AIPAC-—American Israel Public Affairs Committee
U.S. Security Assistance to Israel-—Briefing Book
The United States has long defined Israel’s survival and security as important to its own national interests. Israel helps the United States meet its growing security challenges through close cooperation and a range of innovative technologies. Through executive commitment and legislative action, America provides Israel with annual security assistance that helps the Middle East’s only democracy defend itself—by itself—against mounting security threats.
History and Terms
The United States has supported Israel politically since its reestablishment in 1948. But it was not until the late 1960s that it began to regularly provide security assistance to the Jewish state. Since then, America has consistently provided Israel with security assistance to help it stay strong and deter its enemies.
U.S. security assistance to Israel promotes our national security and our economy, and helps our ally defend itself against growing threats.
Security Assistance: By means of its annual foreign aid, U.S. security assistance to Israel is the most tangible manifestation of American support for the Jewish state. Assistance primarily takes the form of funding for Israel to purchase the arms needed to defend itself from its adversaries.
QME: A core element of U.S. policy is to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge (QME)—the ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat while sustaining minimal damages and casualties. In 2008, Congress wrote America’s longstanding commitment to Israel’s QME into law and required the president to continually assess whether it is being maintained.
Memoranda of Understanding: In 1998, the United States and Israel signed their first 10-year “Memorandum of Agreement on Security Cooperation” to increase security assistance to Israel while phasing out economic aid. Under the agreement, the United States committed to providing Israel $21.3 billion in security assistance. In 2016, America committed to provide $38 billion under a new 10-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
Serving American Interests
U.S. provides security assistance to key allies around the world. Current law ensures this aid can only be used for “internal security, for legitimate self-defense.”
Anchor of Stability: In an increasingly uncertain Middle East, Israel is the one stable democratic ally upon which America can consistently depend. Cooperation between the two countries in intelligence, homeland security, missile defense and counterterrorism has helped the United States meet its growing security challenges. U.S. support for Israel helps deter regional conflict by making clear to potential foes that they cannot defeat the Jewish state.
Israeli Innovation: As a result of the strong friendship between Israel and the United States, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the U.S. military share technologies and techniques that greatly benefit both nations.
Israel has pioneered cutting-edge technologies in cyber defense, unmanned vehicles, sensors and electronic warfare systems, and advanced defenses for military vehicles. In addition, Israeli battlefield medical technologies have saved countless American lives. The innovative use of U.S. military equipment by the IDF, coupled with shared know-how, has helped the U.S. military improve its own equipment and tactics.
Stockpiles: Established in the 1980s, the War Reserves Stock Allies-Israel program consists of up to $3.4 billion of U.S.-owned and -managed weapons and equipment stored in Israel for use by the U.S. military. The IDF may access these reserves during emergencies, if authorized by the U.S. government.
Crucial to Israel’s Security
Mounting Threats: The ongoing instability gripping the region directly threatens the Jewish state. To its north, Israel faces Hezbollah in Lebanon and a growing Iranian presence in Syria; to its south, Israel faces Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Gaza while ISIS-affiliated terrorists roam the Sinai Peninsula; to its west, militant terrorist groups are gaining strength in the West Bank. Israel’s greatest threat remains Iran, which is attempting to surround the Jewish state with terrorist proxies while developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons.
Increasing Costs: To deal with the region’s mounting threats, Israel—a tiny nation the geographic size of New Jersey—has been forced to spend more on defense as a percentage of its GDP than any other nation in the industrialized world. The rising costs of advanced weaponry only compound Israel’s challenges. For example, a single F-35I “Adir” Joint Strike Fighter will cost Israel more than twice that of an F-16I fighter jet purchased under the first U.S.-Israel aid agreement in 1998.
THE WAY FORWARD
As part of its strategic alliance with Israel, the United States has agreed to provide security assistance through 10-year MOUs. Beginning in 2019, the new MOU stipulates an annual sum of $3.3 billion in foreign military funding and $500 million for cooperative missile defense. Congress must now fulfill this commitment by legislating full funding as called for in the MOU. Congress must also work to expand joint innovation, ensure Israel’s QME and consider upgrades to the value of U.S. stockpiles in Israel.
Click here to view a downloadable PDF: https://aipacorg.box.com/s/uawwyq8z73mxoejdgm3ozy66jn7bvygk
Jewish Virtual Library.org
Israel Strategic Intelligence Collaboration——Evolution of Alliance
One of the most significant contributions Israel has made to U.S. security has been shared intelligence. The truth is the United States has little alternative but to depend on Israel for much of its Middle Eastern human intelligence because the CIA’s capability has diminished. In post-revolutionary Iran, the CIA no longer had a presence and the CIA’s Lebanon station was virtually wiped out in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut. The United States relies on the Mossad and other Israeli intelligence agencies for information about terrorism, radical Islamic movements, weapons proliferation and other Middle East-related events.
For many years, Israel played a key role in assisting U.S. intelligence through the capture and transfer of Soviet weapons systems. For example, Israel supplied the United States with valuable intelligence about Soviet fighters and their avionics. This occurred as recently as 1989 after a Syrian pilot defected in an advanced model of a MIG-23 and American officials were allowed to examine the plane.
A Russian passenger plane travelling from the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh to St Petersburg, Russia, crashed in the Sinai Peninsula on October 31, 2015, killing all 224 passengers. After weeks of investigations it was determined that a bomb brought down the plane. U.S. and British intelligence services used information gathered from Israeli security sources during the investigation of the crash. Communications from terror groups in the area were intercepted by Israeli security and later given to U.S. and British investigators.
Stuxnet Slows Iranian Enrichment
In 2010, Iran announced that uranium enrichment at Natanz had stopped several times because of a series of technical problems. News reports suggested that as many as 1,000 centrifuges used to enrich uranium were damaged. It was subsequently reported that the destruction was likely caused by sabotage. In June, anti-virus experts discovered a sophisticated computer worm dubbed “Stuxnet,” which spreads via Microsoft Windows and targets Siemens industrial software and equipment used by Iran to control centrifuges used to enrich uranium at its Natanz plant.
The New York Times subsequently reported that Stuxnet is part of a U.S. and Israeli intelligence operation called “Operation Olympic Games,” initiated by President George W. Bush and expanded under President Barack Obama (New York Times, June 1, 2012). At the time the worm was reportedly infecting the Iranian machines, IAEA cameras installed in Natanz recorded the sudden dismantling and removal of approximately 900–1000 centrifuges. These were quickly replaced, however, and Iran resumed uranium enrichment (Washington Post, February 16, 2011). Although Stuxnet was discovered, it is believed that the United States, Israel and others continue to use cyberwarfare in an effort to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program.
Infiltrating ISIS
U.S. diplomats reported in 2014 that Israel has been assisting in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) by providing the United States with intelligence information, including lists of Westerners who have joined ISIS. Israel has also provided vital intelligence in the form of drones flying over ISIS territory. This information is then used to carry out air strikes and plan coordinated attacks.
In 2017, it was disclosed that Israeli cyberoperators penetrated a cell of bombmakers in Syria. Israel passed on information indicating ISIS had learned to make explosives resembling laptop computer batteries, which can evade detection by airport X-ray machines and other screening devices. The information prompted the United States to ban large electronic devices in carry-on luggage on flights from 10 airports in eight Muslim-majority countries to the United States and Britain. President Trump is believed to have revealed the intelligence to Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and the ambassador to the United States, Sergey I. Kislyak during during a meeting the Oval Office in May 2017 (David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Cyberweapons, Used Against Iran and North Korea, Are a Disappointment Against ISIS,” New York Times, (June 12, 2017).
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