Leading Papers Call for Destroying Iran to Save It

Gregory Shupak

February 10, 2026

https://fair.org/home/leading-papers-call-for-destroying-iran-to-save-it/

The United States has no right to wage war on Iran, or to have a say who governs the country. The opinion pages of the New York Times and Washington Post, however, are offering facile humanitarian arguments for the US to escalate its attacks on Iran. These are based on the nonsensical assumption that the US wants to help brighten Iranians’ futures.

In two editorials addressing the possibility of the US undertaking a bombing and shooting war on Iran, the Washington Post expressed no opposition to such policies and endorsed economic warfare as well.

Crediting Trump with “the wisdom of distinguishing between an authoritarian regime and the people who suffer under its rule,” the first Post editorial (1/2/26) approvingly quoted Trump’s Truth Social promise (1/2/26) to Iranian protesters that the US “will come to their rescue…. We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

For the Post, the problem was not that Trump was threatening to bomb a sovereign state, but that “airstrikes are, at best, a temporary solution”:

If the administration wants this time to be different, it will need to oversee a patient, sustained campaign of maximum pressure against the government…. The optimal strategy is to economically squeeze the regime as hard as possible at this moment of maximum vulnerability. More stringent enforcement of existing oil sanctions would go a long way…. Western financial controls are actually working quite well.

Thus, the paper offers advice on how to integrate bombing Iran into a broader effort to overthrow the country’s government in a hybrid war. Central to that project are the sanctions with which the Post is so thoroughly impressed. Such measures have “squeeze[d] the regime” by, for example, decimating “the government’s primary source of revenue, oil exports, limiting the state’s ability to provide for millions of impoverished Iranians through social safety nets” (CNN, 10/19/25).

That the US continues to apply the sanctions, knowing that they have these effects, demonstrates that it has no interest in, as the Post put it, “free[ing]” Iranians “from bondage.”

‘Always more room for sanctions’

The second Washington Post editorial (1/23/26) expressed disappointment that, despite “mass killings” and the “most repressive crackdown in decades,” “Trump has ratcheted back his earlier rhetoric.” It emphasized that “the regime is now mocking Trump for backing down.” The paper offered advice for the president:

Airstrikes alone won’t bring down the regime—or make it behave like a normal country. But Israel and the US have shown in recent years that bombing can cause significant tactical setbacks. And there is always more room for sanctions pressure….

The president cannot maintain effective deterrence by turning the other cheek [in response to Iranians who have taunted him]. How he responds is just as important as how quickly he does it.

The implication is that, to deter Iran’s government from killing Iranians, the US needs to kill Iranians. After all, bombing campaigns come with “mass killings” of their own: The US/Israeli aggression against Iran last June killed more than 1,000 Iranians, most of them civilians.

Meanwhile, those sanctions the paper wants to use to deter the Iranian government from “harm[ing] its own people” do quite a bit of damage in their own right, often causing “low-income citizens’ food consumption” to “deteriorate due to sanctions”—a rather novel approach to harm reduction.

Bombing other countries, depriving them of food—is this what it means to “behave like a normal country”?

‘Too depraved’ for reform

Over its own pro–regime change piece, the New York Times editorial board headline (1/14/26) declared: “Iran’s Murderous Regime Is Irredeemable.”

“The Khamenei regime is too depraved to be reformed,” the editors wrote, spending the majority of the piece building its case to that effect before turning to solutions. For the Times, these start “with a unified expression of solidarity with the protesters,” and quickly move to punitive measures against the Iranian government:

The world can also extend the sanctions it has imposed on Iran. The Trump administration this week announced new tariffs on any countries that do business with Iran, and other democracies should impose their own economic penalties.

For the authors, “deprav[ity]” needs to be resisted by Washington and its partners, who have demonstrated their moral superiority with their presumably depravity-free sanctions. These have, as Germany’s DW (11/23/25) reported, “caused medical shortages that hit [Iran’s] most vulnerable citizens hardest,” preventing the country from being able “to purchase special medicines—like those required by cancer patients.”

