Eleven minutes after Israel declared its establishment in 1948, the United States took the lead in recognizing it, a historic moment that laid the cornerstone of the “special relationship” between the two countries. Over the past seventy years, the U.S.-Israel relationship has withstood multiple tests, including the reshaping of the Cold War pattern, the escalation of regional conflicts, and the transformation of the global order, evolving from an initial strategic tacit understanding into a comprehensive alliance covering military, political, economic, and cultural dimensions. However, the cascading effects of the prolonged Gaza conflict in 2024-2025 have exposed the first systemic rifts in this alliance, long hailed as the “anchor of stability in the Middle East.” This paper analyzes the intrinsic logic and contemporary predicament of the U.S.-Israel relationship from three dimensions—historical origin, realistic deconstruction, and future projection—integrating the latest geopolitical developments and data.
I. Historical Origin: The Dual Construction of Strategic Alignment and Value Resonance
The formation of the U.S.-Israel special relationship was no accident; it was an inevitable outcome of the alignment between strategic interests and cultural values against the backdrop of the Cold War. This relationship evolved through three key phases, gradually upgrading from loose support to institutionalized binding.
The period from 1948 to 1967 was a “Strategic Exploration Phase,” during which U.S. support for Israel was primarily diplomatic endorsement, with no systematic aid framework in place. In 1948, the Truman administration broke Western diplomatic silence by being the first to recognize Israel, driven by core considerations of post-war Middle East geopolitical layout—supporting the Jewish state to counter the wave of nationalism in the Arab world and prevent Soviet infiltration. Military aid during this period was extremely limited: total military assistance to Israel between 1950 and 1960 amounted to only $250 million, far less than the aid provided to Egypt and other Arab countries. During the 1956 Suez Canal Crisis, the U.S. even joined forces with the Soviet Union to pressure Israel to withdraw its troops, highlighting that bilateral relations remained constrained by the overall Cold War strategy at the time.
The period from 1967 to 1991 marked a “Strategic Binding Phase,” with the Third Middle East War becoming a turning point for the qualitative transformation of U.S.-Israel relations. Israel’s military victory over the Arab coalition forces led by Egypt and Syria in just six days made the U.S. fully recognize its value as a “strategic pivot in the Middle East.” As former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert put it: “The 1967 victory made the United States truly recognize for the first time that Israel is an irreplaceable military force in the Middle East.” Thereafter, the U.S. gradually established a comprehensive aid framework: in 1962, the Kennedy administration approved the sale of Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Israel, initiating substantive arms sales cooperation; during the Fourth Middle East War in 1973, the Nixon administration launched “Operation Nickel Grass,” airlifting 22,000 tons of military supplies to Israel in 19 days, directly reversing the course of the war; in 1985, the Reagan administration designated Israel as a “Major Non-NATO Ally,” granting it the privilege of priority access to advanced U.S. weaponry. Aid scale grew exponentially during this period: total military assistance between 1970 and 1990 reached $18 billion, accounting for 35% of U.S. global military aid.
After the end of the Cold War in 1991, the relationship entered an “Institutional Consolidation Phase,” expanding from mere military cooperation to comprehensive collaboration in political, economic, and technological fields. In 1991, the U.S. led the Madrid Peace Conference, promoting peace talks between Israel and Arab states and positioning Israel as a “model of democracy in the Middle East.” The concept of “institutional bias” proposed by Liu Weijian in his 2006 work Study on Israel-U.S. Relations accurately captures the nature of this phase—through its veto power in the UN Security Council, the U.S. has “protected” Israel by vetoing 43 resolutions criticizing Israel between 1970 and 2020, far exceeding its protection for any other country. Economically, the U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement signed in 1985 became America’s first bilateral free trade agreement; by 2020, bilateral trade volume reached $46 billion, with the U.S. accounting for 40% of the market for Israel’s high-tech industry. Military cooperation formed a closed loop of “R&D-production-combat”: the U.S. invested a total of $1.3 billion in the development of the Iron Dome anti-missile system, which achieved a 90% interception rate in 2021, becoming a benchmark for U.S.-Israel military-technical cooperation.
