Uncle Sam's favorite child at 60: Bernd Debusmann

Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

By Bernd Debusmann

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Over the years, the U.S. government has professed having a special relationship with Britain, Canada, Mexico, the Philippines and several other permanent or temporary allies. But no special relationship has been as special as that with Israel. Or as costly.

Israel enters its seventh decade as an independent state this week, the United States is eight months from getting a new president, and the special relationship looks set to remain extra special -- which means that for the United States, Israel will be both a strategic asset and a diplomatic liability.

In the 60 years since its establishment on May 14, 1948, Israel has been by far the largest recipient of U.S. assistance, military and economic, in the world, according to the Congressional Research Service. Aid has been running at around $3 billion a year since 1985, a sizeable sum for a country with a population smaller than that of New York City.

The "asset" part of the asset-liability equation dates back to the Cold War when Israel served as an American outpost in a region where the Soviets had strategic ambitions.

As a former U.S. secretary of state, Alexander Haig, put it: "Israel ... is the largest U.S. carrier that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one U.S. soldier, and is located in a most critical region for US national security."

On the liability side of the ledger, widespread anti-Americanism in the Arab and Muslim worlds -- a distinct danger to U.S. national security -- has been driven by unquestioning American support for Israel in its often harsh dealings with the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank it occupied in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

The U.S.-Israeli relationship at times resembles that of an indulgent parent with a willful child rather than nation-to-nation ties. Its negative effects are barely discussed in Congress or the general public in the United States, unlike other subjects that arouse controversy and passions -- abortion, for example, or gun control.