The Times also supported US military violence against Iran—if with somewhat more restraint than the Post, asking Trump to “move much more judiciously than he typically does.” The Times wants him to seek “approval from Congress before any military operation,” and make “clear its limitations and goals.” The paper warned Trump not to attack “without adequate preparation and resources”:

Above all, he should avoid the lack of strategic discipline and illegal actions that have defined the Venezuela campaign. He should ask which policies have the best chance of undermining the regime’s violent repression and creating the conditions for a democratic transition.

One glaring problem with suggesting that a US “military operation” should be based on “policies [that] have the best chance of…creating the conditions for a democratic transition” is that very recent precedents show that US wars don’t bring about democracy and are not intended to do so; instead, such wars bring about social collapse.

Consider, for example, US interventions in Libya and Syria. In both cases, the US backed decidedly nondemocratic forces (Jacobin, 9/2/13; Harper’s, 1/16) and, as one might expect, neither war resulted in democracy. In Libya’s case, the outcome has been slavery and state collapse (In These Times, 8/18/20). In Syria, the new, unelected government is implicated in sectarian mass murder (FAIR.org, 6/2/25).

If DHS killed Pretti, why not bomb Iran?

There are no grounds for believing that the US would chart a different course if it bombs Iran again. But that hasn’t stopped other Times contributors from suggesting that the US should conduct a war in Iran—for the good of Iranians, of course.

Times columnist Bret Stephens (1/27/26) worried about the “risk” posed by “the example of a US president who urged protesters to go in the streets and said help was on the way, only to betray them through inaction.”

Invoking the DHS’s killing of Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti, Stephens urged “thoughtful Americans” to encourage the same administration that killed him to exercise “the military option” in Iran:

But if Pretti’s death is a tragedy, what do we say or do in the face of the murder of thousands of Iranians? Are they, as Stalin might have said, just another statistic?

Stephens is citing people’s outrage against the US government killing a protester as a reason they should support the US government inflicting more violence against Iran. The logical corollary to that would be that if you’re opposed to Iran suppressing anti-government forces, you should therefore be in favor of Tehran launching armed attacks to defend protesters in the US.

Masih Alinejad, a US-government-funded Iranian-American journalist, wrote in the Times (1/27/26) that Trump

encouraged Iranians to intensify their mass protests, writing, “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.” That help never came, and many protesters now feel betrayed. Still, the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group has recently arrived in the Middle East. Mr. Trump has not said what he plans to do now that it is there, but it does give him the option of striking a blow against government repression.

Policy of pain

Both Stephens and Alinejad present their calls for the US to assault Iran in moral terms, suggesting that the US should demonstrate loyalty to Iranian protestors by “help[ing]” them through an armed attack on the country in which they live. Their premise is that the US is interested in enabling the Iranian population to flourish, an assertion contradicted by more than 70 years of Washington’s policy of inflicting pain on Iranians in an effort to dominate them.

That US policy has included overthrowing Iran’s democratically elected government in 1953 (NPR, 2/7/19), propping up the Shah’s brutal dictatorship for the next 26 years (BBC, 6/3/16; AP, 2/6/19), sponsoring Saddam Hussein’s invasion of the country and use of chemical weapons against it (Foreign Policy, 8/26/13), partnering with Israel in a years-long campaign of murdering Iranian scientists (Responsible Statecraft, 12/21/20), and currently maintaining—along with its allies—a sanctions regime that is associated with a substantial drop in Iranian life expectancy (Al Jazeera, 1/13/26).

If Stephens or Alinejad had evidence that the US is so radically re-orienting its conduct in the international arena, one imagines that they would want to share with their readers the proof that the Trump administration’s magnanimity is so profound that it overrides the UN Charter, and justifies America carrying out a war to “help” a country it has terrorized for decades.

