WhatsappReports about a 20-year plan of assistance make sense since most of it is spent in and strengthens America. But dependence on Washington is also a long-term liability.
When Axios reported that Israel was seeking a new 20-year-long security assistance deal with America, most veteran observers nodded and said that made sense. The current $38 billion, 10-year plan of U.S. assistance agreed to in the last year of the Obama administration expires in 2028. A 20-year plan would solidify the alliance and take it right up to the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish state.
But if true, Israelis and their friends shouldn’t necessarily be cheering.
The cost of American leverage
If there is anything that Israelis should have learned over the course of the war that followed the Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, in which Israel had to fight a seven-front war against Iran and its terrorist proxies and auxiliaries, it is that being dependent on the United States is a double-edged sword. It can be and was absolutely vital to the Jewish state’s ability to conduct a successful defensive war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to the south and Hezbollah in Lebanon to the north, as well as to do tremendous damage to Tehran’s potential nuclear threat. But the leverage this gives even friendly American administrations to influence and even determine security policies related to Israel remains deeply troubling. Just as, if not more important in the long run, is the damage that the symbolism of the aid does to the pro-Israel community’s ability to maintain support for the alliance.
So, it was heartening to hear Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu say on a podcast hosted by Australian journalist Erin Molan that the Axios report is untrue. “I don’t know what they’re talking about,” he told her. “My direction is the exact opposite.”
He went on to say, “Now, I want to make our arms industry independent, totally as independent as possible. I think that it is time to ensure that Israel is independent.”
Let’s hope he’s right about that.
No country, not even the United States, the world’s most powerful nation, can operate without allies. And though Israel may be routinely referred to as a regional superpower, it is still a small nation that needs the help of its superpower supporter.
The arms and armaments that flow from the United States are vital to the ability of the Israel Defense Forces to fight wars against enemies like Iran and its terrorist allies—Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, among them. It’s also needed to maintain the Jewish state’s Qualitative Military Edge, or QME, that allows it to deter and defeat all manner of military threats.
So, it made sense that negotiations about a new Memorandum of Understanding between the nations would have already begun to affirm and perhaps even strengthen this relationship.
The Axios story claimed that the Israeli negotiators weren’t merely seeking a rerun of past deals. It said that the Israeli proposal included elements that would appeal to the “America First” perspective of the Trump administration in that the Israelis proposed to use some of the money for joint U.S.-Israeli research and development, rather than direct military aid. That could be in the fields of defense technology, defense-related AI and the Golden Dome missile-defense project. It would all benefit the U.S. military, in addition to the funds allocated for the commitment, solely aiding Israel.
The truth, however, is that existing and past aid agreements also did just that.
Bang for the buck
One of the least-understood and under-reported aspects of American military aid to Israel is that almost all of it is spent in the United States on arms and ammunition manufactured there.
In a very real sense, the annual allocation of $3.8 billion constitutes assistance to the American weapons industry—something that is of enormous importance to U.S. security. Moreover, the two nations’ weapons-development projects already play an important role in maintaining the Pentagon’s own qualitative edge over potential opponents.
Then there’s also the extensive intelligence-sharing between American and Israeli agencies, in which the latter has long been acknowledged as having far better human—as opposed to electronic means—sources throughout the Middle East.
Put in that context, it’s clear that not only does Washington get a lot of bang for every buck it gives Israel. The United States benefits enormously from the alliance.
Yet sometimes, perception is just as, if not more important, than the facts. And the perception of the relationship among many Americans is that their government ships vast sums of the taxpayers’ money to Jerusalem. They think that the Israelis should pay for their own defense and, influenced by biased, if not completely distorted coverage of the wars being waged on the Jewish state by Arab and Muslim forces determined to destroy it, also feel that their taxes should not pay for the “genocide” of the Palestinians.
Of course, Israel is doing no such thing. Its goal is to prevent Palestinian groups from committing more atrocities, like the ones that happened on Oct. 7. It is the Palestinians who want to commit genocide against the Jewish people. And although you wouldn’t know it if you only get your news from the liberal mainstream media or if your view of the world is formed by what passes for public discourse online on social-media platforms, most Americans still support Israel. They believe their country ought to be doing what it can to help the sole democracy in the Middle East. Many also believe that their Christian faith tells them they are obligated to support the Jewish state.
The price tag of aid to Israel may sound like a lot of money, and it is. Still, it is a fraction of the hundreds of billions in aid that have been sent to Ukraine in the last four years or the even vastly greater sums that the United States has spent on paying for the defense of Europe via NATO over the course of the last eight decades.
