President Trump’s call on Sunday for Israel to wind down the war in Gaza even as Prime Minister Netanyahu has ordered its expansion in order to finally destroy Hamas fuels the growing daylight between the U.S. and the Jewish state. This is of particular concern in that it closely followed the President’s recent announcement of that massive, game-changing $142 billion arms deal between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. U.S. law and policy have, since 2008, committed the U.S. to enabling Israel to maintain a qualitative military superiority in the Middle East, known as Qualitative Military Edge. And this is to say nothing about the recent multi-billion – perhaps trillion – dollar trade and investment deals between the U.S. and Arab countries.
While, Donald Trump is not, by any stretch, Barack Obama when it comes to Israel, the emerging Trump Middle East doctrine is eerily reminiscent of the Obama “New Beginning” speech at Cairo University at the beginning of his first term. In that speech, Obama proposed that there be a resetting of U.S. relations with the Muslim world, “based upon mutual interest and mutual respect” and “upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition.”
So, the other day, President Trump told the reporters who asked him about developments in Gaza, “Israel, we’ve been talking to them, and we want to see if we can stop that whole situation as soon as possible.” Yet when he began his second term in January, he blamed Hamas rather that Israel for the failure to end the war and made a point to appear as being in sync with Prime Minister Netanyahu.
This shift is somewhat ominous in light of other erstwhile supporters of Israel, like Britain, Canada, France, Italy and Germany having recently gone public with criticism of Israel over its Gaza policy.
But the single most recent dramatic development was the arms deal President Trump struck with Saudi Arabia, which is significant enough to change the calculus of military power in the Middle East. Yet, this would seem to be playing fast and loose with provisions of the U.S.-Israel Strategic and Military Cooperation Act of 2008.
That legislation requires that any proposed U.S. arms sale “to any country in the Middle East other than Israel shall include a determination that the sale…will not adversely affect Israel’s military edge over military threats to Israel.”
The law provides that the “determination” must include “a detailed explanation of Israel’s capacity to address the improved capabilities provided by such sale…” and a detailed evaluation of “how such sale…alters the strategic and tactical balance in the region.” This determination must also be “certified” to Congress.
The legislation goes on to define “qualitative military edge” as:
The ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors while sustaining minimal damages and casualties, through the use of superior military means, possessed in sufficient quantity…that in their technical characteristics are superior in capability to those of such other individual or possible coalition of states or non-state actors.
Unfortunately, we have heard nothing along these lines from the president or his team, only about “deals no one has ever seen before.”
In our view, however, it was the Arab fear of Israel’s military might demonstrated in several major wars that persuaded them that military confrontation was a non-starter for them. This lead to a strategic decision to pursue eventual rapprochement with Israel. Anything that mitigates that fear is a real issue.
Hopefully President Trump has not decided to throw that caution to the wind – and a federal statute with it – in his pursuit of maximal trade and other economic gain.
