A More Resilient Alliance

For decades, American military assistance has been a foundation of Israel's security. Israel acquired advanced weapons, while the United States strengthened a close ally and connected Israeli requirements with American production. But a strategic arrangement should be judged not only by what it delivers, but also by the vulnerabilities it creates.

The case for change is not that Israel no longer needs America. It plainly does. Israel benefits from American technology, intelligence, logistics, and industrial scale. Nor can Israel replace every American platform or component domestically. The question is whether Israel should remain financially dependent on an assistance framework increasingly exposed to political changes in Washington.

Support for Israel is contested on both sides of the American political spectrum. On the Democratic left, criticism of military assistance has grown. On the Republican right, the America First movement questions foreign commitments and overseas spending. These currents are not identical, nor do they represent either party as a whole. But they make one point unavoidable: Israel cannot assume today's political consensus will endure.

The current Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) provides $3.3 billion annually in Foreign Military Financing, alongside approximately $500 million for cooperative missile-defense programs. Against Israel's 2026 defense budget, the total represents roughly 8 percent. That is hardly pocket change. Its immediate disappearance would be painful, requiring difficult budgetary choices and likely affecting procurement and force development. But it is also a manageable proportion of national defense expenditure. Israel has the economic capacity to absorb that responsibility, provided it does so over time rather than overnight.

And there is a precedent for precisely this kind of transition. The current MOU gradually eliminates Israel's ability to spend American assistance on domestic procurement, reducing the offshore procurement allowance until it reaches zero in 2028. This was not an overnight change. A similar approach could be used to phase out the assistance itself over several years, allowing Israel to adjust its defense budget, develop domestic production capacity, and restructure procurement commitments without creating a sudden financial shock.

Yet the existing model has less visible costs. Much of the financing is tied to American purchases. The gradual elimination of offshore procurement has encouraged Israeli companies to manufacture in the United States to serve the assistance-funded market. That creates American jobs, but can also produce a paradox: an Israeli-designed system, manufactured in America, may require American export authorization before it can return to Israel when urgently needed.

The experience surrounding the SPICE precision-guided weapon during the October 7 war illustrates the risk. SPICE, an Israeli precision-guided munition kit, is built in Florida and then sent to Israel. When Israel attacked Rafah, against the wishes of the Biden Administration, re-import of the weapon into Israel was prohibited, leaving the IAF without one of its most important weapons. In defense, availability is as important as capability. The issue is not simply where a factory stands. It is who controls the supply chain, who authorizes delivery, and whether a system developed for Israel will be available when needed. A country should not discover in wartime that its financing mechanism has added another approval point between it and essential equipment.

What is needed is a paradigm change. A different relationship would preserve American cooperation while changing its financial logic. Israel and the United States should expand joint research, development, and production where both benefit. Israeli companies should compete as suppliers to American defense contractors and the Pentagon, bringing expertise in missile defense, sensors, electronic warfare, active protection and counter-drone systems into American programs. Such contracts can generate revenue and recurring business for Israeli industry.

But collaboration is not automatically a windfall. Israel cannot replace aid with open-ended obligations to co-finance American projects. Nor should it trade away Israeli intellectual property or export rights. Any new framework must specify ownership, production locations, emergency access, and export approvals before development begins.

The objective is not separation from America. It is a more resilient alliance: less dependent on grants, more reciprocal in technology and industry, and better prepared for political uncertainty. Israel should want America to remain its most important defense partner. It should value American technology, intelligence, industrial cooperation, and diplomatic support. But it should not want its ability to defend itself to depend on whether the next president or the next Congress is willing to write a check.

The strongest alliance is not one in which one partner pays the other's bills. It is one in which each has something the other needs, and both are ultimately stronger because they work together.

Good things,

Ari Sacher