Can US break the stranglehold of Israel alliance?

Two major stories regarding the US and Israel this month represent watershed moments in the history of the relationship between the two countries.

The first incident occurred on July 8, when Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and his delegation were detained by armed Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

“These hoodlums come in with machine guns — an M4, an American-made machine gun — and they detain us,” Khanna recounted. “They block off the road. And then they call the IDF, and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans,” he added, referring to the Israeli military.

Equally shocking as the congressman’s direct encounter with the raw, lawless reality of the occupation was the response of US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee. Rather than defending an elected American lawmaker, Huckabee dismissed Khanna’s harrowing experience as a mere “stunt.”

This defiance of old taboos is not confined to progressive factions. In an unprecedented development on July 15, US Vice President J.D. Vance delivered some of the sharpest criticism of Israel ever uttered by a sitting top-tier US official.

Addressing a reported Israeli government-funded online influence campaign aimed at sabotaging the US administration’s diplomatic efforts with Iran, a furious Vance accused “certain elements of the Israeli government” of actively trying to derail peace negotiations and manipulate American public opinion. He went so far as to target the operators of the campaign, telling them directly to “go to hell.”

Yet, even as fierce criticism of Israel reaches the apex of American politics, a schizophrenic rupture divides Washington. While the American public, influential media personalities and top-tier politicians are openly turning against Israel’s unbridled violence, the traditional power structures continue to toe the line.

This is evident in Congress, where establishment politicians remain busy acting as defense contractors for Tel Aviv. Lawmakers are quietly pushing ahead with Section 219 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027. Far from distancing the US from the ongoing regional bloodbath, this legislation aims to permanently integrate and synchronize the US and Israeli militaries under a joint “Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.”

This institutional blind spot is why the entire alliance is beginning to look utterly ridiculous.

The truth is that the US government has simply lost control of the creature it nurtured and shielded for decades.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud

Traditional foreign policy theory views Israel as an American “vessel” or “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in the Middle East, policing the region on behalf of Western hegemony. Whether that was ever true is highly debatable.

Today, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the relentless war on Iran and the escalating aggressions against Lebanon and Syria have yielded zero strategic value to the American people. Instead, the US has paid a massive financial and moral price by funding bloody regional wars that disrupt the global economy and make Washington a direct, complicit partner in the destruction of the Palestinian people.

Yet the American administration continues to offer unquestioning support, with the exception of the occasional leaking of manufactured accounts of “tense” phone calls between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. No matter the physical, economic or reputational damage inflicted on the US, Washington continues to march blindly toward the precipice.

Believing this subservience is a recent phenomenon is to misunderstand history. For many, the physical detention of Khanna by Israeli forces evokes the memory of Rachel Corrie, the 23-year-old American peace activist who was brutally crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer in Rafah in 2003 while peacefully shielding a Palestinian family home from demolition. In both cases, the message from Tel Aviv was clear: American citizenship offers no protection.

But this dependency runs deeper and is rooted in the 1967 USS Liberty incident. During the Six-Day War, Israeli forces launched a relentless attack on this unarmed US intelligence ship, killing 34 American sailors and wounding 171. Instead of demanding accountability, President Lyndon Johnson’s administration accepted Israel’s excuse that the attack was a “mistake” and covered up the truth to protect its ally. This established a decades-long precedent: Washington would act as a political and military shield for Israeli actions, even at the cost of American lives.

It is often argued that Israel’s stranglehold on American policy stems entirely from the financial power of its lobby in Washington, particularly the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Conventional wisdom holds that AIPAC’s true dominance as the ultimate kingmaker began in 1981, when it waged a historic, ferocious battle to block President Ronald Reagan’s proposed sale of early-warning surveillance aircraft to Saudi Arabia.

But the USS Liberty incident occurred long before the lobby wielded such immense power. The truth is that the US government has simply lost control of the creature it nurtured and shielded for decades. Blaming this dependency solely on campaign contributions no longer suffices; the rot is far deeper. It is driven by a deep-seated fear among American politicians who have spent their entire careers learning that political survival requires absolute obedience to Tel Aviv.

This is why Vance’s recent remarks are so important. They prove that the armor of absolute impunity is cracking and the language of genuine, systemic criticism of Israel has been officially normalized in mainstream political discourse.

There must be a profound political awakening in America. If the American public and the country’s leaders fail to reclaim their foreign policy from this destructive alliance, the only path forward will be one of perpetual conflict, economic ruin and endless war.

• Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. His latest book, “Before the Flood,” was published by Seven Stories Press. His website is ramzybaroud.net.

X: @RamzyBaroud