Avi Ben-Zvi
Researcher of International Relations
Professor Emeritus at the Department of International Relations at the University of Haifa. His works focus on U.S.-Israel relations and Israel's foreign policy. Laureate of the Israel Prize in the field of political science, management sciences and international relations. Author of the book "Knocking on Every Door" (with Dr. Gadi Warsaw), which deals with Israel's foreign policy from the establishment of the state until 2018
Avi Ben-Zvi, before we talk about Israel's foreign relations, superpowers and the world order, I want to start on a personal note. You are a university professor, an Israel Prize laureate, you have written 13 books, but not many people know that you have hardly completed your matriculation.
"I completed matriculation with great difficulty. Although I was excellent in the humanities professions, I was really bad in the real professions. I was already destined to be a bank clerk, like my father. The beginning of my career didn't go smoothly either. I completed my doctorate at the University of Chicago, and then became a lecturer at the Hebrew University, but I didn't get tenure and was actually fired after about five years."
Why?
"The secret claim that has reached my ears is that I deal with cognitive dimensions of the foreign policy decision-making process, anchored in worldviews and value systems that are ostensibly located in another discipline. Today it is known that what I understood then is a central part of IU research."
Prof. Ben-Zvi, Photo: Yehoshua-Yosef
The study of international relations is the reason we came together, and in particular – your new book "Knocking on Every Door," co-written with Dr. Gadi Warsaw, deals with Israel's foreign policy from the establishment of the state until 2018. Perhaps it is appropriate to start in America. In your research, you discovered the exact day when the US-Israel partnership began. In other words, the day when the American perception of Israel changed.
"On July 17, 1958, a formative event took place. The Eisenhower administration, which until then had been quite confrontational and hostile to Israel, built its original policy on an attempt to forge a regional defense pact with the Arab states. Israel was perceived as a strategic liability. But in '58, the Americans realized that Israel could fulfill the functions of a loyal strategic partner."
Until then, she had been a mistress.
"Israeli prime ministers have never entered the White House for an official visit. The first official visit was by Eshkol in June '64, followed by Eshkol's second visit in '68. In the 50s, visits usually took place in a semi-dark lobby at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York."
After meeting with Musk: Netanyahu talked about the importance of artificial intelligence // Photo: Reuters
The American turnaround was caused by the King Hussein crisis.
"That's right. Following the revolution in Iraq, the revolutionaries led by General Qassem also threatened Jordan. There was a real danger to Jordan, and he feared that Qassem would try to destroy what was left of the Hashemite dynasty. Hussein was in distress, and Israel was the only one that allowed a British-American airlift, launched on July 17, to pass through airspace. No other Arab country agreed to help, and Hussein said in interviews that 'my Arab brothers betrayed me.' He survived thanks to Israel."
And the U.S. has realized that it has a loyal partner.
"Exactly. The event was formative and illustrated the failure of the administration's initial initiative to unite the Arab states in the face of communist infiltration. This Israeli move led to a change in perception in the American attitude toward Israel. Conditions of affection were created, which became even more evident with the rise of President Kennedy. During his tenure, in '62, there was also the first arms deal – the hawks, which were defensive weapons, surface-to-air missiles."
Danger to the special relationship?
But the arms deal was only the first step. The high point in relations between Israel and the United States was recorded in 1970.
"King Hussein's rule was again threatened when the Syrian army invaded Jordan. Israel, out of a security interest in preserving Jordan's existence and thus distancing the Syrian threat from the Israeli border, demonstrated a military presence vis-à-vis the Syrians on the Golan Heights and the Jordanian border, and in the end the Syrians were arrested. In the book we write about the reaction of Nixon, who was indeed a reserved man, but then really went out of his way to send Golda a kind of love letter in which he noted that Israel had shown a determination to take risks. There the strategic relations were upgraded and became more similar to what we know today."
There was another serious crisis on the way, when Kennedy demanded inspection of the Dimona reactor in 1963. Ben-Gurion evaded and eventually resigned. Eshkol continued the trend of evasion until Kennedy was assassinated. Is this crisis reminiscent of today's crisis? You've talked before about a tectonic break in relations, about the fact that if the Reasonable Cause Reduction Act passes, Biden won't appoint a new ambassador. Serious things .
"Things have calmed down a bit in recent months, partly because Biden is entering an election year. But in the first few months, there was a perception of a link – between what was happening in the internal Israeli arena and the willingness of the United States to join forces to expand the Abraham Accords and the normalization agreement. It is important to remember that Israel and the United States share a similar ethos – two dynamic, entrepreneurial, democratic countries that constitute a collage of waves of immigration. But now the Americans are declaring that if Israel does not reconsider the issue of legal reform and its conduct on the Palestinian level, it will affect America's willingness to act on Israel's behalf in the strategic arena. A link of this magnitude is unprecedented."
The advantage is with Trump. Biden, Photo: AP
Do you see a situation in which Israel returns to being the mistress of the United States?
"It's a complex question, but I think it's hard to turn the clock back in terms of the deep patterns of strategic cooperation that have been institutionalized. I'm talking about the political, technological, intelligence aspects, and even the one related to high-tech and joint committees on economic, political and strategic issues. What can happen is a change in ethos. In other words, a transition to business relations without an ideological or moral layer, and without an infrastructure of special relations, as we saw during the Trump era, or when Johnson invited Eshkol to his farm and told him, 'We are brothers.'"
And what about the visas? Serious things were said – and in the last stretch, after all the threats, the visa benefit popped up.
"This is exactly the indication of a change in the equation of vital interests. Biden identified a window of opportunity for a picture of victory in the Middle East, around the year of the bad election and polls. The visa is symbolic and significant for Israel, and a confidence-building step for him on the path that will lead him to the picture of American victory. It can be said that the president is now choosing to replace the cane of threat with an early compensation sentence."
