Amid an uncharacteristically fraught relationship between two allies with a pledge of “no daylight,” the U.S. has signed a historically large military aid package with Israel just months before President Barack Obama is set to leave office.
Even though there is no love lost between Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister determined that signing the $38 billion deal now was better than holding out for the unknown of a Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump administration.
“He probably realized that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. He got a significant increase in assistance,” said Aaron David Miller, a vice president and Middle East scholar at the Wilson Center. “The Israelis wanted this … To let it slip it would have hurt [Netanyahu] much more than it would have hurt our outgoing president.”
The current agreement doesn’t expire until 2018, but negotiations to replace it have been ongoing for nearly a year. The new Memorandum of Understanding was officially signed Wednesday in Washington and gives Israel $3.8 billion a year for 10 years, including $5 billion for missile defense. That money had previously been given to the Israelis separately by Congress and was not a part of the official MOU.
Israel is the largest recipient of American military aid in the world, and the MOU is the largest military aid package the U.S. has ever given.
Netanyahu didn’t get everything he wanted in the military deal: He had to agree that Israel wouldn’t lobby Congress for additional missile defense funds, as well as allowing the phasing out of an agreement that had allowed Israel to prioritize its own defense industry when spending the aid money, rather than buying from American companies.
But that was still better for the Israelis than waiting to see what a possible Trump administration could bring.
“They do, in part, believe that he’s unpredictable and they don’t know what to expect, which is another reason I don’t think you see a lot of Israeli intervention in politics right now,” Miller said of the Republican presidential nominee. “I think the Israelis are confused, I think they’re nervous.”
Trump has said frequently he “loves Israel” but has also sent mixed messages when it comes to Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. In March, Trump said he would make Israel pay for defense aid.
Netanyahu would find no such unpredictability in Clinton, whom he worked with when she was secretary of state.
“Netanyahu knows what he’s getting with Hillary. He’s seen and worked with her before,” Miller said of the Democratic Party’s nominee. “As a Clinton, she’s not inclined to put Bibi in a corner. That’s not who she is.”
In 1993 former president Bill Clinton successfully brokered the Oslo Accord between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which set up the framework for a future peace agreement. But despite attention to the topic throughout his two terms as president, he was unable to cinch a deal in the Camp David negotiations in 2000. Since then, subsequent American peace efforts have failed.
Clinton said in a statement Wednesday that she would work to implement the agreement as president and that “America’s commitment to Israel’s security must always remain rock-solid and unwavering.”
“The agreement will help solidify and chart a course for the U.S.-Israeli defense relationship in the 21st century as we face a range of common challenges, from Iran’s destabilizing activities to the threats from ISIS and radical jihadism,” Clinton said.
Whoever becomes the next president, the Obama administration’s agreement ensures Washington keeps its commitment to help Israel maintain its “qualitative military edge” over others in its volatile neighborhood.
“America’s commitment to Israel’s security is unshakeable,” Obama said in a statement released Wednesday. “Over the past eight years, my administration has time and again demonstrated this commitment in word and deed.”
While support for Israel has long been a bipartisan issue in Washington, Netanyahu doubted Obama’s “unshakeable commitment” when the U.S. agreed last year to a nuclear deal with Iran which the Israeli prime minister opposed. Netanyahu waged an unprecedented campaign against the deal, breaching diplomatic protocol in lobbying hard against it and further alienating his country’s staunchest ally.
Relations between the two leaders were already chilly, not helped along by Obama’s public calls for Netanyahu to stop settlement building in the West Bank, which the U.S. considers to be counterproductive to a two-state solution.
In thanking Obama Wednesday for the aid package, Netanyahu called the disagreement over the Iran deal “disputes you have between family,” an expression both the Americans and Israelis are fond of using to refer to the very public spat.
“This agreement demonstrates the simple truth that the relationship between Israel and the US is strong and powerful,” Netanyahu said.
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