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U.S.-Israel Relations: Beyond the Military Aid Agreement

(Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies-Bar-Ilan University) Jonathan Rynhold - From the U.S. perspective, the new military aid agreement reflects the fact that Israel remains an important, powerful and reliable ally, with superb intelligence capabilities. In a very unstable Middle East and with the U.S. less inclined to play an assertive interventionist role in the region, Israel's value as a strategic asset is clear. The aid, in fact, constitutes an indirect subsidy to American arms producers, because Israel will have to spend all of it in the U.S. While U.S. military aid to Israel is valuable, it is less significant than other aspects of the strategic relationship. Those include the American commitment to maintaining Israel's qualitative edge, intelligence co-operation, and U.S. diplomatic support for Israel at the UN. None of these elements will be directly affected by this agreement. Prof. Jonathan Rynhold is director of the Argov Center for the Study of Israel and the Jewish People, and deputy chair of the department of political studies, at Bar-Ilan University.
2016-09-30 00:00:00
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