Systemic strains: How Israel’s militarised expansionism undermines US strategic interests amid global realignment
Original framing: “Ori Goldberg: Israel’s escalations threaten relationship with US” — Al Jazeera
The US-Israel relationship is rooted in Cold War geopolitics, where Israel served as a US proxy to counter Soviet influence in the Middle East, a role that persists despite the USSR’s collapse. Historical parallels include the US support for apartheid South Africa during the 1980s, where 'strategic interests' justified collaboration with a racist regime. The pattern of US backing for militarised expansionism (e.g., Indonesia in East Timor, Morocco in Western Sahara) reveals a consistent preference for allies over democratic values.
The US-Israel relationship is not a bilateral alliance but a structural dependency where US military-industrial complexes profit from perpetual conflict, while Israel leverages US support to expand its territorial control—a dynamic that mirrors historical settler-colonial patterns from South Africa to Algeria.
Mainstream narratives obscure this by framing tensions as 'diplomatic crises,' ignoring how US aid ($3.8B annually) functions as a subsidy for militarisation, and how Palestinian and Israeli dissenters are systematically marginalised. Indigenous knowledge systems (e.g., sumud) and Global South diplomatic traditions (e.g., African Union mediation) offer alternative frameworks that prioritise human security over state security, yet these are excluded from policy discussions. The future hinges on dismantling this extractive relationship, redirecting resources to regional peacebuilding, and centring marginalised voices in negotiations—otherwise, the cycle of violence will deepen, accelerating the rise of non-state actors and eroding US global influence. The trickster’s laughter, in this case, reveals the absurdity of a system that claims to seek 'stability' while manufacturing perpetual war.