Mike@Doranimated
Trump made a profoundly important statement today that deserves everyone's attention. He called Israel the little brother of the United States. “We’re like an older and younger brother,” he said in an interview with Axios.
In a recent piece for The Free Press, I described Israel as “America’s little sister.” Many people, Americans and foreigners alike, still don’t grasp this. Some point to developments such as the rise of Tucker Carlson’s antisemitism and the campus Tentifadas as evidence that the relationship is beginning to unravel.
I disagree. This is a family tie, the strongest one the United States has.
I’m a staunch supporter of Israel. But I am also a foreign policy analyst. My aim is accuracy, not emotional reassurance. I do not use the “little sister” line to pander to anyone’s feelings.
The most important reason that the progressive foreign policy of Barack Obama and Joe Biden has failed is not that it misread the Islamic Republic. That is the second most important reason. The first is that it misread America. It treated foreign policy as an instrument of domestic politics, a way to take a swipe at half the country. That was never going to hold.
I am trying to tell you how this ends. When the dust settles from the war that began on October 7, the United States and Israel will be closer than ever, while bitching at each other constantly.
