This is a rather general question with answers that are often complex and baffling. An ally’s situtation often changes rapidly in our changing world. It’s not enough to say that the enemy of our enemies is our friend. Israel is a case in point: Under Netanyahu, Israel is now more a fascist state than ever before, for example, but that country created after World War Two from Arab lands has always focused more on being self-sufficient than having strong allies, perhaps with reason.
Israel’s right to exist is no longer in question. That would be like questioning the US’s right to exist because much of our land once belonged to England and France. But we can certainly question whether any particular Israeli government at any particular time is to be trusted with intel gathered by the US. And even more: Historically, Israel hasn’t been the best of allies. It only takes one example to show that: The Pollard case.
Pollard was an Israeli spy working for the US Navy! He passed state secrets to the Israeli government and went to jail for that. Mossad might work with US agents in a fictional TV show like NCIS, but they’re generally a lot more self-serving than cooperative. The Pollard case shows in spades that they can work against our interests.
Jewish-US relations have often had glitches of this sort. The large number of persons holding dual citizenships (why is that allowed?) shows that many people have dual loyalties, secular as well as religious, so any tension between the CIA and Mossad is understandable. It’s always questionable which country a dual citizen will support when it comes to crunch time, and that support can be spying against one country to pass intel to the other. At the very least, the means that justify common ends might be completely different, which is a problem.
The Pollard case also offers a lesson about how not to treat spies: After time spent in jail, he was released to Israel because they simply requested it. Why reward a traitor to the US? Perhaps because the US thought they could win points with Israel? That of course makes no sense because Pollard damaged US security. Spying on the US should be treated equally, no matter who does it! Every spy is a US enemy, just like every terrorist who attacks innocent US citizens or US interests is one. If we reward evil or even excuse moral ambiguity from other countries, we will reap evil and moral ambiguity from them.
That doesn’t mean we can’t question our own government’s decisions. (I’m doing that now, specifically with the Pollard case.) That’s not spying or terrorism; it’s democracy. There’s a fine line between treasonous activities and criticism, but at any given time, common sense tells me what it is. Common sense, though, seems to be a rare commodity these days. But in these cases it’s easy to specify the filter: Societal norms are bound to change with time, but they should be applied equally to assumed friends and foes. Treating Israel better than other states is dangerous if only because years or decades later those receiving worse treatment might take their revenge. By the same token, appeasement doesn’t work: MBS won’t change his murdering skunk-stripes just because we let LiV have golf matches in the US.
It’s also questionable if a person’s religion biases them towards choosing to support the goals of a theocracy (Israel) over a true democracy (the US). Which is the correct moral choice for such a person? Protestants in the US were often the first to wonder if a Catholic US president would be loyal to the US or the Vatican. Or even support birth control and rights to abortion nowadays. But dual citizenship often goes far beyond moral and religious issues.
Please go back and read my article on tribalism (“Tribalism is another deadly plague,” 10/10/2023) to see the real source of the problem. I can summarize it in another way: Those responsible for organizing our societies must believe in secularism and support the country they live in against its enemies, foreign and domestic, as long as that country takes the moral high road (it’s clear that Israel didn’t with Pollard, and in many other cases). We must carefully guard our secrets from those countries who’d steal them. Trust is earned. Israel lost it with the Pollard and other cases, perhaps not as much as some countries, but enough to always question what we share with the Israelis. Fox Mulder’s motto is appropriate here with only a slight change: Trust no one until they earn that trust, and then continue to reevaluate. Netanyahu has not earned it because he’s a fascist. A different Israeli leader might.