Trump Says U.S. Aid to Israel Will End This Year, Announcing It on Election Day. A Change This Big Belongs in the Open.

The facts come first below. My opinion follows in the section marked as opinion.

On the morning Americans went to the polls, President Trump made news that had nothing to do with a ballot and everything to do with the campaign. In a phone interview with Fox News, he said the United States will stop giving Israel about $4 billion a year in aid by the end of this year. He said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to it, and he said politics was part of the reason.

What the President Said

Trump told Fox News that he and Netanyahu had made a deal months ago to stop the aid, ABC News reported. "So it's just a wasted thing because we've already agreed that by the end of this year, we won't be paying Israel," he said. When Fox's Brian Kilmeade asked why, Trump answered, "Because they don't need it, Brian. I mean, I ask them because they don't need it, and because why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like an El-Sayed when they don't need it?" ABC said Trump did not specify which forms of military aid would end or how.

Abdul El-Sayed is the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, in a tight race with Republican Mike Rogers. NBC News reported that Trump also said, "The left uses the $4 billion payment that everybody knows about, when it's no secret, as a signal of unfairness, and we can't allow that to happen." NBC said it was not immediately clear which funding Trump meant, and that Netanyahu's office declined to comment. Trump told Fox the idea came from Netanyahu: "Can I be honest with you? He brought it up," NBC reported. NBC noted that Netanyahu said in January that he hoped to "taper off" American military aid over the next decade.

What the Aid Actually Is

Most of the aid comes under a 10-year memorandum of understanding signed in 2016 under President Obama. According to NBC News, it provides $3.8 billion a year: $3.3 billion in military financing grants and $500 million for joint missile defense. Almost all of the money must be spent on purchases from the United States, and the agreement is due to expire in 2028.

ABC News reported that such agreements are not legally binding, but Congress effectively wrote the annual financing levels into the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 with bipartisan support. Two sources at Israel's Finance Ministry told ABC they were surprised by Trump's comments, and one noted that Israel's future budget had already been drafted around the current agreement. ABC also cited a poll from last month in which 58% of Americans said the United States should reduce military support to Israel or end it.

Reaction in Israel

Netanyahu's rivals pounced. Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief now positioned to challenge Netanyahu after Israel's inconclusive election, said, "He can no longer be trusted, and he must be replaced," NBC News reported. Yair Golan, head of the left-wing Democrats party, said "the cessation of American aid deals a severe blow to Israel's security and the quality of life in the country."

For background on the Michigan race at the center of the president's comments, read Democrat Haley Stevens Endorses Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan.

Opinion:

There is a serious conservative case for ending aid to Israel over time. Israel is a strong, prosperous nation. Netanyahu himself has said his country should stand on its own feet, and American taxpayers carry a heavy debt. A friend who no longer needs a gift can still be a friend, and Israel can buy what it needs from American factories with its own money.

But the way this was announced matters. A shift in a major alliance was made in a phone call to a morning television show on Election Day, with no details, no written plan and no word from Congress, which actually sets the money. The president said plainly that he wanted to take a talking point away from a Democratic candidate. Israel's own finance officials said they were surprised. That is not how a great nation should treat an ally, and it is not how it should treat its own voters either.

Scripture puts it simply: "Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety." Whatever one thinks of the aid, it should be decided in the open, with Congress, with Israel and with the facts on the table. Americans should pray for the peace of Israel and expect their leaders to keep their word, then let their elected representatives do their job.