How addicted is Jerusalem to Washington’s military aid? Israel’s planned preemptive strike against Hezbollah in Lebanon on Oct. 11, was narrowly averted after President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stand down, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.
While Netanyahu dismissed this claim, members of his own Likud Party are increasingly speaking out against what appears to be the outsourcing of Israel’s security to wider U.S. geopolitical interests. Economy Minister Nir Barkat stated in a recent cabinet meeting that “The number of air force bombardments has fallen dramatically. Soldiers are being sent to booby-trapped buildings like [sitting] ducks.”
Netanyahu’s reaction to Barkat’s accusation is revealing: “There are countries [whose positions] we have to take into account. If we don’t do that, eventually there’ll be a UN decision to impose a blockade on us. The whole world will be against us.”
The United States rapidly supplied Israel with over 3,000 tons of weapons and munitions in the days following Hamas‘s invasion on Oct. 7, when the terrorist organization killed around 1,200 people, and took another 240 hostages into Gaza.
But this assistance has come with serious strings attached. Barkat’s statement was in response to the fact that since the weeklong ceasefire with Hamas ended on Nov. 30, there has been a noticeable drop in the amount and scope of Israeli Air Force strikes in southern Gaza.
Instead of destroying the terrorist threat faced by over 9 million Israeli citizens, and freeing the hostages, Israel’s strategy now is to fight a limited war until Washington, Doha, Cairo, and Hamas iron out a final ceasefire agreement that will end the latest round of violence and prevent it from spreading across the region.
This shift in Israeli operational tactics came mere days after Biden had warned that Israel was losing international support because of its “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza. Washington continues to regard a two-state solution as “the only way to ensure the long-term security of both the Israeli and Palestinian people.” Israel’s sustained military response to Hamas is viewed by the Biden Administration as an obstacle to this proposed framework becoming a reality.
But Washington’s push for a two-state solution is in open contradiction to Jerusalem’s post-war plans. While Netanyahu insists that Israel would permit neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority to rule Gaza, the Biden Administration continues to bank on the PA as a viable alternative to Hamas rule. This, even though the Palestinian Authority has little support from either West Bank Palestinians or Gazans. Since the Oct. 7 massacre, Hamas’s popularity among people ruled by the PA in the West Bank has soared.
Whether in the West Bank or Gaza, Palestinians overwhelmingly support the Hamas decision to attack Israel.
This growing rift between Washington and Jerusalem highlights the ramifications of Israel’s dependence for military aid on the United States.
It was not always so. Once upon a time Israel was forced to fight short, highly effective wars with clear outcomes.
The Israel Defense Forces put a premium on preemptive action, largely because the country’s military between 1948 and 1967 was shaped by the limited resources at its disposal. Leading up the Six-Day War, the United States and France—Israel’s main ally at the time—imposed an arms embargo on the region that mostly affected Israel. Hoping to improve its relations with Arab countries, Paris also refused to deliver 50 fighter jets Israel had already paid for.
Israel survived and eventually even prospered without French largesse. But the lightning fast, lean, and mean approach that had characterized Israel’s operational strategy began to change after 1967. Washington, guided by a Cold War policy of containing the Soviet Union, filled the vacuum left by Paris. Starting with the Nixon Administration, Israel would eventually become flush with military funding.
This generosity has come with a steep price tag. In return for $3.8 billion annually—towards Israel’s military and missile defense systems—successive governments in Jerusalem have all but scuttled the doctrine of preemption. To promote U.S. interests in the Middle East, Israel is now expected to absorb the first strike. Only if Israel’s enemies decide to initiate war is Jerusalem given the green light to launch a counterattack.
This policy of operational passivity led to the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Israel’s aid dependency has only deepened since then. The country’s political, military, and intelligence leaders either downplayed or simply ignored repeated warnings that Hamas was planning the attack it launched on Oct. 7.
In sheer volume, the amount of aid provided to Israel by the United States is the most generous foreign aid program ever between any two countries.
For Americans, this massive outlay removes much-needed money from domestic needs. Even a portion of this $3.8 billion in tax revenues could be channeled to address issues like immigration, drug enforcement, social security, and health care.
For Israelis, the lavish U.S. military package has made it possible for the country to remain on a perpetual war footing. But being hooked on foreign aid to such an extent has taken away any incentive for the domestic defense industry to become more efficient and productive, with the Israel Defense Forces shrinking to dangerously low levels as a result.
Outgoing deputy head of the Israel Defense Forces, Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir stated in 2021: “The IDF is on the verge of [not having] the minimum size needed to face more complex threats than those we have experienced in recent years. Along with advanced technological capabilities, Israel also needs a critical mass of people to improve the IDF’s overall quality and quantity.”
Jerusalem’s codependent relationship with Washington has reached a low point during the war with Hamas. When Israel began to plan a massive ground assault against the Gaza-based terrorist group, American generals were dispatched to sit in on and weigh in during high level meetings at IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv. The reason for America’s involvement at a granular level in the development and execution of Israel’s response to Hamas’s attack was the Biden Administration’s concern with a “lack of achievable military objectives” in the IDF’s ground operation.
Shifting to a strike-first strategy would free up Jerusalem to ramp up its domestic defense industry’s capability. It does not require U.S. approval. Unmoored from American aid, Israel would be forced to streamline its defense budget, enabling the government to tackle domestic issues such as the lack of adequate social safety nets, integration of the Arab sector, sky-high housing prices, relatively low median wages, and an overdependence on imports for food and other essentials.
Then there is the humanitarian issue. Israel’s ongoing conflict with the Palestinians has led to a massive loss of life. Shorter, decisive wars would force both sides back to the negotiating table—this time with the real possibility of reaching a just and comprehensive resolution that finally ends the decades-long conflict.
Regarding each country’s respective foreign policy, an Israel decoupled from Washington would be able to independently develop and deepen its regional ties with Sunni Arab countries, the common goal being the destruction of Islamist groups bent on toppling governments across the Middle East.
Meanwhile, the United States would finally be able to shrink its military footprint in the Middle East—a shift in policy that has been advocated for by the Biden administration and its recent predecessors. Without the need to be Israel’s supplier, the U.S. could focus its time, energy and aid on other areas deemed to be in America’s national interest, such as Ukraine and Taiwan.
More than a century-and-a-half ago, China found itself in a position like Israel’s after Britain’s government forced it to legalize opium to correct a massive trade imbalance. As a result, China lost control over its own economy and, ultimately, national sovereignty. To support its people’s opium habit, the once mighty Qing dynasty had to cede the territory of Hong Kong to British control, and open treaty ports to trade with foreigners. China’s addiction marked the beginning of Western exploitation of the nation.
Israel will only recover its once-vaunted deterrence capability if it rehabs from a decades-long addiction to American military aid. Otherwise, the regional superpower will become a U.S. vassal. Until Jerusalem detoxes from this highly conditional support and embarks on a long-term policy of greater strategic autonomy, the way it keeps its people safe and maintains its sovereignty will be based on the next fix of aid.
This piece was originally published in Newsweek on January 4, 2024.
Main image: An Israeli soldier wearing a patch on the back of his flack jacket showing Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as a target, stands in front of a self-propelled artillery howitzer in Upper Galilee in northern Israel on Jan. 4. (JALAA MAREY/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)
