Part I – To Win Our Immigration War, Start with the Middle East.

Set up or expand a mini NATO to win immigration and enhance technology and security.

People have wishes for quick wins in the Middle East for time immemorial. But is a strategic win possible for America too?

The barbaric attacks by Hamas on October 7th ruined peace in the Middle East. While Israel has demonstrated resilience in the face of terror, an ominous consequence has emerged: a brain-drain of its highly skilled people seeking stability and opportunity elsewhere.

The Times of Israel documented a 285% surge in departures in October 2023 alone, with 12,300 Israelis leaving permanently. Fueled by understandable security concerns and exacerbated by societal divisions, this represents a potential annual loss exceeding $10 billion in economic activity.

This brain-drain is Israel's next security crisis – threatening its long-term economic and security outlook. It also presents a challenge and opportunity for the United States as we urgently overhaul our own broken system of immigration.

Instead of simply absorbing this outflow of talent, this article shows that by forging a strategic "sentinel-shield" relationship between not only Israel and the US, but also another country or countries, one of which we argue should be the UK, the US can transform the security and immigration crisis into a source of shared prosperity and enhanced security for all nations.

Akin to a mini NATO or AUKUS, the optimal strategy is to update our immigration system to create pathways for Israeli tech talent, in the US, to directly contribute to Israeli security initiatives and those of the alliance. It is a win for the US because of the increased economic activity from entrepreneurship, cybersecurity, defense, investment, contributions to the arts, and more. It is a win for Israel because it slows its brain drain and enables Israelis, who are already in the US, to support the security of Israel and therefore the region. All win by appropriately gaining access to both US and Israeli talent and by successfully moving the region towards prosperity. Talent flows from Israel, securely enriched through the shield country or countries, to the US.

We show the specific policy actions to take to implement sentinel-shield in the rest of this article. Alongside helping to solve our immigration crises, and Israel's, the windfall for the US from this initiative includes creation of over 20,000 new jobs and the generation of over $50 billion in new economic activity within five years.

We thank Hon HE Powell and Hon Eyal Hulata.