As Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) wrapped up his meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, the big news was Trump’s agreement to sell Saudi Arabia F-35 fighter jets.
MBS has wanted the F-35 for a long time, and for good reason. Its manufacturer, Lockheed Martin describes the F-35 as “the most lethal, survivable, and connected fighter aircraft for America and its allies,” and for this reason you think that another one of America’s allies, namely Israel, would have an issue with this sale.
But Israel was ready for this.
In fact, Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to use this sale to bolster their case for expanding U.S. aid to Israel – perhaps a tall task as political pressures are rising to oppose that annual gift of American taxpayer money.
For Netanyahu, the timing of the Saudi sale gives him the political ammunition he needs as he enters negotiations over Israel’s next Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the U.S., which will outline the annual commitment Washington will give Israel of military aid and perhaps define the U.S.-Israeli relationship for decades to come.
Instead of opposing the Saudi sale, Netanyahu intends to use it to overcome some suddenly treacherous political conditions in the U.S. to negotiate a new agreement that might even significantly expand on the existing one.
Potential challenges to the new U.S.-Israeli deal
The MOU between the U.S. and Israel is the agreement that frames the annual aid that Israel gets from American taxpayers and the current one is set to expire in 2028. The agreement was negotiated by President Barack Obama months before he was to leave office. It agrees to send $3.8 billion per year to Israel, which it must spend on American weapons (Obama phased out a special exception that allowed Israel to use part of the aid in other countries).
Netanyahu believes, with very good reason, that the F-35 sale will allow him to negotiate a much better deal with Trump for a new MOU. If he can achieve this and secure the additional commitments he wants, it will be a significant boon to his domestic standing. That’s a key consideration just a year away from new Israeli elections.
But it might not be easy. Securing an expanded MOU would be a significant victory, as the political climate in Washington, while still more favorable toward Israel than public opinion, is no longer as positive as it once was.
Netanyahu understands that Israel’s standing in the United States is severely diminished. Among Democrats, the view of Israel, and especially of the current Israeli government, has absolutely cratered. A September poll found that 54% of Democrats sympathized more with Palestinians and only 13% with Israel. That would have been unimaginable just ten years ago.
Even Republicans are less supportive of Israel than they have been in the recent past, and the GOP isolationist wing is growing louder, while the Islamophobic and antisemitic segments are coming together to call for the U.S. to completely remove itself from the Palestinian issue. While this landscape poses an obstacle for Netanyahu, it also adds urgency to enter into negotiations, as he wants to act quickly before these trends become insurmountable.
The Israeli strategy
Taking advantage of the fact that, at least for the time being, the weakening pro-Israel lobby still retains significant strength, Israel is making the case for a twenty-year U.S. commitment, rather than the ten-year periods covered by the previous three MOUs. They are also requesting a substantial increase in the annual aid total, although the exact amount is not yet clear.
Knowing that there is growing resistance to foreign aid and to foreign entanglements in the Republican base, Israel is also suggesting that a significant portion of the aid be diverted to joint U.S.-Israeli defense and technological research and development projects.
This isn’t new; joint projects between the private and public sectors of Israel and the United States are common. But the idea here is that by diverting a substantial portion of the increased aid to such joint projects, they can be expanded, enriching both Israeli and American tech and defense industries and strengthening the case that U.S. aid to Israel is an investment, not merely a taxpayer subsidy.
It’s a smart strategy, and one that stands a good chance of deflecting enough criticism to allow Netanyahu to secure the deal he wants.
The main thrust of Israel’s argument is going to rely on the legal obligation the United States has put upon itself to maintain Israel’s “qualitative military edge” (QME). That means the United States is required by our own law to ensure that Israel can beat back any conceivable threat from any combination of its neighbors.
Netanyahu will argue that Saudi Arabia’s reluctance to normalize relations with Israel means Israel can’t trust the kingdom not to attack it, even though it never has before and would have no reason to do so in the future.
Israel will further argue that the massive arms deals the United States has already entered into with the Saudis were slowly eroding Israel’s QME. Removing Israel’s exclusive access to the most advanced fighter jet the U.S. sells will compromise Israel’s air superiority, Netanyahu will argue.
