Thursday, June 05, 2008

Is Israel an "Official" U.S. Ally?

Whether one thinks that Israel is a good or bad ally of the U.S., I'd always assumed that it was an "official" ally of the U.S.

Then I read this in The Nation's comments section:

"Israel is not an ally of the US. All the US candidates know that there is no alliance treaty between the 2 countries, because when LBJ offered a treaty to Israel after the 6 Day war in '67, Israel refused. Why? Every alliance treaty requires that signatories define precisely the borders of their country and bind themselves to notifying all other signatories of any military action about to be taken against a 3rd nation. Israel still finds these traditional alliance requirements unacceptable, hence no alliance treaty exists between Israel & the US."

Is this true? Does anyone know?

It'd be pretty astonishing if, after all these years of hearing that Israel is "America's greatest ally," that Israel is not technically an ally at all.

2 comments:

Thomas said...

An LPC officer emailed me this reply:

I tried to post this on the libertarian peacenik blog but I don't have a google or blogger identity:

There is no treaty of alliance between Israel and the U.S.

A treaty of alliance with the U.S. would actually be less advantageous to the Israeli State than the status quo. Treaties spell out the responsibilities and obligations of the signatories. As matters stand now, Israel has a de facto book of blank checks from the U.S. which it can cash at any time. Witness Obama's groveling before AIPAC recently.

Anonymous said...

...please where can I buy a unicorn?