While it is true that the U.S. has no formal alliance with Israel, the cost of its current self-imposed commitment to Israel far exceeds that to its several dozen alliance partners.
(LifeSiteNews) — Critics of the cozy relationship between the United States and Israel are often confronted with an objection. The bilateral relationship, it is said, may be close but it is not an alliance. Thus, the United States retains complete freedom of action. Well, that depends on one’s definition of an alliance, as well as the ambiguous term “ally.”
In the case of NATO, for example, membership in the alliance requires all states to consider an “armed attack against one or more of them” to be “an attack against them all.”((https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/stock_publications/20120822_nato_treaty_en_light_2009.pdf)) This is the well-known collective defense clause of the NATO charter, more commonly referred to as Article 5. It has been invoked only once since 1949, in response to the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States. Likewise, America’s relationship with South Korea, governed by the 1953 Mutual Defense Treaty, requires the U.S. to come to the aid of South Korea in the event of an “external armed attack.”((https://www.usfk.mil/portals/105/documents/sofa/h_mutual%20defense%20treaty_1953.pdf))
In fact, as pointed out by the Jewish Institute for the National Security of America (JINSA), the United States is legally obligated to provide military support to some 52 allies on five continents in the event of attack.((https://jinsa.org/jinsa_report/from-partner-to-ally-case-for-us-israel-defense-treaty/)) Actually, 47 of those partners are linked through NATO or a similar arrangement (the Rio Pact) with South American states. Yet there is no such mutual defense pact with Israel, nor, for that matter, with any other Middle Eastern “ally” (Egypt, Kuwait, etc.). The traditional use of the term “alliance” thus stems from our World War II experience and refers to an international agreement that rises to the level of a treaty, thus requiring consent of two-thirds of the U.S. Senate. Yet, in the common political parlance of our day, how often do we hear about Israel being our “closest Middle East ally”? About as often as we heard about our “Afghanistan allies” up until a few years ago.
While it is true that there is no “mutual defense pact” between the United States and Israel, that has not stopped a proliferation of lower-level bilateral agreements that began during Israel’s infancy in 1950. The online Jewish Virtual Library purports to maintain a list of such agreements, which runs into many dozens.((https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/formal-agreements-between-us-and-israel)) In the realm of “science and technology” alone there are listed 49 such agreements; in the area of “security and defense,” another 41 agreements. Certainly many of these agreements are largely copies of protocols which the U.S. has concluded with many other countries and/or which provide obvious and mutual benefits to both sides.
However, a significant number have provided a unique advantage to Israel, to include a competitive advantage in its commercial and industrial activities. The results over time of these arrangements can hardly be construed to promote “America first.” As one example, in 2023 Israel reported an all-time high (over $13 billion) in the export of its defense equipment on the international market.((https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-arms-sales-break-record-for-3rd-year-in-row-reaching-13-billion-in-2023/)) Thus, Israel has become a direct competitor to the United States in defense exports, even as the U.S. was fulfilling a ten-year memorandum of understanding (MOU) for military aid of at least $3.8 billion annually.((https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-israel/))Admittedly, Israel’s defense exports are dwarfed by the those of the United States, whose share of the international market is over 40%. But such a metric for Israel is a typical result of the policies and actions of the United States deliberately advantageous to Israel over decades. Another benchmark is that the United States serves as Israel’s largest export partner, which at 26% (of total exports) is more than the entire European Union.((https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Israel)) The moving force behind such actions is the Israeli lobby in the United States, which has been thoroughly documented by author Grant Smith as “Big Israel.”((Grant F. Smith, Big Israel: How Israel’s Lobby Moves America (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc., 2016).))
Keeping track of the complex web of American aid to and cooperation with Israel, with its various programs and activities, can be somewhat of a cottage industry for researchers and is far beyond the scope of this article. A standardized and official reference is provided by the Congressional Research Service in its document “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel,” updated as requested by the Congress.((https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL33222/49. Other quick reference links On the State Department website for Israel include https://www.state.gov/u-s-relations-with-israel/ and https://www.state.gov/u-s-security-cooperation-with-israel/.)) The most recent version of the report (March 2023) makes the following statement in its Summary: “Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. Successive Administrations, working with Congress, have provided Israel with assistance reflective of robust domestic U.S. support for Israel and its security; shared strategic goals in the Middle East; a mutual avowed commitment to democratic values; and historical ties dating from U.S. support for the creation of Israel in 1948. To date, the United States has provided Israel $158 billion (current, or noninflation-adjusted, dollars) in bilateral assistance and missile defense funding. At present, almost all U.S. bilateral aid to Israel is in the form of military assistance; from 1971 to 2007, Israel also received significant economic assistance.” The report continues for some 54 pages addressing various types of direct and indirect aid, complete with programs, figures, and tables. It should be noted that the current report is now almost two years old and does not include most of the billions of dollars of military equipment provided since the start of the Gaza crisis in October 2023.
