This week, one of the most important questions for the future of the State of Israel became sharper: What is the price of strategic dependence, even when it is dependence on our greatest and most important friend?
There is no Israeli who does not understand the importance of the alliance with the United States. Security assistance, intelligence cooperation, diplomatic backing and the value-based bond between the two countries are strategic assets of the highest order. In a stormy and dangerous Middle East, Israel has no more important friend. But precisely because of that, we must know how to distinguish between alliance and dependence.
History teaches that small countries cannot afford to give up international partnerships. But it also teaches that they cannot hand over responsibility for their fate to others. Israel was founded precisely out of that understanding. After generations in which Jews were dependent on decisions made by others, a state was established here whose role is to make the decisions concerning its security and future by itself.
Friends can help, advise and support. But they are not the ones who bear the consequences if the decisions turn out to be wrong.
While residents of northern Israel continue to live under threat, while IDF soldiers are still being wounded by Hezbollah fire, and while the organization continues trying to erode the sense of security along the northern border, a worrying gap seems to have emerged between declarations and reality.
We heard firm declarations about a severe blow to Hezbollah’s infrastructure and about a significant response in Beirut’s Dahiyeh district. But at the moment of truth, it became clear that the decisions are not made only in Jerusalem.
This is not criticism of the United States, but of us. A sovereign state cannot allow a situation in which its enemies believe the way to stop Israeli action runs through Washington. When Hezbollah, Iran and other actors in the region get the impression that international pressure can stop Israel even when its citizens are under attack, cumulative damage is done to deterrence. Sometimes that damage is greater than any tactical achievement on the battlefield.
For the avoidance of doubt, I am not suggesting a frontal confrontation with Washington. Israel needs the United States, and the United States needs Israel. This alliance has stood through difficult tests for decades, and it is essential to our national security.
But true friendship is based on partnership, not total dependence. Real friendship also allows for disagreements. It allows one country to say to another: We are listening to your advice, we respect your position, but the responsibility for the lives of our citizens rests with us.
This is exactly the point at which Israel must be clearer. Not every security decision can be subject to diplomatic pressure, and not every military move must receive international approval. The situation in the north is exactly the moment in which a state is required to make difficult decisions because it has no other choice. These are the lives of our soldiers, the lives of our residents, and not the lives of anyone else.
Davidi Ben ZionThere is also a message here that is important for our allies. Israel is not asking others to fight its wars. Our soldiers are the ones on the lines of contact. Our families are the ones living under threat. Our citizens are the ones carrying the economic and social burden of the prolonged campaign.
Israel’s great challenge in the coming years will not only be to defeat Hezbollah, Hamas or Iran. It will be to preserve our essential alliances without losing our independence in decision-making, and to know how to rely on friends without becoming dependent on them.
In the end, the citizens of Israel send their sons and daughters to defend the country. They pay the price of war, sirens and uncertainty. That is why the decisions concerning their security must also be made in Jerusalem, out of national responsibility, and nowhere else in the world.