The End of the Israel Exception

Foreign Affairs | Andrew P. Miller

The United States has stayed in lockstep with Israel for three decades, Andrew P. Miller writes in Foreign Affairs, and the bond endured Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terrorist attack and the ensuing war in Gaza. Two U.S. presidential administrations provided Israel with largely unconditional diplomatic and military support across that period.

The pattern is long established. It ran through the heady days of the 1990s peace process with the Palestine Liberation Organization, the second intifada, a five-year Palestinian uprising that began in 2000, and a series of conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon across the next two decades. Miller served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs in the Biden administration and as Director for Egypt and Israel Military Issues on the National Security Council in the Obama administration. The headline and subtitle point to a change in American policy, but the available text stops before Miller sets it out.

Comment

Miller describes a bond that has lasted three decades, yet it rests on no mutual defence treaty. Washington has never signed one with Israel; the tie sits on a major non-NATO ally designation and on political habit. That distinction matters because an exception implies a rule being waived, while this arrangement is closer to a standing practice. NATO allies hold obligations written into the North Atlantic Treaty; Israel’s standing depends on decisions that administrations and Congress renew.

In practice, qualifying arms sales to Israel require notification to Congress under the Arms Export Control Act, and military aid depends on annual appropriations. Congress can pass a joint resolution of disapproval, but it faces a presidential veto. Each step lets a president or legislators attach conditions, which suggests that unconditional support describes repeated choices rather than a fixed commitment. The second intifada and the Gaza war both passed through that machinery, a record Miller describes as lockstep alignment.

A relationship built on practice rather than treaty can be adjusted in steps. Any change in Gaza-war support would show first in appropriations and Arms Export Control Act notifications, not in a treaty text.

Strategic Question for Discussion

If joint resolutions of disapproval under the Arms Export Control Act keep failing against presidential vetoes, what does the notification process still constrain?

My assessment is that it still constrains timing and publicity more than outcomes. Notification forces an administration to defend each large sale on the record and gives Congress a window to object, even when a veto would defeat the resolution. The pattern suggests the channel shapes the political cost of a decision more than the decision itself.

Share your assessment in the comments below.

To read in details click here