The generic U.S. name for all such military-to-military activity is “security cooperation programs.” Of the several dozen types of these worldwide, the largest program by far is known as Foreign Military Sales (FMS). Each “sale” is a government-to-government contract for equipment and/or services provided by the U.S., normally through an American contractor. The vast majority of recipient nations pay for each sale through their national funds. This includes almost all NATO partners, the oil-rich Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, etc.), Japan, Australia, and many others who are collectively referred to as “cash customers.” However, U.S. law also allows Congress to appropriate U.S. funds which can be used for FMS purchases in lieu of national funds. This program, considered a subset of FMS, is known as Foreign Military Financing, or FMF. It is the FMF program which has been the backbone of U.S. aid to Israel since the 1970s. As a typical example, in Fiscal Year 2024 the Biden Administration requested from Congress $6,124,549,000 in FMF worldwide, of which $3,300,000,000 (nearly 54%) was projected for Israel.((https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/FY-2024-Congressional-Budget-Justification-Appendix-2-508-4.20.2023.pdf. See pages 435-436.)) Of the remainder, nearly 28% was requested for Egypt and Jordan, the only two neighboring nations to make peace with Israel. Neither country has a significant diplomatic lobby in Washington, but it is one of the unwritten rules of America’s Middle East policy that Israel’s neighbors should be rewarded – but not too much – for making peace. The $3.3 billion of FMF which Israel receives annually comprises some 16% of its defense budget.((https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL33222/49)) Yet this is supplemented by another $500 million annually from the Department of Defense for missile defense programs, such as Iron Dome. Not later than 2028, the two countries are expected to “renegotiate” their current “memorandum of understanding” on military aid, no doubt further increasing the U.S. financial commitment. Lastly, readers are no doubt aware that President Trump has initiated a global halt to all foreign aid under the State Department and USAID. Aid to Israel, as if there were any doubt, is one of the few exceptions.((https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/24/foreign-aid-israel-egypt))
In summary, the most powerful tool in the security cooperation “toolbox” (FMF) is committed almost entirely to maintaining the status quo gridlock in the Middle East, a cold peace between Israel and its neighbors, while the fate of the Palestinians lies in limbo (or worse). While the probability of another general Arab-Israeli war appears to remain small, the U.S. has given almost no incentive (neither carrot nor stick) for Israel to proceed toward a fair settlement with the Palestinians. Yet it is the fate of the Palestinians, who have received precious little humanitarian U.S. aid of their own, that is now grabbing headlines throughout the Middle East. Finally, it should be pointed out that Israel’s unique status as the largest recipient of FMF leads frequently to misleading headlines. A case in point is the New York Post article of February 8 entitled “Trump team plans to sell $7B in weapons to Israel.”((https://nypost.com/2025/02/08/us-news/trump-administration-plans-to-sell-7b-in-weapons-to-israel/))Of course, the Trump administration will in no way require Israel to actually pay for these munitions (remember Big Israel). A more accurate headline would be “Trump team plans to spend $7B for weapons to Israel.” One should not necessarily fault the Post because the only public U.S. Government announcement makes no mention of the fact that the U.S. will fund the munitions.((https://www.dsca.mil/sites/default/files/mas/Press%20Release%20-%20Israel%2024-13%20CN.pdf)) Should additional funds be necessary for this “sale,” Congress under the leadership of House Speaker Mike Johnson, a dedicated Christian Zionist, will be happy to oblige with a supplemental appropriation. In Israel’s case, the ultimate payer is always the American taxpayer.
In addition to the official U.S. Government sources((The Congressional Research Service (cited above) draws all its data from the executive branch. The primary executive branch document for all foreign assistance is the Congressional Budget Justification (CBJ), a multi-part online document, also cited above. Each CBJ “rolls over” data from previous years; for example, the CBJ for FY 2024 includes the actual amounts (by program and by country) from FY 2022, the “enacted” amounts for FY 2023, and the “requested” amounts for FY 2024.)) documenting foreign aid (which official name is foreign assistance), a number of private sector organizations maintain detailed and current records specifically on the aid to Israel. Perhaps the most useful website is “The Costs of War,” sponsored by the Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs at Brown University.((https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/papers/2024/USspendingIsrael. A second useful and current resource was published by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) as of November 2024 at https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts#chapter-title-0-5.)) The section on Aid to Israel (focusing only on the Gaza crisis) opens with the mind-boggling statement that “U.S. spending on Israel’s military operations and related U.S operations in the region total at least $22.76 billion and counting. This estimate is conservative; while it includes approved security assistance funding since October 7, 2023, supplemental funding for regional operations, and an estimated additional cost of operations, it does not include any other economic costs. This figure includes the $17.9 billion the U.S. government has approved in security assistance for Israeli military operations in Gaza and elsewhere since October 7 – substantially more than in any other year since the U.S. began granting military aid to Israel in 1959. Yet the report describes how this is only a partial amount of the U.S. financial support provided during this war.” These figures run only from the start of the Gaza crisis through September 30, 2024 (end of the U.S. fiscal year); thus, direct aid (security assistance, including FMF) to Israel during that period ran some $35 million per week.
