Israel Ready To Sign New U.S. Military Aid Deal ‘Soon’
Image by Getty Images
JERUSALEM — Israel is ready to sign a new 10-year Memorandum of Understanding on security assistance with the United States “as soon as possible.”
The acting head of Israel’s National Security Council, Brig. Gen. (Res.) Jacob Nagel, will travel to Washington, D.C., on July 31 for meetings with his U.S. counterparts with the purpose of “signing a new MOU between the two countries as soon as possible,” the Prime Minister’s Office announced Monday in a statement.
“Israel places great value on the predictability and certainty of the military assistance it receives from the United States and on honoring bilateral agreements,” the statement said. “Therefore, it is not in Israel’s interest for there to be any changes to the fixed annual MOU levels without the agreement of both the U.S. Administration and the Israeli government.”
The current memorandum, which expires at the end of 2017, guarantees Israel $3 billion annually in assistance. The new agreement is widely expected to be significantly larger, though most of the aid can only be spent in the United States.
In April, 83 U.S. senators signed on to a letter sent to President Barack Obama urging him to substantially increase defense assistance to Israel. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, the declared Democratic vice presidential nominee, did not sign the letter. Neither did Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, who waged a strong underdog challenge in the Democratic presidential primaries against presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton.
Reports have said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government wants as much as $5 billion per year over the next 10-year period, while the Obama administration reportedly is prepared to reach close to that amount if it includes missile defense cooperation, which is now considered separately and amounts to nearly $500 million.
Netanyahu had walked back earlier comments saying he was willing to wait until a change in U.S. administration to take place in January.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
