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As far as I can tell, the only country in history to ever voluntarily ask for a reduction in U.S. financial aid is Israel.
Shortly after becoming prime minister in 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress to thank the United States for years of support, announcing that his country intended to wean itself off non-military aid and attain economic independence.
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Netanyahu’s greatest achievement was reimagining Israel as a dynamic capitalistic society, both as prime minister and finance minister in the early aughts. From its modern founding until the mid-1970s, Israel had been a third-rate, one-party socialistic state with a patronage system and unionism that inhibited the nation’s economic fortunes. With financial market liberalization, privatization, and deregulation, Israel’s economy and standard of living exploded. As did its self-reliance.
By the mid-2000s, non-military aid to Israel had largely been phased out. From then on, the U.S. provided Israel with military assistance. Today, we give Israel $3.8 billion annually, a significant number, even if it accounts for only 0.05% of our budget. As far as foreign aid goes, no other nation offers a similar return on the dollar. The cutting-edge missile defense technologies developed in Israel are available for our defense contractors and development. Around 80% of the aid Israel receives is spent on the arms industry here. And none of this is to even mention Israel’s stalwart allyship.
Last week, Axios, one of the least reliable outlets on the topic of Israel, broke an anonymously sourced story contending that the Jewish state was seeking a 20-year military aid deal with “America First” tweaks. Now, it wouldn’t be exactly surprising if this were going on. But just as the story was breaking, Netanyahu was being interviewed by podcaster Erin Molan. When asked about the report, the prime minister noted that, in fact, Israel was moving in “the exact opposite” direction, toward more self-reliance.
Israel isn’t Saudi Arabia or Iran. There are democratic forces in play that drive political decisions. The government could fall apart tomorrow, and the focus could change. So, what phasing out American aid might look like, or if it happens, or when, is yet to be determined. There are an array of good reasons, however, for Israel to cut that dependency.
For one thing, Israel’s economy is world-class. Many of Israel’s critics and haters seem to be under the impression that the Jewish state would find itself without any planes and guns, its entire economy in tatters, minus American financial assistance. Israel’s annual defense budget is $36.9 billion. Aid comprises only a fraction of it. The reality is that Israel is now a major player in military technology, especially defense systems. Israel’s defense sector exported an all-time high $14.7 billion last year, most of it to European nations.
IMF’s projection for Israel’s GDP this year is $610.75 billion. The country’s per capita GDP is higher than that of most Western European nations. This is an extraordinary feat considering Israel doesn’t have much in the way of oil and has, more or less, been under constant attack since its inception. Unlike European nations that spent half a century building wealth under the umbrella of American protection, Israel fights its own wars.
Like any country, the Jewish state needs allies. Dependency, though, limits its ability to pursue its interests. Which is not to say that U.S. and Israeli interests diverge much at all. But one of the big myths of the past 30 years has been that the Americans are the ones who give Israel unfettered permission to act as it pleases. For the most part, the opposite is true. The U.S. often limited Israeli victories and reach. As PJ O’Rourke once put it years ago, “If the United States didn’t stop them, Israel would be the suburbs of Damascus by now.”
These days, Israel has no territorial ambitions. It’s been trying to get rid of Gaza for 30 years, at least. Moreover, American presidents have often pressured Israel to act in ways that undermine its security. Before Donald Trump became president, every successive administration constrained Israel in its battle with the Islamists in Iran, hoping to strike a deal with the mullahs. This isn’t new. Henry Kissinger bailed out the defeated Egyptians in 1973. Back in 1981, Ronald Reagan rebuked (and penalized) Israel for bombing Saddam Hussein’s Osirak nuclear facility, which was being built with the help of the French government. The Biden administration helped to prolong the Gaza war by continually undermining Israel due to domestic political pressures.
Worse, before Trump, every president in memory has exerted pressure on Israel to accept deals that would have created a terrorist state on two of its borders, even though a Palestinian state doesn’t further American interests in any conceivable way. Each effort only sparked more terrorism, suffering, and radicalization.
Ironically, pro-Palestinian activists advocating that the U.S. drop aid to Israel don’t seem to comprehend that their efforts only make a Palestinian state far less likely. No sane Western nation would create an Islamic state brimming with a radicalized population next door. The end of American aid would likely mean the end of any two-state solution. Which is good news. There is already a 23-state solution in place.
Anyway, with the rise of the pro-intifada progressive faction in the U.S., Israel shouldn’t expect Democrats to be allies for very long. And with the prospects of paleo-isolationists such as Vice President JD Vance being nominated by the GOP, American aid might be on its last legs anyway. Even if I’m wrong about the parties, Israel would do best to be autonomous, relying on the mutual military benefits and merits of their cause to continue its relationship with the U.S.
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Finally, I know it might be difficult to believe that with all its space lasers and Rothschild cash, Israel could only extract a lousy $3.8 billion for its troubles. So, rest assured, cutting aid won’t stop paranoiacs from obsessing about Jews. But one of the most popular accusations of the Israel-hater is that tax-funded aid makes the U.S. complicit in the (imagined) genocides perpetrated by the Israel Defense Forces. “AIPAC,” a modest and milquetoast bipartisan American lobbying concern, has become the rallying cry for most conspiracists who claim Israel has a grip on American politicians. They have it backward, of course. AIPAC only exists because millions of Americans support Israel and want American foreign policy to reflect their views. Paranoiacs focus on the strawman of AIPAC rather than American Jews or Christian Zionists for the same reasons leftists focus on the NRA rather than gun owners: They’re too cowardly to say what they mean.
In the end, Israel is a small nation of 10 million people, the size of New Jersey, so it will always need allies. For instance, it lacked the heavy bombers to hit Iranian nuclear sites buried deep in the earth. Only China, Russia, and the U.S. have them. But Israel is also a nuclear power with a high-tech economy and world-class armed forces. “Anti-Zionists” are just spinning their wheels. Israel would be fine standing completely on its own ingenuity and toughness.
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, Washington Examiner, %%https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon.png?w=32, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, David Harsanyi
