Liz Deep-Jones

This is absolute bullshit. A sleight of hand to try to get rid of Congressional oversight and satisfy public opinion while quite possibly giving Israel EVEN MORE MONEY: 1) Israel’s aid runs under a 2016 memorandum signed by Obama. It commits $38 billion from 2019 through 2028, about $3.8 billion a year. Trump is announcing an end almost two years early and hasn’t said how. 2) Presidents don’t control this money. Congress appropriates it every year and wrote the amounts into law in the 2021 defense bill. An agreement between Trump and Netanyahu can’t cancel money Congress has already voted through. 3) Josh Paul ran arms transfers at the State Department. He called a January cutoff “not plausible,” since the funding is built into current and pending legislation. His guess is that Trump was talking about the next ten-year deal, which starts in 2029. 4) Fox asked whether he meant cash, weapons or missile defense. “I’m giving four in any way you want to define it,” Trump said. The White House has put out no plan and no clarification since. 5) Israel’s own officials heard about it from the TV. A senior defense official told Kan they “did not expect this announcement, certainly not today.” Finance Ministry staff said nothing in writing had come from Netanyahu’s office, and next year’s budget already counts on the money. 6) 60 Israel’s procurement plans count on more than $20 billion in US military financing for the decade after 2028. Nobody budgets like that if they expect the money to stop in December. 7) He told Fox why he was doing it. “Why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like an El-Sayed when they don’t need it?” He said it on the morning of the midterms. El-Sayed was up six points in Michigan’s Senate race, and 55% of Michigan voters oppose military aid to Israel. Trump called the aid a “bad talking point.” 8) While Trump talks about ending aid, Congress is building a new channel for it. The 2027 defense bill sets up a US-Israel defense technology program run through the Pentagon, covering joint development and co-production of drones, missile defense and AI. 9) Annelle Sheline, a former State Department official, says that money would escape the Leahy laws, the transparency rules and the annual vote in Congress, and would probably grow. 10) Israel can still buy anything it wants from the US. Trump said so himself, and he added that America will help “if they need it.” The bombs keep shipping, and the bombs are what most opponents of aid object to. The 2028 memorandum is still in force, Congress still holds the purse, and the Pentagon money is being set up out of view. What Trump actually cut on election day was a line that was costing Republicans votes in Michigan. This is a bunch of crap. Aid to Israel has to be stopped for real.