Israel’s International Standing Has Never Been Higher

Sunlight is reflecting on the mirrors placed on the top of the Ashalim solar tower near the southern Israeli kibbutz of Ashalim in the Negev desert on April 28, 2019. Thomas Coex/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

“After six months of war, Israel’s isolation grows with no end in sight,” the Associated Press, Reuters, and dozens of other major mainstream media outlets claimed earlier this month.

The media’s portrayal of Israel as a pariah state has been consistent for years—and consistently wrong in its assumption that reporting a never-ending litany of alleged misdeeds would doom Israel’s government to the same fate that befell apartheid South Africa.

Israel’s international standing has never been higher, and following its unparalleled success on April 13 in eviscerating hundreds of incoming Iranian missiles and drones, Israel’s cachet and its reputation for excellence will only increase.

International support for Israel can be seen in the depth of its relations with other nations—at Israel’s Independence Day ceremonies in April 2023, Israel’s foreign minister announced that the then 77 foreign diplomatic missions to Israel would soon be increasing to 100, and today they number 146. More Arab nations than ever before have warmed to Israel, and more Muslim nations have, too. Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, recently indicated—despite the Gaza War—that it would be establishing diplomatic ties with Israel in order to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an organization of which Israel has long been a member.

Remarkably, Arab nations are publicly touting their military alliances with Israel. Jordan joined Israeli jets in shooting down Iranian drones, and Saudi Arabia even posted an Israeli article on the royal family’s official website that described the Saudis’ assistance. Other Arab states also helped Israel repel the Iranian attack, as did the United States, the UK, and France in a compelling demonstration of the extent of military support that Israel enjoys from Western and Middle Eastern countries alike.

Israel’s international standing partly stems from its reputation as a high-tech start-up nation, partly because its energy fields in the Mediterranean represent an alternative to Russian gas, and mostly because of its military prowess.

Arab countries and Israel are mutually dependent on their militaries and their intelligence agencies in opposing Islamic terrorism generally and Iran’s attempt to rule the Middle East specifically. Likewise, Israel and the West share a similar mutual dependence, which explains why so many Western countries—including Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, Norway, and the EU generally—rushed to express solidarity with Israel following Iran’s attack.

Israel is America’s most important military asset in the Middle East because it provides the United States with the region’s most important military base, because Israel has provided the U.S. military with countless technological enhancements for its aircraft, and because Israel’s military allows the United States to project power throughout the Middle East at low cost.

Israel and India, the world’s largest democracy and most populous country, have also developed a far-reaching, mutually beneficial relationship. India now purchases almost half of Israel’s military exports, making Israel India’s largest military supplier after Russia.

The concept of a missile defense system—pejoratively mocked as Star Wars when President Ronald Reagan first proposed it in 1983—was abandoned as pie in the sky by President Bill Clinton in 1993. Israeli scientists made that technology a reality after it faced a barrage of missiles from Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War in 1991 and then from Hezbollah during the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

The upshot was Israel’s development of the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and the Arrow missile defense systems to shoot down a variety of aerial weapons. These missile defense systems, in turn, have been in great demand around the world from countries that also face threats, including the United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan, and Morocco in the Middle East; India, South Korea, and Singapore in Asia; and Germany, the UK, Finland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and Cyprus in Europe.

Israel’s jaw-dropping 99 percent kill rate of Iran’s April 13 missiles—a figure no analysts anticipated—will only increase motivation around the world to join the club of countries whose cooperation with Israel qualifies them as purchasers of Israeli technologies.

Whether or not the mainstream media’s anti-Israel agenda succeeds—and a recent survey of four EU countries indicates that its negative portrayal of Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war hasn’t moved public opinion—matters little to the actual imperatives that motivate countries. As Charles de Gaulle famously said, “No nation has friends, only interests.” Israel serves the interests of ever more countries, making it ever more respected among the nations of the world.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.