Politics & Power Quote by George Pataki

A sentence like this isn’t built to persuade skeptics; it’s built to close ranks. Pataki’s “has always been” performs a neat political magic trick: it recasts a contingent, debated foreign-policy relationship as historical fact. “Must always be” then moves from description to command, turning alliance into destiny. That modal verb isn’t accidental. It’s a prophylactic against nuance, written to pre-empt the very questions a democracy is supposed to ask: strongest compared to whom, at what cost, and under what conditions?

The intent is coalition maintenance. In American politics, especially post-9/11 and through the long years when “pro-Israel” functioned as a litmus test in many donor networks and party institutions, affirming Israel as a singular ally signals reliability to key constituencies: evangelical voters, hawkish national security circles, and well-organized advocacy groups. It’s also a reassuring line for a domestic audience that likes its geopolitics moralized: Israel as “the” democratic outpost, America as guarantor, history as a straight line.

The subtext is that dissent equals disloyalty. By framing the relationship as permanent and maximal, the quote sidelines alternative frames that have gained traction in recent years: conditional aid, human-rights accountability, a harder look at occupation and settlement policy, or simply the argument that alliances are instruments, not vows. Pataki’s rhetoric isn’t an analysis of interests; it’s a boundary marker, telling you where “serious” politics ends and forbidden debate begins.