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<\/span>While becoming a great customer, Israel became the Pentagon\u2019s weapons lab. American generals watched Israeli soldiers \u2013 especially pilots \u2013 use American weapons creatively. The adaptations humiliated the Soviet-trained Arabs while helping Americans perfect their weaponry and tactics. Israel also captured vast warehouses filled with Soviet armaments \u2013 shipping back to the Pentagon whatever it needed to learn about enemy hardware.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why, on February 13, 1979, Harold Brown became the first American defense secretary to visit Israel. Expressing the new Pentagon consensus, Brown honored the \u201cunique relationship\u201d uniting Israel and America, \u201cresting\u2026 on moral and political grounds as well as\u2026 vital common security interests.\u201d By 1982, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. David C. Jones, praised Israel\u2019s success in the Lebanon War, as \u201cgenerating some second thoughts in the Kremlin\u201d about Soviet abilities against American weapons.<\/p>\n
Before the 1970s, presidents had rhapsodized about Israel. After 1973, America\u2019s most practical politicians \u2013 its generals \u2013 cemented those shared values with shared interests too.<\/p>\n
That formula continues. A career soldier of 41 years like Lloyd Austin knows it in his bones. Traditionally, both major political parties supported Israel enthusiastically \u2013 with presidential nominees always insisting they were more pro-Israel than their rivals.<\/p>\n
So far, Harris is dodging reporters \u2013 and hasn\u2019t articulated a foreign policy vision. She still could embrace Israel ideologically and pragmatically, as the post-\u201870s Pentagon did.<\/p>\n
Alas, don\u2019t hold your breath.<\/p>\n