Proclaiming Justice with Laurie Cardoza Moore

Amb. Yoram Ettinger: If the US were to procure all that intelligence on its own, then the US would have to establish five CIAs. The annual budget for one CIA is around $15 billion.

Israel as the largest American aircraft carrier, which does not require a single American on board, cannot be sunk. Israel is a beneficiary of an annual American investment of $3.8 billion. To manufacture one super aircraft carrier costs anywhere between $10 and $13 billion. We performed as the luxury showroom of the American aerospace industry. Israel is not a burden on the US. Israel is a unique ally of the US.

Laurie Cardoza Moore: I'm Laurie Cardoza Moore, and this is Proclaiming Justice podcast.

Amb. Yoram Ettinger: Well, first and foremost, I learned from friends of mine in Texas to approach such challenge with the state of mind that it ain't the first time, ain't the last time, and ain't the worst time. And certainly, as Jews, as a Jewish state, we have had many, many challenges which are basically uphill challenges, but they have always been an engine causing resurgence to higher and higher level.

When it comes to the isolationist attitude towards Israel, first and foremost, there's no realization, no comprehension of the reality of US-Israel relations. The isolationist view Israel as a burden. They view the relations as a one-way street with the US giving and Israel receiving. They do not realize the huge scope of benefits to the US, which in fact exceeds by far the dollar scope of annual foreign aid to Israel, which is not really foreign aid. It's an annual investment in Israel which yields back to the American taxpayer return of investment in the magnitude of hundreds of percents year-in and year-out.

I can give many examples, maybe a recent example of the US bombing of the three nuclear reactor centers in Iran. This bombing followed an Israeli offensive of some 10 days on Iran, which completely demolished the Iranian Air Force and the Iranian ground-to-air defense systems, and which enabled the US to carry out its offensive on Iran unimpeded by the Iranian Air Force or defense systems. No ally of the US has the capability to carry out such a service to the US. Many of the allies don't even have the will to carry that out.

But more importantly, Israel carried out its own Air Force offensive on Iran with some 200 American-made combat aircraft: the F-35, F-16, and F-15. Obviously, Israel is extremely, extremely grateful for the US for receiving that critical hardware. However, performing that offensive, which in fact was the most complex, the most effective Air Force offensive carried out by anyone since the Second World War, by carrying it out, we performed as the luxury showroom of the American aerospace industry.

Namely, the Chinese, the Russian, the British, the French, they all manufacture combat aircraft, but they don't have a showroom which every single day shows the very substantial edge that the American combat planes have over others. Carrying out that operation against Iran reinforced the decision by many countries to buy American products. It's like a AAA store. A AAA store comes to a new shopping mall, and other stores want to come there, and shoppers are flooding that shopping mall.

Likewise with Israel, when we use American military systems, without which we could not make ends meet, there's no doubt about that, but carrying it out constitutes our returning to the Americans the benefits of the American military systems. It's not only encouraging more exports of the American aerospace industry. It's the daily lessons which we share with the American manufacturers. Every single day, the Israeli Air Force benefits from flying the plane in a do-or-die state of mind, in operational mode which Americans rarely experience.

And that mode of flying the plane yields certain lessons: overcoming some glitches, overcoming some mechanical or technical problems. And we share all that with the manufacturers, which means we serve as the most effective research and development center for the American defense industry. According to a plant manager at Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, Texas, which manufactures the F-35 and F-16, according to him, in a conversation with me, the daily Israeli lessons save the plant anywhere between 10 and 20 years of research and development.

To get an idea about the cost of research and development, F-35 also incurred $55 billion research and development. Saving the manufacturer between 10 and 20 years of research and development amounts to mega-billion dollars. But more than that, we are enhancing the competitiveness of those American defense products. Saving research and development costs and increasing American exports is also expanding the employment base of the American defense and aerospace industry.

We're talking about more than two and a half million Americans employed by the defense industry, which is positively impacted by its so-called showroom, otherwise known as Israel. This type of two-way street, Israel receiving and Israel returning, also takes place in the commercial non-military market. There is a reason why 250 American high-tech giants decided to establish research and development centers in Israel. They do that in order to leverage the brainpower available in Israel.

And in many respects, having those research and development centers in Israel has made it possible for the American commercial high-tech industry to maintain its leadership position in the world. Coming back to the military aspect, those lessons which we share with the manufacturer, we also share with the American Air Force. We share it with the American Air Force, namely we share very experienced Air Force lessons with a relatively inexperienced Air Force.

Americans for obvious reasons don't have the daily national security challenges faced by Israel. Israel has developed game-changing, groundbreaking battle tactics, all of which we share with the Americans. And when the Americans do get into a dogfight, they're going to experience that challenge cushioned in many respects by the Israeli experience. I met many American combat pilots in the US during my visits, and each one of them shared with me the experience of conducting joint exercises with the Israeli Air Force.

