America Didn’t Create Israel—Jerusalem Helped Create America
Vice President JD Vance recently expressed frustration with Israel, accusing Israeli cabinet ministers of “personally attacking” President Donald Trump over his administration’s memorandum of understanding with Iran. Around the same time, President Trump declared that without America, there would be no Israel.
Both statements deserve scrutiny. More importantly, both overlook a larger historical truth.
The relationship between the United States and Israel cannot be understood through the language of patron and client, creator and dependent. While America has contributed enormously to Israel’s security and prosperity, the foundations of the U.S.-Israel relationship run much deeper than military aid, diplomatic support, or political alliances.
America did not create Israel. And Israel is not America’s dependent.
The modern State of Israel was established in 1948, before the United States became its principal strategic ally. In its earliest decades, Israel relied heavily on its own citizens, diaspora support, and, at various points, military assistance from countries other than the United States. The wars that determined Israel’s survival were fought by Israelis themselves.
In 1948, Israel faced invasion by multiple Arab armies immediately after declaring independence. In 1967, it confronted an existential threat that culminated in the Six-Day War. In 1973, Israeli soldiers bore the burden of the Yom Kippur War. More recently, Israelis have paid the human cost of defending their nation against terrorism, regional aggression, and the ongoing war that began on October 7, 2023.
American support has been invaluable. Israelis recognize that reality and appreciate it. But gratitude does not confer authorship.
No American soldiers fought Israel’s wars for independence or survival. No American military occupation sustained the Jewish state. Unlike many alliances throughout modern history, Israel’s existence has depended first and foremost on the sacrifices of its own people.
That reality does not weaken the alliance. It helps explain why it has endured.
The relationship has never been one-sided.
Israeli innovations in missile defense, intelligence gathering, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, unmanned systems, and battlefield medicine have benefited the United States for decades. Joint programs such as Arrow and David’s Sling have strengthened both countries’ security.
Even the often-cited annual American military assistance package largely supports American manufacturers, workers, and defense supply chains. Congress has repeatedly supported that arrangement because it advances American interests as well as Israeli interests.
The language of dependency therefore misses the point entirely.
Yet the more significant question is not who gives more or who receives more. The more important question is why the relationship remains so resilient despite periodic political disagreements.
The answer begins long before either nation existed.
America’s founders drew inspiration from many sources. Classical Greece and Rome shaped their understanding of republican government. English constitutional traditions influenced their views on rights and representation. Enlightenment thinkers helped inform the structure of the Constitution.
But another influence is often overlooked.
The Hebrew Bible profoundly shaped the moral and political imagination of early America.
Colonial sermons frequently invoked the Exodus narrative as a model of liberation from tyranny. Hebrew was studied at leading American universities, including Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Revolutionary leaders often viewed the ancient Israelites as an example of a people seeking self-government under law.
The influence extended beyond symbolism.
The idea that law stands above rulers, that political authority is constrained by moral obligations, and that human rights originate from a source higher than government itself all found expression in America’s political culture.
The Constitution was not copied from the Hebrew Bible. America’s system of government is a product of many intellectual streams. But Jerusalem was one of those streams.
The covenantal idea that leaders and citizens alike are bound by principles they cannot simply rewrite helped shape the moral vocabulary that made the American experiment possible.
That history does not resolve contemporary disagreements over Iran, Middle East policy, or national security. Nor should it.
Democracies argue. Allies disagree. Serious governments debate matters of war and peace.
What they should not do is replace historical reality with political slogans.
When unnamed Israeli officials are accused of personal attacks without evidence, substantive debate is replaced by insinuation. When Israel’s existence is casually attributed to the United States, history is reduced to a talking point.
The U.S.-Israel alliance has endured because both nations benefit from it. It has endured because both nations share strategic interests. But it has also endured because both draw from a civilizational inheritance that predates modern politics.
America is not modern Israel’s creator. Israel is not America’s dependent.
The deeper truth is that the ideas carried through Jerusalem helped shape the civilization that eventually produced the United States.
Which is why the language of ownership is so misguided.
America did not give birth to Jerusalem.
If anything, Jerusalem helped give birth to the ideas that made America possible.
