American Aid to Israel: When, How, and Why?
Somehow it is already generally accepted that the United States has always been the main partner of all of Israel - its advocate, protector, and constantly stood on the side of Israel. This view is not entirely correct. This was not always the case, and reality is much more complicated. Relations between the United States and Israel are not so clear. If this is friendship, then the other’s arms are so strong that they can suffocate. If this is love, then love is lordly. And with an unwavering hand, a friend often pushes Israel toward a goal that suits America and does not suit Israel ...
To begin with, let's do without the myth that without the grace of the US government, Israel could never stand against its much more numerous and better armed enemies. In the first decades after the creation of Israel in 1948, the United States was more of an enemy than a friend, usually taking the side of Israel’s Arab neighbors, whose oil wealth was important to the United States, and also to keep them outside the Soviet sphere of influence.
The case was as follows: while in 1947, at the UN, backstage talks on dividing the Palestinian territory were still being held, almost all of the staff US State Department were against the creation of a Jewish state. Influential politicians and government officials called on the US president, Harry Truman, not to take any practical steps to create two states in Palestine: they say, the idea will die by itself.
First of all, the popular politician, the hero of the recent war, who became the US Secretary of State, General George Marshall, opposed the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.
Marshall feared that the obvious support of the Jewish state would lead the USSR to act as an ally to the Arab countries and gain wide access to the region. In addition, many Americans were convinced that the creation of Israel was an action of the Soviet Union, that the power in Israel was in the hands of the leftists and the communists, that a communist state was created there that was dangerous for the United States. Therefore, to support Israel in any case is impossible.
The conflict between Truman and Marshall on this issue threatened to escalate into a government crisis. However, the growth of scandal was avoided. Truman insisted on his decision to support the creation of Israel. The influence of the Jewish community in the United States, whose votes Truman wanted to enlist on the eve of the 1948 presidential election of the year, and the fact that Truman was a southern Baptist and had some religious sympathy for Jews, played a significant role here.
This did not prevent him from 5 December 1947, a few days after the UN General Assembly adopted the partitioning plan, imposing an arms embargo on the Middle East, and banning the issuance of passports to people who want to serve in the armed forces not subordinate to the US government. So the government did not allow the American Jews to help their fellow fighters in Palestine. (Despite this, almost 1000 American volunteers participated in the war of independence on the side of Israel.) Although the embargo was formally extended to Arabs as well as Jews, American weapons worth millions of dollars were given to Arabs before the new measures came into force . All Western Allies followed suit and started selling. weapon the Arabs.
One of the most vehement opponents of the creation of Israel was US Secretary of Defense James Forrestal.
Well, the State Department’s planning department has prepared a memorandum in which the main conclusion was generally the following: the partition plan for Palestine is practically impossible ...
In the 1956 year, after Egypt blocked the delivery of goods to Israel and seized the Suez Canal, an international waterway owned by Britain and France, the three countries jointly invaded Egypt to regain their rights. ("Suez crisis") Although US President Dwight Eisenhower acknowledged that “serious and repeated provocations” from Egypt led to the invasion, he decided to gain the friendship of the Arab world, forcing the invaders to retreat, thereby supporting the USSR’s ultimatum on Israel to cease hostilities immediately.
Eisenhower threatened Israel with exclusion from the UN, adding weight to its demands by voicing them in a radio and television message to the American people from the White House ...
The attitude of the United States to Israel began to change, and then military assistance began only after the United States realized that Israel had already created a sufficiently powerful military industry capable of withstanding Arab ambitions, that Israel had built powerful armed forces that give a chance to undermine the influence of the USSR in the Middle East.
Now, let's move from politics to money.
The first two decades since the formation of the State of Israel, relations between the countries were obviously formal. This is evidenced by economic indicators: in 1949, the United States provided the first loan to Israel in the amount of 100 million dollars, and the size of annual loans remained almost unchanged for 20 years, with 95% of this aid being food supplies and economic aid.
