Israel is redefining its ties with the US

Should Israel abandon its reliance on US military aid and enlarge its already substantive arms industry?

These pivotal questions have arisen as Israel’s popularity in the United States has plummeted and as voices in the US Congress, primarily Democrats, have demanded a halt to the sale of offensive weapons to Israel.

Criticism of Israel has become increasingly louder and more frequent since its war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, which produced a torrent of accusations that the Israeli armed forces committed genocide during its campaign there from 2023 onward.

On the day of the November 3 midterm elections in the United States, U.S. President Donald Trump waded into this acrimonious debate when he dropped a bombshell. Trump said that his administration would stop nearly $4 billion in annual military funding to Israel, its chief ally in the Middle East, by the end of this year. He claimed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on board with his proposal.

Trump explained that his announcement was designed to remove a “bad talking point” from “lunatics” critical of such assistance. He was presumably referring to progressives in the Democratic Party and hard right elements in the “Make America Great Again” faction in the Republican Party.

A day later, Vice President JD Vance doubled down on Trump’s comments. He said that the Democratic sweep, which led to Republican losses in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, required the United States to end the Iran war and alter Washington’s special relationship with Israel.

Asked whether he agreed with Vance’s analysis, Trump replied, “I don’t disagree with it.”

On November 9, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio added his voice to the debate by saying that Israel is prosperous enough to buy U.S. weapons and no longer needs to rely on American aid packages.

Despite Rubio’s clarification, it remains unclear whether Trump, a mercurial and erratic politician, will follow through. According to a report in the Times of Israel on November 13, he intends to continue providing military aid to Israel in the final two years of his presidency.

Such assistance would be channelled through the $38 billion memorandum of understanding, which was signed by President Barack Obama in 2016 and which is up for renewal in 2028.

Israel and the United States opened talks on renewing it this past June. The Israeli side is led by Amir Baram, the director of the Ministry of Defence, and by Yechiel Leiter, the ambassador to the United States. The lead U.S. negotiators are Daniel Holler, a senior adviser at the State Department, and Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel.

At this fraught moment in U.S.-Israel relations, it is by no means certain whether the memorandum of understanding will be renewed, diluted or altered. Reports suggest that it may evolve into a reciprocal partnership that will enable Israel to continue developing independent production capabilities without losing access to critical American components and technologies, including fighter aircraft engines.

A new memorandum of understanding faces challenges.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, a progressive from Maryland, has called for a termination of “the ‘blank check’ of American taxpayer support for the government of Israel.” In a letter to the congressional leadership, he and eleven other Democratic senators expressed opposition to expanded U.S. defence cooperation with Israel. He explained that the policies of Netanyahu’s right-wing  government, especially in Gaza and the West Bank, “are increasingly undermining U.S. interests and values.”

Until this year, when Israel’s military cooperation and coordination with the United States reached unprecedented levels with their joint attack against Iran, the idea of terminating or substantially reducing U.S. military aid to Israel was unheard of.

Times have changed, as Hady Amr, a former U.S. State Department official who worked on Palestinian issues, told The New York Times earlier this month. “This is a transformative moment in the U.S.-Israel-Palestine relationship,” he said. “The U.S-Israel relationship is going to be dramatically different.”

It already is different.

Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader in the House of Representatives who is due to become its speaker in January, advocates a significant overhaul of U.S.-Israel relations. “The status quo is unacceptable, and we need dramatic change,” Jeffries said on November 12. He was referring to Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza.

Two Jewish senators, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Jon Ossoff of Georgia, already have voted to ban certain weapons to Israel. Still others, like Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, agree with their position.

And in the latest twist, the newly elected Democratic senator from Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, the first Muslim to win a seat in the U.S. Senate, has called for a stoppage of U.S. arms sales to Israel.

Jon Finer, who was President Joe Biden’s deputy national security advisor, shares their view. Democrats should use U.S. aid as leverage to alter Israel’s policy over settlements in the West Bank and its partial occupation of Gaza.

To a certain degree, Netanyahu and Trump are on the same page regarding the issue of ending U.S. military aid to Israel. Netanyahu’s caveat is that this process should unfold over a decade rather than over the next two months.

Netanyahu originally alluded to this issue at a ceremony at the Hatzerim air force base on December 24, 2025, when he announced an investment of approximately $110 billion over the coming decade to build a bigger Israeli arms industry.

