America’s Relationship With Israel Is a Moral Hazard

US President Donald Trump and his main advisers have become frustrated by Israel. Can you blame them?

Israel recently bombed Damascus, destroying Trump’s high -level diplomatic diplomatic effort to strengthen stable and united Syria and ignore American forces there. Likewise, the Israeli bombing in Iran in June was preparing Trump’s efforts to negotiate a new nuclear agreement with Tehran, which ultimately prompted the United States to Israel’s war against Iran.

The Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza prevents the expansion of Ibrahim’s agreements, which is a high priority in Trump’s second state. In recent weeks, Israel has corrected pressure on Trump to restore wars in Iran and Yemen, which has just mediated Trump in deals to end.

In addition to all of this, the Israeli forces and settlers fired a couple of churches in Gaza and the West Bank in July, killing Christians in a war supposed to be the destruction of Hamas.

No wonder Trump called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu twice last month to shout. But it is not surprising that Israel will act unlike Trump’s interests – in fact, many experts expected this to happen. Why? The reason for the deep Israeli desire to take revenge does not lie after the attacks of October 7, 2023, but also in structural dynamics at the heart of the American -Israeli relationship. These dynamics protect Israel from the costs of its behavior, which provides the procedures fraught with risks that contradict American interests.

In short, the American policy is to blame – at least partially – to Israel to undermine Trump’s ambitious goals in the Middle East. It is time for Washington to change the relationship with Israel from the beneficiary to the partner.

Politics they have Name – “moral danger” – for this type of problem. It tends to appear when the superpower makes a strong security pledge a weaker sponsor and review, which means that the state is desperate to reform its security problems and/or change the prevailing safety matter. Certainly to support the major energy, the ally becomes more future for risks and less response to the requirements of the superpower, which often ends paying the costs of its weakest partner’s aggression.

The moral danger represents a common problem in international relations-that faced by every post-Cold War American president with Israel. Although Israel is the cornerstone of US security relations in the Middle East, amendments to the relationship are needed to address this moral risk problem.

Fortunately, the conditions are mature for positive aspiration. Israel is no longer the weak and the shepherd, as the United States has established its iron pledge to ensure Israeli security in 1948. It is now a strong country, with the important conservative voices in Trump’s orbit – regional hemon in the Middle East.

Given Israel’s geopolitical position, Washington needs to upgrade its relationship with the country from one of the client to strategic partnership. In this process, you should add, as with other American partners similar to Israel, more ambiguity of its security pledge to the country. Under this type of arrangement, the United States will be able to continue supporting and protecting Israel while reducing certainty in this support for any Israeli efforts.

This will push Israel to escalate and bear more of its security. Since the cost that Israel pays for its security rise, Israel will need priority, and as with other health strategic partnerships in history, more negotiating with the United States in ways that gives Washington more financial leverage in the relationship. This will eventually curb the moral risks to improve the long -term American strategic goals.

There are two specific changes that the United States must make Israel upgrade to a strategic partner. These changes should be the focus of the upcoming talks about the renewal of the Israeli memorandum for a period of 10 years with the United States, which is the backbone of the American security relationship to Israel.

First, the current American “IronClad” pledge to Israel is more powerful and unconditional than the obligations of Article 5 of NATO allies, which allow member states to make a decision of its date, how, and even if they respond to an attack on another member state. In the case of Israel, there is no such warning or ambiguity, because Israel was, for decades, a weak situation in a particular hostile neighborhood. As the axis of the beneficiary’s relationship, the IronClad or “steadfast” pledge was very important, then, to help stand on Israel as an independent country.

When Israel is upgraded to a partner, Washington must update the nature of its commitment to the status of the partner by making it more conditional – a logical step in granting Israeli power today. After the Taiwan model, it may be useful here, as Washington has pledged to support the sovereignty of Israel with the warning that it reserves the right to determine when and how this pledge is implemented according to the interests of the United States. This type of commitment has worked for decades to deter China from attacking Taiwan and Taiwanese moral danger (specifically, Taiwan’s movements towards independence). The same type of benefits will accumulate relations between the United States to Israel.

Second, in line with the proposals received in a recent report issued by the Conservative Heritage Foundation, the United States needs to control the transfer of military aid to Israel. It must finish all the country’s military funding and instead requires Israel to buy all the devices it acquires from the United States.

As with Taiwan, the United States should also gradually turn into providing Israel with defensive military devices in the first place. Israel has a large complex in the field of military industry, which is the largest weapon in the world, which means that it can adapt to the axis of defense devices and sales rather than financing. To ensure, as required by law, Israel maintains a qualitative military edge in the Middle East, the United States, which provides nearly half of the weapons to the region annually, may need to reduce the transfer of weapons to other states because it is making these changes. This is not new – Washington regularly does these types of modifications.

These changes to military transfers will serve two purposes when it comes to curbing moral risks. First, the step will lead to the defense agencies to reaffirm that the United States has pledged to defend the centers of Israeli sovereignty in the first place to protect the current borders of Israel, not necessarily, or certainly automatically, the country’s broader aspirations in the region. Second, without the help of the United States, Israeli security costs will rise because it will be in contact with the expenses of its military devices.

Along with a little certainty about the United States’ support for its regional endeavors, this would make Israel open to the least -cost and more cooperative paths forward to secure itself. As for the recent crises that foiled the Trump administration, this means more Israeli restrictions in Syria, and more residency at the negotiating table to end the war in Gaza, and efforts to match Trump’s preferences to resolve negotiating to negotiate the Iranian nuclear crisis.

Some may argue that more mystery and axis of defensive devices will encourage regional enemies to attack Israel. The arguments are like all these are wrong, but. Israel will remain the dominant power in the Middle East with the proposed movements here. Moreover, mystery has worked to protect Taiwan, so it should also work with Israel. Although it is more mysterious, the United States’ pledge to Israel will remain there; Thus, through the logic of deterrence, there is no reason for not deterring attacks by regional powers, such as Iran. The agents of the agent – Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Hythles – are still launched missile strikes against Israel, but this is not the new thing. Such strikes have been going on for decades, even with IronClad Us pledges to Israel in place.

Finally, moderate Arab countries will welcome the promotion to the partnership in the relationship of the United States and Israel, not because it opens the door for bullying in Israel more, but because it will encourage Israel to search for more powerful cooperative methods to secure itself. This will be useful for building multilateral requests in the Middle East, which is popular in American policy circles as well, including between conservatives.

If this also leads, one day, the establishment of a Palestinian state, then the agent’s attack on Israel will be possible, given the centrality of this issue for agents. It can be said that Israel’s promotion to an American partner can make Israel safer, and therefore, than it is now as a shepherd.

Trump wants that Be a transformative figure in the Middle East and a broader American security obligations for a new era in the great power competition. Fortunately, with Israel’s maturity to the main power state, history gave Trump an opportunity – if he was ready to seize it.

This will require Trump again with traditional assembly. He did this before with Israel. Let’s hope that he will do so again by transferring Israel from the beneficiary to the partner, which is likely to be historical consequences.