RUTHFULLY YOURS

The United States and Israel have signed a deal that will provide $38 billion in foreign aid for Israel, all of it for defense spending, over a 10-year period beginning in 2017.

This averages out to $3.8 billion per year, which is about $700 million more annually than the $3.1 billion per year Israel received before the deal was signed.

The new agreement includes foreign aid appropriation for the first time, funds for missile defense, which in recent years was an additional appropriation of approximately $500 million, made by Congress on an annual basis. In total, the agreement seems to provide Israel with $200 million more per year, $3.8 billion versus $3.6 billion. It turns out that as the discussions between Israel and the U.S. were taking place, Congress had decided to appropriate $3.4 billion of regular foreign aid, plus an additional $600 million for missile defense in 2017, or $4 billion in total, $200 million higher than the level for 2017 and later years within the framework of the new memorandum of understanding.

The new deal contains a few provisions that are unique and certainly new in the history of U.S. military aid to Israel. One provision the Americans fought hard for was that all of the money allocated to Israel must be spent in the United States. The shift to 100% spending in the U.S. will be gradual: Under the current understanding, Israel was able to convert some 26% of the funds into shekels, to be used for procurement in Israel. Starting in the sixth year, however, that percentage will gradually decline, until by the 10th year Israel will have to spend all the funds in the U.S.

Israel’s chief negotiator, Jacob Nagel, said that if under the current memorandum of understanding some $7.8 billion could be spent in Israel, under the new understanding that number will drop to $5.6 billion. He stressed, however, that this will occur gradually, and that the defense establishment will continue to receive roughly the same amount of money from the U.S. that it has received up to now until 2026, which will give it plenty of time to prepare for the new reality.

The most remarkable provision in the new agreement concerns the limitations on Congress to appropriate any more money for Israel. Congress has the power of the purse, and the president can not send money to any country for foreign aid that Congress does not provide. The new agreement, however, requires Israel to refuse any additional funds that Congress might choose to appropriate for Israel in 2017 and 2018, beyond the memorandum of understanding limit of $3.8 billion per year.

Bloomberg columnist Josh Rogin argues that the limitation is unprecedented: “In an unprecedented arrangement, the White House and the Israeli government have found a way to prevent Congress from increasing U.S. aid for 2017 and 2018. The Israeli government has pledged to return any money given by Congress above the memorandum of understanding levels for those two years.”

The agreement does not provide such “reimbursement of the excess” language for the following eight years, but such a concept for even two years is not sitting well with some members of Congress, who see it as an attempt to shift power from Congress to the White House. If, for instance, Israel were to be drawn into another war with Hezbollah or Hamas in the next two years, Congress would almost certainly seek to provide the assistance Israel might require, beyond the current commitment, particularly for missile defense. The memorandum of understanding allows Israel to ask for more in the event of war, but the definition of a war could become an issue.

In general, there is more bipartisanship in Congress on spending money to help Israel than almost anything else on its table these days. Other issues concerning Israel have, by and large, also been historically bipartisan. Meanwhile, the 2015 Iran nuclear deal was unanimously rejected by Republicans and endorsed by 85% of Democrats, a quarter of whom boycotted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress, including Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s current running mate. It is unclear whether opposition to the two-year give-back provision will be one that members of both parties fight, or just the Republicans. One might think that a president pressuring an Israeli prime minister to refuse to accept financial support for his country’s military from Congress, which historically has been more consistently supportive of the U.S.-Israel relationship than the White House), would draw a sharp rebuke from members from both parties.

As another academic year begins at American colleges and universities, one can expect to see a continuation of the pattern in recent years in which many Jewish students either take a neutral stance in the face of the currently rampant campus assault on Israel or actually join in the assault.

Among the latter, some embrace the self-described “pro-Israel” but, in fact, Israel-bashing campus incarnation of J-Street, while others go further and enlist in the ranks of groups less coy than J Street, groups that, for example, more unambiguously promote the boycott, divestment and sanction (BDS) agenda against Israel.

These include the explicitly anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). A number of Jewish students even join the cadres of the often openly anti-Semitic Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), founded as an offshoot of the General Union of Palestinian Students and now the premiere BDS-cheerleading, Israel-demonizing organization on American campuses.

Significant voices in the Jewish community, looking at this phenomenon, and perceiving as well in some quarters beyond the universities a decrease in American Jewish identification with Israel, correlate these developments with supposed Israeli government failure to take steps towards advancing peace.

This argument has been made by, among others, Gary Rosenblatt, editor and publisher of The Jewish Week, a newspaper produced with the support of the UJA-Federation of New York.