And their message was very clear: joining the Israeli Air Force in those exercises has demonstrated to us how really good are the American combat aircraft. And when I asked, "How come? It's your aircraft," the response was, "The Israelis fly every day under do-or-die state of mind, which we rarely experience. And when you fly a combat aircraft under do-or-die state of mind, you have to do it more daringly and more innovatively, which enhances or upgrades the battle tactics."

We share it with the Americans, and by the way, not only when it comes to the Air Force. We do it with the special units in the US dealing with urban warfare. We've accumulated much experience in urban warfare in Lebanon, in Judea and Samaria, recently or currently in Gaza, all of which we share with the special operation forces of the United States. Recently visiting the US Congress, I met with Congressman Zinke from Montana, who happened to be a former commander of the Navy SEALs.

And he shared with me his experience and the benefits from that experience through joint exercises with the Israeli naval commando. And those are a few of many, many such examples, and it's not only day-to-day examples. It also has to do with Israel wars. Israel wars are viewed erroneously as a private matter for Israel. But Israel in many respects is fighting Western democracies' war. We are fighting in many respects America's own wars.

And one example is 1981, when we bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in defiance of American pressure to refrain from bombing. We were punished by the US for devastating the Iraqi nuclear reactor. However, that took place in 1981, and 10 years later, the US was fighting the first Gulf War in January 1991. Then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney spoke at a defense establishment event in Washington, D.C. following the Gulf War, and his first sentence was, "Thank you, Israel, for destroying the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, which spared us a potential nuclear confrontation in 1991."

How many thousands of people's lives were spared by that Israeli action? How many trillions of dollars were spared by that action? And certainly, how many Arab allies of the US were spared by that action? Because by devastating Iraq's nuclear reactor, we in many respects snatched Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman, and other allies of the US from the jaws of Saddam Hussein.

We are talking about the memorable war of 1967 that for some people is a very controversial war: Israel reuniting Jerusalem, Israel returning to Judea and Samaria, the cradle of Jewish history, culture, and language. But people who support the war or who oppose the war tend to ignore one critical issue. On the eve of the June 1967 war, Egypt was on its way, with the help of the then Soviet Union, to become the pan-Arab leader, toppling every single pro-American Arab regime.

There were 70,000 Egyptian soldiers stationed in Yemen on the eve of the June '67 war, aiming to topple the Saudi regime and introducing a pro-Soviet regime in Saudi Arabia and the other oil-producing Arab allies of the US. In '67, the US was overwhelmingly dependent upon Persian Gulf oil. By Israel devastating, obliterating the Egyptian military infrastructure, we snatched all those Arab allies from the jaws of a potential Soviet-Egyptian takeover of much of the Middle East.

In fact, that Israeli victory eventually convinced Egypt that the US would be a better ally for Egypt than the Soviet Union. I'm not saying that in order to get thank-you notes for any American watching our conversation, but it seems to me that Americans should realize Israel is involved in a two-way street relation with the US. It's not a one-way street, and those relations are mutually beneficial type of relations.

I remember visiting Birmingham, Alabama, where I met a former commandant of the US Marine Corps. And he mentioned to me that he spent a few years in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, which is the intellectual center of the US Army where they formulate the battle tactics of the Army. And according to General Chuck Krulak, the former commandant of the US Marine Corps, much of the battle tactics formulation in Fort Leavenworth is conducted based on the Israeli battle experience.

I remember meeting an active-duty colonel, a commander of a special operation battalion on Capitol Hill. Both of us were visiting Capitol Hill, and we accidentally met. I asked him if he had any experience with Israel while serving as a special operations commander. And he shared with me an experience: one year of service in Iraq. And he told me that on his way to Iraq, the battalion stopped for two-week training in Israel with top Israeli experts on facing suicide bombers, car bombs, and the deadly improvised explosive devices.

And he concluded his experience by stating that much of the credit to the fact that his battalion came back after a year of service in Iraq without a single fatality was due to those two weeks' training by Israel's top specialists. And then he added that he spends most of the year traveling around the world training special operation units of allies of the United States. "There's only one country," he told me, "where he does not train but is trained, and that's Israel." And he said, "That's your added value to my country."

And we're talking about a litany of such examples in the defense field and in the commercial sphere. The mere fact that we are where we are in the Middle East benefits the US tremendously again, away from the limelight. And the reason it benefits the US has to do with our very specific location and capabilities. Former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo Zumwalt and then former Supreme Commander of NATO forces General Alexander Haig, who eventually became US Secretary of State, both of them referred to Israel as the largest American aircraft carrier which does not require a single American on board and cannot be sunk.

And if there would not be Israel, then the US would have to manufacture a few more real aircraft carriers, deploy them to the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, and accompany them by five or six ground divisions. All that attention by the US, according to General Haig and Admiral Zumwalt, has to do with the location of Israel: between Europe and Asia and Africa, between the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and the Persian Gulf. This is an area with 48% of proven oil reserves. This is an area which is the chief epicenter of anti-US global Islamic terrorism.