It’s no wonder that one well-known regional expert we consulted, who served in high security-related positions in the U.S. government, was horrified when we proposed ending American aid to Israel. When we asked which of our arguments were overstated or mistaken, this person answered: “None of them. But my job is to represent the American interest. Aid to Israel is the biggest bargain we have on our books. Ending it would be a disaster for us. I just don’t see who it benefits.”
We do. The alternative to this unequal relationship based on dependence is a more forthrightly transactional relationship, which would allow Israel to benefit economically, diplomatically, and strategically. It might also, we believe, diminish the current American infatuation with treating the Jewish state as a moral allegory in U.S. political psychodramas, rather than as a tiny country in the Middle East with its own local challenges and considerable advantages to offer the highest bidder. The current hyperpolarized atmosphere around Israel is not good for anyone—not for an America whose political class is looking to distract people from its own failings; not for a majority of the world’s Jews who live in Israel; and not for American Jews, who have come to identify their civic role with serving as props in an expiring piece of political theater. When the curtain comes down, they’ll find themselves without a role—and cut off from the 3,000-year-long Jewish historical continuum that is, or was, their inheritance.
Ending aid would not mean the end of the U.S.-Israeli military alliance, intelligence sharing, trade, or any mutual affinity between the countries. Rather, it would allow both sides to see what each is getting in return for what. In the words of retired IDF Major General Gershon Hacohen: “Once we are not economically dependent on them, the partnership can flourish on its own merits
