Washington’s dramatic declaration of the Pax Silica doctrine marks a shift toward material diplomacy alongside verbal diplomacy. For Israel, this creates a major opportunity to turn the narrative of shared values into a hard alliance, anchored in supply chains that run from Silicon Valley through Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi to Taipei.
The announcement of Pax Silica, issued in early December by the White House and the State Department, may be the most significant strategic document of the past decade. Despite the technology-focused headlines, this is not a technical policy note. It is a declaration of how power will be organized in the 21st century. Israel has navigated complex geopolitics for 78 years as a state and 2,000 years as a people, and has learned to act pragmatically. Pax Silica, which defines alliances through technological supply chains, fits Israel’s security and entrepreneurial DNA. Israel should enter this era as a productive partner whose capabilities serve as a growth and security engine for its allies.
Under Pax Americana, global stability was guaranteed by treaties, signatures, and ceremonies. That is no longer sufficient. Security now requires control over materials – silicon, lithium, gallium, germanium – and mastery of manufacturing, design, quality control, software, engineering, and entrepreneurship. With this model, alliances depend on deep technological integration. The US goal is to create a block of “friend-shoring” countries whose economies are interwoven at the level of critical infrastructure: chip fabs, data centers, and the code that runs artificial intelligence (AI). Membership in this supply chain guarantees strategic belonging; exclusion has the opposite effect.
Since the announcement, NVIDIA announced a new R&D center in Kiryat Tivon, its second-largest worldwide. Israel should use this moment to build regulatory and industrial partnerships with key friend-shoring states such as Taiwan, South Korea, India, and the UAE, so that NVIDIA’s move becomes a foundation, not a one-off.
To understand the logic behind Pax Silica, it is better to look past the US president and focus on a central figure: Jacob Helberg. He is not a traditional Washington diplomat but rather a figure who embodies within himself the tensions and contradictions of the new era. He comes from a Jewish family of Holocaust survivors raised in Europe – a continent that trusted soft diplomacy and fine words. Helberg moved to the United States after concluding that power had shifted. His name appears next to Pax Silica in the White House declaration.
That search for power took him not to political science but to Silicon Valley, where he found his base and married venture capitalist Keith Rabois. This is not gossip; it reflects the fusion of political strategy and technological-based capital. Rabois, formerly of Khosla Ventures, has deep ties to Israeli tech. Together they are a representation of new power: capital, technology, and statecraft all wrapped up in one.
Chance for Israel to become global technology partner
This is where Israel must position itself. For decades, Israel relied on the narrative of shared values in dealing with the West. That worked in the 20th century. But Silicon Valley distinguishes between “nice to have” and “must have.” Pax Silica is about the latter. The US and its allies are offering Israel a chance to become a core production partner in a global technology network. Israel can stop being a protected ally and become a strategic necessity – a “must have” rather than a burden.
Israel’s foreign-policy institutions should keep using the language of shared values, but pair it with a technological value proposition. One could create a “technology integration index” as a diplomatic tool that will measure how deeply Israeli technology is embedded in allied infrastructure. Every future alliance should be framed as a technology cooperation agreement in which Israel’s contribution is irreplaceable.
Helberg’s 2018 wedding illustrates this model. The ceremony was officiated not by a rabbi or judge, but by Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, four years before ChatGPT became a global phenomenon. The trinity of venture capital (Rabois), political strategy (Helberg), and AI (Altman) now drives US foreign policy. Power flows from synergy between private industry and the state. For Israel, this means weaving supply chains with global tech firms and aligned states as well as with Washington.
Imagine a US-UAE-Israel partnership in which Israeli energy technologies power Gulf data centers protected by joint cyber defenses. Imagine Japanese robotics combined with Israeli AI, or German cars running on sensors from Yokneam. If Israel becomes a critical node in NATO and the Abraham Accords supply chains, its security becomes a global interest.
Politically, Helberg also offers an important lesson to decision makers in Jerusalem. Though he is a gay Silicon Valley liberal, he is also a strong Trump supporter. This shows that old Left-Right categories matter less than functional alliances. Israel should export its own pragmatism: Work with partners who build and produce. When Israeli components run inside your data center, the alliance is stronger than any memorandum.
Israel’s past investment in higher education paid off. Now it needs a new generation of engineers, developers, entrepreneurs, and sales leaders. Human capital is the best insurance that Israel remains productive and strategically indispensable, regardless of politics.
Looking at America today, one sees major shifts. Just as Helberg rejected old templates and reinvented himself, Israel must do the same. Pax Silica offers a clear proposal: a world where capital, technology, and government jointly secure prosperity and values. Israel, with its human capital and proven technological strength, is built for this era.
The only requirement is to stop speaking the language of the past and start building the future.
The writer is a research fellow at the Mitvim Institute.