The reasons lie in the geopolitical alignment of forces for that period. At that time, France was the main exporter of food and weapons to Israel. This is due to the fact that from 1954 to 1962 year she led a grueling war against algeriawho sought independence. Algeria’s main ally in this struggle was Nasser Egypt, where pan-Arabism’s slogans reached the peak of their popularity. Therefore, France decided to fully support the country neighboring with Egypt - Israel, in every way playing on the Arab-Israeli contradictions and diverting the attention and strength of Egypt to preserve military parity with the young Jewish state.
Relations between the two countries were further strengthened after the Suez crisis, when joint actions by France, Israel and Britain caused more than a cold reaction in Washington. However, in the 1960-s, Charles de Gaulle came to power in France, who decides to “reset” the Franco-Arab relations.
This concerned the satisfaction of the Algerian demands for independence and the strengthening of relations with other Arab countries. The victim of such a policy fell close French-Israeli cooperation. In 1967, France imposed an arms embargo on the Jewish state ...
After Six-Day war the rearmament of the army began, for which Israel spent more money than was spent over all previous 19 years of the state’s existence. To implement such an ambitious project, the country urgently needed financial assistance for the purchase of modern weapons.
Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War convinced the US government of the need to cooperate with the Jewish state. Cooperation could be beneficial for the United States, and help itself turned into an instrument of influence on Israel. Soon after, the US became the main arms supplier to Israel. For Washington, the essence of such assistance was to undermine the influence of the USSR in the Middle East.
In 1968, the administration Lyndon johnson approved the sale to Israel of a party of ultramodern, at that time, aircraft Phantom F-4That was the first signal to warming relations.
In the 1969 year, assistance in the amount of 160,3 million dollars was allocated. In 1971, the volume of aid increased immediately by several times and amounted to $ 634,3 million. Since then, the amount has been regularly reserved in the US budget to help Israel.
The second sharp rise occurred after the Doomsday War. In 1974, the United States provided a military grant of $ 982,7 million and for the first time provided a military loan of $ 1,5 billion.
Economic support has been transformed - instead of financing individual projects, the United States is introducing the Commodity Import Program (CIP), aimed at purchasing American goods. (This program was replaced by untied financial assistance only in the 1979 year, which has become more convenient for Israel.)
In 1974, Israel becomes the largest recipient of US aid, later this volume was exceeded only by Iraq and Afghanistan. In 1971 – 1973, the amount of US aid to Israel was already about 0,5 billion dollars, and since 1974 has exceeded 1 billion dollars, with 2 / 3 already falling to military aid.
Further, the amounts continued to increase. From 1975 to 1980, the United States provided economic grants worth 2,9 billion to Israel. Together with loans, this amounted to $ 4,7 billion. About a billion a year - it covered about 45% of Israel’s negative balance of payments.
In the 1980-1984 years, the United States switched exclusively to irrevocable financing, providing Israel with another $ 3,2 billion. In just 14 years - from 1970 to 1984 - Israel received economic loans and grants in the amount of $ 8 billion.
Since 1985, the United States has not given more loans to Israel, but has completely switched to irrevocable financing of military expenses and covering losses associated with the operation of an overgrown military complex.
Over the 11 years, from 1985 to 1996, the United States provided military assistance in the amount of $ 19,3 billion and economic aid in the amount of $ 18,8 billion. In the period from 1997 to 2002, the US allocated military grants in the amount of $ 12,5 billion. In 2000, the amount of aid for the first time exceeded $ 3 billion, amounting to $ 3,1 billion.
The economic component of US aid to Israel has steadily declined since the middle of the 1990-ies, until it was finally driven out of the aid structure.
Currently, the bulk of funding comes from military assistance programs.
Some of the weapons and military equipment of the United States are transferred to Israel on a grant basis as part of the Excess Defense Articles Transfer Program. The program allows the United States after the end of the Cold War to get rid of used equipment, the utilization and further use of which in the United States is associated with high costs. For 10 years - from 2001 to 2011 a year - Israel received weapons and military equipment worth more than 330 million dollars.
