By Jack Wolfsohn
Saturday, December 06, 2025
It’s a common refrain among some on the right that the
U.S.-Israel relationship is a one-way street — that it may not be worth the
cost of the annual military aid the U.S. grants to Israel. But any claim that
there is an “Israel First” mentality in Washington seeking to undermine U.S.
sovereignty and its interests in order to prop up the Jewish state is at odds
with reality. From real-time intelligence that protects American forces, to
improvements in U.S. weapons systems, to medical and agricultural innovations
that benefit Americans, Israel consistently delivers capabilities that are
materially advantageous to the United States.
From its founding in 1948 until 1977, Israel was led by a
governing coalition controlled by the left-wing Labor
Party, which embraced a quasi-socialist economic model. It featured kibbutzim, or
collective farms, state-controlled enterprises, and the Histadrut, a powerful
labor union, all of which stymied significant economic growth. The government
accepted hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants expelled from or fleeing
Arab countries who were facing legal persecution and pogroms, further straining the
economy. The U.S. originally aided Israel in the form of economic grants, which began to be phased out starting in
1998. Beginning in 1973, the bulk of U.S. aid to Israel was transformed into direct military assistance. According to a Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) signed by President Barack Obama in 2016, Israel is designated
to receive $3.8 billion in aid per year from the U.S. through fiscal year
2028. Israel is now obligated by the MOU to spend the vast majority of the funds on American defense products.
America’s aid toward Israel is not welfare, but rather an
investment. Given the CIA’s diminished presence in the Middle East since the
fall of the shah in Iran and the 1983 Hezbollah bombing of the U.S. Marine
Corps barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, the U.S. has relied on Mossad and other
Israeli intelligence arms for a vast array of human intelligence on Islamist terrorist groups, weapons
proliferation, and other national security issues in the Middle East. Jonathan
Ruhe, director of foreign policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security
of America, tells National Review that what sets Israel apart from other
countries is its combat experience. “It has close intel-sharing ties with the
U.S., but it isn’t part of the Five Eyes intel alliance. Instead, it gains
irreplicable insights from using U.S. combat systems.” Most importantly, Ruhe
said, “Israel has more experience flying the F-35 than anybody else, including
[the U.S.], and since the F-35 is a great intel-gathering platform, we can
learn a lot from Israel flying these aircraft under Russia’s S-400 envelope in
Syria, using external armaments in ‘beast mode,’ and so on.”
“U.S. assistance helps Israel develop and procure
world-class systems, from Iron Dome to the F-35, which Israel employs against
our shared adversaries,” Ruhe continues. “In the process, it gains invaluable
insights and experience which then inform and assist U.S. operations.” Indeed,
a variety of critical weapons systems from Israel have proven crucially
important to the U.S.’s military success.
The Israel-developed Trophy APS
system is an anti-missile system that is mounted on tanks to protect troops
from everything from rockets to tank rounds to small arms fire. In 2019, the
U.S. Army received the first delivery of this system to be mounted on many of
its M1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks. Other military innovations
from Israel have been boons for the U.S. as well: The Israeli-armored D9 Bulldozer, 14 of which were procured in
2003 by the U.S. Army and Marine Corps for use in Iraq, has saved countless
American lives in combat, and so has the Israeli
emergency bandage, adopted by the U.S. military in the early 2000s.
Such benefits can be quantified into dollar amounts — and
the findings are impressive. One estimate, compiled by Israeli defense experts
for Federal Newswire, asserts that the U.S.-Israeli relationship
translates into $48 billion in annual benefits for the U.S. Much of that is
from Israel’s battle-testing American military hardware and sending reports
back to the U.S., all without putting American service members at risk. The
Department of Defense asserts that actionable intelligence shared by Israel
saves the U.S. $2.6 billion annually from economic losses.
And the benefits the U.S. accrues from its relationship
with the Jewish state extend far beyond the battlefield. In the medical field,
Israeli innovations have been pivotal for U.S. health care providers and
patients. In 2001, Dr. Amit Goffer, an Israeli quadriplegic, developed the ReWalk exoskeleton, which uses motorized legs to allow
quadriplegics to walk and even run. Israel’s Corindus Vascular Robotics has been a game changer in the
cardiovascular field, utilizing the first FDA-cleared robotic system to assist
in percutaneous coronary intervention procedures. In 1998, Israeli investor
Gavriel Iddan created the PillCam, a pill-sized camera device used for
gastrointestinal diagnostics that many American gastroenterologists have
adopted. Just last month, researchers at Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion
University, and the Weizmann Institute identified an RNA molecule that can mitigate the nerve-cell damage that
causes paralysis in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). They
hope the discovery can aid those suffering from the disease.
