Israel’s war on Hezbollah, Hamas and Houthi terrorists—and their patron, Iran’s ayatollahs—highlights Israel’s unique role as a force multiplier for the United States. It sheds light on the mutually beneficial, two-way-street of U.S.-Israel cooperation, which yields to the U.S. taxpayer more than U.S. foreign aid to Israel costs them.
For example:
Israel fights Hezbollah, which is a global epicenter—second only to Iran’s ayatollahs—of anti-U.S. terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering, extending from the Middle East to the American continent. As a proxy of Iran’s ayatollahs, Hezbollah has proliferated terrorist cells in the United States—“the Great Satan”—and has carried out terror assaults on U.S. installations in the Middle East and beyond.
Moreover, since the early 1980s, Hezbollah has collaborated with drug cartels in Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador and Brazil; has trained Latin American terrorists (on their way to the United States) in the tri-border areas of Argentina-Paraguay-Brazil and Chile-Peru-Bolivia; has conducted a mega-billion-dollar money laundering operation between Latin America, West Africa, Europe and the Middle East; has terrorized pro-U.S. regimes in western, northern and eastern Africa; and has systematically attempted to topple all pro-U.S. “apostate” Sunni Arab regimes, such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt and Morocco. Hezbollah and Iran’s ayatollahs have targeted Israel as the vanguard of the United States, and America’s first line of defense, in the “abode of Islam.”
All pro-U.S. Arab regimes, especially oil-producing Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain, as well as Jordan and Egypt, have the machetes of Iran’s ayatollahs, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood at their throats. They are dismayed by Washington’s courting of the ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood, and its frail response to the ayatollahs’, Hezbollah’s and Houthis’ rogue conduct toward the United States and its Arab allies. Therefore, they consider Israel’s posture of deterrence as a major component of their own national security. Hence their interest in closer defense and commercial ties with Israel.
Irrespective of their public pronouncements (and consistent with the fact that their peace accords and close ties with Israel have not been preconditioned upon the establishment of a Palestinian state), these pro-U.S. Arab regimes are driven by Middle East reality, including the volcanic potential of Islamic and Palestinian terrorism. They consider an Israeli failure to obliterate Hamas’s military infrastructure, and to decimate Hezbollah’s military posture, to be a real and clear threat to their own survival. Thus, they are relieved to witness Israel’s decisive military actions against Hezbollah, Hamas, PLO and Houthi terrorists, as well as Iran’s ayatollahs, which have almost restored Israel’s posture of deterrence, that was demolished(!) on Oct. 7, 2023. They expect Israel to sustain its military offensive, which would remove the deadly machetes from their throats.
Israel’s war on Islamic terrorism has resulted in an unprecedented intensity of Israeli Air Force sorties against Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthi terrorists and Iranian targets in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran. These sorties have yielded a multitude of operational, maintenance and repair lessons concerning the U.S.-made F-35, F-16 and F-15 combat aircraft and Sikorsky military helicopters.
Once again, Israel performs as the battle-tested research and development center of the U.S. defense and aerospace industry, as well as of the U.S. Armed Forces. This is similar to its role as the site of research and development centers of some 250 U.S. high-tech giants, such as John Deere, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Texas Instruments, Intel, Applied materials, Nvidia, General Motors, Microsoft, McAfee, AT&T, Vonage, IBM, HP, Dell, Google, Facebook, PayPal, Intuit, Mastercard, Visa, Motorola, Hewlett Packard, CA Technologies, etc.
The lessons derived by the Israeli battle-testing laboratory have been shared with the U.S. defense and aerospace industries, as well as with the U.S. Air Force. These lessons have been integrated as upgrades to U.S. combat aircraft, saving the manufacturers 10-20 years of research and development (which amounts to billions of dollars), enhancing the competitiveness of the U.S. products in the global market, resulting in increased exports (additional billions of dollars), while expanding the employment base (similar to the impact of Israel on the U.S. commercial high tech sector). Simultaneously, these lessons have provided U.S. combat pilots (who rarely experience do-or-die sorties) with unique Israeli battle experience, which advances the formulation of U.S. battle tactics, enhancing the performance of the U.S. Air Force.
The unusually high intensity of Israel’s aerial sorties has forced Israel to expedite and innovate its engine-overhauling capabilities to extend the aircrafts’ life cycles and avoid safety hazards. In addition, it has induced Israel to unprecedently reduce the erosion rate of helicopters’ rotor blades, which is accelerated during many take-offs and landing in sand/dust areas such as in the Gaza Strip. These ground-breaking innovations have substantially reduced maintenance and repair cost, and are increasingly available to the U.S. Air Force.
Israel’s war on Hamas has produced a vast inventory of counter-terrorism intelligence from thousands of Hamas prisoners, providing updated information on Islamic terrorism’s personnel, organization and operation in the Middle East and beyond, which is also relevant to U.S. counter-terrorism, sparing many American lives. It is consistent with an assertion made by the late Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), who was the chairman of the Full Appropriations Committee and the Intelligence Committee: “The scope of intelligence shared by Israel with the U.S. exceeds the intelligence shared with the U.S. by all NATO countries combined.”
Also, former chief of Air Force Intelligence, Gen. George Keegan, opined: “If the U.S. would have to procure on its own the intelligence provided by Israel [on enemies’ military systems and counter-terrorism], then the U.S. would have to establish five CIAs.”
In February 2024, FBI Director Chris Wray visited Israel to study how it was coping with the ramifications of Hamas’s horrific Oct. 7 2023 horrific terrorism, which—according to FBI assessment—is inspiring Iran-supported, anti-U.S. Islamic terror organizations to carry out similar acts on U.S. soil. The FBI director’s fact-finding mission was consistent with U.S. experts on urban warfare and special operations visiting the Israeli battle-tested laboratory, benefiting from Israel’s unique experience. Similar visits to Israel occurred following each one of Israel’s wars (e.g., 1967, 1973, 1982, and the first and second intifada), which rewarded the United States with enormous volumes of lessons, benefiting the U.S. national and homeland security agencies, as well as the U.S. defense and aerospace industries.
Israel’s current war has exposed the country to a flood of advanced missiles, launched by Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran. It has tested—and improved—the quality of Israel’s missile defense, which has been developed jointly with the United States since the late 1980s, and systematically tested and enhanced by the Israeli battle tested laboratory. The Israeli enhancements have been shared with the U.S. defense industries and the Missile Defense Agency, while the manufacturing of the hardware is increasingly taking place in the United States.
In view of the aforementioned, the annual “foreign aid” extended to Israel (a credit to purchase only U.S. military systems) does not constitute “foreign aid.” Rather, it has been an annual U.S. investment in an immensely-grateful Israel, yielding to the U.S. an annual Return-on-Investment (RoI) of a few hundred percent. It has been a most productive and secure U.S. investment, underlying the mutually-beneficial, two-way-street of U.S.-Israel cooperation in the face of mutual threats, such as Islamic terrorism.
