Israel–United States relations

Since the 1960s, the relationship between Israel and the United States has grown into a close alliance in economic, strategic and military aspects. The U.S. has provided strong support for Israel; it has played a key role in the promotion of good relations between Israel and its neighbouring Arab states. In turn, Israel provides a strategic American foothold in the region as well as intelligence and advanced technological partnerships. Relations with Israel are an important factor in the U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.

Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid: up to February 2022, the U.S. had provided Israel US$150 billion (non-inflation-adjusted) in assistance. The United States' first free trade agreement was with Israel, in 1985. In 1999, the U.S. government signed a commitment to provide Israel with at least US$2.7 billion in military aid annually for ten years; in 2009 it was raised to $3 billion; and in 2019 raised to a minimum of US$3.8 billion. Since 1972, the U.S. has also extended loan guarantees to Israel to assist with housing shortages, absorption of new Jewish immigrants and economic recovery.

In addition to financial and military aid, the U.S. provides large-scale political support, having used its United Nations Security Council veto power 42 times against resolutions condemning Israel, out of 83 times in which its veto has been used. Between 1991 and 2011, out of the 24 vetoes invoked by the U.S., 15 were used to protect Israel. As of 2021^[update], the United States remains the only permanent member of the United Nations Security Council to have recognized the Golan Heights as non-occupied Israeli sovereign territory, recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and moved its embassy there from Tel Aviv in 2018. Israel is designated by the United States as a major non-NATO ally.

Bilateral relations have developed from an early American policy of sympathy and support for the establishment of a Jewish homeland in 1948 to a partnership that connects the United States – a superpower seeking to balance competing interests in the Middle East – with Israel, a small but militarily powerful nation. Late U.S senator Jesse Helms argued that the military foothold offered by Israel justifies the expense of American military aid, referring to Israel as "America's aircraft carrier in the Middle East".

Leaders of Israel and the United States from 1950

Support for Zionism among American Jews was minimal, until the involvement of Louis Brandeis in the Federation of American Zionists, starting in 1912 and the establishment of the Provisional Executive Committee for General Zionist Affairs in 1914; it was empowered by the Zionist Organization "to deal with all Zionist matters, until better times come".

Woodrow Wilson, who was sympathetic to the plight of Jews in Europe and favorable to Zionist objectives (giving his assent to the text of the Balfour Declaration shortly before its release) stated on March 2, 1919, "I am persuaded that the Allied nations with the fullest concurrence of our own Government and people are agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundation of a future Jewish commonwealth" and on April 16, 1919, corroborated the U.S. government's "expressed acquiescence" in the Balfour Declaration. Wilson's statements did not result in a change in policy of the U.S. State Department in favor of Zionist aims. However, the U.S. Congress passed the Lodge–Fish Resolution, the first joint resolution stating its support for "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people" on September 21, 1922. The same day, the Mandate of Palestine was approved by the Council of the League of Nations.

During World War II, while U.S. foreign policy decisions were often ad hoc moves and solutions dictated by the demands of the war, the Zionist movement made a fundamental departure from traditional Zionist policy and its stated goals, at the Biltmore Conference in May 1942. Previous stated policy towards establishing a Jewish "national home" in Palestine were gone; these were replaced with its new policy "that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth" like other nations, in cooperation with the United States, not Britain. Two attempts by Congress in 1944 to pass resolutions declaring U.S. government support for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine were objected to by the Departments of War and State, because of wartime considerations and Arab opposition to the creation of a Jewish state. The resolutions were permanently dropped.