Congress has passed a $576 billion Defense Appropriations bill for 2016 with a wide and bipartisan majority: 282-138, according to Defense News. The Obama administration takes issue with various parts of the bill, including presenting a six-page memo specifically calling for the elimination of Congress’s allocation of $635 million for Israel.
The money for Israel includes $268.7 million in R&D for U.S.-Israel cooperative missile defense programs; $72 million for the procurement of Iron Dome; $150 million for the procurement of David’s Sling; $120 million for procurement of Arrow III; and $42.7 million for U.S.-Israel anti-tunnel cooperation.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said the administration opposed the funding increase for Israel because it “would consume a growing share of a shrinking U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s budget… Additional support for Israel means fewer resources that are available for critical U.S. programs at a time when the missile threat from North Korea, in particular, is increasing.”
Here’s a thought for Adm. Kirby and the administration: Man up.
Fund U.S. missile defense programs – and the rest of the U.S. defense budget — at levels appropriate to the threat America faces without shortchanging an ally facing broad, increasing and unremitting threats.
How did we get here?
Thirty years ago, Israel was invited to join President Reagan’s missile defense program by LTG James Abrahamson, the first director of the Strategic Defense Initiative Office (SDIO). It was a serious philosophical leap for the IDF, which had until that time understood the only response to rockets and missiles to be offensive — hence escalatory. If Hizb’allah fired one at Israel; Israel fired two in return until the “international community” sought a ceasefire. Uzi Rubin, former director of the Israel Missile Defense Organization (IMDO), explained in inFOCUS Quarterly:
The IDF high command was generally skeptical about the strategic value of active defense, and doubted Israel’s defense industries’ ability to master the required technologies. This skepticism was mirrored by the media and elaborated on by civilian military analysts. Only shock and dismay from missiles and rockets hitting Israel’s undefended population centers in 1991 (the Gulf War) and 2006 (the Second Lebanon War), coupled with Iron Dome’s successful defense on the Gaza front brought a change of heart…