Jeffrey Epstein and the Emirati tycoon

Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, one of the UAE's most powerful figures, shared messages about business and pleasure with the convicted sex offender for decades

By Rayhan Uddin

Published date: 12 February 2026 

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/jeffrey-epstein-and-emirati-tycoon

“You are one of my most trusted friends in very [sic] sense of the word, you have never let me down, not once, not half of once.” 

Those were the words used in June 2013 by Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender, to describe Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem. 

Sulayem is one of the most powerful business figures in the United Arab Emirates. Born in Dubai to a well-connected family, his father was an adviser to the city’s ruling Al Maktoum family. 

Sulayem played an important role in the growth of Dubai as a global economic force. He oversaw the expansion of the Jebel Ali free economic zone as its chair in the 1980s. 

In 2005, two Dubai ports entities merged to create DP World, which has since become one of the world's largest logistics companies. It handles a tenth of the globe’s container trade. 

Sulayem has been its chair since 2007, and its chief executive since 2016. The role has made him a leading Emirati business figure on the global stage. He frequently appears in international forums, often alongside UAE royalty.

Now, emails released by the US Department of Justice, as well as further emails seen by Bloomberg and Drop Site News, reveal that Sulayem had maintained a decades-long professional and personal relationship with Epstein.

The Emirati figure is mentioned thousands of times in the Epstein files. 

Middle East Eye asked DP World and Sulayem for comment, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

The emails span from 2007 until weeks before Epstein’s death in a prison cell in August 2019. The majority of them were sent after the American financier’s 2008 conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

The two men discussed visits to Epstein’s private island, introduced each other to powerful figures, and shared content about business, politics and religion. They also candidly – and sometimes degradingly – spoke about sex and women.

Visits to the private island

Emails suggest Sulayem made visits to Little Saint James, the private Caribbean island once owned by Epstein. 

“I really had a very nice time at your island,” the Emirati wrote in June 2013, in one of scores of memos discussing visits to Little Saint James.

When Hurricane Irma devastated the Caribbean in September 2017, Sulayem assured Epstein that he had “engineers” and “resources” to help make the island “hurricane proof”. 

“My right hand man who worked with me on=all the island is a uae national an engineer he is ready he is the best an= has all the background and contacts to do the job,” he wrote. 

Epstein replied: “GREAT!!!”

Sulayem even sought to help Epstein in his efforts to add a private resort to his portfolio. 

“Mr Jeffry Epstein is very dear friend and a business associate of mine,” Sulayem wrote to an architecture firm in December 2016, according to emails reviewed by Drop Site News. 

“He owns two beautiful islands at US Virgin Islands… he wants to develop a private resort only for his , his customers and friends private use.” 

Great St James Cay, a larger island to the north of Epstein’s, was much coveted by the financier. But its owner, Christian Kjaer, did not want to sell it to Epstein, due to his sex offences convictions. 

According to the Miami Herald, to circumvent that, Epstein bought the island through a shell company whose beneficial owner was Sulayem. 

Epstein’s involvement only came to light, the newspaper reported, when his name later appeared on land use permits. 

An aide to Sulayem told the Herald that Epstein asked to use the Emirati’s name in an unspecified business deal, to which he was told no.

The 2016 email to the architect suggests that Sulayem knew that Epstein owned two islands. 

Epstein was arrested and charged with sex trafficking of minors in July 2019. Prosecutors allege that his private island was used as a base for sex trafficking.

There is no suggestion that Sulayem participated in any criminal activity. 

Powerful networks

Sulayem and Epstein frequently utilised each other’s vast networks. 

Epstein introduced the Emirati to Ehud Barak, the former Israeli prime minister. 

“Ehud- sultan . sultan ehud,” the sex offender wrote in a June 2015 email sent to both Sulayem and Barak. 

In July 2018, Sulayem travelled to Tel Aviv for medical treatment for his daughter. In an email to Barak during his stay, he thanked the Israeli premier “for your help with our visa”. 

Barak replied that he would be happy to meet Sulayem during his visit. It’s not clear if the meeting took place. 

