Aid as Political Leverage

In the spring of 2026, Israel and the United States conducted joint offensive military operations against Iran: coordinating targets, dividing airspace, and operating with a degree of integration that has no precedent in the history of the alliance. The operation significantly degraded Iran's military capabilities, and it marked what many analysts regard as a genuine turning point, not just in the regional balance of power, but in the nature of the American-Israeli relationship itself. For decades, that relationship had been structured as a powerful patron supporting a dependent client. What the Iran war suggested to some observers is that Israel has—at least in part—outgrown that structure.

That is the backdrop for a debate that is now live in both Jerusalem and Washington: what should American military aid to Israel look like when the current memorandum of understanding between the two countries expires in 2028? The U.S. currently provides Israel with approximately $3.5 billion annually in grants, earmarked for the purchase of American-made military equipment—an arrangement that dates to the aftermath of the Yom Kippur War and that has been renewed, and periodically enlarged, ever since. For most of that period, the case for the aid seemed self-evident. First the Arab states, and then Iran and its proxies, were actively threatening Israel's existence. American military and diplomatic support was an indispensable buttress of Israel's security. Whether that case remains self-evident today, in the wake of a war that has significantly diminished Iranian capabilities, is now a serious question being debated by Israelis and Americans of good faith, with thoughtful arguments on multiple sides.

In this episode, Mosaic's editor Jonathan Silver speaks with a proud Israeli patriot who has been making the case for ending American aid for some time. Dr. Raphael BenLevi is a senior fellow at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, director of the Churchill Program for Statecraft and Security at the Argaman Institute in Jerusalem, a reserve officer in the IDF intelligence branch, and an occasional contributor to Mosaic. He recently published an essay in Foreign Affairs titled "America Should Be Israel's Partner, Not Its Patron."

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