US Aid to Israel: Developmental Bargain

Abstract

Due to the generally non-distributive survival strategies of Israeli leaders, Zimmermann argues, the Israeli state absorbed US finance, expertise, and technology into a pre-existing trajectory of development. Most notably, access to US technology and generous military aid terms complemented local efforts to build a domestic military-industrial base. At the same time, the Israeli state could indigenously produce a variety of “order-maximizing resources” that could help it secure domestic stability, national security, and economic development—rendering it less dependent on US aid, less likely to cede sovereignty to Washington, and more likely to act against stated US preferences in specific policy areas. She concludes that US aid to Israel was a developmental bargain, but that US–Israel relations bear more resemblance to alliance politics than international hierarchy.