There is currently a disagreement between Biden (right) and Netanyahu regarding the red lines in the Israeli aggression on Gaza (Al Jazeera)

The United States has been a strong ally of Israel since President Harry Truman became the first world leader to recognize it after declaring its establishment in 1948. However, the strong relations between the two sides have been marred by tensions from time to time over the decades, the latest of which is the current dispute between President Joe Biden and the Israeli Prime Minister. Benjamin Netanyahu on the red lines in the Israeli aggression on Gaza.

Below are the most important milestones in relations between America and Israel:

1948

  • President Harry Truman becomes the first world leader to recognize Israel after declaring its establishment.

1956

  • The administration of President Dwight Eisenhower, angered by Israel's seizure of the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt during its tripartite aggression with France and Britain, insists on unconditional Israeli withdrawal and threatens to suspend vital American financial aid to Israel unless it does so.

1967

  • US stands behind Israel in its June war with surrounding Arab countries;

    But relations are being damaged by the Israeli attack in international waters on the American spy ship Liberty.

    34 American sailors were killed and 174 others were wounded.

    Israel later apologized for the attack and said that it thought the Liberty ship belonged to Egypt.

1973

  • President Richard Nixon rushes to Israel's aid with an airlift of military equipment after Egypt and Syria, which lost territory in the 1967 war, launched a surprise war in 1973.

1975

  • The administration of President Gerald Ford threatens to reevaluate US relations with Israel unless it signs a "disengagement" treaty with Egypt to withdraw from the Sinai Peninsula, which it occupied in 1967.

1979

  • President Jimmy Carter hosts a signing ceremony for the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, concluded during talks at Camp David.

    Israel eventually withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula.

1981

  • The United States condemns the Israeli bombing of the Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor.

1982

  •  President Ronald Reagan, in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, expressed what a spokesman described as a state of “outrage” at the Israeli air strikes on Beirut during the war in Lebanon, and pressured him to cease fire.

1990

  • Secretary of State James Baker says the United States is increasingly fed up with Israeli foot-dragging on peace negotiations with the Palestinians, recites the White House phone number, and urges both sides to "call us when they're serious about peace."

1991

  • President George H. W. Bush pressures Israel to stay out of the First Gulf War, fearing that an Israeli attack on Iraq would lead to the disintegration of the US-led coalition.

  • Washington withholds $10 billion in loan guarantees requested by Israel to accommodate the exodus of Soviet Jews, increasing pressure on Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir to attend the Madrid peace conference.

    Bush cites the interests of the peace process to justify the postponement, and says that he will not grant guarantees unless Israel freezes the construction of settlements in the lands it seized in the 1967 war.

1992

  • Bush approves Israel's request to secure loan guarantees after Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin offered a limited reduction in settlement construction.

1998

  • President Bill Clinton hosts a summit between Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Wye River, Maryland.

    Netanyahu agrees to hand over more occupied territories to the Palestinians.

2003

  • US President George W. Bush announces a "roadmap" for the peace plan three years after the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada, which outlines the broad outlines for ending the violence and returning to talks to establish a Palestinian state.

2004

  • Bush tells Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that "major existing Israeli population centers," an indirect reference to pockets of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, make it "unrealistic" to expect Israel to return to the armistice lines drawn in 1949.

2009

  • Bush told the Israeli Knesset that the unbreakable relations between Israel and the United States are stronger than any treaty and are based on a common connection to the Holy Bible.

2010

  • The administration of US President Barack Obama is angry with Israel for announcing the construction of more settlement units around Jerusalem during the visit of his Vice President, Joe Biden.

    Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the move "humiliating."

2011

  • Netanyahu rebukes Obama in the Oval Office of the White House, days after the US President publicly stated that “the borders between Israel and Palestine must be based on the 1967 borders.”

2015

  • Obama says the international community does not believe Israel is serious about a two-state solution.

2016

  • In the final weeks of his presidency, Obama allowed the adoption of a resolution in the United Nations Security Council condemning the construction of Israeli settlements when the United States refrained from using its veto, in contravention of its history of protecting Israel at the United Nations.

2017

  • US President Donald Trump recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, reversing decades-old US policy.

    The new US embassy opened in 2018.

2019

  •  The Trump administration recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, territory Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 war. The United States is the only country to do so.

2023

  • On October 7, US President Joe Biden offers Israel “all appropriate forms of support” after the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) launched its attack on southern Israel on the same day, and warns “any party hostile to Israel” against seeking to exploit the situation.

  • December 12, Biden warns Israel that it is losing international support due to “indiscriminate” bombing of civilians in the Gaza war.

2024

  • February 8, Biden says he seeks a “permanent cessation of fighting.”

  • February 11, Biden tells Netanyahu that Israel should not launch a military operation in Rafah in southern Gaza without a credible plan to ensure the safety of the nearly one million people who have taken refuge there.

  • February 27, Netanyahu declares that he is constantly resisting pressure to end the war early and says that this position has popular support in the United States.

  • March 9, Biden says that Israel’s threat to invade Rafah would be a “red line” that he places in front of Netanyahu, but he then backtracks and says that there is no red line and that “I will never abandon Israel.”

  • Biden says his message to Netanyahu about civilian casualties is that he is "hurting Israel more than helping it" by acting in a way that is "contrary to what Israel stands for."

  • March 12, Netanyahu says that Israel will proceed with its military campaign against Rafah.

  • March 14, US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calls for new elections in Israel and describes Netanyahu as an obstacle to peace.

  • March 15, Biden says that a large number of Americans share Schumer’s concerns.

Source: Reuters