The signing of the memorandum of understanding between Israel and the United States on a new 10-year military aid package launched a furious campaign of spin and counter-spin. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aides immediately began saying this was the biggest aid package Washington had ever awarded, and it was all thanks to our leader who managed to secure it.

Meanwhile, his political rivals said that if Netanyahu hadn’t spent the last seven years squabbling with Barack Obama, it could have been much bigger. For once, both sides are telling the truth, but as usual, the debate is an artificial one because the U.S. military “aid” to Israel isn’t actually aid.

It may seem churlish to turn your nose up at 38 billion of the U.S. taxpayer’s dollars, but here are a few cold hard facts about the “aid.” U.S. military “aid” to Israel is simply a roundabout way for the administration to subsidize the American defense industry while satisfying its pro-Israel constituency that it’s got Israel’s back. Not only do the billions help fill the coffers of the arms companies, keeping production lines and thousands of employees at work. Sales to the Israeli military are a major boost to the attractiveness of a weapons system in the international market.

That’s not just due to the prestige of the Israel Defense Forces; operational use by the IDF means new weapons get a rigorous tryout; the feedback and troubleshooting in Israel are worth billions both for the manufacturer and the U.S. military that uses the same systems. Thanks to decades of military “aid,” the United States has an entire foreign military proving ground for its weapons, taking them to the max and coming up with creative solutions and new tactics for using them best.

Take for example the malfunctioning F-35 fighter jet that Israel will start receiving at the end of this year. In the United States, hundreds of billions have already gone into testing and ironing out the F-35’s countless design flaws, but it will almost certainly be Israel that uses it in combat first.

In and of itself, the experience gained from Israeli operational use will be worth the price of the military “aid,” just as it was in the early 1980s when Israel blooded the F-15 and F-16 fighters. The $3.8 billion a year in “aid” is an investment in the American arms industry – an investment that in many ways is as worthwhile for Washington as the much greater sums it spends on its own research and development.

A little USAF

Now you might say this is all well and good, but Israel is still getting $38 billion in free weapons. Well yes, but nothing in life is really free.

Take fighter jets, the most expensive item on Israel’s American shopping list. Over their long operational life, the off-the-shelf price, paid by Washington, is dwarfed by the costs of maintenance, bases, jet fuel, training and salaries for thousands of flight and technical crew. That comes out of the Israelis’ pocket, and since the defense procurement is skewed toward buying lots of American jets, because of the “aid,” Israel continues to operate large fleets of fighter-bombers, even if that isn’t necessarily what it needs.

The Israel Air Force fields around 300 frontline fighter jets, more than much larger and richer countries like Britain, France or Germany. Of course, as the fighter-jockey commanders of the IAF will tell you, every plane is necessary and has its mission, but this a clear case where the mission is being defined by the equipment available and not the other way around.

While the IDF’s ground forces have evolved and shrunk over the last three decades, as the conventional threats facing Israel have shrunk and changed, the air force continues to be based on hundreds of American planes. Essentially, Israel continues to have as many frontline jets as it had the last time it fought Arab armies on multiple fronts – 43 years ago. This is the case even though today’s jets are more reliable and have twice the range and load capacity. Thanks to the “aid,” Israel basically has a smaller version of the U.S. Air Force, though its needs are very different.

If Israel’s air-power doctrine wasn’t tied to the “aid,” there would still be American jets in the air force, because they’re the best in the world. But there would be a lot less of them and instead much more reliance on unmanned aerial vehicles, or as they’re more popularly called, “drones,” developed and built in Israel. The savings in maintenance and personnel, together with the investment in the local defense industry, would over time more than outweigh the loss of $3.8 billion a year in “aid.”

Arsenal of democracy

So why am I writing all this in a column that focuses on Jewish and Israeli identity? Because the strategic relationship between Israel and the United States is also an integral part of the ties that bind the world’s two largest Jewish communities that live in these countries. Throughout the 20th century, the Jewish community in the Land of Israel needed the political and financial support of the White House and America’s Jews. “Aid” back then was actual aid. But today, “aid” is just a convenient facade for U.S. politics and the outdated thinking of the Israeli military establishment. And it skews the nature of the entire relationship.

Israel’s relationship with the United States will always remain one of Israel’s principal strategic assets, just as the ties between the Jews in these countries will continue to be the central pivot for the Jewish people. The fundamentals whereby Israel is a small country and the United States is a superpower and over 80 percent of the world’s Jews live in these two countries aren’t about to change in our lifetimes.

But a situation in which Israel, a country with an advanced and successful technological economy, universal health care, a higher life expectancy than America and cheap university tuition, is seen to need $3.8 billion in “aid” warps the relationship. Israel is no longer a charity case, and pretending that it needs “aid” does it no favors.

Israel doesn’t need American “aid” and would ultimately be better off standing on its own two feet. And it doesn’t need American Jews to lobby for the “aid” to continue to grow. Israel needs a strong relationship with America because at their best, they share values and interests, and as long as America leads the free world and the loose alliance of democratic countries, Israel will be in the American camp. The one conclusion from the last 200 years is that Jews can only remain safe and prosperous in democratic societies.

The memorandum of understanding signed this week in Washington lasts until the end of 2028. The best goal Israelis and American Jews can set for themselves is that in a decade from now, no new “aid” agreement will need to be signed.