A spokesperson for Barak’s office told Bloomberg that the introduction was made in efforts to seek medical assistance for a member of Sulayem’s family in Israel, but no business activities took place between the two. 

Epstein also made introductions between Sulayem and Steve Bannon, the right-wing strategist and former Trump adviser. Emails between Sulayem and Bannon show that the Emirati tycoon organised a helicopter tour of Dubai for the conservative commentator. 

Epstein also helped Sulayem lobby Peter Mandelson – the former British ambassador to the US, who was sacked over his connections with the sex offender – in relation to a £1.8bn ($2.45bn) port project on the River Thames. 

Sulayem sent a brief about the project to Epstein, who forwarded it to Mandelson, then the UK business secretary. 

“I will call and talk to him,” Mandelson replied. 

Further correspondence showed that Sulayem lobbied the UK government to guarantee loans to fund the project. DP World went ahead with the scheme in 2010, and currently runs the London Gateway port. 

Sulayem regularly kept Epstein up to date with information about DP World’s dealings around the world.

In one email, he told the sex offender that he was waiting for approval to acquire a “sensitive” infrastructure asset which would happen following the signing of a bilateral deal between the UAE and Russia. 

“I also received an official invitation from Putin off=ce for a one on one meeting to get the green light directly from him,” he adds. 

Epstein then forwarded that correspondence to an unknown contact with the message “fo your eyes only”. 

In the past two days, firms in the UK and Canada have suspended future ties with DP World over Sulayem’s ties with Epstein. 

Quebec’s La Caisse pension fund – one of DP World’s largest financial partners, which holds a 45 percent stake in DP World Canada – said it had paused future investments until DP World took “necessary actions”.

British International Investment (BII), the UK’s development finance agency, also paused future capital over Sulayem’s links to Epstein. 

BII jointly owns Berbera port in Somaliland alongside DP World and the Somaliland government, as MEE reported last month.

Discussions about sex and women 

While some of the emails were professional, many were personal too. On numerous occasions, Sulayem discussed women and sex, often using disparaging language. 

In an email from November 2013, he wrote: “By the way the Ukrainian and the Moldavian arrived… Big disappointment the Moldavian is not as attractive as the picture while the Ukrainian is very beautiful.” 

In another email, Sulayem discusses religion with Epstein, explaining an interpretation about a passage of the Quran relating to Muslim relations with Jews and Christians. 

In a follow-up email, he swiftly changes the subject. 

“Thank you my friend I am off the sample a fresh 100% female Russian at my yacht,” the Emirati says. 

In a 2015 email, Sulayem discusses a sexual encounter. 

“This girl is Russian father Cypriot mom I met her two years ago she goes to the American university in Dubai She got engaged but now she back with me,” he says. “The best sex I ever had amazing body.” 

In another email, as reported by Bloomberg, Sulayem tells Epstein about his efforts to meet a supermodel. 

“After several attemps for several months we managed to meet in NY. there is a missunderstanding she she wanted some BUSINESS! while i only wanted some PUSSYNESS!” he writes. 

Epstein replies: “Praise Allah, there are still people like you.”

In one memo, Sulayem describes a woman he “went with” in Paris, listing her age, weight, height, bra size and other details. 

A separate email shows Epstein sending Sulayem a link to escort services in Italy, to which the Emirati responds: “Wow.”

Emails suggest Sulayem mixed the personal with the professional. He told Epstein in June 2016 that he was bringing his “Irish girlfriend” to a meeting with Canadian tribespeople, where he was trying to secure the use of land for port operations. 

He also made jokes about infidelity. One email reads: “Every married man keeps wondering every evening should I go out and look at=what I cannot fuck or stay home and fuck what I don't want to look at!!”

In another email, he appears to acknowledge his own infidelity.

“Mohammed is not like me and when it comes to pussy he is dedicated to his wife,” Sulayem wrote, in an email to Epstein describing an acquaintance. 

