End Israel’s U.S. Allowance So Both Can Gain: Celestine Bohlen

The crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations isn’t going away. If anything, it keeps getting worse, precisely because it has exposed and crystallized a gap between the goals, expectations and even the national interests of these old allies.

The basic relationship may still be “rock solid,” as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it recently, but it is being tugged in opposite directions. Maybe now is the time to take money out of the equation.

Israel will get $2.7 billion in military aid from the U.S. this year -- or 18 percent of Israel’s military budget. By 2013, that will lock into an annual level of $3.15 billion for five years. It also has almost $4 billion outstanding in available U.S. loan guarantees, left over from $9 billion extended at former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s request in 2003.

That makes Israel the largest recipient of U.S. aid in the world, if you don’t count Iraq and Afghanistan. It also benefits from some of the easiest terms: Unlike other recipients, which must buy 100 percent American, Israel can spend about one quarter of its U.S. military aid at home, which amounts to a significant boost to its defense industry.

The problem with this kind of largess is that it muddies the picture, both for Israel and the U.S. The best thing for the relationship would be for the U.S. to cut Israel’s allowance.

U.S. Pressure

Under that scenario, Israel could pay less heed to U.S. pressure and do what it thinks it must for its own national security. Many would argue that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing that anyway. The difference would be that the U.S. wouldn’t be there to help pay for it.

Housing blocks for Jews in East Jerusalem? Pursuit of terrorists in the Gaza Strip, even in southern Lebanon? A security fence that rings the whole country? If this strategy makes Israel feel more secure, maybe it should just pursue it and not complain about “restraints” imposed by the U.S. More