Does Israel Need More American Aid?

An increasingly ugly debate over America’s relations with Israel could get worse with reports of a proposal to tighten military cooperation. “No,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene reacted to a posting of a “scoop” by a Washington-based reporter, Barak Ravid. The Axios scribe reported that Israel is now “seeking a new 20-year security agreement with the U.S.,” or double the 10-year military assistance pacts that were inked in the past. “Hard to think of anything more tailor made to explode the MAGA movement than a debate over whether to double the amount of security assistance the US provides Israel. Best of luck with that, Bibi!,” an Obama-era White House aide, Tommy Vietor, averred. Leftists seem eager to enlist the Tucker Carlson wing of the loony right to help them distance America from its most reliable Mideast partner. One question, though, is whether Israel is really asking to “double the amount” that America invests in its ally’s security? The short answer is no. Three presidents signed 10-year agreements to supply military aid to Israel worth an average of $3 billion a year. The latest, in 2016, was Mr. Obama. That one is due to expire in 2028. According to Axios, Israel will now ask to double the agreement’s length, so it lasts until the centenary of Israel’s independence. The Axios story relies on unidentified Washington and Jerusalem sources. Yet one Israeli official is pushing back, and doing it on the record. “I don’t know what they’re talking about,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told an Australian podcaster, Erin Molan, on Thursday. “My direction is the exact opposite.” The premier harked back to a Capitol Hill visit he made shortly after first assuming Israel’s top office in 1996.Back then Israel was drawing an annual $3 billion non-military American aid on top of the security assistance. “I said, first thing is, you know, we’re going to build a high tech, free market, capitalist economy,” Mr. Netanyahu says. “We don’t need the financial aid. Phase it out.” It indeed ended, and now, he adds, “I want to make our arms industry independent, totally as independent as possible. So my direction is the exact opposite.” Israel’s arms industry is indeed thriving. Many weapons systems, including in missile defense and other fields, are co-developed with American firms. Some, like a defensive shield for armored vehicles, known as Trophy, are unique and are sold to American, German, and other militaries. “No other country makes anything that even remotely resembles it,” the chairman of the Israeli manufacturer Rafael, Yuval Steinitz, tells our Benny Avni. While the military assistance Israel gets from America is appreciated, Mr. Netanyahu said, “80% of that is spent in the United States, it produces jobs in the United States.” No such argument, though, would convince the growing throngs of so-called “anti Zionists” on the right and left. That crowd would hang its hat on anything that might convince followers that rather than an asset, America’s relation with Israel is a burden. That notion gained popularity in 2006 with an anti-Israel book, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. It is now amplified with even more negative tones. In Israel, some fear pressure as America’s involvement in the Mideast is amped up. “My direction is not greater dependence, my direction is greater independence, and I’ll probably have something to say about that very soon,” Mr. Netanyahu says.

Does Israel Need More American Aid?

Does Israel Need More American Aid?

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