The pair often shared lewd and insensitive jokes.

“A friend of mine went to the mosque in saudi,” the Emirati wrote. “He said with all these terrorists Frankly you can't tell wether the guy standing next to you is just scratching his balls or fiddling with the detonator button !!!”

US lawmakers who were allowed access to unredacted Epstein files this week said that a disturbing memo in which Epstein states “I loved the torture video” was sent to Sulayem, according to The Telegraph newspaper in the UK.

Religious greetings and favours 

The emails reveal a deep fondness between Epstein and Sulayem.

They often wished each other well on Muslim and Jewish religious holidays, including Eid and Rosh Hashanah.  

“I really hope this ramadan is peaceful for you. you have been a good friend, and deserve a rest,” Epstein said in August 2010.

They would also encourage and praise each other. After Epstein sent Sulayem a positive Huffington Post article about the financier’s philanthropy, the Emirati said: “Very nice I need to see more articles l=ke this to show the real Jeffery and by the way god bless you my friend.” 

They scratched each other’s backs – sometimes in the form of securing jobs for acquaintances.

“Can we find a job in logistics for s=etlana brother sergey, i sent you his resume?” Epstein asked in October 2016.

Sulayem appareaed to help secure a trainee job at a spa in Turkey for a Russian “masseuse” who worked in Epstein’s “private spa”. 

In another email, Epstein sends what appears to be a CV, with the message “can we find a position for her in any dubai hotel.?”

The two helped each other secure other favours, too.

In the summer of 2017, Sulayem ordered 30 ancestry DNA kits for Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai, and had them delivered to Epstein’s mansion. 

One email shows Epstein telling his assistant to register the kits under the name “rashid epstein”. 

Elsewhere, Sulayem was pictured with Epstein in May 2014 looking at a piece of cloth which resembles the sacred Kiswa from Mecca in Saudi Arabia. It was an item which appeared to be much sought after by the sex offender, according to other emails.

Years later, pieces of the sacred cloth were shipped to Epstein through a number of intermediaries. 

Indonesia prepares to send up to 8,000 troops to Gaza

Jakarta, which has expressed solidarity with Palestinians, says it's ready 'to contribute to peace'

By Peter McNamara

Published date: 10 February 2026

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/indonesia-prepares-send-troops-gaza

Indonesia is preparing to deploy up to 8,000 soldiers to Gaza under US President Donald Trump’s peace plan, according to news agency Antara. 

The potential mobilisation was announced following a meeting between Indonesia’s army chief of staff, Maruli Simanjuntak, and President Prabowo Subianto. 

The details of the deployment, including arrival date and location, have yet to be finalised, but at least one brigade of up to 8,000 personnel is being organised for the journey.

"We are just preparing ourselves in case an agreement is reached and we have to send peacekeeping forces," Prabowo told journalists.  

The president is among those invited to the first meeting of the US Board of Peace in Washington, DC later this month, though he has not confirmed his attendance. Prabowo has also said he would seek to negotiate the board’s $1bn joining fee.

Indonesia has reiterated its intention "to contribute to peace and humanitarian support in Gaza", defence ministry spokesman Rico Ricardo Sirat told Reuters. 

The troops would be the first members of the multinational International Stabilisation Force (ISF) to be deployed in Gaza, which has been estimated to reach up to 20,000 personnel.

Critics argue the ISF risks becoming complicit in the occupation of the Gaza Strip. Indonesia’s foreign ministry has insisted that its participation would not be aimed at imposing peace, but would instead focus on humanitarian objectives.

In November, Indonesia's defence minister announced that its military has trained 20,000 troops for healthcare and construction efforts in Gaza. 

Jakarta has also provided humanitarian aid, including the delivery of 10,000 tonnes of rice in August last year, and has launched a long-term cultivation initiative in Sumatra and Kalimantan to support Palestinian food security.

Thousands of Indonesians demonstrated in 2025, calling for justice for Gaza, while others criticised the sending of Indonesian students to Israeli institutions during the genocide.

