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Source: https://lennybendavid.substack.com/p/bernie-sanders-and-j-street-attempt
Israel's Critics Attempt to Sink U.S.-Israel Relations
(Substack) Lenny Ben-David - Israel's critics in Congress are calling to "fundamentally reassess" the U.S.-Israel security relationship. However, the U.S.-Israel security relationship has evolved into a two-way strategic partnership, in which both sides contribute capabilities that the other lacks. In several critical areas, the U.S. is not the benefactor but the beneficiary. In the recent conflict with Iran, American and Israeli forces operated as a combined system - sharing intelligence, coordinating targeting, and integrating air and missile defenses. Israeli-developed systems such as the Iron Dome, Arrow, and David's Sling missile systems functioned alongside U.S. platforms, intercepting missile barrages that would otherwise have overwhelmed defenses. This level of integration is the product of decades of cooperation - and of Israeli innovation that has quietly reshaped U.S. military capabilities and doctrines. Israel developed the Trophy system, which detects and destroys anti-tank missiles before they reach armored vehicles. The U.S. Army now fields Trophy on its M1 Abrams tanks, marking the most significant change in tank survivability in decades. U.S. forces have also adopted versions of the Israeli Spike missile, enabling operator-guided precision strikes by attack helicopters or infantry at ranges of 25 km. Israel's defense and combat against Hizbullah and Hamas tunnels are studied today in American military academies. The Israel Defense Forces and Israeli defense industries have led the world in the deployment of loitering munitions. Israel's experience in dense urban environments has produced new breaching tactics, the integration of small UAVs at the squad level, and rapid fielding of IED jammers. Critics who call for scaling back the relationship ignore what the U.S. receives in return: access to combat-proven solutions to emerging threats. Israel encounters challenges - mass rocket fire, dense urban combat, short-range missile threats - well before they become central concerns for U.S. planners. The U.S., in turn, can scale those solutions and integrate them. Reducing its relationship with Israel means the U.S. weakens a partnership that enhances its own military effectiveness. The writer, a former Israeli diplomat in Washington, is a Research Fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs.