The World Is Better Off Because Israel Has Stood Strong
Demonstrating the closeness of the special relationship between the United States and Israel, President Donald Trump has invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the United States for the first State Visit of the new Administration. The visit will be filled with traditional pomp and circumstance and the hard and productive strategic discussions that are the hallmark of a relationship characterized by established trust and robust mutual interests.
One important element that should naturally flow from this visit is the profound gratitude that the United States and the peace-loving world owe to the Prime Minister, the Israeli Defense Force, and the Israeli people. While President Joseph Biden exuded weakness during the last four years and the broader international community employed a morally bankrupt form of victim blaming, Israel stood skillfully and courageously on the front lines of good versus evil, often alone. The world is better off for it!
None of this is to say that the United States had completely abandoned Israel during its time of existential need. Yet, comments about redlines and rebukes from the Biden Administration hindered the Israeli war effort, prolonged the conflict, stranded the hostages, provided top cover to terrorists, emboldened Iran, and generally ran counterproductive to Israeli and U.S. interests and objectives in the region.
Additionally, none of this should prevent the internal reckoning that is likely overdue within Israel regarding the Prime Minister. Serious discussions remain about the status of judicial overhaul, the massive failures of preventing and immediately responding to October 7th, and the inadequacy of balancing impossible tradeoffs between the Israeli war aims of destroying Hamas and recovering the hostages. These discussions are rightfully left to the Israeli people as a part of their thriving democracy. Yet, such a state visit to the United States should be characterized by a prevailing tone of gratitude for the societal heroism of Israel with Netanyahu at the helm.
For the last 16 months, Israel has had to make impossible choices every single day. Hamas, who ruthlessly ruled Gaza for the last 17 years creating squalor for the Palestinian people, used the Gazan population as human shields and embraced their suffering as a part of a strategy of necessary sacrifices. Yet, the IDF dismantled the Hamas military machine, yielding a military defeat that eliminated their capacity to employ a consolidated fighting force anytime in the near future.
With the bandwidth provided by a drawdown in Gaza, Israel shifted their focus northward. In September of 2024, Israel executed one of the most dazzling military months in human history, decapitating Hezbollah, destroying the bulk of a massive rocket force, and decimating a well-defended enemy force in southern Lebanon. Iran’s most powerful proxy begged for a cease-fire, allowing Israel to bring about the mandates of the 2006 UN Resolution 1701 without a single word of appreciation from a United Nations that had failed to enforce their own edict for the previous 18 years.
Emboldened by the loss of Hezbollah support, Syrian rebels toppled the barbaric Assad regime. The fast-moving offensive, impossible to imagine without a Hezbollah force on life support because of Israel’s dominant military activity in Lebanon, wiped away Iran’s largest ally and further shut off the spigot of Iranian support through Syrian logistical lines to Iran’s Hezbollah proxies.
Down south, the Houthi rebel group had strangled a major avenue of commerce through the Red Sea. Pinprick attacks by the Biden Administration did little to deter or defeat this threat. Meanwhile, the IDF executed large force attacks into Yemen at a distance further than that between Israel and Tehran, successfully striking at the economic lifeline of the Houthis and partially beating back their threatening activities.
Because of Israel, the Iranian axis of evil has been neutered, reshaping the Middle East in a way that is profoundly more secure and less threatened than in the previous two decades. Additionally, Iran’s two large-scale attacks were brilliantly rebuffed and skillfully responded to by surgical demonstrations that proved that Israel could strike any target in Iran at will, whether in downtown Tehran or central Natanz. Because of Israel, the most consistent adversary of the United States since 1979 remains a shell of what it seemed to be in October 2023.
Surrounded by enemies with genocidal aims, condemned by the international community through twisted double standards, and inadequately supported by a Biden Administration whose weakness enticed adversaries around the world, Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu stood strong. Peace-loving people around the world should be thankful, whether they know it or not. A resurgent United States under the Trump Administration is likely to acknowledge this gratitude and commit to standing alongside Israel to parlay combined strength into peace and prosperity that matches the massive overlap of mutual interests between the two nations with such a special friendship.