Even if Israel succeeds in defeating such assaults, the prospects for peace would recede before new torrents of blood and tears from Jews and Arabs alike.
And in the end it might not succeed. As the Vietnamese Communists showed, setting a model on which the PLO patterned itself, a conflict need not be determined by the sticks and stones of military arsenals. These can be trumped by words that transform political realities and thus, the balance of power.
For all its might, Israel remains a David, struggling against the odds to secure its small foothold in a violent and hostile region. The relentless campaign to recast it instead as a malevolent Goliath places it in grave peril.
