The president of the United States, Donald Trump, made this Tuesday, in the middle of the midterm elections, an announcement as relevant as it was vague. Trump has claimed to have reached an agreement with Benjamin Netanyahu by which Washington will stop providing, starting next year, the almost 4,000 million dollars annually (3,574 million euros) that it delivers annually to Israel, its great ally in the Middle East. The military aid pact – a pillar of the alliance between both countries for decades – expires in 2028 and is approved by Congress, so it is not clear how it intends to suspend it or if it is a reduction in the amount. Trump's words, an apparent electoral attempt, have outraged the Israeli opposition, for learning of a decision with so many weighty implications for its military industry at a time of record defense spending.
Trump made the announcement in statements to the conservative television network Fox News while the country decides which party will have control of the House of Representatives and the Senate and after a campaign in which aid to Israel has been a key issue of debate among the Democratic opposition, divided on the matter.
“As far as paying Israel is concerned, Bibi [Benjamin] Netanyahu and I have reached an agreement that we give Israel 4 billion a year and we reached an agreement months ago that we are going to stop it,” Trump said, in a confusing statement. "We have already agreed that by the end of this year we will not pay Israel. Now we will help Israel if they need it," he continued.
"Israel is the country we help the most, we give it more than any other and it no longer needs it. I have continued doing it, but Israel is a very prosperous country. It doesn't need it. If it needed it, I would say that we keep the aid," he added.
To justify it, Trump has alleged a series of reasons similar to those he put forward in his day to put an end to arms aid shipments to Ukraine, or even to drag his feet in military collaboration with European partners: that this assistance cannot be free and that the counterparty has enough resources to pay for it.
But he has also mentioned how military aid to Israel has become a recurring theme in the speeches of Democratic candidates in these elections, such as Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for a seat in the Senate for the State of Michigan.
Trump has even pointed out that it was Netanyahu who raised it. "He said, 'I think it would be appropriate for us not to receive help,' because he understands that this is one of the points that generate controversy. Israel has been a great ally, much more reliable than most."
It is not clear, in any case, when this supposed agreement was reached (on which Netanyahu has not commented) or why the American president has chosen this moment to make it public.
Nor if it is a reduction or total cancellation of aid. Nor how could he suspend it: the memorandum of understanding between the two countries establishes that Washington will provide $3.8 billion annually in military assistance to its ally and is still valid for two more years, until 2028. It was approved by the US Congress, so Trump cannot unilaterally revoke it: in any case, it would be the responsibility of the Capitol. The two governments began talking in June about how to extend it before it expired.
A focus of debate
US military aid to Israel has been a source of increasingly intense debate among US voters, and especially within the Democratic Party, since the start of the war in Gaza. Although suspicion is not only growing among the left: part of the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement that promoted Trump from the extreme right is also increasingly critical of Israel, whose prime minister is held responsible for having convinced the US president to participate in the war against Iran. A Quinnipiac University poll (in Connecticut) in June found that 48% of voters and 66% of Democrats believe this country is too supportive of Israel. A decade ago, only 20% of Democrats and 16% of the total electorate thought this way.
Support for Israel has dominated some of the big battles of the campaign for these midterms, such as in Michigan, where Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, of Egyptian origin, progressive positions and one of the candidates with the most openly pro-Palestinian positions, aspires to become the first Muslim senator in the United States. El-Sayed opposes giving unconditional military aid to Israel and maintains that the money should be used to improve the quality of life of Americans.
The Republicans, led by Trump, have begun to accuse the doctor, without justifying it, of having a radical Islamist ideology; The president has even said that, if he wins, El-Sayed would be the first senator who would have to “go through a metal detector.”
In his statements on Fox News, Trump alluded to the Democratic candidate in Michigan to justify his announcement about the end of aid to Israel. As he declared, the allied country “does not need it.” "Why should we be suffering the darts of lunatics like El-Sayed when they don't need it? It's a bad topic to talk about," Trump said.
Exemptions
In the agreement with Israel, the exception is not only in the numbers (no country in the world has received so much military aid from the United States on a continuous basis), but in the format. Washington's subsidies known as Foreign Military Financing usually oblige the beneficiary country to spend them entirely on American arms manufacturers. Israel has had two exemptions: a partial one (which has been reduced and is scheduled to end in 2028) that allowed it to invest a part of that money in its own defense industry; and another, distribution of payments over several years. It has been very useful, for example, to acquire F-35, the most advanced fighters, without having to shell out a huge sum upfront.
Netanyahu had been preparing the ground for such an announcement for some time. Just two weeks ago he assured: "If you think that we are going to continue receiving what I managed to maintain on two occasions - that is, tens of billions of dollars in US aid for the defense budget - then prepare yourselves and get used to the idea that it is not going to happen, because the United States has changed. [...] This is over, and it will come to an end. It is only a matter of time."
Those days he also ventured banking sanctions from European countries and even suggested avoiding them by resorting to cryptocurrencies. The Bank of Israel (a technical body that rarely enters the political sphere) came out to clarify that cryptocurrencies were not an option in the face of diplomatic isolation. “The right thing for Israel's economy is to preserve economic relations with our main trading partners and focus on avoiding sanctions and their negative impact on the economy,” which “falls within the responsibilities of the political establishment,” he noted.
Already last year, Netanyahu advocated turning his country into the “super-Sparta” of the Middle East. Israel, he argued, should be a more autarkic country and more dependent on its own military industry.
The announcement has not only come during the midterm elections in the United States. Also in the midst of negotiations to form a Government in Israel, a week after holding legislative elections.
The main opposition parties – which already criticized Netanyahu in the campaign for burning bridges with the international community and endangering the alliance with the United States by governing with radical ultranationalists – have launched themselves against the prime minister as soon as the news became known.
Gadi Eisenkot, the a priori candidate with the most support to receive from the president, Isaac Herzog, the task of forming a Government starting this Wednesday, has criticized that the defense establishment and the rest of the citizens of Israel have learned "through the media" of a "change in the strategic relationship" with Washington, which represents "a central component of Israel's national security." “Once again, the prime minister of Israel is incapable of looking Israeli citizens in the eyes and telling them the truth […] He cannot be trusted, and must be replaced,” he said.
