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Is Favoring Israel an American National Security Interest?
(The Hill) Eric R. Mandel - The State Department, over the years, has been reluctant to "take sides" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, this has magnified Palestinian intransigence, while draining American taxpayer dollars, propping up a corrupt Palestinian Authority without demanding anything substantial of it. For the U.S., there is no better source of reliable information in the Middle East than Israel. The Israelis live in this bad neighborhood and understand the realities better than those on the outside. It was Israel that discovered the North Korean-built Syrian nuclear reactor and destroyed it. Can you imagine if there were loose nukes in today's Syria? Today the U.S. has a reliable naval port in Haifa, joint military exercises preparing its soldiers, American troops manning the X-band anti-missile system in Israel to protect Europe, Israeli security technology for U.S. homeland security, and Israel's advances in drone technology to benefit our military. You need only to look at Erdogan's Turkey, the eastern flank of NATO, to know how important Israel has become to American long-term security interests in the region. Favoring Israel is an American national security interest. The writer is director of the Middle East Political and Information Network.