This is an excerpt from Victoria Coates’ new book, “The Battle for the Jewish State: How Israel—and America—Can Win.”
President Ronald Reagan’s rationale for launching SDI [the Strategic Defense Initiative] in his 1983 speech could have been written by any Israeli Prime Minister: “I’ve become more and more deeply convinced that the human spirit must be capable of rising above dealing with other nations and human beings by threatening their existence. Feeling this way, I believe we must thoroughly examine every opportunity for reducing tensions and for introducing greater stability into the strategic calculus on both sides.”
The year after Reagan announced SDI, the United States and Israel signed another MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] regarding missile defense cooperation. Given Israel’s location and threat profile, any such defensive capability was…
