MATZAV ISRAEL: What Israel is worth to the US

Yoram Ettinger recaps what various American leaders have said abouthow much Israel is worth to the United States.

Israel, on the other hand, was described by the late General Alexander Haig, who was a Supreme Commander of NATO and a US Secretary of State, as "the largest US aircraft carrier, which does not require even one US soldier, cannot be sunk, is the most cost-effective and battle-tested, located in a region which is critical to vital US interests. If there would not be an Israel, the US would have to deploy real aircraft carriers, along with tens of thousands of US soldiers, which would cost tens of billions of dollars annually, dragging the US unnecessarily into local, regional and global conflicts. All of which is spared by the Jewish State."

For example, in 1970, pro-Soviet Syria invaded Jordan, threatening a domino scenario into the oil-rich Persian Gulf. The US military was preoccupied with Vietnam and could not deploy troops to Jordan. Israel was asked to mobilize its military, and the Syrian invasion was rolled back. Thus, Israel denied the USSR a major coup and spared the US a potential economic disaster, without deploying a single US soldier.

General John Keegan, a former chief of US Air Force Intelligence determined that Israel's contribution to US intelligence was "equal to five CIAs."Senator Daniel Inouye, Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and former Chairman of the Intelligence Committee said "The intelligence received from Israel exceeds the intelligence received from all NATO countries combined."

He assessed that Soviet military hardware which was transferred, by Israel, to the US (P-12 Soviet radar in 1969, Mig-21 and Mig-23 Soviet fighter aircraft in 1966 and 1989 respectively, etc.) tilted the global balance of power in favor of America and amounted to a mega-billion dollar bonus to the US.

In 1981, Israel bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor, thus sparing the US a nuclear confrontation with Iraq in1991 and 2003. In 1982 and 2007, Israel demolished Soviet surface-to-air missile batteries operated by Syria and a Syrian-Iranian-North Korean nuclear reactor in Syria. The battle tactics – which were the first ever to penetrate such advanced Soviet/Russian defense systems - were shared with the US Air Force, enhancing America’s military edge over Moscow.

In 2011, US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan benefit from Israel's experience in combating improvised explosive devices, car bombs and suicide bombers.