Geostrategic Media Political Commentary, Analysis, Security, Defense
Ukraine and Israel are different in many respects: although they both fight for territory, the Ukrainian war has global repercussions while the Israel-Hamas war is a regional conflict; the Ukrainian war is a classical war between states whereas the Israel wars with Hamas and Hezbollah are irregular wars between a state and non-state actors. These differences create different strategic calculations in Washington: the Ukrainian war is more significant and Ukraine needs more help than Israel. Besides, people in the US see the two wars differently: as of last November, while 64% of US adults sympathized with Ukraine more than Russia, only 40% of them have more sympathy for Israel than Palestine (Source: YouGov). Since then, the number for Israel has more likely decreased as the number of Palestinian casualties has been increasing. So, the US public also favors the support for Ukraine over Israel.
Based on these numbers as well as those strategic calculations, one expects that Ukraine must have got the go-ahead to target inside Russia with US weapons, more than Israel’s doing so in Gaza. There are three possible answers for such inconsistency. First, it might be technical: Perhaps, the overall assessment in Washington is that Israel needs to eradicate Hamas to prevent another Oct. 7, and to do so, it needs to enter Palestinian territories or strike Hamas’s premises and fighters inside Gaza. In contrast, Ukraine does not need to oust Putin from power to prevent another Russian invasion of its territory. Thus, technically speaking, Israel’s entering into Gaza can be read as an act of self-defense by this group of analyses.
Second, it might have realistic reasons: Israel’s invasion of Gaza, as well as Lebanon, could not spark the Third World War, while American weapons targeting Russian cities could. Israel has obtainable objectives, whereas Ukraine cannot return all its territories without triggering a world war. One can say that the reason that the Palestinians are terribly suffering from the US weapons is because they are too weak to spark a world war and the reason that Russia does what it can is that it is a power that can trigger a world war. According to the famous saying, ‘the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must’ (Source: Oxford).
The third answer is that US-Israel relations are special and that explains why the US has a double standard toward Israel versus Ukraine. Therefore, it can be said that perhaps the US is not happy to see that Israel is using its weapons in Gaza, but it can’t help letting Israel go ahead with its war plan, whatever it is. The State Department’s explanation endorses this answer: In April, the State Department explained the difference between Ukraine’s and Israel’s military support by recalling that “our relationship with Israel goes back decades in terms of a security partnership” and it is “entirely different” with Ukraine that the relationship is “just going back two years of a conflict” (Source: Newsweek).
Each of these three answers raises different expectations or predictions. If the first answer is the right answer, then one can expect that the US will gradually stop sending weapons to Israel, as the US thinks that Israel reached its goals in Gaza (Source: New York Times). However, if Trump wins the election in November, he will continue sending more weapons because he thinks Israel should be permitted to finish the job (Source: Middle East Monitor). As for Ukraine, the expectations are indefinite at the present time. The majority of the US Democrats believe that Ukraine needs long-range ammunition to force Russia to accept peace with Ukrainian terms including returning Crimea to Ukraine. However, some Republicans, including Donald Trump, maintain that Ukraine should offer concessions to Russia to avoid World War Three and that sending long-range ammunition is too perilous in this case.
If the second answer is the right reason, then Israel will receive more weapons owing to some successful results of its ground operation in the US assessment (Source: New York Times). For Ukraine, one can expect that by the recent breakthrough in Kursk inside Russia, and by the ongoing weakening of Russia’s economy and its growing depletion of military capacity, the US will step up its support to Ukraine and the time comes when Washington greenlights Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia. This conclusion for Israel remains valid no matter whether Republicans or Democrats win the election, but for Ukraine, Republicans still will more likely have a fear of the Third World War.
The third answer is the only answer that preserves the status quo. Israel will remain a special ally and Ukraine is just a strategic partner at best and this reality will not change by the US election results. In the early years of the Second World War, the US sent weapons to the UK to target inside Germany not because the UK was stronger than Nazi Germany or because the overall assessment in Washington was that the UK necessarily needed to invade inside Germany to defend itself. The special relation seems to have played a more important role.
By the ongoing election debate in the US, the election itself can make a difference for Israel if and only if the first answer is the right answer. For Ukraine, this election is more precarious as it can make a difference if the first two answers were the real reason for supporting Ukraine. The third answer will not be helpful for Ukraine at every turn. So, more likely, Israel will have the right to use US weapons inside Gaza and Lebanon, but the case for Ukraine remains to be seen after the election.