The Watson Institute report also contains an impressive level of detail on U.S. arms transfers and military aid to Israel, even as it cites a “lack of full transparency” by the State Department and the Pentagon. In particular, it cites a Washington Post article noting that the billions of dollars of FMF appropriated to Israel in March of 2024 were arbitrarily (and unnecessarily) divided into relatively small amounts, or “at least 100 separate arms deals.” The obvious purpose was to ensure that each FMS case would fall below the statutory dollar level that required Congressional notification before the deal could proceed.((For Israel, any FMS case above $14 million (for “major defense equipment”) or above $50 million (for other equipment, training, and services) requires a formal notification to Congress, which has the legal authority to approve or kill the sale. A sample of a Congressional notification is reflected at endnote 11. See also https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/03/06/us-weapons-israel-gaza/)) Without such notifications, there is no public information available on weapons transfers to other nations. This certainly appears to be a deliberate bid by the Biden Administration (and Israel) to obfuscate the specifics of U.S. aid, both to the American people and Congress. Finally, as noted above, the Watson Institute report attempted to quantify the indirect costs of American support for Israel since October 2023. It did this by analyzing the activities of U.S. forces in the region, principally U.S. Navy aircraft carrier strike group operations against the Houthis in the Red Sea. This added an estimated $4.8 billion to U.S. outlays, before even considering the increase in maritime shipping costs in the region between the Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aden. The metric of indirect costs is rarely discussed in Washington, where the cost military assistance to another nation is typically considered only in isolation, without the related potential operational impact on U.S. forces.
While the various security cooperation programs with Israel are also part of the U.S. relationship with other countries, there is another aspect of the bilateral relationship that is unique to Israel. That is the U.S. policy, so little known and publicized, of Qualitative Military Edge, or QME. The concept of QME, before it was formalized, dates to the days of the Cold War, when Washington and its NATO allies anticipated that, in the event of a general European war, they would be outmanned and outgunned by the Warsaw Pact. What the western allies could not provide in quantity, however, they could provide in quality, principally in terms of more advanced military equipment. Shortly after the 1973 “Yom Kippur” War, QME spread to Israel. By the first year of the Reagan Administration (1981), Secretary of State Alexander Haig stated before the Congress that “[a] central aspect of US policy since the October 1973 war has been to ensure that Israel maintains a qualitative military edge.”((https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL33222/49))
Eventually, in 2008, Congress inserted itself into the process, making Israel’s QME a requirement of U.S. law. The legislative tool used was an innocuous bill, entitled the “Naval Vessel Transfer Act” of 2008, which became law less than three weeks after it was introduced. Embedded in the act, which became Public Law 110-429, was the requirement for “an assessment of Israel’s qualitative military edge over military threats.”((https://www.congress.gov/110/plaws/publ429/PLAW-110publ429.pdf)) The definition of QME, as contained in the public law was almost inconceivably all-encompassing. Specifically, Israel’s QME is “the ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors, while sustaining minimal damages and casualties, through the use of superior military means, possessed in sufficient quantity, including weapons, command, control, communication, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities that in their technical characteristics are superior in capability to those of such other individual or possible coalition of states or non-state actors.’’((Ibid.))
Needless to say, the law requires a nearly impossible analytical task of the president (i.e., the executive branch), whose job it would be to “carry out an empirical and qualitative assessment…of the extent to which Israel possesses a qualitative military edge” at least once every four years. What is meant by “defeat?” By “credible” threat? Which states could form a “coalition?” Does any Muslim state count? What “non-state actors” could be involved? What is “minimal” damage? Do we consider Iran’s progress towards a nuclear weapon? What about Israel’s known nuclear arsenal? The bureaucratic challenge presented by QME was described in a paper for the Washington Institute in early 2008, even before it became law. “Traditionally, assessing QME has been a subjective calculation based upon analyses of a variety of military, political, and social factors. The process involves input from the State Department, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the Joint Staff, the defense intelligence community, the combatant commands, and the services. At the annual Department of Defense Joint Political Military Group meeting, the Israelis typically make a presentation that includes a list of systems they deem threatening to their QME.”((https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/sites/default/files/pdf/PolicyFocus80Final.pdf))
Maintaining Israel’s QME can be a delicate balancing act for U.S. policy-makers, particularly in regard to the oil-rich Persian Gulf states, for whom money is no object. Over the years, the U.S. has “tilted” the playing field toward Israel by:
- Ensuring that Israel will be the first county in the Middle East to obtain a certain weapon system, platform, or capability.
