(JNS) Yoram Ettinger - "Israel did not grow strong because it had an American alliance. It acquired an American alliance because it had grown strong," Professor Walter Russell Mead said recently. Since 1967, Israel has emerged as the most effective, reliable and democratic ally of the U.S., as well as a formidable force multiplier. After the 1967 Six-Day War, 25 U.S. military experts went to Israel to study the lessons of the war and examine captured Soviet military systems. Their findings upgraded the performance of the U.S. armed forces and defense industries. In 1966 and 1989, Israel acquired MIG-21 and MIG-23 Soviet combat planes through defecting Iraqi and Syrian pilots. The planes were shared with the U.S. In 1969, an Israeli commando unit snatched an advanced Soviet P-12 radar system from Egypt. The Soviet radar was studied by Israel and transferred to the U.S., as were additional Soviet military systems, enhancing the capabilities of U.S. intelligence, special operations forces and defense industries. After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, 50 American experts arrived in Israel, collecting information that benefited the U.S. The late Sen. Daniel Inouye, who served as chairman of the Appropriations and Intelligence Committees, said the scope of intelligence Israel shared with the U.S. exceeded the intelligence shared by all the NATO countries combined. The writer is a former ambassador and head of Second Thought: A U.S.-Israel Initiative.
2022-07-28 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive