Israel’s Dependent Force: Why US Military Aid Is Irreplaceable

A packed hall in New York is abuzz with anticipation as the new democratic candidate, a young senator from Illinois, walks to the podium. His commanding voice rings out over the anxious crowd, “the bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable today, tomorrow and forever.” The audience erupts in a raucous applause. The speaker is Barak Obama, the audience is AIPAC, and the year 2008. Far from unbreakable, the next eight years would be characterized by an incredible strain on the bond between the two states and would herald the end of the Democrats’ unconditional support for Israel.

On May 9, 2024, those were the conditions when Israelis awoke to the headlines that the Biden administration was withholding weapons from Israel. While the move was more symbolic than punitive, it opened a wound in a relationship that has always been defined by ideas and symbols.

Israeli fears may have been calmed by Donald Trump’s victory. However, the period of uncertainty left many Israelis reeling as the extent of their dependence on the United States was exposed. While many now look to a future in which Israel must stand completely alone, such individuals may not understand the impossibility of such a future. While America has become Israel’s strongest ally, the two countries have not been bonded from birth.

In 1948, US President Harry Truman led his country to become the first to recognize the newly independent Jewish state. Yet, in Israel’s time of greatest need, the United States answered their calls for weapons with an arms embargo. In a bizarre scene, only three years after he Holocaust, the IDF would rush into battle firing Nazi rifles provided by Czechoslovakia, while avoiding enemy fire from British guns.

Eight years later, in 1956, a furious President Eisenhower forced a resolution through the United Nations condemning Israel’s invasion of the Sinai in response to an Egyptian blockade. Israel complied but was richly compensated by their closest ally, France, in the form of Israel’s greatest weapon, the nuclear bomb.

By 1963 things had changed. The French, exhausted from their attempts to hold on to their colony in Algeria, sought to ingratiate itself with the oil-rich Arab world. France, who had been Israel’s largest arms supplier, ended the partnership. US President Lyndon B Johnson walked into that vacuum within the context of the Cold War. While Israel would fight the Six Day War in British tanks and pull off history’s most stunning air victory in French fighters, it was American political cover that sheltered the Israeli fighting spirit. When Syrian tanks rolled into the Golan and Egyptian commandos crossed the canal on Yom Kippur six years later, it was American Phantoms that flew raids over Damascus and American Pattons that would surround the Egyptians in the Sinai.

From that point, the United States was far more supportive of the Jewish State, but it wasn’t until 1987 that they officially consecrated their relationship, with Israel receiving the status of Major Non-Nato Ally (MNA). MNA status allowed Israel to receive investment for its defense industry, purchase top-of-the-line American equipment, and enable cooperation between Israeli and American companies.

This new relationship would give birth to the modern IDF including Iron Dome, the Arrow, as well as the entirety of the modern Israeli Air Force. All of this was made possible by the United States. Congress funded half of the Arrow’s initial $2.4 billion price tag and gave $2.9 billion for the Iron Dome, more than 10 times Israel’s $210 million investment in the project. In exchange for the funding American companies get jobs, 50% of Israel’s Arrows and 70% of its Iron Dome interceptors are made in American factories.

In October 2024, Israelis watched with delight as Israeli Air Force (IAF) fighters cruised unchallenged over Tehran’s skies. Yet while Israel may have been the main actor in that show, it was an American production. Bristling with the world’s most fearsome platforms, the IAF has reigned supreme in the region, striking Israel’s enemies in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq. But for every hour of deterring Israel’s enemies in the skies, comes five more on the ground maintaining the weapons with exclusively American components.

The IDF has always been conscious of this dependency. In the 1970s, the Israeli “lion cub,” the Lavi jetfighter, roared over the Holy Land. Yet with mounting costs during Israel’s economic crisis, the cub would never be raised to maturity and was put to rest in 1987, replaced with an American F-16. When the Lavi was cancelled, its creator, Israel Aircraft Industries, laid off more than 4,000 employees, including over 1,500 engineers, equivalent to the United States losing 220,000 aerospace workers. While the death of the Lavi has become a symbol of Israel’s lost independence, even during its test flights, the Lavi was being kept in the air by 40% American components.

Even if Israel wanted to revive an independent program, the initial cost of the Lavi was in the billions, development of state-of-the-art modern planes are in the hundreds of billions. Development costs for the American F-35 was closer to Israel’s GDP than to its defense budget, and that takes into account a pre-existing industry more than ten times the size.

This is not to say the IDF is entirely an American production, Sinwar’s was killed by a shell shot from an Israeli Merkava tank. Combat soldiers ride into Gaza protected in Israeli Namers, hunting Israel’s enemies with Israeli Tavors grasped in their hands. Yet the bullets, shells, and bombs that turn Israel’s enemies from threats to dust, are not made in Israeli factories, especially after 14 months of constant war.

The IDF is shockingly independent for a country of Israel’s size, but military independence is not possible, nor is it necessarily desirable.

Since 1949 Israel has received 228 billion in US military aid. Military industries are limited, and while Israel is known for doing the impossible, being specialized in every field of military development is outside of what it can do alone. With the rising power of Turkey and other Arab states, it is unlikely the IDF would be the undisputed strongest army in the region today if it could not purchase American weapons, work with American companies, or receive funding from Congress.

The American-Israel relationship is far from one-sided. Israel is a strong ally in a strategically vital region, it is the regional superpower and one of the world’s most advanced economies. Americans rely on Israeli intelligence in many of its regional operations. The United States may have been the main actor in the assassination of the head of the IRGC Qassem Solemani, but Israel was an integral part of the production.

Despite the moral grandstanding by many nations, Israel’s strategic value remains high not only for the United States but globally. If the United States were to cut the “unbreakable bond,” Israel would not remain friendless for long.

Israel may be dependent, but it is also strong, and while Israel should look into expanding some areas of its military independence, the “unbreakable bond” will not break any time soon.