Repairing the U.S.-Israel Relationship (Council Special Reports)

"The U.S.-Israel relationship is in trouble," warn Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellows Robert D. Blackwill and Philip H. Gordon in a new Council Special Report, Repairing the U.S.-Israel Relationship. Significant policy differences over issues in the Middle East, as well as changing demographics and politics within both the United States and Israel, have pushed the two countries apart. Blackwill, a former senior official in the Bush administration, and Gordon, a former senior official in the Obama administration, call for "a deliberate and sustained effort by policymakers and opinion leaders in both countries" to repair the relationship and to avoid divisions "that no one who cares about Israel's security or America's values and interests in the Middle East should want." "For strategic, historical, and moral reasons, both governments should do all they can to reframe and revive the U.S.-Israel strategic partnership," the authors argue. "The upcoming transition to a new administration provides an opportunity to put recent disagreements aside and to show the political will needed to reverse the negative policy trends described," write Blackwill and Gordon.