The United States is not doing Israel a favor with its annual security assistance; it is making a high-return investment in its own defense, according to former U.S. Ambassador Gordon Sondland.
Sondland said the debate over foreign aid has been framed the wrong way for years, with critics focusing on what America gives Israel while ignoring what it gets in return. With the national debt approaching $40 trillion and annual defense spending of roughly $1 trillion, he acknowledged that every overseas dollar deserves scrutiny. But he argued that the $3.8 billion in yearly security assistance, though large on its own, represents well under half of 1 percent of the U.S. defense budget and should be assessed by its returns rather than its price tag.
Sondland, who served as a U.S. ambassador and spent a career in business, said his own support for Israel has never been rooted in religion or ethnicity. He described himself as a cultural Jew, not a practicing one, with no financial interests in Israel. The question that matters, he said, is whether the alliance makes America stronger, and in his view the answer is unequivocally yes.
The United States has many important allies, Sondland noted, including Britain through the Five Eyes intelligence partnership, Japan in the Indo-Pacific, South Korea on the Korean Peninsula, Australia as China expands its reach, and Poland on NATO’s front line. Yet he said Israel occupies a category almost by itself, combining world-class intelligence, battlefield-tested military innovation, advanced cyber capabilities, missile-defense development, and democratic resilience at the crossroads of one of the world’s most volatile regions. If Israel did not exist, he argued, the United States would spend decades and likely hundreds of billions of dollars trying to recreate the strategic advantages it provides.
The alliance, he said, was not built overnight. President Harry Truman recognized Israel within minutes of its declaration of independence in 1948, but the modern partnership developed over decades. During the Cold War, Israel was a dependable democratic partner in a region where Soviet influence was growing. After the Cold War, intelligence cooperation expanded dramatically as terrorism replaced superpower confrontation as America’s main security concern. More recently, Sondland said, Israel has become indispensable in confronting Iran, developing advanced missile defenses, countering cyber threats, and fostering regional cooperation reflected in the Abraham Accords.
He also offered a concrete picture of what the United States receives. Israeli intelligence, he said, has helped expose terrorist plots, monitor Iran’s military and nuclear programs, disrupt weapons trafficking, and deepen Washington’s understanding of one of the world’s most dangerous regions. Joint research has produced advances in missile-defense systems such as Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow, while cooperation in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, unmanned aircraft, electronic warfare, and battlefield medicine has strengthened both militaries. Israel often faces emerging threats years before American forces do, giving the United States time to adapt technologies and tactics without learning those lessons on future battlefields.
Sondland pushed back against the idea that the aid simply disappears overseas. A large portion of the assistance returns to the United States through purchases and coproduction of American aircraft, precision-guided weapons, and other defense systems, he said. That flow supports American workers and helps sustain the defense industrial base on which the U.S. military depends. Israel, he added, is not merely a recipient of American assistance but an active contributor to U.S. security, technological leadership, and military readiness.
He also described Israel as the Middle East’s only durable liberal democracy, where governments change through elections, courts challenge the executive branch, journalists scrutinize political leaders, and Arab citizens vote, serve in parliament, sit on the Supreme Court, attend universities, and participate throughout society. Israel has imperfections, he acknowledged, but it remains fundamentally different from the authoritarian systems that dominate much of the region.
Yet Sondland said the relationship should not mean a blank check. He argued that friends should tell one another uncomfortable truths, and that Washington should criticize Israel when it believes Israel is wrong, apply diplomatic pressure when necessary, and insist that its closest ally uphold high standards. The United States has disagreed with Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and Turkey at various points in history, he noted, without questioning the value of those alliances. He suggested the same standard should apply to Israel.
