Obama administration approves major new aid package for Israel despite disagreements

The Obama administration on Tuesday announced a major new 10-year package of security assistance for Israel despite sharp disagreements between the two allies.

The agreement, a “memo of understanding,” is to be signed Wednesday at the State Department, which called the deal “the single largest pledge of bilateral military assistance in U.S. history.”

Officials said the package will increase U.S. aid from about $3.1 billion a year to as much as $3.8 billion a year.

The deal emerged in prolonged negotiations that followed a public rift between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the nuclear deal with Iran, the Palestinian peace process and other issues.

Officials in both countries had said the deal was near completion for some time. However, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, had criticized the package and indicated that he believes Israel should receive more aid.

Until Tuesday, the White House was reluctant to announce the deal if there were a chance Graham would try to undercut it.

President Obama is eager to put the aid in place before he leaves office in January, however. Analysts said he wants his legacy to show a strong commitment to Israel’s security independent of his clashes with Netanyahu.

Netanyahu plans to visit New York next week to attend the annual United Nations General Assembly. Officials have not said if he will meet with Obama.

Obama administration officials say U.S. security cooperation with Israel has reached record levels over the last year despite the disputes with Netanyahu’s government.

The new U.S. aid package would be the largest ever to a single country. It will allow Israel to buy high-end U.S.-made military hardware to help it maintain a clear technological advantage over its foes.

Palestinians and other critics of Israel complained that the new aid package and its decade-long duration, from fiscal year 2019 to 2028, essentially rewards the Netanyahu government despite its expansion of much-criticized settlements in the West Bank and other points of contention.

“Israel will not be held accountable [for] anything,” Basel Ghattas, an Arab member of Israel’s Knesset, or parliament, said recently in Washington.

But the State Department responded that actions the Obama administration may not like, such as settlement expansion, have to be “compartmentalized” from the United States’ “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security.”

Israeli critics of the aid negotiations say Israel could have have gotten a more generous aid package if Netanyahu had engaged in talks last year when Obama was trying to secure Israel’s backing for a nuclear deal with Iran.

“The aid has important symbolic value. If the aid is seen as going down, or not going up significantly, it will be seen as a barometer of Israel’s position in Washington,” said Jonathan Rhynold, a professor of political science at Israel’s Bar Ilan University and an author of a book on U.S.-Israeli ties.

After an initial deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program was concluded in April 2015, Obama publicly appealed to Israel to start talks aimed at boosting security cooperation and expanding military aid.

“That was very clear language: Let’s sit down and talk about what we can do for you,’’ said a diplomat familiar with the often-fraught relationship. ‘“The prime minister didn’t want to engage, so the issue lingered.’’

Analysts said Netanyahu, who was waging a campaign in the U.S. Congress to block the Iran deal, delayed the aid talks to avoid the appearance of giving up his opposition in exchange for more assistance.

“We could have and should have obtained a more generous package that better answers our needs,’’ Uzi Arad, a former national security advisor to Netanyahu, said in a June interview with the Israeli financial website Calcalist.

Amos Yadlin, a former chief of Israeli military intelligence and the director of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, said Israel’s decision to pass up a deal last year was “mistaken” and that it hurt Israeli security interests.

Under the terms of the new package, Israel will no longer be able to spend one-fourth of the U.S. aid for purchases at Israeli companies — a change that could be a blow to the country’s defense industry.

The Obama administration also insisted -- to Israel’s chagrin -- that the country it will no longer be able to rely on Congress to approve funds separate from the aid package.

Some Israeli officials speculated that Obama’s successor may be inclined to offer the Israelis a better package, and one of Graham’s arguments was that the president has no business effectively removing the issue of appropriations from Congress.

Beyond the aid package, the two governments still have not formulated a joint policy on Iran following the nuclear deal.

Obama has insisted that the deal, under which Iran has mothballed or destroyed most of its nuclear infrastructure, has made Israel safer by removing the nuclear threat for at least a decade.

A number of Israeli security officials apparently agree. Over the last year, they have muted their public criticism of the Iran deal and warnings of a looming nuclear threat.

The relative silence reflects Israel’s recognition that it’s too late to block the accord and that the threat of Iran using a nuclear weapon has indeed become more distant.

“The nuclear challenge is far away right now. They recognize it’s not something that’s going to erupt in the next five years. They have other things on their plate,’’ said Mike Herzog, the former head of strategic planning for Israel’s Defense Ministry and currently a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Israeli officials and the defense establishment still consider the Iran agreement problematic, Herzog said. They worry that Iran could still seek to become a nuclear power after terms of the deal expire, and that it is still developing ballistic missiles.

Israel’s focus for now has shifted to the other impact of the nuclear deal: The easing of international economic sanctions has given Iran money to help Syria’s President Bashar Assad as well as Hezbollah, its Lebanese Shiite ally.

Special correspondent Mitnick reported from Tel Aviv.