Americans are—for a lot of good reasons—tired of paying for the defense of prosperous nations like those of Europe, which could, if they were so inclined, foot the bill for their own security. President Donald Trump was entirely right to demand that NATO members begin pulling their own weight in this respect.
When compared to NATO members, Israel is a bargain not only because it costs less but also because it fights for itself. As Netanyahu (and the prime ministers before him) has repeatedly said, he doesn’t ask Americans to fight Israel’s wars. He just asks for the arms and ammunition that give him the means to do so.
The political cost
But the political cost of this aid is getting higher each year.
Regardless of the unfairness of the critiques of Israeli policy, the drumbeat of incitement against Israel, which is very often put forward in the language and tropes of antisemitism, is growing on both the political left and right.
Left-wing opponents of Israel simply oppose the Jewish state’s right to defend itself, believing it inherently guilty, no matter how wrongheaded the false accusations hurled against it. Some right-wing critics of Israel simply don’t like foreign aid of any kind, and the antisemites among them, such as podcasters like former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, the even more vile far-right political commentator Candace Owens or neo-Nazi groyper Nick Fuentes, float conspiracy theories about the Jews manipulating Washington to take actions that are against its interests.
That’s part of the reason why Israel would do well to reduce U.S. assistance.
The idea of a long-term aid package that would stretch over 20 years is partly rooted in the notion of locking in that assistance so as to limit the ability of future U.S. administrations that might be hostile to Israel.
As Netanyahu learned after Oct. 7, having an aid package in place didn’t prevent the Biden administration from dragging its feet on the flow of arms to Israel at a time when the IDF was desperate for more supplies in the middle of a costly war. That leverage gave an administration that was at times lukewarm and sometimes hostile to Jerusalem’s goal of destroying Hamas the ability to slow Israel’s military campaign to achieve that necessary objective.
The Trump administration is far friendlier and supportive, and has ceased the slow-walking of the flow of supplies and even joined in the attack on Iran once the Israelis had ensured that American planes would not be in danger.
But it, too, seeks to use that assistance as leverage to force Israel to do Washington’s will, which at times can diverge from the best interests of the Jewish state. Indeed, Trump’s historic support for Israel, which has earned him great popularity there, gives him the ability to successfully exert more pressure on Jerusalem. That may prove costly for Israel if it means preventing it from finishing off Hamas if, as is almost certain, the terrorists renege on their commitment to disarm and give up power in Gaza, as Trump’s Mideast peace plan obligates them to do so.
All of that makes it imperative for Israel to begin manufacturing even more of the weapons it needs at home.
The ideal ‘America First’ ally
That ought to make it, as Vice President JD Vance pointed out in a 2024 speech, the ideal “America First” ally since it doesn’t want Americans to fight for them and also can contribute to U.S. security interests in a variety of ways. A strong Israel that isn’t so dependent on the United States could enable the Americans to pivot to using more of its resources to deal with the pre-eminent 21st-century threat to their security: China.
There is no scenario in which Israel could be completely cut off from the United States. It’s just too small a country, and for all of the benefits of its First World “Start-Up Nation” economy, it isn’t rich enough to be on its own.
Nor would it be in its interests to do so since having a superpower friend—and there is no possible desirable alternative to the U.S. alliance—is essential to maintaining its security in a world where so many nations and people want to kill Jews and destroy their state. Yet reducing that dependence to the extent that it is possible is vital for maintaining that alliance in the long run.
Netanyahu knows this as well as anyone.
In 1996, during his first term as prime minister, he told a joint session of the U.S. Congress that he wanted to reduce American aid and eliminate the economic element—as opposed to the military portion—of the assistance. To his credit, he was able to do just that.
His next challenge is to reduce the U.S. aid package, rather than to enlarge and extend it.
That goes against every instinct of the Israeli military establishment, which is dependent on all those American arms and ammunition. It’s equally true that the Americans, even the Obama staffers who negotiated the last long-term aid deal, like to keep the Israelis on a short leash. Going back to the first Bush administration in the 1980s, the Americans have been less than enthusiastic about the Israelis manufacturing arms that could also be made in the United States.
If Israel is to remain secure and maintain a healthy relationship with the United States, then this must change in the long term. The United States needs a partner in the Middle East, not a vassal or a protectorate. The more independent the Jewish state can be, the more solid its alliance with America will become.
