It was an unusually blunt attack on the Israeli Cabinet by JD Vance , the American Vice-President. "Do not attack your only ally," he said, noting that nearly two-thirds of the defensive weapons protecting Israel had been "built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars". That came after Israeli leaders asserted the right to act on their own following the US deal with Iran. As Israel's action in Lebanon puts the fragile peace at risk, the big question is — can the Jewish nation defend itself without American support? We will give you a yes-or-no answer by the end of the analysis after sifting through what experts have to say.
The ties between Israel and the US are so strong that satirist and our in-house columnist Kamlesh Singh said, "Israel is the first of the US's 51 states." Those ties look strained right now, but are unlikely to snap. Both find themselves in a Catch 22 situation. While the US wants to wriggle out of the Iran war, Israel wants to tame Iran's proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The trouble between the two allies began with the US signing a 14-point interim peace deal with Iran on Thursday. The so-called memorandum of understanding triggered a deep unease in Israel . Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the deal didn't bind Israel, while Defence Minister Israel Katz has instructed the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to prepare unilateral contingency plans to strike Iran's nuclear infrastructure if necessary.
Even as Jerusalem signals that it is willing to act independently to safeguard its interests, at the cost of antagonising the US, a key question remains: can it realistically do so? How dependent are Israel's armed forces on American military aid and weapons? And if a situation ever arose in which the US began scaling back its support, how long could Israel sustain its military capabilities on its own?
"The US-Israel defence relationship is the closest defence partnership between the US and any major non-NATO country. Israel is critically dependent on the United States for most of its defence needs," defence expert Sandeep Unnithan tells India Today Digital. He explains why Israel, despite having a thriving military industrial base and being a leading weapons exporter, remains dependent on the US. Such critical is the dependency, that even Israeli arms importers, like India, might get impacted if the US intends to punish its ally.
We will get more into that in a bit. Before that, let us understand how the US funds Israeli defences.
HOW US MILITARY FUNDING BANKROLLS ISRAEL'S MILITARY
According to a report by Time Magazine, Israel has received more than $130 billion in US military assistance since its founding in 1948. Since 2019, Washington has provided Jerusalem with $3.8 billion annually, most of it to finance Israel’s military expenditure.
This funding is provided via a programme called Foreign Military Financing (FMF), which allows partner nations to purchase American-made military equipment. Israel is by far the largest beneficiary of this programme, with Egypt, which receives $1.3 billion at a distant second.
This is, however, by no means a one-way street. In a Substack article, former US Army officer and defence analyst John Spencer pointed out that Israel is required to spend up to 74% of the funding it receives through the FMF on US-made equipment.
As Spencer explains, the money provided to Israel "does not leave the American economy. It circulates through American factories, American supply chains, and American workers." He adds that, in practice, "much of what critics describe as foreign aid flows directly to American defence companies, American workers, and the industrial base that also equips the US military," since Israel is ultimately purchasing American weapons.
Besides aid provided under the FMF, between October 2023 and September 2025, a study by Brown University’s Costs of War project found that the US had provided additional military aid worth $21.7 billion. This does not take into account the further expenditure incurred as part of the war with Iran and Israel’s incursion into Lebanon, which will easily run into billions more.
US aid reportedly accounted for around 20% of Israel’s defence budget in 2020, according to a report by the US Congressional Research Service in 2023. Since the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, American aid to the Jewish nation has only increased.
ISRAELI RELIANCE ON AMERICAN DEFENCE EQUIPMENT: FROM JETS TO MUNITIONS
To see how extensive Jerusalem's dependence is on military assistance furnished by American taxpayers, one only needs to look at Israel's military arsenal.
Take, for instance, the Israeli Air Force. According to Sandeep Unnithan, the Israeli Air Force is "one of the world's best air forces— despite flying thousands of sorties during the war with Iran, it did not lose a single fighter jet." Yet, this formidable force is for all intents and purposes, a product of the US aerospace industry, which according…
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