Should the U.S. Guarantee Israel?

Surrounded by hostile neighbors, isolated diplomatically, Israel has become ever more dependent on the U.S. for military supplies, economic aid and political support. Nonetheless, there is no treaty that commits the U.S. to defend or aid Israel. The alliance between the two nations is based on assurances of support by a succession of U.S. Presidents, and by the diminishing but still large pro-Israel sentiment in the U.S. that involves Gentiles as well as Jews.

Should Washington and Jerusalem negotiate a treaty that would formally guarantee Israel's survival in case of war? Writing in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, Richard Ullman, a professor of international affairs at Princeton and a former member of the National Security Council under Lyndon Johnson, answers yes. His reasoning: "The risks of a war have been substantially increased" by such recent developments as the recognition of the P.L.O. "as a leading formal actor" in Middle East affairs and the shift in the economic balance of power away from Israel toward the Arabs.

A treaty--so Ullman's argument goes--would be an "absolutely unambiguous American commitment" and should make the Israelis feel secure enough to return most of the Arab territory they have occupied since the 1967 war. Moreover, there would be much less risk that the Arabs would underestimate the U.S. commitment to Israel. Some political experts stress that in a diplomatic situation as difficult as that in the Middle East now, a treaty might be useful. "The only effective and tested form of guarantee is an alliance," declared Oxford Professor Alastair Buchan in last year's Reith Lectures on the BBC.

Although the treaty need not require it, Ullman suggests stationing U.S. troops in Israel as part of an alliance. Positioned along the Arab-Israeli borders, the G.I.s might help deter attacks as effectively as they have in South Korea, West Berlin and West Germany. There they act as "trip wires"--their vulnerability serving to convince any potential aggressor of the near impossibility of striking without taking some American lives and thus presumably drawing the U.S. into war.

Nonetheless, there are serious problems involved in an Israeli-U.S. treaty. Although most Arabs would not be surprised by so formal an American commitment to Israel, it certainly would cool Arab-U.S. relations. Some experts believe that Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan might acquiesce to an American military presence, but only if it were specifically tied to an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and the creation of a Palestinian homeland.

On the other side, many Israelis could argue that the presence of American troops would undermine Israel's sovereignty and reduce it to a client state, always living in fear that the troops would be withdrawn if Washington objected to Jerusalem's policies. Israelis also note that U.S. units would be powerless to prevent terrorist attacks.

However, former Chief of Military Intelligence Chaim Herzog, who represents a minority view, thinks that garrisoning U.S. soldiers in Israel or stationing the U.S. Sixth Fleet at Haifa "makes good sense." After all, he says, "Israel's own deterrent has not prevented the last two wars."

A treaty that would really deter war would probably be one based on U.S.Soviet collaboration, jointly guaranteeing the borders of Arab nations as well as those of Israel, as was suggested recently by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. After all, in both 1956 and 1967, Israel did attack first. Most Israeli officials, however, bridle at the very thought of a Soviet guarantee. "Absolutely no!" exclaims one Foreign Ministry official. "We completely distrust the Russians."

U.S. political and military leaders would be nervous about an American-Soviet condominium in the Middle East. For that matter, the Russians might also feel they have little to gain by reducing tensions, since Moscow's toehold in the region depends almost entirely on its role as the Arabs' principal military and political ally against Israel. The Russians would probably prefer to work almost exclusively on the Arab side, basing Red Army units in Arab lands if U.S. troops arrived in Israel.

Although the purpose of a treaty would be to erase any ambiguity about U.S. backing of Israel, the debate leading to the treaty's approval by the Senate might in fact create new uncertainties. It could reveal basic doubts in the U.S. about the wisdom of Washington's traditional pro-Israel policy. A recent Yankelovich poll found that 74% of all Americans considered the survival of Israel "important" to the U.S. But this support has never been tested, and many might regard a further commitment to Israel as meaning that Washington was now Jerusalem's hostage. The Viet Nam experience has made many Americans reluctant to accept any new overseas military obligations. Unless U.S. leadership could demonstrate that the treaty would be part of an overall Middle East settlement from which the U.S. could benefit materially (by a reduction in oil prices, for instance), opposition to a guarantee might be violent. This would trigger an acrimonious debate that would weaken the credibility of the current informal U.S. backing of Israel.

Beyond that, it is not clear how a U.S.-Israeli treaty right now would end the Middle East impasse. How, for example, could the U.S. guarantee borders --and station its troops near them --when those very borders are in dispute? But once progress is made toward a Middle East settlement, a U.S. treaty with Israel could be used to resolve a negotiating stalemate. In fact, at a key moment, the promise of some form of guarantee of Israel's sovereignty --either by the U.S. or by a group of nations--might be required to induce the Israelis to relinquish large parts of the occupied territory in order to win political concessions from the Arabs. In sum, the U.S.-Israel treaty looks like a concept whose time has not yet come.

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