A Major Earthquake in the US-Israel Security Relationship
And Almost Nobody Noticed.
Last Friday, something pretty stunning happened – something that fundamentally changes the potential trajectory of the US-Israel security relationship. It’s something I did not think was plausible even a few years ago. And yet, almost nobody noticed. It was barely covered. Barely discussed.
On Friday afternoon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave an interview to The Economist in which he spoke openly about Israel’s desire, over the next decade, to end its dependence on US security assistance. On its own, that wasn’t entirely surprising. Netanyahu has gestured in this direction before and some of his hard-right allies have argued that ending this Israeli dependence will give Israel more freedom of action, especially with regards to policies towards the Palestinians.
What was surprising was that shortly after the interview, Senator Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees foreign operations and US security assistance, tweeted that he intended to work quickly to accelerate the end of American foreign military financing (FMF) for Israel – potentially even faster than Netanyahu himself was proposing. This is Lindsey Graham: a close supporter of Israel, a close political ally of Trump, and a longtime friend of Benjamin Netanyahu.
So what’s actually going on?
Let’s start with a reality check. The end of FMF does not mean the end of US-Israel security cooperation.
Israel will still buy American weapons – F-35s, F-15s, JDAMs, and more. Israeli-American collaboration on missile defense programs like Iron Dome will continue. Research and development cooperation will continue, including possibly joint funds that both sides pay into. Intelligence sharing and operational coordination will continue.
The difference is who pays.
For decades, the United States has provided billions (at this point roughly $4 billion a year) in FMF, which Israel then uses – almost entirely – to buy American military systems. Under the most recent memorandum of understanding due to expire in 2028, Israel has been winding down the use of American FMF to invest in Israeli defense companies, and by 2028, 100% of FMF will be invested in the US defense industrial base.
We don’t have the details yet on what exactly the new model Graham and Netanyahu are proposing is. But it appears Israel will still buy many of those weapons. It will just use its own money.
From purely a policy and intellectual standpoint, this shift makes sense.
Foreign military financing for Israel was originally established in the late 1970s as part of the Camp David framework, alongside aid to Egypt. The goal was to provide security guarantees and incentives to sustain peace treaties that were still fragile. We are long past that era.
Israel and Egypt today have many reasons to uphold their peace treaty, and FMF is not what’s holding it together. Meanwhile, Israel’s per-capita GDP is now comparable to that of America’s wealthiest democratic allies – countries like France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan. Israel plays in that league economically. It does not need $4 billion a year from the United States to buy weapons.
And there are real downsides for Israel to this exceptionalism. Providing Israel more FMF than any other country in the world – by far – puts an outsized political spotlight on the relationship and on the nature of US security assistance. As I wrote about last week, treating Israel like a normal, wealthy ally isn’t anti-Israel. It’s actually what we do with other capable partners who don’t need permanent subsidies to defend themselves.
The political hypocrisy and double standard are off the charts.
When I saw the tweet from Graham I thought about what would have happened if we had tried to propose this during the Biden or Obama Administrations, or if Kamala Harris was President today. Let’s just say it wouldn’t have been an afterthought.
When the Biden Administration withheld one shipment of 2,000-pound bombs – a shipment worth a few million dollars – it triggered a code-red meltdown from the organized American Jewish community. Endless accusations that Biden and Democrats were “anti-Israel.” Nonstop outrage.
Now we have Lindsey Graham publicly saying not only that FMF for Israel should end, but that he wants to do it faster than the Israeli Prime Minister has proposed – and there is virtual radio silence …
Why?
According to reports, Netanyahu showed up at Mar-a-Lago at the end of last month concerned that a new 10- or 20-year memorandum of understanding with billions in guaranteed aid was not something Donald Trump was going to support. Providing billions in financial support to allies is, after all, not something Trump is known for.
Whether Trump explicitly told him that FMF was over, or Netanyahu preemptively adjusted his position, isn’t entirely clear. What is clear is that Bibi was afraid of being embarrassed by Trump or angering him, and therefore chose to take off the table an element of the US-Israel relationship that for years we had been told was absolutely inviolate. Until last week, anyone who might even question some of this security assistance was “anti-Israel.”
So where is the outrage? Where is the anger? Where are the emergency statements and press conferences from Jewish community leaders? Dead silence.
BTW did you hear about what a mid-level political appointee for the new mayor of New York City said 13 years ago about Israel?
Debates over accountability still matter.
Ending FMF does not mean ending debates about accountability.
Israel will still have a large arsenal of American weapons. It will still be buying American weapons. That means the debates about the use of American weapons in Gaza and the West Bank aren’t going away. US law still applies. And those laws apply not only to countries that receive FMF but also to countries that buy American weapons with their own money.
Given the reports of violations of Leahy Law standards, credible cases involving misuse of weapons in Gaza or the West Bank, and clear withholding of humanitarian aid to Gaza, the debate over whether guardrails should be put in place to restrict or condition US arms sales will continue to be a live issue.
If anything, this shift slightly lowers the emotional temperature. There’s a difference between ensuring proper use of weapons someone buys from you versus weapons you give them. But the standards themselves should remain basically the same.
Rethinking US leverage
For years, some argued that cutting off military assistance would fundamentally change Israeli behavior. But here we are, with an Israeli prime minister and a Republican senator essentially saying: Israel doesn’t need it.
So where is the leverage in the US-Israel relationship?
It’s political. It’s diplomatic. It’s in whether the United States shows up when Israel is under threat, as it did after October 7 – deploying forces, defending Israel against Iranian attacks, and backing it internationally as we were right to do. It’s in whether the US chooses to publicly support Israeli military and diplomatic actions or distance itself, as we should do when Israel acts irresponsibly and damages US interests. It’s in how the Israeli public perceives the relationship between the American president and Israeli prime minister, and the ramifications of that in Israeli politics (certainly this has been a massive leverage point for Trump). It’s in how we defend (or don’t defend) Israeli behavior at the United Nations and International Criminal Court . And yes, it’s partially in arms sales – but mainly as a political signal, not as a decisive material lever.
On the Palestinian issue, which Israeli leaders view as existential – especially on the right – Israel was never going to reverse course because of $4 billion a year. For a country as wealthy and capable as Israel, it simply isn’t that much money.
And Graham and Netanyahu made that unmistakably clear.
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