What happened
Per JNS, Hadas Lorber, director of the US-Israel Project at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and former head of the Foreign Policy Division at Israel's National Security Council, presented her assessment on May 26 at the annual Ruderman Conference for Israel-American Jewish Relations in Tel Aviv. Per JNS, Lorber said the conference opened by noting "the bad news," a perceived fraying of shared values between the United States and Israel, and cited a Pew Research Center poll of 3,605 Americans showing that more than half of US adults expressed an unfavorable opinion of Israel. Per JNS, the event drew about 120 attendees at the Yitzhak Rabin Center.
The argument
Per JNS, Lorber described a US-led strategic response she termed the "Pax Silica," a coalition intended to sustain technological, military, and economic advantage amid US-China competition, and argued that Israel's technological strengths make it a valuable partner. She characterized the relationship as shifting toward "How can we partner up?" rather than one-directional assistance, according to JNS.
Why it matters
Class B analysis: advanced AI capabilities, talent exchanges, and joint research commonly become leverage points in bilateral alliances where one partner offers concentrated technical strengths. Public reporting frames US-China rivalry as a driver of deeper technology cooperation between the United States and allies. For practitioners, cross-border collaboration tends to affect funding streams, data-sharing constraints, export controls, and talent mobility more than product-level integration.
What to watch
- •Announcements of bilateral research agreements, defense R&D memoranda, and joint funding mechanisms.
- •Export-control adjustments and university-industry collaboration programs tied to the coalition described at the conference.
- •Reporting from major policy research centers and government procurement records that would document concrete programs.
Key Points
- 1Reported remarks frame Israel's AI and tech ecosystem as a strategic complement to US efforts to sustain an edge over China, via a coalition described as the Pax Silica.
- 2Per JNS, a cited Pew poll of 3,605 Americans found more than half hold an unfavorable view of Israel, which Lorber framed as a fraying of shared values.
- 3Class B context: tech-centered alliances tend to shape data-sharing rules, export controls, and talent flows more than immediate products, so watch for concrete bilateral agreements.
Scoring Rationale
This is a single expert's conference assessment, reported by JNS, framing Israel's technology ecosystem and the US-led Pax Silica coalition as reinforcing the US-Israel alliance amid US-China competition. It is geopolitically relevant to practitioners tracking funding, export controls, and research collaboration, but it is commentary rather than a concrete program announcement, which limits its impact.
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