- Ensuring that a more advanced version of a weapon system is released to Israel than to its neighbors.
- Compensating Israel with additional weaponry in return for Israel’s not opposing another sale to an Arab state.((https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL33222/49))
Among the few observable results of QME is a specific annotation for pending FMS cases to Israel and its Middle Eastern neighbors, Both the Defense Department press release and the State Department notification to Congress include the otherwise cryptic statement: “The proposed sale of this equipment and support will not alter the basic military balance in the region.” An example is provided at the endnote of a proposed 2024 sale to Israel of up to 50 fighter aircraft worth up to $19 billion.((https://www.dsca.mil/sites/default/files/mas/Press%20Release%20-%20Israel%2024-01%20CN.pdf)) Frankly, it is hard to fathom that such a massive sale would not impact the balance of power. A more candid statement on sales to Arab states (despite the undiplomatic language) would be that they would not negatively impact Israel’s military superiority over its regional neighbors.
While the actual document delivered to Congress is classified, it is safe to conclude that the executive branch bureaucrats always err on the side of caution. Yet somewhere the question is being asked – Did Israel’s QME fail on October 7, 2023? If 1200 dead Israelis are more than “minimal” casualties, where did we go wrong? Or are 48,000 dead Palestinians worth our loss? How many more billions in military aid will correct the situation?
So, while it is true that the U.S. has no formal alliance with Israel, the cost of its current self-imposed commitment to Israel far exceeds that to its several dozen alliance partners. Of course, the QME policy would be based on solid rationale if the recipient were a responsible international actor. As it is, the U.S. is supporting a nation accused of genocide in Gaza by both Amnesty International((https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-international-concludes-israel-is-committing-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza/)) and Human Rights Watch.((https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/12/19/israels-crime-extermination-acts-genocide-gaza)) A similar accusation has been made against Israel by a United Nations special committee.((https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/11/un-special-committee-finds-israels-warfare-methods-gaza-consistent-genocide)) The bias of the U.S. is so apparent that it was the only member of the U.N. Security Council to oppose a draft cease-fire resolution in Gaza last November.((https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/11/1157216))
The U.S. is now producing and exporting munitions to its “ally” Israel at a record pace in 2025, while asking few questions. It would do well to pause and recall the advice of two men of the past. The first is George Washington, whose sage farewell address to the nation in 1796 is little studied today. Washington stated that “a passionate attachment of one nation for another [e.g., Israel] produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld...” Indeed, the applicability of Washington’s remarks to the America-Israel relationship is so remarkable that a former Under Secretary of State wrote a book on the subject, entitled The Passionate Attachment.((George W. Ball and Douglas B. Ball, The Passionate Attachment (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1992). Washington’s farewell address is available online at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp))
A second man from the past worth remembering is the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. In November 1977, Sadat had the wisdom and courage to travel to Israel and initiate the first steps towards peace between Israel and the Arabs. In his historic speech to the Israeli Knesset, Sadat remarked: “As for the Palestinians’ cause, nobody could deny that it is the crux of the entire problem. Nobody in the world could accept, today, slogans propagated here in Israel, ignoring the existence of the Palestinian people, and questioning their whereabouts. The cause of the Palestinian people and their legitimate rights are no longer ignored or denied today by anybody. Rather, nobody who has the ability of judgement can deny or ignore it. It is an acknowledged fact received by the world community, both in the East and in the West, with support and recognition in international documents and official statements. It is of no use to anybody to turn deaf ears to its resounding voice which is being heard day and night, or to overlook its historical reality. Even the United States, your first ally which is absolutely committed to safeguard Israel's security and existence, and which offered and still offers Israel every moral, material and military support - I say - even the United States has opted to face up to reality and facts, and admit that the Palestinian people are entitled to legitimate rights and that the Palestinian problem is the core and essence of the conflict and that, so long as it continues to be unresolved, the conflict will continue to aggravate, reaching new dimensions. In all sincerity, I tell you that there can be no peace without the Palestinians. It is a grave error of unpredictable consequences to overlook or brush aside this cause.”((https://www.palquest.org/en/historictext/21734/address-president-anwar-sadat-knesset))
No American president since the Eisenhower-Kennedy era has treated Israel in accord with Washington’s advice in his farewell address. Likewise, in the nearly 50 years since Sadat’s famous speech, no American administration has attempted to act as an honest broker between Israel and the Palestinians. Under President Trump, we are witnessing the emergence of a Zionist axis between Washington and Jerusalem, to the exclusion of most of the world. Let us hope and pray for the wisdom and prudence called for by George Washington and Anwar Sadat.