Indeed, Israel’s military has already come out in opposition to the sale. They have a strong case, even beyond the question of the QME, and beyond Israel’s interests. Given Saudi Arabia’s aggressive history in the region, selling it such a powerful and advanced aircraft is a risky proposition. Even the U.S.’s own intelligence services have warned against it, based entirely on American, not Israeli concerns.
But Netanyahu has indicated he can accept the sale. What he has not openly said is why.
Clearly, Trump plans to compensate Israel for this in some way. When asked about Israeli concerns and the fact that the F-35 sale was thought to be a bargaining chip for Saudi-Israeli normalization that seems now to have been spent elsewhere, Trump responded, “Israel is aware, and they’re going to be very happy.”
With Trump, that can mean many things. But it’s abundantly clear that Israel intends to use this development to support its case for a greatly expanded MOU.
Netanyahu continues to insist he is trying to make Israel less dependent on the U.S. for its defense, but if Gaza showed anything, it is that this is an unrealistic goal, at least for the immediate future. But that doesn’t mean Israel can’t afford to pay for it without using American tax dollars to do it.
As Chuck Freilich, Israel’s former deputy national security advisor, put it, “You have to differentiate between the financial aspect and the arms supply aspect. Israel will depend on American weapons for the very long term, if not forever. But that doesn’t mean they have to be funded forever by the U.S.”
The fight to stop the deal starts now
Given these circumstances, Netanyahu stands a good chance of getting his twenty-year, increased commitment, give or take a few negotiable points. But this doesn’t mean the fight to stop arming Israel is lost.
The MOU does constitute a powerful political tool. It creates a promise, but not a legal obligation. It is a key, foundational piece of what has been seen as an inevitable annual payout to Israel. It adds the pressure of “breaking a promise to an ally” to the already considerable lobbying pressure Congress faces.
But the MOU itself is not Israel’s annual aid. That has to be appropriated by Congress every year. That fight starts now.
Everything about Israel’s case needs to be challenged. For Palestine advocates, the argument is obvious: Israel’s massive crimes in the ongoing genocide in Gaza, bolstered by its multiple, daily violations even of the threadbare Trump “ceasefire” plan, are disqualifying. U.S. law, from the Foreign Assistance Act to the Arms Export Control Act to the Leahy Law, prohibits sales of weapons to Israel, much less the funding we give them in order to make such sales.
But politically, those arguments, while perhaps stronger today than they have been in the past, still don’t carry sufficient weight in the cynical world of Washington, where dehumanizing, anti-Palestinian racism is as much a part of the atmosphere as ubiquitous American flags.
For politicians, arguments must be mobilized in parallel with the legal and moral issues, while always being grounded in them. These include the cost to the U.S.’ standing in the world for our backing of Israel’s actions.
Over the course of the Gaza genocide, the United States gave some $21.7 billion to Israel. Those funds were used to commit war crimes in Gaza as well as Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank, not to mention the attack on Qatar.
After the costs the U.S. incurred on the world stage over Gaza, and in Qatar, a key U.S. ally, how can we commit to twenty years more of further risk, who knows what Netanyahu or his successors might do in the future? Democrats and Republicans alike do not want to be dragged into a war by Israel. While many may support helping Israel, that should be a decision made at the time, not one that the United States commits to beforehand.
Also, Israel is a comparatively wealthy country. Its GDP per capita ranks ahead of such countries as New Zealand, Spain, South Korea, Japan, and Portugal. It has robust tech and defense sectors that are quite capable of entering into partnerships with American corporations on their own, without needing U.S. taxpayer subsidies.
While we can fight in Congress against any weapons sales to Israel, the argument that the Israeli economy cannot afford to pay for its own weapons no longer holds water. In 2025, Israel’s defense budget was approximately $32.7 billion, and in July, it was increased by $12.5 billion. A country with a military budget that large does not need American taxpayer support.
A recent New York Times/Siena poll found that 51% of American voters oppose additional military aid to Israel while only 39% support it. That is, without those people being told that Israel doesn’t really need it.
Advocates for Palestinian rights know only too well that aid to Israel, both military and diplomatic, should be eliminated completely. But even a purely pragmatic, cold, political calculus arrives at the same conclusion.
If the annual gift to Israel can be blocked, and that’s a herculean task, it would be a huge step toward serious scrutiny of arms sales to Israel, as well as the blanket diplomatic support it gets. That is how overall policy can change.