Cultural and value identity has provided enduring resilience for this strategic binding. The “Zionist sentiment” in America’s Puritan tradition resonates spiritually with Zionism. Although Jewish Americans account for only 2.3% of the U.S. population, they have exerted significant political influence through lobbying groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). More importantly, the U.S. has framed Israel as “the outpost of Western democracy in the Middle East,” an ideological narrative that has made support for Israel a “political correctness” in U.S. foreign policy transcending partisan divides. As American scholar Robert D. Kaplan noted: “The U.S.-Israel relationship is rooted in shared biblical heritage and democratic values, with both nations’ national narratives resonating with experiences of suffering and paths to redemption.”
II. Realistic Deconstruction: Dual Impacts of Interest Imbalance and Identity Polarization
Since the second decade of the 21st century, particularly following the outbreak of the Gaza conflict in 2024-2025, inherent contradictions in the U.S.-Israel relationship have erupted. The one-way military aid flow, geopolitical interest divergences, and domestic public opinion polarization collectively pose three major challenges to the alliance.
The pattern of “asymmetric dependence” in military cooperation is loosening. For a long time, the U.S. has built an aid framework for Israel through the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program. Under the 2019-2028 memorandum, the U.S. provides Israel with $3.3 billion in annual military aid and $500 million in missile defense funding, with cumulative aid exceeding $13 billion by 2025. However, this aid is shifting from a “strategic investment” to a “financial burden,” sparking domestic criticism in the U.S. In April 2025, Republican Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene proposed canceling the $500 million Iron Dome funding, arguing that “American taxpayers should not foot the bill for Israel’s endless wars.” More notably, Israel’s growing military autonomy is reshaping the dependency structure—in 2023, Israel’s arms exports reached $13 billion, making it the world’s fifth-largest arms exporter. Its independently developed equipment such as the Sa’ar 6 corvette and Spike missile have even been exported to the U.S. This enhanced capability has made Israel more independent in its military decision-making: in June 2025, Israel airstruck a Turkish military base in Syria, ignoring U.S. warnings to “avoid escalating regional tensions,” highlighting the breakdown in bilateral strategic coordination.
Geopolitical interest divergences peaked during the Gaza conflict. The U.S.’ core objective is to advance Israel’s normalization with Arab states through the Abraham Accords, building a regional alliance to contain Iran. However, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s hardline policies are undermining this strategic framework. During the implementation of the Gaza ceasefire agreement in November 2025, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Israel consecutively, essentially conducting “on-site supervision” to prevent Israel from violating the agreement. This sense of distrust reached a climax when Israel undermined the U.S.-mediated Israel-Iran ceasefire agreement in 2025, prompting former President Donald Trump to publicly denounce: “I am dissatisfied with Israel.” The Red Sea crisis further exposed strategic rifts—while the Houthi rebels attacked Israel-linked ships in “solidarity with Gaza,” the U.S. led airstrikes to safeguard shipping security, but Israel took the opportunity to expand strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon, triggering the spillover of regional conflicts. Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Martin Indyk bluntly stated: “Israel is dragging the U.S. into a regional war it has no desire to participate in, which violates U.S. strategic interests.”
Domestic public opinion polarization is eroding the social foundation of the alliance. U.S. polling data shows that in 2025, 53% of Americans hold negative views of Israel, and 43% believe Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza—an 11-percentage-point increase from 2022. This polarization exhibits distinct partisan and generational characteristics: among Democrats, negative views of Israel among those over 50 have surged by 23 percentage points in three years; in July 2025, 24 out of 47 Senate Democrats voted to halt military aid to Israel. Among Republicans, the attitude shift of core conservative groups is more symbolic—right-wing leaders such as Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson have publicly criticized Israel for “exploiting U.S. resources for its own gain,” and support for Israel among Republicans under 50 has dropped from 63% in 2022 to 50%. Young people form the backbone of the opposition. As BBC analysis points out, numerous images of civilian casualties in Gaza circulating on social media have completely transformed the perception of Israel as a “democratic model” among younger Americans. To reverse this trend, Israel plans to launch a multi-million-dollar propaganda campaign focusing on regaining support from traditional backers such as evangelical Christians. However, The Economist commented that “once long-term public opinion trends take shape, they cannot be reversed by short-term propaganda.”
