Repairing the U.S.-Israel Relationship

"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.

Drawing on their foreign policy experience in both Republican and Democratic administrations, they propose six policy prescriptions to repair and sustain the relationship in the two countries' mutual interest. Blackwill and Gordon argue that this mutually important partnership can be preserved, but only if leaders and publics on both sides honestly acknowledge the challenges and take meaningful steps to address them.

Blackwill was formerly deputy assistant to the president, deputy national security advisor for strategic planning, and presidential envoy to Iraq under President George W. Bush, and U.S. ambassador to India from 2001 to 2003. Gordon served as special assistant to President Barack Obama and White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf Region from 2013 to 2015, and as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs from 2009 to 2013.