Amid several news about the US efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, there are strong indications that the US-Israel relation itself is experiencing a tough time, leaving the future of the bilateral alliance between Washington and Tel Aviv in limbo.
For the past few weeks, news about US efforts to normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia have been spreading all across the media. However, there are indications to believe that Washington itself is having a hard time in dealing with Israel as an ally due to several grounds of conflicts with Tel Aviv.
Since the inauguration of Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister of Israel and extremist politicians from far-right parties as members of his government, relations between the United States and Israel have been remarkably cold and even tense in some cases.
Among the disputes between these two that are expanding day by day, include the judiciary overhaul plan, the expansion of illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories, and serious differences of opinions on Iran’s nuclear program.
A fight between Harris and Cohen
Regarding Israel’s plan to reduce the powers of the Supreme Court in favor of the government, it was early in June that Biden’s vice president Kamala Harris criticized Israel’s decision for the first time in recent months, and in a statement, stated that “the United States has never abandoned the values on which the US relations with Israel is founded”, adding that “Israel should have an independent Supreme Court”.
In response to these statements, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen strongly criticizing Harris and her recent words, accusing her of sheer ignorance about Israel’s policies; “If you ask her (Harris) what bothers you about the reforms of the Supreme Court of Israel, she probably cannot cite even one clause of the bill issued by our parliament, because her statements clearly show that she did not read this bill at all,” Cohen said.
Miller and Ben-Gvir also disputed over Israel’s illegal settlements
Another case of disputes between the United States and Israel is the former’s expansion of illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories. Addressing this issue, Matthew Miller, the spokesman for the US State Department, said last May that Washington “deeply and strongly disagrees with the order of the Israeli government to give its citizens allowance to have a permanent presence in the north of the West Bank, which has been illegally built on private Palestinian lands”.
In response to Miller’s statements, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Minister of National Security and the leader of Israel’s extreme right party, criticized the US government and accused the Americans of interfering in Israel’s internal affairs; “Biden must understand that Israel is no longer a star on the American flag. We are an independent democracy, and I expect the US president to understand this.,” he told Israel Radio last month in June.
Iran’s nuke program, last but not least case of dispute between Israel and US
Last but not least, the efforts of the Biden government to reach an agreement with Iran over the Tehran’s nuclear program is yet another area of disagreement between Israel and the US. “From Israel’s point of view, the position of the Biden administration indicates that America is no longer a reliable ally. For this reason, Israel is no longer interested in coordinating its policies and actions towards Iran with Washington,” said Caroline Glick, senior analyst in the Middle East Institute in an interview with Fox News last week.
All these disagreements between the US and Israel have caused many analysts and experts to express concern about the future of the relations between the two. Jason Greenblatt, a former official of the White House and the author of the book “On the Road to the Abrahamic Agreement”, for example, has recently stated that he is very worried about the bilateral relations between the United States and Israel and that the recent abovementioned events “could be a serious threat to the long-standing alliance between the two. be the country”.
