Last January, I warned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scoring an own goal by proposing to phase out American military assistance over the next decade. He had volunteered to surrender one of Israel’s most important strategic assets without receiving anything in return. U.S. President Donald Trump has seized on that unforced error and announced that he intends to terminate all military aid by the end of the year.
Some analysts are celebrating the decision as a long-overdue step toward freeing Israel from American dependence and interference. They were wrong when Netanyahu floated the idea, and they are wrong now.
Ironically, after months of hand-wringing by Israel’s supporters over Democrats’ flirtation with cutting aid, it was the president who boasts of being the most pro-Israel in history who stabbed Israel in the back, or in the front, if you believe Trump’s claim that Netanyahu had been urging him to do it. Congressional Democrats who had repeatedly failed to win support for cutting or conditioning aid could scarcely believe their good fortune. Trump had handed them a victory they could never achieve on their own.
The announcement’s timing, on Election Day, fueled suspicion that Trump naively thought he could help Republicans in tight races by depriving Democrats of an issue they had been exploiting. The suspicion was reinforced when he said, “Why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like El-Sayed when they don’t need it? It’s a bad talking point,” referring to Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, Michigan’s Democratic Senate nominee. “The left uses the $4 billion payment … as a signal of unfairness. It’s almost too easy a target.”
Trump was willing to sacrifice a bedrock of the U.S.-Israel alliance to neutralize a Democratic campaign slogan. The decision did nothing to save El-Sayed’s Republican opponent or stem the Democratic tsunami that swept Republicans aside across the country.
Equally troubling is Trump’s apparent failure to understand how military assistance works. Like Israel’s critics, he speaks as though the United States hands Israel a $4 billion check when most of the money is spent in America, purchasing weapons from American manufacturers, supporting American workers and sustaining communities supported by defense production. The program is as much an investment in the American defense industrial base as it is assistance to Israel.
Nor does Trump appear to appreciate what America receives in return. Israel confronts enemies that also threaten the United States, supplies invaluable intelligence, develops advanced military technologies and provides battlefield experience that no American laboratory can replicate. Israel is not simply a consumer of American security. It is a major contributor.
Israel already has considerable autonomy, as demonstrated by its destruction of the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear reactors.
When I criticized Netanyahu’s proposal, I argued that Israel should take advantage of a friendly administration to negotiate a new 10-year memorandum of understanding guaranteeing continued military assistance. Such an agreement would not prevent a future Democratic administration or Congress from reducing aid, but it would raise the political cost of doing so.
That opportunity was squandered.
Worse, the administration is not simply planning to eliminate assistance. It is reportedly demanding concessions that could make Israel more dependent on Washington, not less. According to Israeli reporting, American negotiators want greater control over Israeli defense technology, including patents, intellectual property and jointly developed weapons systems.
Think about the implications. Israel would surrender billions in military assistance while conceivably giving Washington greater control over the very innovations that make its defense industry competitive. American officials could acquire additional leverage over the development, production and export of Israeli weapons. Instead of purchasing greater independence, Israel could find itself paying more for its defense while controlling less of its own technology.
That is hardly the emancipation advocates of ending aid have promised.
Trump justifies his decision by arguing that Israel is wealthy enough to pay for its own weapons. But wealth does not make defense spending painless. Every additional dollar Israel must spend on American aircraft, helicopters and munitions is a dollar unavailable for education, health care, infrastructure and social welfare.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Israel would have to pay approximately $10 billion for outstanding weapons orders, roughly one-fifth of its current defense budget. The Journal also noted that Israel already devotes approximately 7% of its gross domestic product to defense, a larger share than any NATO member.
Israel’s air force depends on American aircraft and helicopters. Without military assistance, maintaining and modernizing that force will become substantially more expensive. Even more alarming is the prospect of losing American funding for missile defense. Systems such as Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow have saved countless Israeli lives while improving technologies of enormous value to the United States. Jeopardizing that cooperation would damage both countries.
