Why US sees Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a security threat

Still, US officials ranging from President Obama to Clinton prefaced all their public remarks on the falling out with an unwavering American commitment to Israel’s security.

For some, an underlying argument is that Israel doesn’t act in its own interest when it takes actions that undermine US national security.

However, the national-security argument is rejected by a number of Republicans and Democrats on the Hill. They maintain that the challenge of Islamist extremism is separate from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that the US should not allow any red herrings to disrupt US-Israeli ties. But reports that Mr. Biden advanced a form of the argument in meetings with Israeli officials suggest the perspective’s wide reach in the administration. Biden linked Israel’s dedication to the peace process to smoother sailing for the US in its efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Some experts in Middle East affairs say they understand where the administration argument originates, but add that it nevertheless places too much of the onus for peacemaking on Israel.

“The administration has embraced the Arab consensus relayed to it through the military, and that is understandable because the Central Command deals almost entirely with Arab and Muslim countries,” says James Phillips, a specialist in Middle East issues at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. “But when you come down to it, the US is asking Israel to make concessions that would undermine its own security in order to improve US cooperation with Muslim states.”

An Israeli-Palestinian accord “would have some impact on improved US security,” Mr. Phillips agrees. But it would be in a “much more hazy sense of an improved American image in the region,” compared with Israel’s “concrete security concerns,” he says.

But others say a stalled peace effort, and specifically Israel’s direct challenges to US power, pose a concrete threat to American strategic interests.

Leslie Gelb, a US foreign-policy expert with the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said in a recent opinion piece that Israel’s settlement activities, in direct defiance of US calls for all parties to avoid “provocative” steps, are “self-defeating” because the “insult” seriously damages American power in the Middle East.

Mr. Gelb called the US-Israeli alliance unquestioned and Israel specifically a " ‘strategic aircraft carrier’ for America in a chaotic part of the world.” He added in the piece, which appeared on the website The Daily Beast, “If Israelis further complicate an already complicated Middle East, it won't be good for the US or for Israel.”

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