President Barack Obama on Wednesday renewed his call for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and argued that it was crucial to Israel’s security, using the completion of a new agreement to provide $38 billion in USA military aid as an occasion to prod Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a long-running dispute.
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The US has agreed to supply Israel with military aid for the next 10 years in a record $38bn (£28.bn) deal – the largest in US history.
She emphasized at today’s signing ceremony in Washington, D.C., that the “MOU underscores the USA will always be there for the state of Israel and the Israeli people – today, tomorrow, and for generations to come”.
The American-Israeli deal requires at least $3.8 billion in annual aid, up from $3.1 billion per year under the current pact, which expires in 2018.
Those include Israel’s promise not to seek additional funds from Congress beyond what will be guaranteed annually in the new package, and to phase out a special arrangement that has allowed Israel to spend part of its U.S. aid on its own defence industry instead of on American-made weapons, the officials said.
But some lawmakers on Capitol Hill voiced displeasure with several provisions of the deal, including one that prevents the government of Israel from using funds to purchase military equipment from Israeli suppliers.
The negotiations were conducted despite the acrimonious relationship between USA president Barack Obama and Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, which reached a new low when Mr Netanyahu publicly campaigned against last year’s Iran nuclear deal and addressed a special session of Congress to outline what he perceived as the dangers the deal posed for Israel and the entire Middle East.
The United States and Israel have finally closed the unprecedented, $38 billion military aid deal which the two nations have been negotiating for months, senior officials announced from Washington on Tuesday.
Official signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, is scheduled for Wednesday morning and comes after months of negotiations.
Israel must also not seek additional funds from Congress beyond what will be guaranteed annually in the new package. In the past, funding for Israel’s missile defense was provided in addition to the existing military aid of the agreement.
Washington has warned that Netanyahu’s policies are putting at risk hopes of an eventual peace deal.
“The next decade of American military support for Israel is spelled out in a memorandum of understanding our countries have been discussing in recent months”, United States ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said this week. “I want to thank President Obama and his administration for this historic agreement”.
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Obama’s relationship with Netanyahu has been tense for years, and ties between the countries worsened significantly when the USA and world powers struck the nuclear deal with Iran. Israel considers a nuclear-armed Iran to be a threat and disagreed sharply with Obama’s contention that the deal made Israel safer by limiting Iran’s nuclear program. President Obama was unwilling to budge on the issue and as a result, Netanyahu fears for the economic well-being of Israeli defense firms that rely heavily on revenue from the American largesse.
