By Rabbi Uri Pilichowski
Every few years, a new crop of Israel pundits sprouts and begins advocating revisionist positions. Most of the positions they argue are new to them, as they’re new to the subject matter.
King Solomon’s teaching, “There’s nothing new under the sun,” comes true when examining most of their positions. Many of their arguments have been brought up before by older and more experienced pundits.
A recent example of an argument that newer Israel pundits have begun arguing is that American military aid to Israel is more harmful to America and Israel than helpful to them.
They argue that America should wean Israel off its military aid, and Israel should wean itself off receiving aid from America. This isn’t a new position. People began arguing it almost immediately after Israel began accepting American military aid.
Moshe Sharett, Israel’s former prime minister, expressed concerns about Israel’s growing dependence on foreign powers, including the United States, during a discussion on foreign policy, saying, “We must not become a satellite of any power, however friendly.”
While not explicitly rejecting American military aid, Israel’s founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, expressed frustration during a 1963 conversation with French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville.
American diplomatic correspondence quoted Ben-Gurion as having said, “The position of Israel is stupid because it gives a pretext to the Russians, who are retreating in the region, to indict us before world opinion, and perhaps not without reason.”
Ben-Gurion’s concern was that accepting American financial and military support, particularly tied to inspections of Israel’s Dimona nuclear facility, could compromise Israel’s sovereignty
One argument for Israel to stop taking American military aid that’s begun repeating itself recently is that accepting American military aid is a betrayal of Zionism’s value of self-determination. This argument hits at the heart of one of Zionism’s most essential axioms.
In a position paper submitted to the United Nation’s Human Rights Commission, the Coordinating Board of Jewish Organizations wrote, “As the history of the Jewish people in the 20th century demonstrates, without a state of their own — the fulfillment of the right to self-determination — the Jewish people were at risk of discrimination, isolation, and ultimately, extermination.”
Self-determination is such a core value of Zionism that in a 2021 article, Jewish Currents’ Peter Beinart argued, “The claim that opposing Jewish statehood constitutes bigotry because it denies Jews the universal right of national self-determination has become a widely accepted axiom of American and global political discourse.”
The World Jewish Congress argued that self-determination as a Zionist value is a Jewish value: “Zionism, the belief that the Jewish people maintain a right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, has been a central tenet of Judaism for thousands of years.”
Zionists are uniquely sensitive to arguments that contradict the Zionist principle of Jews always taking steps to do what is best for their people, irrespective of what Israel’s haters will think. Zionism was a movement designed to create a state where Jews would never cower before their enemies. This is the essence of self-determination.
The argument that taking aid from America is inconsistent with Zionism is weak and unfounded. It fundamentally mistakes the idea of self-reliance for self-determination.
The choice to request, accept and take military aid from a foreign country, especially one as aligned with Israel as America, is perfectly consistent with Israel’s right of self-determination.
Self-determination doesn’t mean isolationist independence; it means being able to choose how much aid, if any, to take from allies.
In a column I wrote in 2016 I argued that stopping American aid would be detrimental to Israel’s safety and security. Israel flies American fighter jets. These jets require spare parts that only the United States supplies. It would take years, if not decades, to produce an Israeli fighter jet as advanced as the American F-15, F-16 or F-35.
Without American aid, Israel’s air force would be grounded. The development of a new jet to replace American jets would cost billions of dollars, money Israel doesn’t have in its budget.
Another important point I made is that with its aid to Israel, America has a vested interest in Israel’s success, which leads to Israel’s American-supplied weapons having a qualitative military edge over any weapon provided to its enemies and most importantly, diplomatic cover in the United Nations. If Israel were to decline American aid, America might find it easier to create distance between it and Israel at the United Nations.
Israel has not taken steps to decrease or wean itself from American aid because doing so would be detrimental to its security and Israel is safer with America taking a vested interest in Israel’s security.
American investment in Israel is the fuel that energizes the American-Israel partnership that, as one U.S. State Department official recently told me, has created a situation today that “America needs Israel as much as Israel needs America.”
When a company accepts investments from partners, it acquires the necessary capital to enhance its productivity and profits. While there are times that accepting outside investments can come with a loss of independence, responsible company leadership weighs the costs and benefits of the capital and loss of independence before accepting the investment.
The same is true of Israel’s decision to accept military aid from the United States. In accepting outside investment and partners, Israel forgoes some of its independence, but for more than seven decades, all of Israel’s leaders have concluded the benefits far outweigh the costs.
Zionism is a modern political movement based on thousands of years of Jewish values. Its political objective was to create a state where the Jewish people’s safety would never be dependent on another nation.
Creating partnerships like the U.S.-Israel partnership does not hinder Zionism’s aspirations; it enhances them. Israel is safer on the military and diplomatic battlefield with American investment.
The notion that accepting American aid undermines Zionism rests on a flawed premise, conflating self-reliance with self-determination. Israel’s decision to seek and accept military support from a steadfast ally like the United States aligns seamlessly with its right to self-determination.
Far from signaling dependence, this choice reflects Israel’s sovereign freedom to determine its alliances and resources.
Self-determination, at its core, is not about isolationist purity but about the autonomy to forge strategic partnerships that bolster national security and aspirations. This debate underscores that Zionism thrives not in rigid independence but in the pragmatic exercise of choice on the global stage.
Rabbi Uri Pilichowski is a senior educator at numerous educational institutions. The author of three books, he teaches Torah, Zionism and Israel studies around the world.