What is the purpose of the United States, arming Israel over the past 40 years? The official US doctrine in this regard uses the term Qualitative Military Edge (QME), which refers to Israel’s minimum sustained military superiority over neighboring Arab countries in the Middle East. In practice, this is that Israel annually receives about 3 billion US dollars of military aid, Egypt - 1,3 billion dollars, Jordan - 0,3 billion dollars. At the same time, the volume of supplies of weapons and military equipment of the USA to the Persian countries is also taken into account. the gulf.
Maintaining such a dynamic equilibrium allows not to disturb the regional balance of power, as well as to “tie” the countries of the region with the United States. If one of the countries (Israel or Arab countries) violates the truce with its neighbors and loses the favor of the United States, while others maintain good relations with the United States, then in the next fiscal year the “obedient” country receives a new tranche of military aid and modernizes its weapons, and the “naughty” country remains with outdated weapons. According to some experts, this financial structure is the foundation of peace in the Middle East. In addition, economic assistance helped moderate regimes resist the growth of radicalism in their countries. In other words, America preferred to allocate funds to these countries instead of keeping its troops there.
In fact, it is beneficial for the United States to support all parties to the conflict in the Middle East (Israel and the Arab countries) in the belief that American military assistance will last forever. It is no coincidence, for example, in 2007 between the governments of the United States and Israel that the 10-Year Military Aid Agreement was concluded, which governed the relationship at the current stage. It was a $ 10 bil- lion assistance package, accepted by the administration Bush Junior. According to this agreement, it was planned to increase annual aid volumes from $ 2,55 billion to $ 3.1 billion in 2013. In the United States, Israel is trying to acquire mainly precision-guided weapons and fighters for this money, and simply buy the rest with the funds of the planned defense budget.
It is noteworthy that, until recently, 26.3% of aid Israel could spend on the purchase of weapons of its own production. Such privileges were no longer any of the countries cooperating with the United States. It seems that having your own R & D and the production of weapons and military equipment is a kind of guarantee of the existence of Israel as a state. It would be short-sighted to limit ourselves to purchasing and receiving foreign military equipment. This is most clearly seen in the example of US assistance in creating the Israeli missile defense system.
In addition to the procurement of short-range tactical missile defense systems Hawk (MIM-23 HAWK) and "Patriot", with the financial support of the United States, Israel has developed its own short-range missile defense system "Iron dome". This system is developed entirely in Israel by "Rafael Advanced Defense Systems". The system was adopted for service and successfully showed itself during the operation. Cloud Pillar и "Unbreakable rock".
Israel plans to export the system to South Korea, Singapore and India.
The United States is increasing funding for the creation of small and medium-range missile defense "Sling of David". The development of the system is carried out by the already mentioned Israeli company "Rafael Advanced Defense Systems" together with the American "Raytheon".
Finally, in collaboration with the American corporation "Boeing", a project is underway to develop medium and long-range missile defense systems "Arrow" (modifications of 2 and 3). The overall management of this project is provided by the Israeli Ministry of Defense in cooperation with the United States Agency for Missile Defense.
There are a number of reservations regarding the use of US military aid: for example, the United States harshly curbs any attempts to re-export its military aid to third countries. The possibility of re-exporting US weapons is in principle one of the most sensitive issues in US-Israeli cooperation. The United States, in fact, froze the planned Chinese-Israeli and Russian-Israeli partnership in the military sphere. The transaction on the acquisition by India of the Arrow missile defense system was also blocked due to the fact that it uses American developments.
In order to control re-exports, a bilateral agreement was signed in 2005, which included Israel’s consultations with the United States in the event Israel’s possible supply of “sensitive weapons” to third countries. For its part, the Jewish state created its own agency that controls the export of weapons.
