Dollars all the way: How the US has ‘financed' Israel over the years
The United States stands behind Israel as the nation exchanges strikes with Iran. Donald Trump has demanded Iran's unconditional surrender (https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1935016621569179804/photo/1) and has even explicitly threatened Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei (https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1935016557224050887/photo/1).This is in line with the US backing Israel for years, both economically and militarily. According to the US Foreign Assistance database, Israel has been receiving American aid since 1951. In the initial years, the aid was entirely economic.advertisementIn 1951, Israel received just $0.96 million in economic obligations from the US. This assistance continued throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, averaging between $0.4 and $0.6 billion annually. Military aid remained absent or negligible during this period.
A shift began in the early 1970s. In 1971, military aid rose sharply to $3.20 billion, while economic assistance stood at $0.33 billion. By 1974, following the Yom Kippur War, military aid spiked to $12.45 billion, overtaking economic assistance, which remained at $0.26 billion. This marked the beginning of a long-term trend in which military assistance became the dominant form of US support to Israel.
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After 2008, economic assistance was nearly phased out. In contrast, military support remained stable, $3.29 billion in 2009, $3.83 billion in 2010, and continuing at over $3 billion annually through the 2020s.In 2024, military assistance reached $6.64 billion, while economic aid was just $0.01 billion. Cumulatively, between 1951 and 2024, Israel has received $305.5 billion in total from the US, of which $221.68 billion was military funding and $83.8 billion was economic support. Military assistance accounts for over 72 per cent of the total aid given to Israel.IS THIS THE SAME FOR OTHER COUNTRIES?Among the countries that have received significant US foreign assistance, several of them show a clear tilt toward military funding. Egypt and Afghanistan, for instance, have received high volumes of military aid — $93.93 billion and $109.88 billion, a major share of their total assistance. Vietnam, Ukraine, and Iraq also fall into this category, with military aid constituting more than half of their total US support.
However, countries like India and Bangladesh have primarily received economic assistance. India has received $86.1 billion in total aid, of which only $1.18 billion was military, while Bangladesh has received $21.8 billion, with just $0.35 billion in military support.ISRAEL-US MILITARY RELATIONSadvertisementAccording to the Council on Foreign Relations (https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts), a large share of Israel's military aid from the United States comes through the Foreign Military Financing programme, under which Israel receives approximately $3.3 billion annually in grants.As of October 2023, the Joe Biden administration reported that Israel had nearly six hundred active Foreign Military Financing cases, with a combined value of approximately $24 billion. Arms sales data from the US Department of Defence shows that from 1950 to 2022, Israel purchased a total of $53 billion in US weapons, making it one of the top recipients globally, second only to Saudi Arabia, which received $164 billion over the same period.Tune InMust Watch
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