It's Time to Make the U.S.-Israel Relationship Normal Again
Replacing the 'special relationship' with a more standard alliance between two sovereign nations would serve both American and Israeli interests
For decades, Washington has treated its relationship with Israel as something categorically different from its relationships with every other ally, an unconditional, sacrosanct bond insulated from the give-and-take that governs America's dealings with London, Tokyo, or Canberra.
Presidents of both parties have spoken of the relationship in the language of covenant rather than contract, and Congress has structured aid and diplomatic support accordingly.
That arrangement made strategic sense during the Cold War era, when Israel served as a reliable outpost in a region contested by Soviet-aligned states, and when American policymakers worried, correctly or not, that a wavering commitment might tempt Israel's neighbors into trying to destroy it.
But it makes far less sense today. The most productive thing Washington and Jerusalem could do for each other now is to normalize the relationship, turning it into a standard, interest-based alliance rather than a permanent, emotionally-charged entitlement. Both countries would come out ahead, and so, arguably, would the broader region.
Normalization would first restore American credibility as an honest broker. Nearly $4 billion a year in military aid to Israel, paired with reflexive diplomatic cover for the Jewish State at the U.N. Security Council, has left the United States structurally incapable of being seen as neutral.
Arab and Muslim publics do not distinguish between American policy and Israeli policy; in their eyes, the two are fused, and every American initiative in the region, from counterterrorism cooperation to trade agreements, is read through that lens.
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A more normal relationship, one where aid is periodically reviewed, tied to specific strategic contributions, and not treated as a permanent entitlement, would let Washington recover some room to maneuver as a mediator rather than a guarantor. That room to maneuver is not a favor to Israel's adversaries; it is a tool Washington could use on Israel's behalf as well, in moments when quiet, credible pressure might serve Israeli interests better than automatic public support.
It would also serve core American interests by reducing automatic entanglement. An unconditional commitment is a blank check on future crises Washington cannot fully anticipate or control. Every regional flare-up, whether in Gaza, Lebanon, or against Iranian proxies, carries an implicit expectation that the U.S. will backstop Israel diplomatically and militarily, regardless of whether that serves American interests or fits American priorities elsewhere in the world. A relationship built on case-by-case reciprocity, rather than automatic solidarity, would let American policymakers weigh each crisis on its actual merits.
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Israel, meanwhile, would benefit from the self-reliance that normalization would force upon it. Israel today has one of the world's most capable militaries, an advanced and increasingly export-oriented domestic arms industry, and a credible nuclear deterrent. It no longer resembles the fragile, besieged state of 1973 that needed an emergency American airlift to survive.
Continued dependence on American aid, paradoxically, constrains Israeli sovereignty: it ties Jerusalem's freedom of action to Washington's domestic politics and electoral cycles, and it feeds a narrative, useful to Israel's enemies, that the country cannot stand on its own without a superpower patron. A more normal, transactional relationship would let Israel act as the confident regional power it actually is, rather than as a dependent client whose strategic choices are perpetually shadowed by the question of what Congress or the White House will tolerate.
Normalization would also lower the political cost the relationship imposes on both democracies. In the U.S., the "special relationship" has become a lightning rod in domestic politics, distorting debates in Congress and on college campuses alike, and turning what should be an ordinary foreign-policy question into a toxic domestic loyalty test.
In Israel, unconditional American backing has arguably enabled policies, on settlement expansion, for instance, that a more conditional relationship might have tempered, arguably to Israel's own long-term strategic benefit. Treating the alliance as normal, rather than sacred, would let both democracies debate it like any other foreign policy question.
None of this requires hostility or abandonment. Britain and Australia are close, trusted American allies without automatic, unconditional aid or diplomatic blank checks, and those relationships are arguably stronger, not weaker, for being negotiated rather than assumed.
The same model could work for Israel. Normalizing the relationship isn't a euphemism for distancing; it's simply a recognition that a mature alliance between two capable democracies doesn't need to be treated as an exception to the normal rules of statecraft.
Dr Leon Hadar, a former research fellow in foreign policy at the Cato Institute, is the author of "Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East"
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2005)