America’s ‘Greatest Ally’ Cost US Taxpayers $310 Billion

by Joziah Thayer Posted on December  06, 2024

The Qualitative Military Edge agreement between the United States and Israel has cost U.S. taxpayers $310 billion since Israel was founded. Many people in the United States and around the world are upset with how the United States continues to support Israel as they besiege and bombard Gaza, resulting in what some estimates say are 200,000 deaths. What people may not be aware of is that it is U.S. law to defend and sustain Israel’s hegemony. The QME agreement between the United States and Israel has its roots in the 1960s during the peak of Cold War tensions. The U.S. saw Israel as an invaluable geopolitical ally to combat the expansion of Soviet influence into the Middle East. Lydon B. Johnson was the first president to speak publicly about arms deals with Israel.

The Six-Day War in 1967 proved Israel’s military capabilities, and the U.S. felt that Israel could be a valuable partner in combating Soviet influence in the Middle East. Following the Six-Day War, there was a spike in military and financial transfers to Israel using the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. The QME was further solidified during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 when a U.S. airlift of military supplies to Israel was critical in turning the tide of the conflict.

In 2008, in the last months of the Bush administration, the QME agreement between the U.S. and Israel became an official U.S. law by amending the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 to become the Naval Vessel Transfer Act of 2008. This law made it a legal requirement for the U.S. to ensure that any arms sales to Middle Eastern countries do not compromise Israel’s military superiority.

Legacy media will tell us that this legislation enjoyed bipartisan support, driven by a recognition of Israel’s strategic role in the region when, in truth, it was driven by AIPAC and Senator Joe Liberman, while one of the biggest opponents of the bill was Senator Rand Paul who railed against the budget of this bill especially as domestic debt soared and argued he for a more balanced approach that would not alienate Arab allies, in a time when the U.S. sought to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan.

In response to what the U.S. government called a failed state in Syria and a rise in ISIS and Al-Qaeda, the U.S. gave Israel F-35 fighter jets America’s most advanced stealth fighters, making Israel the only country at the time outside of the U.S. to operate the F-35. These jets made Israel a regional superpower because no other nation in the region had this capability. The decision to equip Israel with F-35s is not a secret; we were told this move was to counter Iran’s regional influence, while the real reason at the time was to put Israel on an even playing field with Russia in Syria.

The Naval Transfer Act of 2008 legally required the United States to ensure that Israel maintains a qualitative military edge over its adversaries. Specifically, it mandates that any sale of arms to Middle Eastern countries must undergo a rigorous review to confirm that it does not compromise Israel’s QME. The law defines QME as the capability to “counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat” with minimal damage to Israel’s forces and resources. The QME is a legal commitment from the U.S. to ensure that Israel is not only victorious in battle but will be able to win decisively. This law is reaffirmed by congressional vote year after year, with Congress passing various recent provisions that mandate the Department of Defense to report on Israel’s QME status periodically.

Israel is often called America’s greatest ally when, in truth, Israel is really America’s greatest overseas asset. Since 1958, the United States has been funneling hundreds of billions of dollars to Israel. American tax dollars built the democratic state of Israel, and while this issue is often seen as a policy decision, since 2008, it has been official U.S. law. Before 2008, it was just an unwritten rule that republican and democratic administrations signed off on for decades. Politicians and talking heads can repeatedly claim that Israel is an ally, which they are, but at what cost?

Security in the Middle East or Peace in the Middle East are just catchphrases used to perpetuate this false notion that only through Israel can we attain peace in the Middle East. Iraq, Syria, and Yemen were all conflicts that Israel vehemently pushed the international community to pursue. Netanyahu lied to Congress about WMDs in Iraq, moved mountains to destabilize Syria, and then cried to the UN about the Houthis in 2014.

The original basis of the Israeli QME was to use Israel to combat Soviet expansion into the Middle East, and this policy has not changed over the last 70-plus years. The Iranian Revolution in 1979 shifted the focus of the QME a bit to containing a new threat from Iran. Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan was in part to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region, and we know how that ended. The United States cannot allow Russia or China to build relationships with Middle Eastern countries because the U.S. will not be able to guarantee Israel’s qualitative military edge if they allow Russia and China to advance the militaries and economies of nations in the Middle East.

The current status quo policy on Russian or Chinese influence in the Middle East is not to prevent Russia or China from threatening America’s interests in the region; It’s about protecting Israel’s security under the guise of perpetuating Western ideology and control. Allowing this law to remain on the books codifies into public law that U.S. lawmakers in both Democratic and Republican administrations are beholden to Israel, no matter what. The international stage is far too dynamic to have policy decisions adhere to such a static law.

The price of war is always paid by the people of those nations, not the governments that orchestrate conflicts. American taxpayers have shouldered the burden of the war machine for far too long without reaping any rewards from so-called assets overseas the military-industrial complex claims to protect. We have built infrastructure in other nations as ours crumbles and assure the security of foreign lands as ours dwindles, but it seems as soon as someone mentions Russia or Muslim extremists, people forget all of this, standing in line with a war drum strapped to their chest, pounding away robotically.

Joziah Thayer is a researcher with the Pursuance Project. He founded WEDA in 2014 to combat mainstream media narratives. He is also an antiwar activist and the online organizer behind #OpYemen.