The agreement between the United States and Israel, signed on September 14, 2016, many consider historical. Indeed, within the framework of this document, Washington will provide military assistance to the Jewish state for $ 38 billion. The agreement guarantees the unprecedented amount of military assistance that Israel will receive in the next 10 years. This is the largest military aid package ever provided by the United States to any country.
Currently, the United States is the guarantor of economic stability and military security of Israel. The United States has repeatedly in the world political arena, the UN has proved its loyalty to Israel, protecting it from the attacks of numerous enemies. The economic motives of the community of little Israel and the mighty world power are closely intertwined politically.
The American government is not faced with the question of whether to help Israel in the difficult and unpredictable conditions prevailing today in the world economy and the region of the Middle East. Surveys show support for the government by the American people: 63% of Americans support Israel in the Arab-Israeli confrontation. However, 59% of Americans approved a reduction in US aid abroad (including Israel). Therefore, the United States raises the question: what to give money? Today, the stake is on the armament of Israel, but analysts of the Research Service at the US Congress note that in the foreseeable future we can talk about investing money in diplomatic methods, in particular, to help Arab countries neighboring Israel, to reduce social pressure and influence Islamist forces.
Indeed, $ 38 billion is the record amount in the history of US military transactions. However, in exchange for receiving such an amount, Israel had to make a number of concessions. So, Israel for the period of validity of the agreement (10 years) undertook not to request additional assistance. Also, the funds provided by the United States can no longer be spent on financing the Israeli defense industry instead of purchasing American weapons.
In this regard, the question arises: does American aid to Israel really be necessary? After all, Israel’s refusal of American assistance would have strengthened Israeli industry and contributed to economic growth. Thousands of jobs in the United States created at the expense of US military aid to Israel would have passed to the Israelis. Waiver of the right to spend more than 25% of military aid inside the country is a serious loss of jobs.
Yes, there are quite a few critics in the current US-Israeli aid programs. And if the Americans criticize the unnecessary expenses that, in their opinion, are made by the American government, the Israelis criticize American aid for other reasons.
First, Israel is overly dependent on the United States and, in the event of a sharp reduction in aid flows, it may experience foreign policy and domestic political turmoil. There is a precedent: during the operation “Enduring Rock”, Barack Obama informally imposed an embargo on the delivery of missiles of a certain class to Israel. Obama also temporarily banned flights of American commercial aircraft landing at Ben Gurion Airport, thus threatening the Israeli economy. These steps were taken by Obama to coerce Israel into accepting Hamas peace terms.
Second, critics argue that most of what Israel receives from America in the form of assistance can be purchased from other suppliers at much lower prices. At one time, there were demands to buy American products, even in the case when funding comes from Israeli domestic sources. Thus, the order for Airbus civilian aircraft, which are much cheaper than American ones, was canceled, forcing Israelis to purchase Boeings, Israel abandoned its own development program for the Lavi fighter. Under US pressure, the project was curtailed in favor of F-16.
Finally, the Israeli military-industrial complex is seriously export-oriented (Israel takes 8 (!) A place in the world in arms exports), since American goods "push" Israeli weapons and military equipment from the local market.
In conclusion, I will give a few more figures.
Israeli defense spending in 2016 was 5,8% of GDP, and in 1990 was 17,5%.
This does not mean that defense spending has more than tripled, just GDP has increased. For example, Israel’s per capita GDP from 2005 to 2014 increased 1,67 times. US military aid (about $ 3 billion) makes up just over 1% of GDP.
If Israel maintained military spending in 1990 at the level of 17,5% of GDP, then, as critics of US military aid believe, it will withstand just over 6% without any particular problems.
Sources:
Degterev, DA, Stepkin, E. A. American Aid to Israel: Origins, Structure, Dynamics. Department of World Economy MGIMO (University), Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia. (Tables and numerical data)
American Military Assistance to Israel and the Future of the Qualitative Military Edge concept at the MGIMO Center for Military Policy Studies (Analytics)
Wikipedia articles ...
etc.
Information