Till Death Do Us Part: The Unholy Matrimony Between the US and Israel
by M.
Reza Behnam | Nov
6, 2026
The standard narrative of American foreign policy has
long rested on the pillar of moral exceptionalism: the assertion that the
United States acts as a global guardian of human rights, international law and
democratic governance.
However, Washington’s support
for the ongoing holocaust in the occupied Gaza Strip, West Bank and unlawful
war on Iran have exposed glaring contradictions at the heart of this
narrative. They reveal the true character of a political system defined not
by its lofty noble declarations, but by its iniquitous decisions and actions.
These inequalities accentuate
the true nature of U.S. geopolitics; essentially that human rights ideals are
of little account to predatory imperial powers.
For over a century, the
subjugation of Palestine and West Asia has been orchestrated through a legacy
of colonial bigotry and pro-Zionist geopolitical engineering. The region
has been treated not as home to sovereign peoples but as an imperial chessboard
ripe for exploitation.
The wars throughout the
region, particularly on Palestine and Iran, are the culmination of imperial
agendas set in motion a century ago. The current geopolitical course
began with the stroke of a pen set to the Balfour
Declaration in 1917, in which a distant European empire casually bartered
away a homeland that was not theirs to give. This colonizing scheme
reached its peak in the 1996 “A Clean Break: A New
Strategy for Securing the Realm” document – a stratagem advanced by
American neoconservatives and Zionist hardliners to reshape West Asia in
Israel’s image.
Together these imperial
blueprints established frameworks for domination that have led the region and
global community to the precipice of disaster.
Underpinning these policies is
a deeply-rooted colonial chauvinism that views the indigenous people of the
region as obstacles to be displaced, managed or crushed, rather than human
beings with inalienable rights to freedom, self-determination and dignity.
When examined across a
century, the trajectory from Balfour to “Clean Break” demonstrates a
consistent structural logic. Whether foreign powers use imperial decrees,
global mandates, diplomatic accords or military force, the goal is always the
same: to secure and maintain control, fundamentally disregarding the rights of
the native populations to govern themselves.
The bilateral partnership with
Israel, originally formed to secure its existence, has now become a strategic
liability. The Israel that once proved useful to Washington as its
regional enforcer, now seems to be in the catbird seat.
The eventual subordination of
American foreign policy to Israeli strategic ambitions is not a historic
accident, but the predictable outcome of a powerful deeply-entrenched
military-industrial-security nexus that long ago equated regional dominance
with U.S. national interests.
What began as a Cold War
strategy to project American power across West Asia without a large-scale troop
presence, has evolved into an institutionalized, self-perpetuating deadly
alliance, in which the balance of control has become blurred.
Decades of deeply-entrenched
military, intelligence and industrial ties with Tel Aviv have created an
institutional inertia so powerful that Washington now reflexively accepts
global criticism, regional anger and multi-trillion-dollar detours into foreign
interventions as a matter of course – as a worthy price to pay for their
“special relationship.”
Instead of exerting its
strategic agency over a client state, the United States has become captive to
Israeli dogmatism, which asserts that anything less than unconditional support
signals U.S. weakness and vulnerability. Consequently, this has fallen on
American taxpayers to subsidize and service members to fight military
campaigns that compromise the nation’s interests and long-term stability.
Adding to this geopolitical
trap is a domestic political echo chamber engineered to penalize flexibility
and alternative strategies, while rewarding absolute conformity and compliance
with Israeli objectives.
The alliance with Israel is so
thoroughly embedded in the American body politic that it functions as a “third
rail” of U.S. foreign policy and public discourse. It remains above
criticism through a combination of highly organized influential lobbying
groups, massive political campaign financing schemes, a powerful evangelical
voting bloc, and weaponization of the anti-Semitic label.
When paired with a
deeply-ingrained pro-Israel media and cultural narrative that frames regional
escalation as inevitable, rather than preventable, Washington’s political class
most often chooses the safety of domestic capitulation over the discipline of
sovereign statecraft, guaranteeing political submission to Israeli goading.
The result is a chronically
unsettled America perpetually drawn into Israel’s expansionist wars. This
involvement is driven not by clear strategic necessity, but by a systemic
inability in Washington to break free from domestic pressures and external
mandates.
From the colonial promises of
the Balfour Declaration to the “Clean Break” document, Israel has consistently
prioritized expansionism over international law, formal agreements and even the
strategic interests of its closest ally and main benefactor, the United States.
A core folly in Washington’s
Israel/West Asian policy has been in treating a strategic burden as an
indispensable ally.
Prioritizing the regional
ambitions of a hegemonic foreign “ally” over core U.S. interests have entangled
America in Israel’s reckless wars and conflicts. Decades of blank-check
diplomacy have inflamed anti-American sentiment, compromised its global
credibility, strained vital alliances, and drained finite military and economic
resources that would be better directed toward urgent domestic needs.
Paradoxically, the imperial
strategies meant to safeguard Israel at the expense of West Asia are now taking
a toll on America as well. The United States will not, and cannot,
recover its strategic autonomy and moral leadership unless it makes a clean
break from its damaging relationship with Israel.
