Fixing Israel’s ‘Achilles Heel’: Heritage Offers Blueprint for New Strategic Partnership with the US

WASHINGTON, D.C. – National security experts at the Heritage Foundation say a new strategic landscape is taking shape in the Middle East, and they believe now is the time to reorient the U.S.-Israel relationship to an equal strategic partnership.

The two nations currently have what’s considered a “special relationship.” First established by President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, every 10 years, the U.S. commits to a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which lays out how much security assistance will be provided to Israel for its defense.

The current MOU expires in 2028, and according to Robert Greenway, the Director of the Allison Center for National Security at Heritage, it’s the perfect opportunity to forge a new relationship.

“We just celebrated the 75th anniversary of Israel, and we’ve had a relationship since the beginning and were instrumental in the founding of the State.  Heritage wanted to chart a course for the next 25 years to get to the 100-year anniversary,” Greenway told CBN News.

In a new report, Heritage lays out a blueprint for expanding ties with Israel, taking the relationship from one of dependence to the kind of strategic partnership we have with only our closest allies.

“Steps should be taken by Israel and the United States to ensure that Israel is autonomous and independent and not dependent on the United States for critical munitions,” said Greenway.

As a part of the Heritage strategy, by 2048, Foreign Military Financing would be replaced with Foreign Military Sales. Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, has been pushing for this kind of transition for years, calling Israel’s reliance on U.S. weapons a sort of “Achilles heel.”

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“I was the only member of the Israeli government to vote against the Obama package of 2016-2017, and precisely for this reason. I thought that if you ever get into war, someone’s going to say to us, ‘Well, you’re doing things that we don’t like, and we’re going to hold up ammunition.’ And that’s just what Obama did during the 2014 battle between Israel and Hamas, and that had a big impact on me, I must say. And I thought, ‘Oh, if we’re ever in a bigger war, this could become a much bigger problem.’ And in fact, it was,” Oren told CBN News.

Oren, pointing to the pause of weapons by the Biden administration during Israel’s current war on Hamas over concerns about IDF operations in Gaza.

The former ambassador voiced support for the new Heritage strategy, which advises the Trump administration to use the next Memorandum of Understanding to begin advancing Israel’s independence.

“If in a Trump MOU, a large segment of that money would not be just for the acquisition of arms, but for building these cooperation programs, or investing in joint research institutions, staffs, that type of investment, I think would be a very good use of that money,” Oren said.

Greenway says Washington should also continue to grow security and commercial ties between the Jewish State and its Arab neighbors.

“If we can work with Israel to expand the Abraham Accords and reduce the threat from Iran surrogates and proxies, we could reduce the commitment on the Israeli side and the United States side for common defense. But we recognize that this is an aspiration, but it’s something that we have to work together to accomplish, and we’re putting a time horizon out there toward the 100th anniversary. So we’re covering 25 years,” he said.

Greenway points to how Israel used to rely on U.S. economic assistance until a plan was put in place for that to end so Israel could flourish on its own. Now their economy is one of the highest performing in the Middle East. In the years to come, he expects the same to be true for defense.