Every year, critics ask the same question about the roughly $3 billion in American military assistance to Israel. What does the United States get for it?
This week provided a reminder.
For decades that funding has supported joint missile defense systems, intelligence sharing, aircraft integration, cyber capabilities, and deep operational coordination between the two countries. American and Israeli militaries train together, build systems together, and prepare for the same threats.
The result is something unique in the Middle East.
The United States maintains major bases across the Gulf. American ships patrol the region. American aircraft fly from Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait. But the United States has no bases in Israel.
It does not need them.
Israel itself functions as one of America’s most capable strategic partners in the region. Its fighters, intelligence networks, cyber units, and missile defenses are deeply integrated with American systems and strategy.
When Washington faces a threat like Iran, Israel is already positioned on the front line. Already armed. Already aligned.
That alignment was built over decades. American assistance helped develop some of the most advanced missile defense systems in the world. Israeli intelligence cooperation has repeatedly protected American lives and interests. Joint technology programs have shaped modern air defense, battlefield awareness, and cyber security.
There are many countries that receive American aid. None return value like this.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East whose military doctrine, intelligence culture, and technological infrastructure are so closely integrated with that of the United States that they can effectively act as a unit to dismantle the military capabilities of the leading state sponsor of terrorism which has sworn to destroy both countries.
It is one of the most effective strategic investments the United States has ever made.
The sadistic massacre committed by Palestinian Arabs from Gaza on October 7 will impact the emotional and mental health of Israelis for a generation. That thousands of Palestinians could enter Israel and rape, mutilate and burn alive 1,200 people, brought back closeted inherited memories of the atrocities of the Holocaust and pogroms for Israelis and global Jewry. That Palestinians cheered the event and a majority support the heinous attacks, has scorched the sensibilities of Israelis, a trauma of the past that they will carry every day.
Palestinian leaders remain in control of Gaza and broadcast that they are committed to repeating the massacre, that “there will be a second, a third, a fourth because we have the determination, the resolve and the capabilities to fight…. We are not ashamed to say this, with full force. We must teach Israel a lesson and we will do this again and again.” The deep-seated evil ideology makes Israelis fear for their future.
Outside of Israel, hearing college professors say that they were “exhilarated” by the mass rape and butchering of Jews and felt “jubilation and awe” at the attacks has infused terror into the hearts of diaspora Jews, the 55% of global Jewry who live outside of their homeland in the land of Israel. Jews see that the attackers are not just Gazans but their global supporters.
For Jews, October 7 was a continuum of thousands of years of antisemitism brought forward to today and tomorrow. After centuries of instilled knowledge that nothing has ever appeased anti-Jewish zealots, Jews around the world look at the Israeli Defense Forces – a new army which was absent for 2,000 years – to reshape their future.
Israeli Defense Forces sing Israeli national anthem of “Hatikvah”, “The Hope”
For Palestinian Arabs, the IDF is their sworn enemy. Raised to believe that Israeli Jews are an illegal occupying force who stole Arab land, the IDF represents the boot on their necks enabling that crime to continue. As they watch tens of thousands of Gazans die and their infrastructure get obliterated by that army, they seethe in the present.
So despite the clear military trouncing of the Palestinian army of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the local Arabs are optimistic for their future. They are playing the long game and believe that Israel will soon cease to exist. In a June 2023 poll, “two-thirds say Israel will not celebrate the centenary of its establishment, and the majority believes that the Palestinian people will be able in the future to recover Palestine and return its refugees to their homes.”
The Islamic jihadists in the region believe that the IDF and Israeli Jews are evil but temporary. They see the tidal wave of global support crushing the “occupation army” and sweeping Jews from the region. The United States is Israel’s last column of support, and Islamic extremists see it buckling in the polls. With the help of Iran, Qatar and Turkey, they see a “liberation” of their land before Israel celebrates its 100th birthday.
Palestinians take dead Israeli bodies as trophies as part of October 7 atrocities
The IDF is the perceived game-changer for global Jewry, a chance to fight the toxic and violent antisemitism that has been killing Jews for thousands of years. It is the instrument to terminate their collective trauma and protect the ability to coexist in peace.
That same IDF is viewed by Palestinian Arabs and their supporters as deeply evil, causing a “genocide” of Gazans who, in their view, just want to live in peace in their land: everything from the River to the Sea, devoid of Jews.
Cornell University professor Russell Rickford celebrating the October 7 raping and slaughter of Israeli Jews
October 7th is fading in the world’s memory and is losing influence on opinions and policies. There is declining empathy for the ongoing Jewish trauma, as people focus on the latest body count of Palestinians. As part of that transition, the IDF is becoming the story as intended by the jihadists. The anti-Zionist extremists believe that neutering the Israeli army is the pathway to alleviating Palestinian trauma and perpetuating Jewish suffering.
Hamas might soon fade from public discourse. The political-terrorist force will blend into a new organization, having met its primary goals: the end of American support of the IDF as the pathway for the destruction of Israel. The political-terrorist group always knew that it could never defeat Israel militarily; its war mission was to weaken American support for the Jewish State, for its jihadi allies in Iran, Syria and Lebanon to strike the fatal blow.
ACTION ITEM
Write your politicians to maintain military aid to Israel to not only confront the Palestinian army but Hezbollah, Syria and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
First One Through 