In his speech to the Knesset in January, Vice-President Mike Pence declared that, “in the story of the Jews,” Americans have “always seen the story of America.” This observation, says Samuel Goldman, is hardly a new one, and indeed is necessary to understanding U.S.-Israel relations. Taking Pence’s comments one step further, Gershon Greenberg explains that the idea of America as the Promised Land can be traced all the way back to Christopher Columbus, and American history cannot be understood without reference to the land of Israel as portrayed in the Hebrew Bible. Looking at more recent history, Michael Doran explains how certain strands of American Protestant thought shaped the U.S.-Israel alliance, and how opposing strands informed, and continue to inform, this alliance’s discontents. The three explore these ideas further in an in-depth discussion. (Video, 72 minutes.)

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”