Once Considered Taboo, Discussing Ending U.S. Military Aid to Israel Has Become Increasingly Popular
Dan Kurtzer, who served as U.S. ambassador to Israel between 2001 and 2005 during the administration of President George W. Bush, expressed his support for the idea. Israel, he said, does not share the democratic values of the United States, and is already sufficiently well-established and capable of looking after itself. Dennis Ross, who was responsible for the Israel-Palestine question under the Clinton administration in the 90s, did not expressly oppose halting this aid, but warned that the time is not right for this, and could encourage Israel’s enemies to attack it due to weakened American support.
That TV debate was part of a prominent trend surfacing in recent weeks, of a public debate in the U.S. regarding the continued military aid for Israel. A memorandum between the two countries, signed in 2016, guarantees Israel $3.8 billion a year, as well as additional support during emergencies, such as the renewal of Iron Dome interceptors. The agreement expires in 2026, and senior American and Israeli officials estimate that the formulation of a new agreement will be much more complicated than it was in the past.
For years, there have been voices in the Democratic Party's progressive wing calling for a halt to the aid for Israel, or for using it as leverage to demand that Israel freeze settlement construction and evacuate illegal outposts, with a commitment to advance the two-state solution.
Among its most vocal proponents on Capitol Hill is Senator Bernie Sanders, who has recently even submitted an amendment pertaining to this issue. Its chances of being passed are virtually non-existent, but Israel’s embassy in Washington and the pro-Israel lobby will tensely follow it to see whether support for this idea is growing and reaching other parts of the Democratic Party.
Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy during his visit to Jerusalem.Credit: Oren Ben Hakoon
This issue is losing its “taboo” status in American media outlets, and senior Israeli officials admit that the rate of change has caught them by surprise. Two weeks ago, an article in the New York Times by senior columnist Nicholas Kristof, who doesn’t write much about Israel, explicitly called for stopping aid to Israel. Along with former ambassador Kurtzer, the article contained an interview with Martin Indyk, another former ambassador to Israel, who also supported the idea. Indyk and Kurtzer explained that this aid doesn’t really serve America’s foreign policy, since Israel accepts it while continuing to ignore U.S. demands. They both said that Israel was a strong and wealthy country and that it was time to “wean” it off American aid.
A week later there was another article on this topic, one which shocked the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. This time, the call to threaten Israel with a halt in American aid came from the Republican side. Tom Rogan, the defense analyst on the conservative website Washington Examiner, wrote that it was the Republican Party which should use military aid as a lever to pressure Israel in order to deter it from moving closer to China, America’s current most important rival. Rogan noted Prime Minister Netanyahu’s public gestures to Beijing, including a photo distributed by his office two weeks ago, showing Netanyahu holding a new book by China’s President Xi Jinping.
Rogan wrote that even if Netanyahu has legitimate reasons to confront U.S. President Joe Biden, he has no reason to insult the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Republican Kevin McCarthy. He emphasized that McCarthy, on his visit to Israel in May, warned against moving closer to China in his speech at the Knesset. It now seems that Netanyahu didn't heed this warning, and instead attempted to exert pressure on the U.S. through signaling its rapprochement with China, wrote Rogan. “The U.S. should not silently tolerate Netanyahu's stance,” he wrote, adding that “Republicans should make clear to Netanyahu that he is risking much with his disdainful arrogance.”
A senior Israeli official who deals with its relations with the U.S. told Haaretz that Rogan's article evoked discussions in Israel. “This adds to a wider process of embracing an isolationist stance among the Republicans, expressed in part as criticism by many Republicans of the Biden administration’s aid to Ukraine. While Democrats are changing their minds about helping Israel specifically, the Republicans have a large wing which has a sweeping opposition to foreign aid. The result is the same: it will be more difficult to sign a memorandum in 2026 that is like the one we signed in 2016.”
Nearly two weeks ago, the Washington Post’s senior analyst Max Boot joined the voices calling for a halt to military aid for Israel. Boot has for years been considered very pro-Israel, and was a scathing critic of the Obama administration’s policy toward Israel in 2017-2019. He opposed the nuclear accord with Iran and praised Netanyahu for his campaign against the Democratic president on this issue. He now sounds quite different. Israel, he said, has become an illiberal ally that is hard to maintain. He called it the Middle Eastern Hungary. He said there was logic in beginning to gradually cut down aid to Israel, since the U.S. does not have to fund a policy which is in conflict with the values of many Americans.
Boot expressed his support for the protest movement in Israel, saying that demonstrators in the streets gave him hope for the future. He added more soberly that Israel, which he has visited many times, was not the country he fell in love with four decades ago. He said that like many Americans, he could no longer support it unconditionally, as he’d done in the past.
An Iron Dome battery placed at Ben Gurion International Airport ahead of U.S. President Joe Biden's visit to Israel.Credit: Marc Israel Sellem
Senior foreign affairs commentator David Rothkopf, who is considered to be close to the Biden administration, has also embraced a similar stance. On the day the Knesset approved the law repealing the use of the reasonableness clause in judicial reviews, he wrote that the special relations between the two countries were over, and that the U.S. should consider ending its extensive military aid to Israel. He said it was time for tougher measures, and that biting one’s lips in face of Israel’s extremism was a failed policy.
In the immediate range, these voices are not expected to impact the extent of aid given to Israel until 2026. The chances that the Biden administration will cut this aid 18 months before an election in which Biden wants to run are miniscule. Biden has said on several occasions that he opposes this, with the State Department expressing a similar position a week and a half ago. The main concern in Israel relates to the future, primarily regarding talks expected to take place in 2026.
The social and political tension in Israel in recent months, on the backdrop of a weakening of the judiciary, have also become part of the internal debate in Washington. The senior Israeli official who talked to Haaretz said that American congressmen who visited Israel and were briefed on the state budget last May included in their questions the priorities given by the government, with regard to the aid coming from Washington. “It was very polite, but the message was clear. We send you money in order to finance security, and then we find that you’re investing billions on issues that conflict with our values. It will be hard to evade that criticism for long,” said this official.