In agricultural technology, Israel’s innovations have
yielded big benefits for the U.S. as well. The Jewish state’s drip irrigation
system technology, developed by Israeli company Netafim in the 1960s, claims to
save 70 percent more water and boost the number of crops
harvested by 150 percent compared with traditional irrigation practices. Israeli
company N-Drip uses an irrigation system that is powered by gravity and lacks
the expensive pumps and filters used in more traditional drip irrigation.
N-Drip claims its technology increases yields by 15 to 40 percent and allows farmers to
use about half the amount of water and fertilizer. In 2022, N-Drip and the
Central Arizona Project did a pilot project on the farms of the Colorado River Indian
Tribe in La Paz, Ariz., where they conserved 40 to 50 percent of water that
would have otherwise been utilized in flood irrigation. Also in 2022, PepsiCo,
which procures about 50 agricultural crops and ingredients to makes its
products, partnered with N-Drip to use the company’s technology on 25,000 acres. N-Drip and PepsiCo announced that through
their implementation of the former’s drip irrigation technology in the U.S.,
India, and Vietnam, they identified better crop yields, lowered fertilizer usage, and consumed
50 percent less water compared to flood irrigation. And in 2025, PepsiCo
launched new projects in Florida with N-Drip and Netafim to transform nearly 700 acres of sugarcane farms to drip irrigation systems.
Clearly, then, this is no time for the U.S. to turn its
back on such a vital partner. Now, the U.S., under President Trump, is
embarking on the largest missile-defense plan in the country’s history, designated
“Golden Dome” as a nod to Israel’s Iron Dome. Israel Aerospace Industries,
which engineers the Arrow Weapon System, is seeking contracts for two layers of the Golden Dome plan. This would include not
just Arrow 3 interceptors but also the creation of “kill vehicles” in space
intended to intercept ballistic missiles during the boost phase of their
flight. Iron Beam, developed by Israel to eliminate aerial threats
at the marginal cost of a few dollars per intercept rather than the estimated
$50,000 for each Iron Dome interceptor, has received financial backing from the
U.S. and could also be a part of the system. Rafael Advanced Defense Systems
President Yoav Turgeman said that there is “absolutely” a place for Iron Beam in Trump’s Golden Dome.
Again, this is an example of Israeli ingenuity, backed by American capital,
that can safeguard Americans and our interests.
Ruhe believes Israel is a great fit for Trump’s ambitious
missile-defense plan: “Israel’s success using defenses that it co-developed
with the United States naturally makes it a partner for Iron Dome. Co-producing
systems with Israel, including next-generation systems that are more
cost-effective against attritable drones and other projectiles, would be key to
Golden Dome’s goal of providing effective theater defenses for our forces and
allies overseas.”
An emerging medical innovation that could be critical on
the battlefield for the U.S. and Israel is bioengineered skin, developed by Tel Aviv University and
Sheba Tel Hashomer Medical Center researchers. Made from a patient’s own cells
to use for grafting in burn victims, this breakthrough was fueled by the war
with Hamas in Gaza. The skin technology can allegedly expedite healing,
decrease infection rates, and close wounds in half the time compared with
current methods. During the war in Gaza, at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem,
Israeli company Medtronic used an updated robotic guidance system to extract a bullet lodged in a
soldier’s sacrum, located at the edge of his spine, in order to prevent
paralysis, nerve damage, and lead poisoning. The U.S. will undoubtedly want to benefit
from such technology for the next time it deploys soldiers into combat.
Taken together, Israel’s contributions to U.S. security,
defense innovation, medicine, and agriculture reflect a deep strategic
alignment that benefits Americans in tangible ways. The partnership strengthens
U.S. deterrence, accelerates advances in critical technologies, and expands the
tools available to America’s military without exposing service members to additional
risk. The U.S. receives far more from this relationship than it spends —
concrete advantages that America cannot achieve on its own. Israel, known as
the “Startup Nation,” has a disproportionate number of successes. A tiny
country the size of New Jersey, Israel ranks among the top in the world, per capita, in startups,
unicorn companies, venture capital, and research and development. Israel represents
the future of innovation, and it is battle-tested. The United States must
ignore the voices calling for an end to its special relationship with the
Jewish state. This is a partnership the U.S. would be foolish to jeopardize.
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