Marco Rubio recently gave a very impassioned, whiny speech about the U.S. and Israel. His concluding remarks were some of the most remarkable:

Because if America doesn’t stand with Israel, who would we stand with? If Israel, a democracy, a strong American ally on the international stage, if they are not worthy of our unconditional support, then what ally around the world can feel safe in their alliance with us? [bold mine-DL]

It’s not remotely obvious that any other state should ever receive unconditional support from the U.S., but it would help a lot if that state were, in fact, an ally of the U.S. This may seem like a minor or pedantic point, but it can’t be stressed often enough that the U.S. and Israel aren’t allies. The U.S. isn’t obliged to defend Israel, nor is Israel obliged to come to our defense, but there is much more to it than that. Israel has never once contributed forces to a U.S. military campaign, nor would the U.S. want it to because of the political and diplomatic difficulties that would create for our government. The U.S. gets virtually nothing from the relationship, and it gets almost nothing back in exchange for its reliable support for Israel except for Israeli opposition to its regional policy goals and diplomatic headaches with other governments on account of Israeli policies.

In truth, no U.S. ally or client should ever be given unconditional support, nor should that kind of support ever be expected. It is unreasonable and irresponsible for the U.S. to pledge support to any other state under any and all circumstances. Not only do interests between patron and client sometimes diverge or clash, but other circumstances change and the things that may have once made a client useful cease to apply at some point. Rubio’s idea that our support for any client state should be treated as the standard by which we measure our backing for our real allies is truly bizarre, and it puts the relationship with Israel ahead of relationships with far more valuable, reliable, and genuine allies. Our genuine allies can feel confident that U.S. commitments to them are reliable because the U.S. has accepted them in formal treaties, and they can also expect the U.S. to support them because they don’t go out of their way to sabotage U.S. initiatives and undermine U.S. policies.