WASHINGTON/ AMN
United States has agreed to supply Israel with military aid for the next 10 years in a record 38 billion dollars deal – the largest in US history.
“The United States has concluded a new 10-year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Israel on security assistance for Fiscal Years 2019 through 2028. This MOU constitutes the single largest pledge of bilateral military assistance in U.S. history” said Us state department release.
The pact will elevate US aid to Israel from 3.1 billion dollars a year currently to 3.8 billion dollars, officials say, but the Israelis had to make concessions to secure the money. The agreement, to be signed today, follows 10 months of talks. It was approved despite frustration within the Obama administration at Israeli settlement building.
US State Department said the agreement, which replaces a 10-year package set to expire in 2018, constitutes the single largest pledge of bilateral military assistance in US history. Israel will receive, among other things, 500 million dollars a year for missile defence programmes. But the pact includes an undertaking that Israel will eventually spend all of the funds through the American defence industry, rather than its own military contractors.
The United States was the first country to recognize Israel as a state in 1948. Since then, Israel has become, and remains, America’s most reliable partner in the Middle East.
Israel and the United States are bound closely by historic and cultural ties as well as by mutual interests.