What Israel Does For the Defense of the West

Israel provides advanced weapons to many Western democracies and to many democracies in Asia, too, that are threatened by China. Israeli scientists have come up with novel weapons that are then shared with its allies, especially the United States. Israel has improved on American weapons, such as the F-15 and F-16 fighter jets, and provided those improvements to the Pentagon. Israel is now close to completing work on a laser anti-missile system, the Iron Beam, which will cost only $2,000 for each interception, as compared to the $50,000 that each Iron Dome missile costs. Israel already supplies other countries with both the Iron Dome and Arrow-3 anti-missile systems. When America was unwilling to act, little Israel destroyed the nuclear projects of both Iraq and Syria. Israel’s intelligence services have been responsible for saving the lives of many thousands of people in the West threatened by Islamic terrorism. Israel’s intelligence services remain an indispensable source of information about many threats emanating from both the Middle East and Eastern Europe, especially from Iran, and shares that information with the Americans and, to a lesser degree, with the U.K, Germany, and France.

More on what Israel does for the defense of the West can be found here: “Israel is an armory of democracy,” by Lawrence Solomon, JNS, September 11, 2024:

Israel devotes a larger proportion of its GDP to arms and security exports than any other country on Earth. That devotion makes it unique in another way. More than 80% of Israel’s arms exports support the world’s democracies, including small democracies that need to deter much larger tyrannical regimes.

By acting as these democracies’ armory and their intelligence shield, Israel plays an outsized role in the Western world’s defense against threats that become more palpable by the day. Israel is David confronting the world’s Goliaths—China, Russia and Iran.

Israel, one of the world’s top 10 arms exporters, stands out because of its small size—all other major arms exporters have populations many times that of the Jewish state’s 9.9 million.

Almost half of Israel’s arms exports support Asian countries that are threatened by China, which boasts the world’s largest and fastest-growing military.

Taiwan, which China threatens to invade, has relied on Israeli military assistance for its defense since the 1970s when the United States, under pressure from China, refused to provide Taiwan with fighter jets, air-to-air missiles and anti-ship missiles. Israel met Taiwan’s defense needs then and, despite official denials, likely continues to do so today. According to analysts at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, RAND and the U.S. Air Force using war-game models, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would likely fail due to Taiwan’s killer drone technology, which many believe was secretly developed with Israel.

Israel’s largest East Asian arms importer is the Philippines, which China repeatedly provokes at sea. China unilaterally claims almost the whole of the mineral-rich South China Sea, including portions that the U.N. Law of the Sea Arbitral Tribunal determined belonged to the Philippines….

Israel’s military and its intelligence services work with America and other Western allies to neutralize these threats. According to The New York Times, Israeli and U.S. intelligence services “operated in virtual lock step” during the Trump administration. As one example, Israel provided the United States with the intelligence needed to assassinate Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force. Israeli intelligence is credited with saving the lives of hundreds of American servicemen stationed in Iraq and Syria in 2020 and 2021 from Iranian attack. It has been considered so valuable over the decades that, according to a former chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “Israel’s contribution to U.S. military intelligence is greater than all NATO countries combined.”

Israel has also acted unilaterally to remove threats posed by tyrants. When Iraq under Saddam Hussein and Syria under Bashar Assad came close to acquiring nuclear weapons, and the United States refused to act against them, it fell to Israel to destroy their nuclear facilities. With Iran now close to acquiring a nuclear weapon and with Washington to date refusing to act against it, it will again fall to Jerusalem to destroy its nuclear threat, thereby eliminating Iran’s threats to Israel and other Middle Eastern countries as well as to the United States and Europe.

The United States, which has by far the world’s largest military and is the world’s largest arms exporter, does more than any other country to support democracies. In proportion to the size of its economy, though, Israel contributes five times as much, with little fanfare and less recognition of its large role in thwarting the world’s tyrannies, and in protecting the world’s democracies.

Just be thankful that Israel is on the right side — our side. And thank God that the Jewish state doesn’t hold grudges against those who withhold weapons from it, as the U.K. and Canada have just done, and as Kamala Harris is sure to do.