Israel may request double its present military aid from the US

(April 30) With the COVID-19 pandemic causing a potential economic crisis in the US, Israeli officials are anxious to get as much military aid from the US as quickly as they are able.

Their requests seek the aid delivered ahead of schedule and potentially double the agreed amount. Last year Israel asked for $3.8 billion but this year it could ask for as much as $7.6 billion.

Israeli rationale

Israel is expected to argue that the military aid will help the US recover from its own slump due to the COVID-19 pandemic since the aid tends to be spent heavily on US weapons, produced in US factories. Some Israelis argue that the aid could be in effect presented as domestic spending to help their own arms manufacturers rather than foreign aid.

Some Israeli officials oppose asking for more aid now

Many Israeli officials think that this will work so that Israeli aid is not in any serious threat in spite of present US economic woes. However others suggest that this is not a good time to try to ask for more. They think this could make the aid a political issue during a time when many people are asking for aid themselves as the US experiences an economic downturn due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lior Weintraub, a former chief of staff of the Israeli Embassy to the US said: "Whenever Israel had a crisis, we could get help from the US.n This is a crisis where it will be very hard to ask America for things it may not be able to afford to give, and we don’t know how long it’ll continue.”

Current aid

The current aid results from a 2016 agreement by the Obama administration that gives Israel a total of $38 billion over ten years. Israel receives more US aid than any other country. This is over $10 million dollars per day going to Israel in aid.

If the Israeli aid were doubled this would work out to almost $21 million a day paid the US taxpayer. At the same time US debt is approaching a humongous $4 trillion. The US is also consider cutting foreign aid as a means to dealing with the spiraling deficit. Israel is not likely to be exempted.

Washington could agree to Israel annexing much of the West Bank

The US is prepared to recognize Israeli annexation of much of the occupied West Bank, including the Jordan Valley as part of the implementation of Trump's "deal of the century" a deal that did not involve the Palestinians in any way. A US State Department spokesperson said: "As we have made consistently clear, we are prepared to recognise Israeli actions to extend Israeli sovereignty and the application of Israeli law to areas of the West Bank that the vision foresees as being part of the State of Israel.The annexation would be in the context of an offer to the Palestinians to achieve statehood based upon specific terms, conditions, territorial dimensions and generous economic support."

Previously published in the Digital Journal