Netanyahu’s plan was largely based on the conclusions of the Nagel Committee. Its author, Jacob Nagel, a former army general and a national security advisor, said that Israel should not be as dependent on the United States for equipment such as shells and armored fighting vehicles, but that Israel would have to continue to rely on America for fighter aircraft along the lines of the F-16 and the F-35.

Nagel said that the effort to expand local production should be focused on aerial munitions, where Israel faced delays and restrictions from the Biden administration during the Gaza war. Biden delayed the shipment of 2,000-pound MK84 bombs and 500-pound MK-82 bombs.

Britain and Canada, meanwhile, froze or cancelled export licenses to Israel for air-to-ground bombs.

According to the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Israel is a world leader in the arms industry and is thus not entirely dependent on foreign weapons. Israel’s defence exports in 2025 reached $19.2 billion, a record and an increase of about 30 percent compared to the previous year.

Prior to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI), later renamed Israel Aerospace Industries, delivered Nesher fighter-bombers to the Israel Air Force. A locally assembled derivative of the French Mirage V, the Nesher performed well in the war, particularly in an air superiority role.

Several years after the war, the IAI began manufacturing Kfir fighter-bombers for the IAF. The Kfir, too, was a successful aircraft. Its later versions were acquired by foreign buyers such as Colombia. During the mid-1980s, the IAI built prototypes of the Lavi fighter-bomber, an advanced aircraft. In 1987, however, the Israeli government cancelled the Lavi program.

“Since the early 1970s, then, Israel has possessed the technological and industrial wherewithal to produce high-quality fighter-bombers,” says the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. “Be that as it may, Jerusalem has consistently refrained from doing so.”

The reasons for this are three-fold. First, the United States has provided Israel with substantial numbers of state-of-the-art fighter-bombers to maintain its air superiority.  Second, Washington has opposed the development of an advanced Israeli fighter-bomber out of fear that it could negatively affect foreign sales of its own fighter-bombers. Third, the production of an advanced fighter-bomber in Israel would be costly and place a great burden on the Israeli economy.

But in light of recent trends in the United States, Israel would be wise to consider manufacturing its own fighter-bomber, advises the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

“Given the imperative that Israel should reduce its dependence on foreign arms, and given the potential unreliability of the United States as a patron in the future, it is incumbent upon Jerusalem to urgently consider producing an advanced fighter-bomber locally. Technologically, industrially, and economically speaking, Israel definitely possesses the capabilities to design and build such an aircraft.”

David Rodman, an independent defence analyst in Israel, believes such a strategy is unavoidable.

“To put it bluntly, Jerusalem needs to activate a ‘doomsday’ plan to confront the very real prospect that the Israeli Air Force could one day … find itself without access to an adequate supply of advanced fighter-bombers. The time to activate such a plan is now, not once disaster is already on the doorstep. Why not begin today to phase out its current complete dependence on the United States for advanced fighter-bombers by moving ahead with the design and manufacture of a similar blue-and-white aircraft, a Lavi 2.0 so to speak?”

As the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies points out, Israeli companies already manufacture major components of the U.S. F-35 stealth aircraft, including wings and pilot helmets. “The designing and building of an airframe, engine, and all the other components that go into an advanced aircraft are well within the country’s reach.”

Acutely aware that the political climate in the United States is changing, much to Israel’s detriment, Israel is leaning toward self-reliance, judging by themes recent Israeli contract announcements.

On November 20, 2025, the Ministry of Defence signed a contract with Rafael to manufacture more Iron Dome missile defence platforms. A few months later, the same company was awarded a contract to increase the production rate of Arrow interceptors.

Elbit Systems, in January and April of this year, signed agreements with the air force to manufacture aerial munitions. And in March, Elbit Systems won a contract to make 155 mm artillery shells.

In terms of diversifying procurement sources, Israel is pursuing a program of joint production in India and importing components from the Far East, while simultaneously seeking to reduce dependence on the United States with respect to armored vehicles and ground munitions.

The Alma Research and Education Center in Israel warns that Israel’s dependence on the United States for fighter aircraft is not likely to vanish in the near term. It is therefore important for Israel to build alternative supply sources, alongside efforts to preserve its alliance with the United States.

In short, Israel should not rely on “the goodwill of decision-makers in Washington” to defend itself in the next war. This sounds like a call to arms for Israel to redefine and reshape its historic relationship with the United States.