At a time of concern over the long-term viability of the Israeli-U.S. alliance, the artificial intelligence revolution is buttressing the pact with realpolitik incentives, Israeli ex-officials dealing with the relationship said last week.
Hadas Lorber, Director of the US-Israel Project at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), presented the argument on May 26 in Tel Aviv at the annual Ruderman Conference for Israel-American Jewish Relations, a forum that brings together top experts in the field under the auspices of the University of Haifa’s Ruderman Program for American Jewish Studies.
Lorber, the former head of the Foreign Policy Division at Israel’s National Security Council (NSC), where she spearheaded strategic cooperation with the United States, began her message at the conference with “the bad news,” which she characterized as “the fraying of shared values” that unite Israel and the United States.
This was a reference to Israel’s growing unpopularity in both Democrat and liberal circles, and the alienation to Israel in major segments of the American right.
In a Pew Research Center poll published last month, more than half of U.S. adults expressed an unfavorable opinion of Israel, with younger generations on both sides of the political divide growing more negative in their view of the Jewish state. The poll of 3,605 Americans indicated a major drop in Israel’s popularity compared to 2022.
The good news, she said, is that Israel’s technological abilities make it a valuable partner to the United States regardless of public opinion because they offer remedies “for the most painful issue” that America faces geopolitically: Its rivalry with China.
“The United States is installing what’s known as the Pax Silica, referencing silicone. A coalition of powers designed to ensure the technological, military and economic edge over the surging rival, which is China,” Lorber posited during a presentation at the conference, which about 120 people attended at the Yitzhak Rabin Center and Museum near Tel Aviv University.
This is the context, she added, against which one needs to consider Israel’s joining last year of the Pax Silica Initiative, a strategic move unveiled during an international conference attended by Israel and eight other leading countries in the fields of artificial intelligence, semiconductors and advanced industries. Besides the United States and Israel, Pax Silica has only seven other members: Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates and Australia.
In Israel, Israel’s inclusion in the initiative was eclipsed by the tense ceasefire with Hezbollah, the standoff with Iran and the de-escalation in Gaza.
Yet it marked “a key shift,” said Lorber, “away from dependency and toward an Israeli contribution to the push that matters most to the United States right now, and that’s a new pillar in the relationship that’s coming into its own just as the other pillars are cracking.”
Israel was an early adopter of AI, and “as the decision last year to open a research center of Nvidia here demonstrates, Israel’s a world leader in cybersecurity, has advanced chip technology etc.,” said Lorber.
Israel has one of the world’s largest AI startup ecosystems outside the United States, specialized in cybersecurity, enterprise, defense, healthcare and fintech. Israel has hundreds of AI startups and consistently ranks among the top countries globally in venture capital investment per capita.
“So the relationship is moving away from the question of: ‘How are you helping us and why you should?’ to: ‘How can we partner up?’” said Lorber.
Jonathan Adiri, an entrepreneur and AI developer who used to be the innovation adviser of the late Israeli president Shimon Peres, also revisited the PEW survey, but recommended interpreting it in the context of other U.S. internal polls and shifts, rather than data relating to something endemic in the American-Israeli partnership.
“A Gallup poll from last year showed that only 58% of Americans are extremely or very proud to be Americans compared to 87% in 2001,” noted Adiri. He also noted that pride levels remained steady among Republicans but crashed among Democrats, from 87% to 36% last year.
“We need to look at why Israel is unpopular in the United States, but we won’t get the full answer unless we also look at why the United States is unpopular among many in the United States,” said Adiri. “It’s because the system is broken: College graduates can’t get a job, and if they do, they can’t own a home. Those are the deep processes affecting the relationship with Israel, and all other relationships,” he continued. This, he said, reinforced the need to switch to a partnership paradigm with the United States.
Adiri recalled reviewing a declassified Israeli Foreign Ministry report from the 1960s that analyzed the reasons for Israel’s diminishing popularity “especially on the left, and including within the Jewish-American left,” Adiri said. The document, he added, “might as well have been written last week.”
That the same dynamic has persisted, and arguably worsened, half a century later, is potentially discouraging, Adiri conceded. “But the good news is that this was in 1969, and look at us now: A country with $235 billion in foreign currency reserves, that’s poised to come out on top from the current crisis and to address the challenge of the relationship with the United States, which is rooted primarily in internal, American factors.”
