On September 14, the United States and Israel signed a ten-year Memorandum of Understanding under which Washington will provide $38bn in military assistance over the fiscal years 2019-2028. The new MOU extends the current one that was signed in 2007 and expires in 2018, enabling Israeli military planners to make even longer-term acquisitions and bolster their technological edge in a turbulent region. Among other things, the money will allow Israel to update its air force fleet by purchasing additional F-35 joint strike fighters.

The MOU is an important signal of American support for Israel’s security in the years ahead — in fact, the United States has no comparable arrangement with any other country. The agreement is also a message to Israel’s adversaries that Washington’s support for its ally remains uniquely deep, despite recent policy disagreements.

The 2007 MOU allocated $30bn over the course of a decade, which translates to $3.1 billion in foreign military financing (FMF) annually. Israel’s entire defense budget this fiscal year is $15.5bn, so the U.S. assistance is approximately a fifth of what Jerusalem spends on its own military. According to a White House fact sheet, the new MOU figure is $3.8bn per annum, “disbursed in equal increments of $3.3bn in FMF and $500m in missile defense funding each year for the duration of the understanding”.

Read the full article at the Washington Institute.