How to talk about Israel
It is time Israel realized that it has obligations to the United States, as well as the United States to Israel, and that it become far more careful about the extent to which it test the limits of U.S. patience and exploits the support of American Jews. This does not mean taking a single action that undercuts Israeli security, but it does mean realizing that Israel should show enough discretion to reflect the fact that it is a tertiary U.S. strategic interest in a complex and demanding world. - Anthony Cordesman
I think this illuminates the often conflicted way we discuss Israel in the U.S. There is a frequent presumption among realists and liberals that the U.S. has a keener grasp of what's in Israel's strategic interest than the Israelis do and that it is incumbent upon the U.S. to "save Israel from itself." It's a rather patronizing attitude and hypocritical, given that in other contexts realists would typically refrain from lecturing other countries on how they order their affairs.
At the same time, conservatives insist the U.S. adopt an Israeli-centric view of the Middle East and claim Israel's enemies and threats as our own. The uproar over Turkey is illuminating in this respect. Already we're hearing that, because they've said some nasty and demagogic things about Israel, Turkey should be booted out of NATO. How that would serve American interests I don't know.