You talked about changing the ethos, and part of that is that Israel is no longer a country surrounded by enemies, certainly in light of possible normalization with Saudi Arabia. At the same time, we have heard politicians say that perhaps the United States is not as critical to us as it was in the past. Maybe it's time to change the record when it comes to the importance of the United States?
"The problem is that there is no substitute – political, technological, strategic, and military – for partnership with the United States, especially since China's traditional positions on the political and military levels have been and are confrontational towards Israel. At the same time, I don't see a situation in which the United States completely abandons the Middle East, which is combined with Biden's aspiration to deal with the Chinese challenge in this arena as well."
On the way to a new world order
Since you mentioned China, do you think that rising global tensions will require us to choose sides, the United States or China?
"Over the years, Israel has tried to walk between the drops, and even knocked on the Chinese door, such as when it sold it an airborne radar system, despite the embargo imposed on it. The deal was signed in '96 in the Netanyahu era, and was exposed in the Barak era in '99, vis-à-vis Clinton, and created a riot of God that led to the cancellation of the deal."
The traditional world has faded. Warsaw, photo: AFP
And today comes Netanyahu's planned visit to China. Could this be an opening for a strategic partnership?
"It doesn't really matter because the Chinese are already here: Haifa port, tunnels, Tnuva. Israel will continue to walk between the drops, with the necessary caution, without fostering illusions."
Do you see a situation in which China and the United States lift the cloud of suspicion and return to cooperation?
"In light of China's ambitious, worldwide goals, which contradict the fundamental principles of American hegemony, cooperation between the two powers can only be tactical, but certainly not strategic. Issues such as China's expansionist actions in the South China Sea region, its operational code on trade issues, and its efforts to upgrade its scientific and digital capabilities in every way suggest that its rivalry with the United States is not going away, not to mention the ongoing Chinese threat to Taiwan's independence."
What about Russia? We increased the volume of trade with it, and did not join the international sanctions against it. To what extent does Israel depend on Russia, and how much does this have to do with the Russian presence in Syria? I remind you that Israel is also in conflict between cultivating relations with the Kremlin and maintaining relations with the United States.
"The policy today vis-à-vis Russia, in the Ukrainian context and in other contexts, is very cautious. It is also a source of friction with the Americans and Ukrainians. In my opinion, Israel fears friction with Putin, especially when his protégé Syria shares a border with us. Netanyahu is not gambling in international relations, and I think that from his point of view it will be a gamble to unequivocally back Ukraine and the West."
In the face of all global changes, an interesting question is whether we are facing a new world order.
"That's an interesting question. On the one hand, Russia is in a stage of decline, because the adventure in Ukraine squeezes out a lot of resources and international legitimacy. On the other hand, in light of the traumatic experiences of the United States in the international arena, including Iraq, it is possible to identify the fatigue of the material. This has been reflected in the rise of Republicans, some of them isolationists, in the polls, in part due to growing public criticism over the scope of aid to Ukraine. Against this background, one can understand the administration's emphasis on climate issues, infrastructure rehabilitation and closing social gaps, while reducing its involvement in the international sphere, excluding, of course, China and its support for Ukraine."
It was recently reported that BRICS, which includes Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa, will join six additional countries, including Saudi Arabia and Iran. This is a bloc with enormous economic potential, which creates an alternative to American hegemony. Is this the first step towards the descent of the United States from the leadership of the free world?
"The question is what will be the actual degree of cooperation between all the components of this huge and loose bloc, which includes actors with different and even conflicting interests. This is certainly not a first step on the way to the decline of the U.S. status as a hegemonic superpower, since this process has already begun following the failure of the war in Iraq, which gave rise to a process of relative convergence within the American sphere."
There is talk of the day when China alone will overtake the United States. Are we close to that day?
"I don't think so. In terms of military, technological, and economic capabilities, China is still far from the United States, but it is planning for the long term, while American administrations are thinking about a maximum of four years. What can be said is that the system is becoming different, with new forces rising – with an emphasis on India and China as key players. The system becomes polycentric . There is no single player as hegemonic and dominant as the United States.
"By the way, this is not only about the rise of states, but new forces in the form of supranational bodies, companies and conglomerates. In the new era, Elon Musk can be president. And even if he doesn't become president, he still has most of the power. Therefore, since the state is no longer at the center, new theories in international relations are needed."
Women in China, photo: AP/Eugene Hoshiko
Beyond Elon Musk, can the old state system compete with giant corporations like Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook?
"In a world in which many countries have lost control over internal social and political processes, which have been expropriated from them by social networks, and in which institutions and large corporations are becoming a central factor in international interactions, it is clear that the ability of the sovereign state to prevent the penetration of ideas and influences from outside is reduced."
Just recently, Musk said that "in some places," he has more influence than the U.S. government.
"Musk has the technologies of the future: artificial intelligence, electric cars, social networking. It crosses national borders and sends satellites into space. This is no coincidence that Netanyahu came first, before Biden. In his own way, he sets the rules of the game and controls the discourse. Discourse is no longer dominated by governments, it comes from below, from social networks. There are new forces moving the world, and I think that gives Trump an advantage, because he's much more technological and advanced, certainly compared to Biden."
Trump also reflects the mindset of the younger generation.
"And if you will, it also reflects the fact that the traditional world is fading before our eyes."
Perhaps a world in which democracies will be an extinct species?
"We're headed for a world where Democrats won't necessarily be a rare breed, but where there will be a greater presence of very limited democracies. These democracies will be light years away from the model of liberal democracies in all their components. Poland and Hungary are only the first swallows in the process."
Wrong? We'll fix it! If you find a mistake in the article, please share with us