Wanted: Another Billion Dollars a Year in Military Aid for Israel

Israel Deals Itself a Weak Hand in Military Aid Talks With U.S.

Netanyahu realizes he could have won more aid funds if Israel hadn't waited until after the Iran nuclear agreement.

Moti Bassok May 11, 2016 3:34 AM

Since late last year, the United States and Israel have been engaged in stubborn, nerve-wracking negotiations on a renewal of an agreement providing multi-year military assistance to Israel for the next decade. Israel is seeking a sharper boost in assistance than the United States is prepared to finance.

U.S. Congressional sources have said recently that at first, Israel was asking for $4 to $5 billion per year, which over the duration of the agreement, from 2019 to 2028, amounts to up to $50 billion. The current military aid agreement between the two countries, for 2009 to 2018, is based on a memorandum of understanding signed by President George W. Bush and provides a total of $30 billion, at an average of $3 billion per year.

Based on revised assessments of the past several weeks, the United States has managed to reduce Israel’s demands, to somewhere between the $37.5 billion that the United States is proposing over 10 years and the $40 billion being requested by Israel. One way or another, that’s $3.75 to $4 billion per year, amounting annually to $750 million to $1 billion more than the current agreement.

The American taxpayer currently funds more than 20 percent of Israel’s defense budget. This year’s overall government budget is 59.1 billion shekels, or $15.6 billion, and more than 12 billion shekels of that comes from American economic assistance.

At the end of last year, when Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon were dealing with negotiations over an increase in the defense budget for the next five years, Kahlon assumed that there would be an increase in American military assistance. If it were to increase by $1 billion a year, it would free up major sums to fund civilian budget lines.

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