At the height of the Rick Perry firestorm, several of his supporters, including one who works for his campaign, insisted that he was solidly pro-Israel, and that therefore he was reliably anti-jihad (which doesn't actually follow), despite his close association with Grover Norquist. Now even that is in doubt, in light of the information below. Israel is on the front lines of the global jihad -- the same jihad that the U.S. faces. That is only dimly understood, if it is understood at all, in Washington -- and in a Perry presidency that incomprehension would get even worse. Ultimately the victim would not just be Israel, but all free people who face the same jihad.
"Rick Perry's Dangerous Israel Gaffe," by Bruce Riedel at the Daily Beast, November 13:
Gov. Rick Perry's proposal to start each year with zero dollars in foreign aid allocated for Israel and all other countries would have a very disruptive impact on Israeli military planning and Israeli security. Perry's idea is bad news for Israel and shows how little he understands its needs.For the last three decades, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) planners have relied on roughly $3 billion in U.S. aid annually to build a modern military with a qualitative advantage over all of Israel's enemies. The IDF knows it can plan multiyear purchases of jet aircraft like F15s and other weapons because U.S. aid will be certain for years ahead. Planners love certainty about everything, but especially budgets.
Perry would introduce uncertainty. Despite his hunch that aid would be substantial each year, the IDF would not have certitude to plan on. It presumably would need to make its case every year for aid, wasting energy and disrupting planning. For example the U.S. and Israel hold joint training maneuvers every year. In the zero-aid world, planning maneuvers for next year would be tricky—how much money determines how big the training effort. If you start at zero, you plan zero.
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I agree that Perry is problematic for the reason that he has trouble distinguishing friends from enemies in the Islamic community. On this measure Romney is superior. (But I discount Romney for other reasons).
However I cannot agree that starting Israel from 0 is a problem. Daniel Pipes, who is no enemy to Israel, argued for something similar not long ago. I agree with Perry that this is a fine idea, and I think it would lend some credence to the notion that Israel receives aid for legitimate reasons -- it has some chance of slightly de-fanging the vicious and stupid lies about our principal Ally in the middle east. There is not a chance in the world that, in a calculation holding Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Israel up as recipients of funding, Israel would be shortchanged. Or, if such happened, it would immediately tell the truth about the U.S. administration.
The one caveat I would make is that, since Israel is an ally, one must uphold existing longstanding agreements whose very nature necessitates an unflagging commitment. The 0 policy should apply to aid pertaining to infrastructure, civilian projects, non-military and non-security objectives and so on.
Further, the 0 starting balance would have to be an abstract calculation ON PAPER. One simply can't drop commitments to which one is legally bound, either to Israel or to Pakistan, without the other having first violating the agreement. But the calculation can be made, and if one's estimate is that country X is receiving more than their share, as indicated by shared interests, goodwill, common values, strategic value and upholding citizens' rights, then this calculation should dictate the evolution of future negotiated aid agreements.
Modulo these things I see no problem with Perry's idea.