Then prime minister Menachem Begin famously used the term “banana republic” in 1981 to angrily reply to US ambassador Samuel Lewis after Washington criticised Israel for annexing the Golan Heights.
Begin questioned the US right to “punish” Israel, stating: “Are we a vassal state of yours? Are we a banana republic?”
The speech went down in Israeli history as the quintessential example of a defiant leader standing up to perceived US interference in its affairs.
Many in Israel have been recalling those comments as, one after another, senior US officials have landed in the country in the last two weeks.
RM Block
First came envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the architects of the Gaza ceasefire, followed by US president Donald Trump. Witkoff and Kushner returned on Monday this week, followed by vice-president JD Vance on Tuesday. Secretary of state Marco Rubio is in Israel and the CIA chief will arrive next week.
The diplomatic airlift is not, as prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu claims, an example of exceptionally close bilateral ties, but an indication that Washington is keeping Israel on a tight leash and will do everything it can to preserve the Gaza ceasefire, which is seen as Trump’s most significant foreign policy achievement to date.
“In Israel they call you Bibi-sitters,” noted CBS’s Lesley Stahl in an interview with envoys Witkoff and Kushner for the 60 Minutes programme, shortly before they departed for Israel.
This week’s Knesset vote on the preliminary stage of a Bill to annex the occupied West Bank was a sovereign decision taken by parliamentarians who believe Israel has a God-given right to the Biblical homeland. Trump was not interested. “Don’t worry about the West Bank,” he told reporters at the White House. “Israel is not going to do anything with the West Bank.”
According to the Politico website, vice-president Vance delivered a “firm message” to Netanyahu concerning the annexation vote and Israeli military retaliation to Hamas ceasefire violations in Gaza. A firm no.
[ Israel-US talks undermined by annexation vote and accusations of racismOpens in new window ]
According to Amos Harel, the veteran military affairs correspondent for the Haaretz newspaper, Washington now expects Israel to notify it in advance before it conducts any exceptional military strikes in the Gaza Strip, including air strikes.
A US command centre has been set up in Kiryat Gat in southern Israel. White House envoys sat in on an Israeli cabinet meeting and met generals.
“We don’t want a client state, and that’s not what Israel is. ... It’s not about monitoring in the sense of, you know, you monitor a toddler,” Vance told a news conference.
But in reality it looks like a US diktat to stop the war and ensure the ceasefire holds. Like a banana republic.