In an article that appeared earlier this year under the title “Frustration with Israel Growing Here at Home,” Rosenblatt discusses what he reports as having heard from members of the Jewish community, including community leaders, of grievances against Israel. Seemingly topping the list, and reflecting a view clearly shared by Rosenblatt, is “The hard fact… that Israel’s leadership is moving in a direction at odds with the next generation of Americans, including many Jews, who want to see greater efforts to resolve the Palestinian conflict and who put the onus for the impasse on Jerusalem.”

In the same vein, Rosenblatt observes, “Whether or not it is fair, the strong perception today is that the Israeli government is moving further right, and intransigent…” And “One national leader told me he’d like to fly to Israel, with a group of his top colleagues, to try to convince Netanyahu in dramatic fashion of the need for ‘a plan, any plan’ to break the impasse.”

And while these statements are couched as representing what Rosenblatt has heard from others, it is in his own voice that he states near the end of the piece “… Netanyahu and his government will continue to make decisions based on their own narrow and immediate political interests, and we can only hope they will coincide with national interests as well.”

The obvious implication is that the author does not see the prime minister as having been acting in Israel’s national interest, and that – reflecting the thrust of the article – Rosenblatt is referring specifically to the prime minister’s not being forthcoming enough in the quest for peace.

But can the falling away from Israel observed among many Jewish students on American campuses and among others in the American Jewish community genuinely be correlated with Israel’s not doing enough to advance peace?

First, is it true that Israel is responsible for the impasse vis-a-vis peace?

Any objective look at the history of efforts to achieve peace and at the reality on the ground today can only conclude that the claim of Israeli culpability is not credible.

Palestinian leadership is currently divided between Hamas, which rules Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas, which governs in Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank.

Hamas is openly dedicated not only to the killing of all Jews in Israel but all Jews worldwide. With Israel’s total withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the Palestinians living there were free to turn the territory into another Singapore or Hong Kong and would have had wide Arab world and other support for doing so. That their leaders have chosen instead to eschew pursuing the building of a prosperous state for the sake of hewing to their genocidal priorities can hardly be blamed on Israel and cannot be remedied by any Israeli concessions.
The agenda of the Palestinian Authority differs little from that of Hamas. Abbas and his PA and Fatah associates insist on Israel’s illegitimacy and assert constantly that Jews have no historical, authentic connection to the land and are merely colonialist usurpers whose presence must be extirpated. The message hammered in their media, preached in their mosques, and taught in their schools is lurid defamation of Jews and the promotion of dedication to Jew-killing and to Israel’s destruction as the obligation of every Palestinian.

Abbas himself has repeatedly insisted that he will never recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state within any borders. He has rejected every offer of territorial compromise because proposals of a settlement have been conditioned on such Palestinian recognition of Israel and explicit acceptance of an agreement as a final status document. He and those around him refuse to forego future additional claims against Israel with the ultimate objective of the Jewish state’s dissolution. This was the same reason why Arafat in 2000 rejected Ehud Barak and President Clinton’s offers of a settlement and instead launched his terror war against Israel.

It is no secret that the U.S.-Israel alliance has been under a severe strain for the last eight years, principally due to the non-friendly and often hostile positions of the Obama administration. The United States and Israel have had their differences under previous administrations and, at times, there were sharp disagreements but they rarely made it to the front pages. This is because leaders of both nations understood that disagreements, to the extent that they existed, were best addressed behind closed doors and away from prying eyes.

Obama changed all that during his first year in office with his infamous apology tour when he went to the Mideast to visit various Muslim countries to apologize for contrived wrongs and deliberately skipped over Israel despite the fact that he was a mere 20-minute plane ride away. It was a spiteful snub designed to show the Israelis and Arabs that Obama intended to fundamentally change the nature and dynamic of the U.S.-Israel alliance. The snub was followed by additional indignities including shabby treatment by the Obama White House of visiting Israeli dignitaries and guttural name-calling by anonymous White House aides. The person (likely Ben Rhodes) responsible for hurling the “Chicken-sh*t” vulgarity was never disciplined.

Obama’s plan to realign America’s alliances backfired miserably. He expected Israel to grovel but under the steady stewardship of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel did not cave into the pressure. Instead, Israel sought new alliances forging strong bonds with India, Africa, the Balkan countries and various eastern European countries. Relations also warmed between nations harboring traditional enmity toward Israel, like Russia and China.

By contrast, the Muslim world spiraled further into medieval backwardness. Arab nations that were spared the chaos brought upon by the so-called “Arab Spring” sought new alliances. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf nations watched as a feckless Obama appeased the Islamic Republic and allowed the mullahs to run amok and have their way. They too moved closer to Israel as a result.

The next president will be presented with daunting Mideast challenges. ISIS, the catastrophic Iran deal, Iran’s regional meddling and the Muslim migrant crisis. The list seems endless but there is one thing the next president can and must address upon assuming office and that is to reset the U.S.-Israel alliance. These two great democracies share ethical values and strategic interests, and the alliance must be strengthened for the sake of regional stability and moral clarity.