Is Nixing Aid to Israel a Poison Chalice?

Ending the existing arrangement could result in even more extensive forms of involvement.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

Feb 9, 2026

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/is-nixing-aid-to-israel-a-poison-chalice/

There is a lot of talk about getting rid of the massive agreement that guarantees Israel billions of dollars in military aid each year. And it’s not just critics of Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Senator Lindsey Graham have even said they want to “taper off” the money because Israel is ready to stand on its own two feet.

But while a debate over the annual package would be a most welcome one given the enormous sums of American taxpayer money that has flowed to Israel’s wars in recent years, it is important to keep an eye on what might be a bait and switch: trading one guarantee for a set of others that might be less transparent and more expensive than what’s on the books today.

When President Bill Clinton announced the first Memorandum of Agreement, a 10-year, $26.7 billion military and economic aid package to Israel, he expressed hope that it would complement the advancement of the Oslo Accords, the peace process he had shepherded between the Israelis and Palestinians earlier in his term.

The peace process tied to Oslo pretty much fell apart after expected Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank as outlined in the Wye River Agreement in 1998 never happened; today Israeli settlements considered illegal under international law have exploded, with more than 700,000 settlers living there today and Israelis controlling security in most of the territory. But the 10-year MOU lived on. 

Not only has it been renewed through the Bush and Obama administrations; the total outlays have increased. The current one, signed in 2016, pledged $38 billion over the decade, just under $4 billion a year and now all of it military aid. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, Israel is by far the biggest recipient of U.S. aid in history, some $300 billion since its founding, with the greatest proportion coming from those MOUs.

Supporters of the aid say it comes with military and strategic partnerships that are supposed to help keep the neighborhood safe for the U.S., Israel, and its “allies” (there are no treaty allies in the region), but the last 40 years have been pockmarked with wars and waves of human displacement and misery. Beyond financially and militarily supporting Israel’s wars, the U.S. has been bombing, regime-changing, occupying, and fending off terrorist insurgencies created by its own policies in Central Asia, the Horn of Africa, and the Middle East since 1999. Today, with Israel’s encouragement, President Donald Trump is poised to bomb Iran for the second time in his current term in office.

On February 3 the Congress passed the latest installment of the current MOU—$3.3 billion. It was a bipartisan affair, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer assuring a group of Jewish leaders the previous weekend, that “I have many jobs as leader … and one is to fight for aid to Israel, all the aid that Israel needs.” 

But not everyone is on board with the open spigot. And a spigot it is. According to CFR, the U.S. gave $16.3 billion (which included its annual $3.8 billion outlays) to Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks. Israel’s retaliation for those attacks, which killed 1,200 Israelis, has resulted in more than 71,000 recorded Palestinian deaths in Gaza so far, a blockade that has left the 2 million population there largely homeless, starving, sick, and unsafe. Americans have reacted by rejecting the prospects of further aid, with a plurality now—42 percent—saying they want to decrease if not stop aid altogether. That is up from the mid-20 percent range in October 2023.

Beyond Americans’ aversion to funding the slaughter of civilians in Gaza, a conservative fissure over continued, unconditional support for Israel has opened wide over the last year, exposing another rationale for discontinuing the aid: It is not “America First.” It not only siphons off aid from much needed renewal at home, but forces Washington to aid and abet another country’s foreign policy, which is increasingly counterproductive and contrary to our own politics and values. 

The region is not safer, and moreover, it has not allowed for the United States to reduce its military footprint as guarantor of security there. 

One then-congresswoman, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), was vocal in her opposition to this aid. Israel, she pointed out, has nuclear weapons and is “quite capable of defending itself.” She has pointed out Israel’s universal health care and subsidized college tuition for its citizens, “yet here in America we’re 37 trillion dollars in debt.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY.) posted on X that he voted against the spending bill on February 3 in part to deny Israel the $3.3 billion in aid. He has said the aid takes money out of Americans’ pockets and proliferates human suffering in our name. “Nothing can justify the number of civilian casualties (tens of thousands of women and children) inflicted by Israel in Gaza in the last two years. We should end all U.S. military aid to Israel now,” he said in May of last year. 

