Should the U.S. Leverage Aid to Israel?

By Steve Sheffey

All the credible Democratic candidates for president support a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, a two-state solution, and security assistance to Israel. All oppose the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

In the waning days of his presidency, President Obama finalized a Memorandum of Understanding with Israel that provided a record $38 billion aid package to Israel over ten years. Two Democratic candidates suggested leveraging aid to Israel to discourage unilateral annexation at last week’s J Street conference.

Mayor Pete Buttigieg said that we “have mechanisms…to make sure U.S. taxpayer support for Israel doesn’t turn into U.S. taxpayer support for a move like annexation.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said that “If Israel’s government continues with steps to formally annex the West Bank, the U.S. should make clear that none of our aid should be used to support annexation.”

Both Warren and Buttigieg spoke in terms of annexation, not settlements. Neither explained whether they would cut aid to Israel if Israel annexed parts of the West Bank or if they would adhere to the MOU but somehow prevent U.S. aid from funding annexation — and if the latter, how they would determine which components of aid were used in connection with annexation.

None of this matters if Israel continues its present policy of not annexing any of the West Bank. Unilateral annexation of any of the West Bank would be a radical departure from decades of Israeli policy. Talk of leveraging U.S. aid could encourage a new Israeli government to refrain from annexation and obviate the need to leverage anything. If a future Israeli government chooses unilateral annexation, it will be for Israel to weigh the security costs of annexation in light of any aid changes.

Psychological insight: When a man who has been prime minister for 20 years never attempts to unilaterally annex any of the West Bank, chances are it’s because he does not want to unilaterally annex any of the West Bank. We are talking about a hypothetical U.S. response to an unprecedented shift in Israeli policy.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) focused on Gaza, but he too was short on specifics.

Vice President Joe Biden strongly disagreed with Sanders.

Leveraging aid to Israel has been the norm, not the exception, throughout the U.S.-Israel relationship. Ron Kampeas reminds us that “withholding loan guarantees to Israel commensurate to what it was spending on settlements was American policy from George H.W. Bush’s time through the era of his son, George W. Bush. Who actually ended that policy? Barack Obama. Prior to the implementation of that policy, presidents from Truman through Reagan leveraged aid to influence Israeli policy in a variety of spheres. (I think the only exception is Lyndon Johnson, who withheld nothing from Israel.)”

If you voted for any candidate who won the presidency (other than Johnson, Obama, and Trump), you voted for a candidate who leveraged aid to influence Israeli policy. Ask yourself why you nevertheless cast that vote as you think about the policies articulated by today’s candidates.

Why the focus on changing Israeli instead of Palestinian policies? The new book by Dennis Ross and David Makovsky, Be Strong and of Good Courage, answers this question, although their book is not a response to these Democrats on Israel; my guess, based on their previous work, is that they might share Michael Koplow’s concerns about the efficacy of conditioning aid.

Ross and Makovsky write that “Some may ask why are we focused only on Israeli leaders; don’t Palestinians need leaders to make historic choices and decisions? The answer is a resounding yes. But, given Palestinian succession, that is becoming less and less likely — and in the meantime a binational outcome is likely to emerge and be impossible to disentangle. Zionism was always about self-reliance. It was about shaping the Jewish national fate, not leaving it to others. It was about Zionist leaders acting to define the character of the Jewish state by their own actions and not by default.”

A two-state solution is essential for Israel because “Israel runs the risk of losing its very identity as a Jewish and democratic State, the essence of the Zionist mission. Its current path leads in only one direction: a binational, Arab-Jewish state. The analysis of Israel’s leading demographers make clear that, should Israel continue to occupy the entirety of the West Bank, it will change the demographic balance between Jews and Arabs, with a Jewish majority shrinking to the point where Israel will become one state with two peoples. In such a circumstance, it will have to choose between one law applying to all or two laws and two different standards for two peoples; therein lies the threat to Israel’s character and identity.”

Then why doesn’t the Israeli public seem more concerned? Ross and Makovsky explain that for many Israelis, demographic trends are an abstraction while Palestinian hostility is real.

“Why risk it seems to be the default position of many in the Israeli public, particularly when the current reality seems sustainable and not especially costly. It is not a surprising or unreasonable position. But that is not the whole explanation. The more fundamental explanation may be that Israel’s governing coalition has been dominated by a constituency — very much a settler constituency — that denies there is even a problem or a danger of becoming a binational state.”

Where does the U.S. come in? We cannot blind ourselves to where unchecked settlement growth or annexation could lead. If Israel does not preserve its character as a Jewish, democratic state, it risks “a critical loss of support for Israel in the [American] Jewish community.”

Ross and Makovsky conclude that “Perhaps the right wing in Israel believes that the evangelical Christians and the Orthodox Jewish community are the only support they need in America to preserve the relationship and the level of U.S. support. If so, they are kidding themselves. That is not the base that has actively lobbied Congress and produced strong congressional support for Israel. What’s more, a base that narrow will ensure that Israel loses its bipartisan support, which is what has made Israel an American — not a Republican or Democratic — interest. Sooner or later the political pendulum will swing, and losing broad-based support would come back to haunt Israel.”

Where do we go from here? The U.S. has strong security and moral reasons for continuing to support Israel. Continued settlement growth, let alone unilateral annexation, jeopardizes Israel’s existence as a Jewish, democratic state. That’s not good for Israel or the U.S. Is it unreasonable for the U.S. to ask that aid it provides to Israel not be spent on activities deemed contrary to U.S. interests?

Implicit in what some candidates are saying is the assumption that Benjamin Netanyahu, who has contributed to the politicization of U.S. support for Israel, will be prime minister in 2021. A new Israeli prime minister might work more constructively with a new president — or Bibi himself, should he remain in office, could use new U.S. policy to justify not moving forward on annexation.

Many of us, including me, don’t like the idea of telling Israel how best to spend its money. Yet many of us, including me, are uncomfortable funding activities that could jeopardize Israel’s security and weaken support for Israel in the U.S. We know that the current administration is creating a world less safe for the U.S. and Israel. The Democratic candidates with records on Israel have proven their support for Israel. Let’s evaluate their policies on the facts.

Steve Sheffey is Strategy and Policy Adviser to the Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA) and the publisher of the weekly Chicagoland Pro-Israel Political Update. Sign up for his newsletter here. The views expressed here are his own.