There is much discussion around ending the substantial agreement that ensures Israel receives billions in military aid annually. This conversation isn’t limited to Israel’s critics; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Senator Lindsey Graham have both expressed desires to “taper off” these funds, believing Israel is prepared to stand independently.
While revisiting this yearly aid package would be highly welcome due to the vast amounts of U.S. taxpayer dollars funneled into Israel’s conflicts, it’s vital to watch for a potential swap: replacing one guarantee with others that may be less straightforward and potentially costlier than the current arrangements.
When President Bill Clinton introduced the inaugural Memorandum of Agreement—a 10-year, $26.7 billion package for military and economic assistance to Israel—he hoped it would support the Oslo Accords, the peace initiative he helped broker between Israelis and Palestinians earlier in his administration.
The Oslo-linked peace efforts largely unraveled after anticipated Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank under the 1998 Wye River Agreement failed to materialize. Meanwhile, Israeli settlements deemed illegal under international law have surged, now housing over 700,000 settlers today, with Israelis maintaining security control over most of the territory. Yet, the 10-year MOU persisted.
This agreement has been renewed through the Bush and Obama administrations and expanded financially. The current MOU, signed in 2016, commits $38 billion over ten years—all designated for military aid, nearly $4 billion per year. The Council on Foreign Relations notes Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. aid ever, receiving roughly $300 billion since its founding, mainly through these MOUs.
Supporters argue this aid strengthens military and strategic bonds intended to preserve safety for the U.S., Israel, and its “allies” (of which there are no formal treaty allies in the region). Still, the past four decades have been marked by wars and vast humanitarian crises. Beyond backing Israel’s conflicts, the U.S. has been actively involved in bombing, regime changes, occupations, and combating insurgencies in Central Asia, the Horn of Africa, and the Middle East since 1999. Now, with Israel’s encouragement, President Donald Trump is positioned to launch a second bombing against Iran in his current term, as reports indicate.
On February 3, Congress approved the newest tranche—a $3.3 billion installment of the ongoing MOU—via bipartisan support. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer reassured a group of Jewish leaders the weekend prior that “I have many jobs as leader … and one is to fight for aid to Israel, all the aid that Israel needs.”
However, resistance exists against this open channel of funding. It truly is a spigot: CFR reports the U.S. funneled $16.3 billion to Israel—including the regular $3.8 billion annual allotments—after the October 7, 2023 attacks. Israel’s response, which killed 1,200 Israelis, has caused over 71,000 Palestinian fatalities in Gaza, alongside a blockade that has left 2 million residents largely displaced, starving, ill, and in peril. Public sentiment in America has shifted, with a plurality of 42 percent now opposing increased or ongoing aid, a noticeable rise from the approximately 20 percent who opposed aid back in October 2023.
Apart from public dissatisfaction with funding casualties in Gaza, the conservative camp has dramatically fractured over unwavering support for Israel in the past year. This breakdown offers another compelling argument to halt aid: it fails to align with “America First” priorities. Not only does it drain resources from urgent domestic needs, but it also compels Washington to back another nation’s foreign agenda, increasingly clashing with American values and policy interests.
The region remains unstable, and the aid has not enabled the U.S. to scale back its military presence as the security guarantor there.
Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), a former congresswoman, expressed strong opposition to this assistance. She emphasized that Israel possesses nuclear weapons and is “quite capable of defending itself.” She also highlighted Israel’s universal healthcare and subsidized higher education, contrasting it with America’s $37 trillion debt burden.
Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY) revealed on X that he opposed the February 3 spending bill partly due to denying Israel the $3.3 billion aid package. He argued the aid drains American resources and perpetuates suffering on our behalf. “Nothing can justify the number of civilian casualties (tens of thousands of women and children) inflicted by Israel in Gaza in the last two years. We should end all U.S. military aid to Israel now,” he stated last May.
In a recent interview with The American Conservative, Massie shared that he represents his Kentucky constituency, and despite facing a 2026 primary challenge fueled largely by Trump and donors aligned with AIPAC, he intends to keep raising this matter in Congress. He’s polled his GOP voters annually since 2012 on whether to maintain, increase, or cut Israel’s yearly aid.
“I’ve polled that [question] every election cycle in my congressional district among likely Republican voters, and this was the first year that a majority of people answered nothing [no aid] at all, or less,” Massie explained. “It’s not a third rail back home. It’s a third rail inside of the Beltway.”
Recent reports indicate that Israel is “preparing for talks” with the Trump administration to extend the MOU for an additional 10 years. Interestingly, Netanyahu has publicly said he aims to “taper off” American aid over that period “to zero,” asserting Israel has “come of age” and “we’ve developed incredible capacities,” as he stated in January.
Shortly afterward, Senator Graham, who appears to spend more time in Israel than in Washington today, expressed agreement and offered to accelerate the phasing out. “I’m going to work on expediting the wind down of the aid and recommend we plow the money back into our own military,” he said. “As an American, you’re always appreciating allies that can be more self-sufficient.”
The theme of Israeli self-reliance—and breaking free from any “strings” linked to aid—is familiar among proponents here, especially on Israel’s far right. “Cut the US aid, and Israel becomes fully sovereign,” proclaimed Laura Loomer on X last November. In March last year, the Heritage Foundation advocated progressively cutting direct grants in future MOUs starting in 2029, shifting toward heightened military cooperation and finally relying on arms transfers via Foreign Military Sales by 2047.
The report concludes that Israel should be “elevated to strategic partner for the benefit of Israel, the United States, and the Middle East.” Achieving this requires altering the regional framework by advancing new security and economic structures. The plan also heavily depends on future Abraham Accords to ensure trade and defense agreements with Arab neighbors.
Critics argue this is the catch. Netanyahu and other staunch Israel advocates who seek to abandon MOU aid anticipate it being replaced by other funding channels with less political scrutiny.
“The emerging plan is to substitute formal military funding—known as Foreign Military Financing—with greater U.S. taxpayer-funded co-development and co-production of weapons with Israel,” explains the Institute for Middle East Understanding. Rather than disentangling itself from Israel’s conflicts, the U.S. would become even more “enmeshed.”
The think tank highlights that the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), the U.S.’s most unyielding pro-Israel organization, issued its own report on the aid, surprisingly also supporting the MOU phase-out. Besides Israel pledging to allocate more of its GDP toward defense and joint R&D investments with the U.S., the U.S. would “provide Israel $5 billion each year through what would be known as a Partnership Investment Incentive—or PII.” This PII funding, channeled via existing foreign military financing (FMF) mechanisms, would be used by Israel to buy American military equipment, required to be spent fully within the U.S. industry and on regional cooperative initiatives, while safeguarding Israel’s “Qualitative Military Edge.”
Veteran Middle East analyst Geoff Aronson, who occasionally contributes to TAC, noted the aid has been “an important if not vital component in ensuring American and Israeli dominance in the region.” It’s inherently tied to balancing U.S. strategic ties and maintaining Israel’s peaceful relations with Egypt and Jordan, which also receive billions in U.S. military aid, albeit less. Aronson believes this dynamic will persist.
“The question that is being posed is how can we continue to support Israel’s ability to work its will in the region without committing ourselves to X, Y, Z or committing to a new partnership, a new agreement,” he remarked. “Watch what you wish for, because it might come true.”
Original article: www.theamericanconservative.com
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