In an interview with The American Conservative last week, he said he is speaking for his Kentucky district and despite a retaliatory 2026 primary challenge driven largely by Trump and donors linked to the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), he will continue to raise the issue in Congress. He said he has asked his GOP constituents every year whether to maintain, increase, or cut Israel annual aid since 2012. 

“I’ve polled that [question] every election cycle in my congressional district among likely Republican voters, and this was the first year that a majority of people answered nothing [no aid] at all, or less,” said Massie. “It’s not a third rail back home. It’s a third rail inside of the Beltway.” 

According to reports last month, Israel is “preparing for talks” with the Trump administration to renew the MOU for another 10 years. One might be flummoxed to hear, however, that Netanyahu is giving interviews in which he says he wants to “taper off” American aid in that decade “to zero.” Israel has “come of age” and “we’ve developed incredible capacities,” he said in January. 

Immediately after, Graham, who seems to spend more time in Israel than Washington these days, said he heartily agreed and hoped to end the aid sooner. “I’m going to work on expediting the wind down of the aid and recommend we plow the money back into our own military,” he said. “As an American, you’re always appreciating allies that can be more self-sufficient.”

The idea of self-sufficiency and furthermore the concept of Israel releasing itself from any “ties” that might come from the aid is not a new one among supporters here and especially the hardline right in Israel. “Cut the US aid, and Israel becomes fully sovereign,” Laura Loomer charged on X in November. In March of last year, the Heritage Foundation called for gradually reducing the direct grants in the next MOUs starting in 2029 and transitioning gradually to more military cooperation and then finally arms transfers through the Foreign Military Sales by 2047. 

Israel, the report concludes, should be “elevated to strategic partner for the benefit of Israel, the United States, and the Middle East. Transforming the U.S.–Israel relationship requires changing the regional paradigm, specifically advancing new security and commercial architectures.” The plan also leans heavily on future Abraham Accords ensuring trade and military pacts with Arab countries in the neighborhood.

Therein lies the fix, say critics. The reason these staunch advocates of Israel including Netanyahu, the most demanding of its leaders over the last 30 years by far, is willing to forgo MOU aid, is that they envision it will come from somewhere else, less politically charged.

“The emerging plan is to substitute formal military funding—known as Foreign Military Financing—with greater U.S. taxpayer-funded co-development and co-production of weapons with Israel,” says the Institute for Middle East Understanding, which adds that instead of extricating from Israel’s messes, the U.S. will be further “enmeshed” in them.

The think tank points out that the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), the most unreconstructed pro-Israel organ in the United States, came out with its own report on the aid, and surprise, also advocated phasing out the MOU. In addition to a commitment by Israel to spend more of its GDP on defense and other co-investments with the U.S. on research and development, the U.S. would “provide Israel $5 billion each year through what would be known as a Partnership Investment Incentive—or PII. This PII would provide funding via existing foreign military financing (FMF) mechanisms that Israel would use to procure American military hardware.” The difference would be that it would have to be spent entirely in U.S. industry and on cooperative partnerships in the region, all while maintaining Israel’s “Qualitative Military Edge.” 

Geoff Aronson, longtime Middle East analyst and occasional TAC contributor, said the aid has been “an important if not vital competent in ensuring American and Israeli hegemony in the region” and is linked intrinsically to balancing U.S. strategic relations and normative Israeli peace with Egypt and Jordan, which gets billions in military aid (not as much) from the U.S. too. None of this is going to go away, he surmised to TAC. 

“The question that is being posed is how can we continue to support Israel's ability to work its will in the region without committing ourself to X, Y, Z or committing to a new partnership, a new agreement,” he said. “Watch what you wish for, because it might come true.”