Worse, the decision will be read around the world as more proof that America cannot be trusted.
Over the past year, America’s Arab partners have watched the security umbrella they relied on fold when Trump refused to come to their defense. Now they, and everyone else, have watched him abruptly rewrite the terms of America’s relationship with Israel. The lesson is unmistakable: If Washington’s closest ally in the region can’t count on long-standing commitments outlasting the president’s latest political calculation, no one can. Friends will hedge their bets, and adversaries in Tehran, Moscow and Beijing will take note.
Anyone who believes that Trump’s decision would preempt Democratic attempts to weaken the U.S.-Israel relationship is sadly mistaken. If anything, he emboldened them, as reflected in the comments of Darializa Avila Chevalier, the newly elected progressive congresswoman from New York, who said: “Ending military aid is not enough. We need to end U.S. taxpayer funding for Israel’s war crimes, a full arms embargo and the Palestinian right of return.”
As Nellie Bolles of The Free Press noted, “The goalposts keep moving because the movement’s actual goal isn’t keeping tax dollars at home—it’s the destruction of Israel and subjugation of the Jews, but they can’t quite say that. Not yet, anyhow.”
Some supporters of Israel nevertheless insist that eliminating assistance will produce a healthier, more balanced relationship. Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the United States, sees the folly in that argument: “There is no strategic logic in this position. The United States has one ally that is willing to fight shoulder to shoulder with it. There is one country that significantly enhances America’s security capabilities through its technology, and it is located in the most sensitive place in the world. Who would want to reduce that country’s ability to help the Americans and contribute to U.S. security?”
Trump justifies his decision by arguing that Israel is wealthy enough to pay for its own weapons. But wealth does not make defense spending painless.
Jacob Siegel and Liel Leibovitz argued in Tablet magazine that ending aid to Israel would “restore Israeli autonomy and reduce U.S. leverage over the Jewish state.” This is nonsense.
Israel already has considerable autonomy, as demonstrated by its destruction of the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear reactors. Since Oct. 7, Israel has repeatedly acted according to its own assessment of its security requirements, sometimes in defiance of Washington’s wishes.
The U.S. constraints are not because of military aid, but because America is a superpower.
Washington has an arsenal of coercive tools that have nothing to do with military grants. It can impose tariffs and sanctions, limit intelligence cooperation, restrict weapons sales and spare parts, target tax-exempt organizations that support Israel, support international legal proceedings against Israeli officials or abandon Israel at the U.N. Security Council.
Siegel and Leibovitz acknowledged that “ending aid won’t end the practice of scapegoating Jews,” but contend that “it will remove a favorite decoy and dog whistle of American public officials, philanthropists and thought leaders.” As Avila Chevalier made clear, however, removing aid will further whet their appetite of Israel’s detractors for more aggressive measures.
Netanyahu opened the door by offering to give up assistance that Israel had every reason to preserve. Trump has now kicked it down.
The result is a stunning reversal. Democrats who wanted to weaken the U.S.-Israel relationship have watched a Republican president take the first big step for them while, astonishingly, some supporters of Israel applaud the loss of a cornerstone of Israel’s defense as a triumph of independence.
Israel will survive without American aid. It will spend more, make painful budget choices and race to expand its own defense industry. But surviving a self-inflicted wound doesn’t make inflicting it a prudent decision.
The challenge now for Israeli diplomats and the pro-Israel lobby is damage control. They must fight to preserve funding for missile defense; ensure that Israel retains its Qualitative Military Edge as the law requires; protect Israeli intellectual property; guarantee access to indispensable American weapons; and prevent a financial restructuring from becoming a strategic retreat.
More fundamentally, Israel and its supporters must redouble their efforts to remind Americans that Israel is not a charity case but America’s most reliable ally in the Middle East—a nation that shares its values, advances its crucial strategic interests and bolsters its national security.
