2013 Briefing Book - Print Version - Aipac

RELATIONSHIP
Israel Is America’s Most Reliable
Middle Eastern Ally
During the Cold War, the United States and
Israel collaborated in limiting Soviet influence
in the region. Today, in the post-9/11 world,
Israel remains America’s most reliable strategic
partner in the Middle East. Israel and the
United States work together to defeat common
threats and secure America’s regional and
global policy objectives.
U.S. security assistance to Israel symbolizes the strength
of the U.S.-Israel alliance.
Common threats range from terrorism, proliferation and the spread of radical Islamist ideology to
narcotics, counterfeiting, weapons smuggling and cyberwarfare. Israel is a reliable democracy that shares
America’s values and worldview in a region often dominated by radical forces, dictatorial regimes and
extremist non-state actors.
With no other country in the region—and few in the entire world—does the United States share
the same level of strategic cooperation. American-Israeli cooperation begins with frequent highlevel
strategic dialogues among senior political and military leaders and extends to combined
military planning and exercises, intelligence-sharing and technological development. The historic
American-Israeli alliance is perhaps the most stabilizing feature in an otherwise unstable region.
Israel’s presence in the region provides a de facto cost-effective guarantor of security well beyond
its borders. Furthermore, Israel’s military strength, central geo-strategic location and expanding
coordination with the United States provide a strong deterrent against Iran and other radical
forces that threaten America, its allies and regional and global U.S. objectives.
Close Strategic Partnership Spans Decades
The close strategic relationship between the United States and Israel originated with the allies
sharing key intelligence around the time of the 1967 Six-Day War. This partnership was later
broadened and formalized in the early 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan and Israeli
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir announced the establishment of the Joint Political Military
Group to coordinate planning, exercises, and prepositioning against threats faced by both
nations in the Middle East. Later in the decade, Israel formally became a major non-NATO
ally of the United States.
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