III. Future Projection: The Dialectical Unity of Rifts and Resilience
Do the current rifts in U.S.-Israel relations signal the collapse of the alliance? The answer is no. The institutional foundation of military cooperation, shared recognition of the Iranian threat, and the political influence of domestic lobbying groups will continue to sustain the core framework of the alliance. However, the nature of the relationship will undergo a substantive transformation—shifting from “unconditional support” to “conditional cooperation.”
“Conditionality” will become the new normal in military cooperation. The $8 billion military sale to Israel proposed by the Biden administration in 2025 includes a clause requiring “regular reporting on weapons usage”—a stark contrast to previous “unconditional” aid. The U.S. State Department’s April 2025 U.S.-Israel Security Cooperation Assessment for the first time included “reducing civilian casualties” as an aid evaluation criterion, marking the beginning of value-based constraints on military cooperation. This shift is even more pronounced in Congress: although a 2025 bill to block military aid to Israel failed to pass, it received 6 more votes than in 2024, indicating the growing strength of restraining forces. In the future, the U.S. may enhance policy leverage over Israel by adjusting the “offshore procurement” ratio (set to drop from 25% to 0% by 2028) and restricting the transfer of advanced weaponry.
Regional strategic coordination will focus on the shared pain point of the “Iranian nuclear issue.” Despite differences over the Palestinian issue, Iran’s nuclear program remains the core security threat for both the U.S. and Israel. In 2025, the joint intelligence-sharing mechanism between Israel’s Mossad and the U.S. CIA continues to operate efficiently, with uninterrupted cooperation in monitoring Iranian nuclear facilities and cyberattacks. Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper noted: “As long as the Iranian nuclear threat exists, the U.S.-Israel military alliance will not collapse, but cooperation will become more focused on core security issues rather than unconditional support for all Israeli actions.” This “issue-based cooperation” may become the dominant model for future relations—close collaboration on the Iranian issue while maintaining differences on the Palestinian issue.
The ultimate test of the alliance’s resilience lies in the evolution of domestic political ecosystems. In the U.S., regardless of whether Trump or Biden wins the 2024 election, U.S. policy toward Israel will become more pragmatic—Trump’s “America First” doctrine may reduce aid levels and demand Israel assume more security responsibilities, while Biden’s “values-based diplomacy” will emphasize greater attention to Palestinian human rights. In Israel, Netanyahu’s hardline policies have triggered domestic divisions; a 2025 report by the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies warns that “losing American public support will jeopardize Israel’s long-term security.” Such internal and external pressures may push Israel to adjust its policies, seeking a balance between military actions and diplomatic compromise.
Conclusion: The “De-Specialization” Transformation of the Special Relationship
The seventy-year evolution of U.S.-Israel relations is essentially a history of strategic symbiosis between a major power and a regional power. The shaping of the Cold War pattern, recognition of shared threats, and resonance of cultural values have collectively built the three pillars of the “special relationship.” However, developments in 2025 indicate that this pillar system is undergoing a “de-specialization” transformation—military cooperation is shifting from “unconditional aid” to “conditional collaboration,” political coordination from “comprehensive binding” to “issue-focused engagement,” and social foundations from “broad consensus” to “polarized opposition.”
This transformation does not mean the collapse of the alliance but rather an inevitable adjustment to adapt to changes in the global order. For the U.S., as its strategic focus in the Middle East shifts from “counterterrorism” to “great power competition,” it needs Israel to be a manageable regional partner rather than a troublemaker. For Israel, its long-standing development model dependent on U.S. aid has become unsustainable, making the construction of a diversified diplomatic landscape a practical necessity. As Researcher Zou Zhiqiang from Fudan University noted: “The foundation of the U.S.-Israel special relationship has not disappeared, but it is shifting from ‘institutional bias’ to ‘interest-based collaboration’—a change that will reshape the future geopolitical landscape of the Middle East.”
The future trajectory of U.S.-Israel relations will depend on the art of balancing “strategic autonomy” and “alliance constraints” by both parties. The proper resolution of the Palestinian issue remains the ultimate test for the sustainable development of this alliance—after all, an alliance built on regional instability can never achieve true security and stability.
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