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Home Publications Memoranda A US-Israeli Defense Treaty: The Time Has Come

A US-Israeli Defense Treaty: The Time Has Come

Memorandum 234, May 2024

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Editors:
Chuck Freilich
Eldad Shavit

Joe Biden is reportedly one of only two US presidents to have given serious consideration to a defense treaty with Israel. A number of Israeli premiers have weighed a defense treaty over the years, primarily as a means of offsetting security concerns and public qualms regarding concessions in peace talks. Counterintuitively, perhaps, Israel’s defense establishment has long been opposed.


This study analyzes the pros and cons of a bilateral defense treaty from both the Israeli and American perspectives and proposes ways of addressing the sides’ concerns. All US defense treaties are fundamentally asymmetrical in their advantages. Nevertheless, the US, too, stands to gain important benefits, especially if a treaty with Israel was tied to the emergence of a broader US-led regional architecture, with Saudi Arabia at the center, and even more so if linked to progress on the Palestinian issue.


Click here to download the full Memorandum

Table of Contents:

For nearly a year, a US-Saudi-Israeli grand bargain has been under discussion. The Saudis are to normalize relations with Israel, in exchange both for an Israeli commitment to go forward on the Palestinian issue and mostly for incentives from the US; a bilateral defense treaty, recognition of their civil nuclear program and essentially unrestricted access to American weaponry. In the early fall of 2023 President Biden was reportedly also considering a defense treaty with Israel...
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Self-reliance and strategic autonomy have always been fundamental tenets of Israel’s national security strategy. Nevertheless, Israel’s founding father, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, sought a defense treaty with the United States as early as the 1950s, as a means of further augmenting its security. Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak gave serious consideration to a defense treaty in the 1990s and 2000s, both to offset the significant military dangers stemming from the territorial concessions that were part of the dramatic proposals for peace they made with the Palestinians and Syrians, and to assuage the deep and even existential fears these concessions engendered among Israel’s public. Counterintuitively, perhaps, Israel’s defense establishment has long opposed a formal defense treaty...
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As a global superpower, all US defense treaties are fundamentally asymmetrical in their advantages for the two sides and a treaty with Israel would be no different. Nevertheless, the US, too, stands to gain important benefits from a treaty with Israel. This would be especially true if tied to the emergence of a broader regional architecture, with Saudi Arabia at the center, and even more so if linked to progress on the Palestinian issue...
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Examples of security guarantees in select US Defense Treaties.
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Critical issues to be negotiated in a US-Israeli defense treaty and recommendations.
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The opinions expressed in INSS publications are the authors’ alone.
Chuck Freilich
Dr. Chuck Freilich, a former deputy national security advisor in Israel, is a senior researcher at INSS. He is the author of Zion’s Dilemmas: How Israel Makes National Security Policy (Cornell 2012); Israeli National Security: A New Strategy for an Era of Change (Oxford 2018); and Israel and the Cyber Threat: How the Startup Nation Became a Global Cyber Power (Oxford 2023). He is the author of numerous academic studies and op eds and is the senior editor of the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs.
Eldad Shavit
Col. (ret.) Eldad Shavit, a senior researcher at INSS, was the assistant for assessment to the head of Military Intelligence’s Research Division and the head of the Research Division in the Prime Minister's Office. He also served as the head of the intelligence unit in the office of the Military Secretary to the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister.
Publication Series Memoranda
TopicsIsrael-United States Relations
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  • Research

    • Topics
      • Israel and the Global Powers
      • Israel-United States Relations
      • Glazer Israel-China Policy Center
      • Russia
      • Europe
      • Iran and the Shi'ite Axis
      • Iran
      • Lebanon and Hezbollah
      • Syria
      • Yemen and the Houthi Movement
      • Iraq and the Iraqi Shiite Militias
      • Conflict to Agreements
      • Israeli-Palestinian Relations
      • Hamas and the Gaza Strip
      • Peace Agreements and Normalization in the Middle East
      • Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States
      • Turkey
      • Egypt
      • Jordan
      • Israel’s National Security Policy
      • Military and Strategic Affairs
      • Societal Resilience and the Israeli Society
      • Jewish-Arab Relations in Israel
      • Climate, Infrastructure and Energy
      • Terrorism and Low Intensity Conflict
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