The American State Department marked the beginning of the fiscal year on Monday by praising the “bi-partisan” support for Israel that expressed in a new aid agreement with the Jewish state.
The $38 billion memorandum of understanding, which allocates $3.3 billion in foreign military financing and $500 million in missile defense each year to Israel, was negotiated in the final year of former United States President Barack Obama’s administration and amounts to the largest aid pledge in US history.
The State Department praised the launch of the new aid package as an example of America’s “unconditional” support for Israel’s security.
“Our implementation of this historic MOU reflects the enduring and unshakable commitment of the president, this administration, and the American people to Israel’s security,” the State Department said.
“The MOU was negotiated under the previous administration, reflecting the bi-partisan nature of this commitment.”
But the new ten year economic agreement altered the previous terms of the military aid Israel receives, making Jerusalem even more economically and militarily dependent on Washington than before.
Until now, roughly 25% of the aid, adding up to billions of shekels each year, could be spent on local Israeli products while three quarters of the money had to be spent on American arms and equipment often more expensive and qualitatively inferior to their Israeli equivalents.
Even this version of the aid package was economically destructive. In late 2013, the Brill shoe company’s army boot factory – servicing Israel’s military since 1948 – was forced to shut down and lay off its workers after the defense ministry decided to begin purchasing American boots.
But according to the new agreement beginning this fiscal year, 100% of military aid will have to be spent on American products, resulting in major losses for local Israeli defense companies that are essentially losing their own military as a client.
Contrary to the positive media spin, US aid to Israel only serves the interests of the American military industrial complex while eroding Israeli independence and chaining our policies to the regional interests of a foreign power.
Israel’s defense ministry warned the Knesset finance committee in May that the local arms industry is expected to lose $1.3 billion in revenue each year and as many as 22,000 workers could lose their jobs when the new agreement kicks in.
Although Finance Committee Chairman Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism) demanded the renegotiation of the new aid package with Washington, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (Likud) preferred not to antagonize current US President Donald Trump.
The estimated loss is 4 billion shekels per year in defense purchases, which could lead to the closure of 130 factories, many of which are in the periphery employing workers from Israel’s weakest sectors.
Israeli defense companies – initially established to equip Israel’s military – have attempted to compensate for their losses in recent decades by dealing arms to regimes engaged in large-scale human rights violations like thePhilippines, South Sudan and Myanmar, prompting larger moral questions regarding the values of Israeli society.
The aid Israel receives make Israel’s leaders behave like shtetl beggars as the money lines their pockets and corrupts them. Israel needs to wean itself off any foreign aid and start acting like a sovereign nation. The only aid we should receive is from the G-d of Israel.