WASHINGTON (Dispatches) -- A former U.S. official who directly managed the Israel-Palestine file believes it’s time to fundamentally reconsider the U.S.-Israel relationship, arguing that American support for the occupying regime no longer serves strategic U.S. interests.
Steven Simon, the former U.S. National Security Council senior director for the Middle East and North Africa under the Obama administration, recently released the book “Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East.” In it, he skews the decades of U.S. policy in the Middle East that has largely remained unchanged through successive administrations.
Simon’s arguments are all the more relevant with the Zionist regime finding itself at a dramatic inflection point – with its own direction, relations with the Palestinians and a potential normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, all against the backdrop of U.S. involvement (or lack thereof) in those matters.
“It’s empty-nest syndrome,” says Simon of U.S. reluctance to press the reset button. “The chicks fly the coop, they hang out with the wrong people. ‘Why don’t they come home for dinner anymore and ask for advice’ – if you’re a parent, that’s really vexing and it’s hard to learn to let go,” he observes.
“Everybody’s so interested in this current crisis precisely because it seems to be like a tipping point,” he says of the fierce protests against the Netanyahu regime’s efforts to weaken the judiciary. “The message of the book, to the extent that it’s relevant to the crisis that’s going on now back there, is simply that it’s not our problem,” he adds.
As Simon sees it, “what we’re looking at now goes back to the 1930s at least. Now the chickens are coming home to roost in a fairly big way. There are technical issues, but the issues are sort of much deeper,” he says.
This leads to the crux of the matter, in Simon’s eyes: issues relating to Israel are strictly a political issue rather than a strategic one. “Why would the administration pick a fight with the current regime in Israel over something that the United States simply has no control over – precisely because it’s so deep? There isn’t a strategic stake involved, and in the absence of the strategic stake, it’s really just all about politics.”
Simon points to the current political environment, whose roots lay in the late ’90s, as one creating a structural disadvantage for Democrats, since the party as a whole is moving in a different direction to the Israeli regime. “So why, when there’s an American election coming up where the stakes are truly immense, would the Biden administration walk into a minefield for this? It would appear to me to be deeply imprudent,” he says.
“From my former Washington perspective, the issue is what uses up air in the room – so you’ve got this campaign that’s really fraught. It’s dealing with a lot of serious issues and deep issues, in an American context, and the stakes are really high. Why would you allocate bandwidth to this issue? It’s simply something you don’t want out there. It crowds out other stuff,” Simon argues.
He also claims that matters ostensibly related to strategic affairs such as military aid are actually political matters at their core. “The kinds of things that Israel wants from the U.S. are generally easy to provide. A lot of it is financial. We have a $21 trillion GDP – who cares if you give $4 billion a year to Israel [in military aid]? As a practical political matter, it’s pocket change and it’s well spent, so you do it,” he says.
This extends to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and peace process. Simon says the United States began to realize during Barack Obama’s first term that it “had no juice” and when then-Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts during the second term were not met with much enthusiasm.
“My main takeaway was that, in terms of the traditional agenda, the relationship was over and the U.S. and Israel were in a very different place than they had been,” he says of his time in the White House. Simon was at the National Security Council from 2011-2012 and worked on counterterrorism and Mideast security policy at the council from 1994-1999, having spent 15 years at the State Department prior to that.
On Israelis and Palestinians, Simon notes that the U.S. has gradually lost influence. He argues that the foundations of the U.S.-Israel relationship were grounded in the liberal temper of a certain era, first established by former President Harry Truman. The relationship evolved from being values-based to one based on strategy.
The prevailing wisdom in Washington has been that the occupying regime of Israel is a strategic ally. Relations between the two regimes were based on the idea that they broadly share the same strategic outlook: Both are dedicated to counter-terrorism; both exchange intelligence and advanced

technology and both are seen as bulwarks against Arab nationalism.
Critics, however, have questioned this, arguing that one only needs to look to U.S. military involvement in the region over the decades to notice that, instead of being an ally, Israel has been a strategic liability. The Persian Gulf States, for example, have played a far greater role in supporting the U.S. militarily in the region than the Zionist regime.
The Iran nuclear deal negotiated by Obama is another case in point. Though the historic deal was applauded in Washington, including by major U.S. allies, Israel is accused of sabotaging the agreement. It continues to throw obstacles in front of President Joe Biden, who has been trying to revive the deal negotiated by his predecessor.
Also on Israel and Palestine, it is argued that the U.S. has used nearly every ounce of political currency and good-will in defending the occupation entity for decades such that America’s moral standing on the global stage is at its lowest point ever.
Simon argues that the U.S. should focus on its domestic concerns while redefining its stance in the Middle East. The book sparks a fresh debate about the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship, challenging long-held assumptions and advocating for a more pragmatic approach to the complex dynamics in the region.
Regarding future relations, Simon believes that the occupying regime of Israel will lose the bipartisan support it has enjoyed. He predicts a growing divide between Israel and the Democratic Party in the U.S.