Israel to Congressional Democrats: Just Say “No”
With House and Senate Democrats threatening to condition military aid to Israel on its forswearing action in the West Bank, the Jewish State should take Nancy Reagan’s famous advice and “just say no.” Not that Israel should decline to extend its sovereignty to 30 percent of the West Bank; nearly everyone agrees those 121 legal settlements should and would be Israel’s in any two-state solution. But “no” to the $3.8 billion in military assistance Israel receives from the United States every year.
Don’t ask for that money, don’t accept that money.
If the country and Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, decide the Jewish settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem (the latter an area containing Jewish holy sites from which Israelis were barred during 1948–1967 during Jordanian control) must be formally part of Israel to help secure its borders, that is their decision to make, and only theirs. Israel is not part of NATO, nor does it have a mutual defense treaty with the United States. In the event of a war with neighboring Arab states, it is on its own.
Does Israel even need U.S. military aid? I don’t think so. A report in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 2017 stated that Israel possesses a nuclear arsenal of around 80–85 warheads. No Arab state and certainly not Hamas or Hezbollah have any nuclear capability. Isn’t that defense enough for Israel?
While bringing the settlements into the fold would give Israel a more secure land perimeter, it already has a fairly strong air perimeter thanks to the Iron Dome anti-rocket system and joint U.S.-Israel missile defense programs such as Arrow and David’s Sling. They have already been essentially bought and paid for, in good part, yes, with U.S. military assistance, which, by the way, went back into the pockets of U.S. defense contractors.
In fact, it is not clear who benefits more from U.S. security assistance, the Israelis or the U.S. Israel uses approximately 74 percent of its Foreign Military Financing (FMF) from the U.S. to purchase arms from the United States. But much of the proprietary research and development for a number of key systems is done in Israel. The Iron Dome technology, for example, was developed solely by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. It is superior to anything else available. The U.S. Army proved that. In January 2019, it evaluated several systems for its Expanded Mission Area Missile program and then chose to procure the Iron Dome from Rafael — chosing it over other options including the Norwegian Advanced Surface to Air Missile System — for a cost of $373 million.
Could Israel replace the $3.8 billion it receives annually from the U.S. with revenue from other sources? Military sales are a possibility; defense manufacturers in Israel are already export powerhouses. Because of U.S. restrictions tied to U.S. aid Israel cannot make some military sales it otherwise would. For example, in 2018 Croatia chose to purchase 12 used F-16 Barak fighters from Israel in a deal worth an estimated $500 million. In December 2018, the Trump Administration notified Congress that it had approved the sale, but only if all Israeli modifications were removed beforehand. Reportedly, according to the Congressional Research Service, Croatia did not want the F-16s returned to their original condition, and the deal was cancelled despite high level negotiations between Israeli and U.S. officials.
By accepting U.S. military assistance Israel is viewed by some in Congress as a supplicant to whom reins can be attached. Actually, Israel is an important cog in the U.S. defense industry, a key research and development partner whose value far outweighs any money the U.S. provides, or Israel needs, at least in my view.
