Israel should plan on a future with no U.S. military aid

As I argued here, it’s a sad commentary on both of our political parties that Congress has not yet passed legislation that provides military aid to Israel. I assume, however, that the two parties will eventually get this done.

But for how much longer can Israel count on this form of U.S. support? My sense is that within two decades or less, we will no longer be appropriating money to help Israel counter the military threat posed by those who are out to destroy it.

As the current crisis illustrates, appropriating money for Israel typically will require the support of both Democrats and Republicans. Right now, that support exists in Congress, which is why I expect an aid package to pass one of these days.

But within two decades or less, Democrats probably will have turned decisevely against Israel. The process has already started, as this op-ed by leftist Democrat Perry Bacon shows.

A lengthy war in Gaza will accelerate the process, but that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that the rising generations of Americans are reflexively anti-Israel.

Polls have made this clear. As of a few days ago, Democrats as a whole were evenly divided on the question of whether the U.S. should send military aid to Israel and whether their sympathies are with Israel or the Palestinians.

And don’t be fooled by claims that this shift away from supporting Israel by Democrats is the result of Israel’s military response to the massacre of October 7. Polling from months before the massacre and response showed the shift in sympathies of Dems.

But here’s what’s most worrying for those who count on continuing bipartisan support for Israel. According to this poll from last week, only 32 percent of respondents age 18-34 approved of Israel’s war effort in Gaza, compared to 58 percent of those age 50 and older. The poll sampled both Democrats and Republicans. Support for Israel’s response is surely much lower than 32 percent among Democrats in this age group.

Given the generational split, I expect that within two decades or less, we won’t be seeing any more of those “situation in Middle East badly splits Democrats” stories. Instead, the story will be “Republicans and Democrats badly split on situation in Middle East.”

With the support of only one of our two parties, it will extremely difficult for the U.S. to assist Israel. One can, of course, come up with scenarios in which military aid could be delivered — e.g., control by the GOP of both chambers of Congress and the presidency, plus an end to, or a workaround of, the Senate filibuster.

But Israel shouldn’t count on this. Instead, it should start planning for a future with no U.S. military aid.

What can Israel do to cope with such a future? I’m not sure, but here are two possible answers.

The first is austerity. In the future I’ve described, Israel will have to devote vastly more of its own resources to military spending. Doing so will, I imagine, lower the standard, or at least the quality, of living.

That would be hard for Israelis (or any other modern population) to tolerate. The Israel my wife knew as a child was quite austere. The Israel I first visited 40 years ago was austere by Western standards.

But those days are long gone. Today, Israelis are used to living the way we do in the West. Belt-tightening may not be in the cards.

My second thought is that Israel might not need to rely on U.S. military aid if the Iranian regime can be toppled (assuming no similar regime comes into existence elsewhere in the region). It might be the case that without the Iranian threat — both direct and via proxy — Israel could defend itself without a heavy reliance on U.S. aid.

I believe the future security of Israel might well already depend on toppling the Iranian regime — probably through military means and hopefully with the assistance of the U.S. under a Republican president. If I’m right about the likelihood of Israel losing U.S. military backing, it seems to me that the Jewish state’s security almost certainly will depend on toppling the mullahs.

Finally, some will argue that there’s another way for Israel to guarantee its future security — the two-state “solution.” It seems unlikely that many of our readers subscribe to this fantasy, so I’ll just make two quick points.

First, I very much doubt there will be a state for Palestinians within the next two decades.

Second, a Palestinian state would make Israel less secure because that state would be more able to wage war against the Israelis than current Palestinian entities are. And given the unquenchable desire to create a Palestine “from the river to the sea,” just as willing.