Israel wants out of America’s military embrace

 Some wondered if Benjamin Netanyahu had lost his mind.

The Israeli prime minister had suggested that his nation be weaned off the American military aid it had relied on for decades.

He wanted to do so within 10 years – a blink of an eye, in military planning terms – at a time when Israel could be dragged into a looming war between the US and Iran.

“We very deeply appreciate the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age,” Mr Netanyahu told The Economist magazine. “We’ve developed incredible capacities.”

The unexpected announcement posed fundamental questions: could the Jewish state survive without its long-term protector and to what extent could it rely on America in the Maga age?

Israel receives $3.3bn (£2.4bn) annually in US military aid. On top of this is a separate missile defence assistance package worth $500m a year.

For a small state with dangerous neighbours – including bellicose Iran, militarily ambitious Turkey and Islamist-run Syria – American support is crucial.

The veteran prime minister’s suggestion therefore prompted some to question his sanity.

Quietly, however, Israeli strategists wonder how far into the future they can be sure of American military support.

While Donald Trump has good reason to claim to be the most pro-Israel US president in history, the feelings of his Maga base are open to question.

For many, “America first” should mean isolationism, and spending billions of US taxpayers’ dollars on foreign militaries is anathema.

And since the rise of Maga, the Republican party is also far less dominated by the Evangelical Christian vote, a bloc long characterised by avid Zionism.

Further, a nasty strain of anti-Semitism seems to be taking hold. Senior figures such as JD Vance, the vice-president who is the bookmakers’ favourite to succeed Mr Trump, are accused of failing to condemn it.

For Mr Netanyahu and his security officials, the only things that matter are Israel’s survival and being prepared for any future regional war.

Dr Burcu Ozcelik, a Middle East security expert at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, told The Telegraph: “Netanyahu [and] the security and military planning establishment ... don’t think in election cycles, they think in decades.

“They think in terms of survival strategy and needing to be prepared for what comes next.”

Could Israel survive on its own?

Israel impresses the world with its technological ingenuity but a huge amount of its military hardware is made abroad, particularly in America.

That is true for top-end war-winning assets such as the F-35 (although Israel designs some of the systems on board the combat jet) but it is also the case for bombs, tanks and artillery shells.

The two-year war in Gaza illustrates just how heavily Israel relies on American imports.

Israel’s defence ministry says it took delivery of 90,000 tons of arms and equipment in 800 transport flights and 140 seaborne consignments from the US between October 2023 and May 2025.

Among the urgent consignments approved by the Biden administration in the early months of the war were one for 14,000 rounds of tank ammunition worth $106m and another for 155mm artillery shells worth $147m.

The workhorse munitions of the attritional urban campaign were US-made. They included Boeing Defence, Space and Security’s GBU-39 bomb, the Raytheon-produced Paveway family of bombs and the various Joint Direct Attack Munitions guidance kits (also by Boeing).

Under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in 2016, these weapons and munitions were paid for by Israel, but with cash provided by the US government.

The agreement obliges Israel to spend most of the money in America.

In the decade before 2023, American weapons accounted for 65.6 per cent of total military imports to Israel. Germany was the next biggest exporter at 29.7 per cent, and Italy third with 4.7 per cent.

For US defence manufacturers, which enjoy significant political influence, this is a highly agreeable arrangement.

Israel spend huge sums on weapons each year and uses them in its many wars, providing priceless advertising.

The double strikes by laser-guided bombs that brought down high-rise buildings in Gaza City last summer and went viral, having been filmed on many phones, are an example.

Key to understanding America’s historical commitment to Israel’s security is the legal framework that puts the Jewish state at or near the front of the queue.

This includes a commitment, written into law since 2008, to ensure Israel maintains a QME (qualitative military edge) over its rivals, as well as an expedited congressional approvals process.

From patronage to partnership

Dr Raphael BenLevi, an academic at the Misgav Institute and former IDF intelligence operative, is one of those who believes Israel should end its dependence on US aid, moving from what he describes as a relationship based on “patronage” to a true “partnership”.

He believes it is eminently possible to move munitions production onshore, and indeed points out that the successive MoUs caused Israel’s domestic defence industrial base to wither because it was easier to buy from Uncle Sam.

Dr BenLevi argues that the added cost to Israel’s military budget of forgoing the US aid would be manageable. By some calculations, it would add around 10 per cent.

However, Dr BenLevi argues that it is better to calculate the cost of doing without American aid as a percentage of Israel’s GDP – currently 0.7 per cent, he says, with the proportion to get smaller if the country’s economy grows as forecast.

“At the macro level, when you look at a 10-year draw-down, I think it’s clear that this is a feasible step,” he says.

Having a largely homegrown munitions industry would certainly give planners peace of mind in the nightmare scenario of a prolonged state-on-state war in which the US withheld its support.

Gaza has shown that cutting-edge technology means little without deep stocks of conventional ammunition.

No one is suggesting, however, that Israel stop purchasing its best-in-class combat jets and helicopters from abroad – the US approved the sale of 30 Boeing Apaches only this week.

Even if Israel wanted to build them at home instead it would take more than a decade to establish that capability to a competitive standard.