This is a Kato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, April 9th, 2024. I'm Caleb Brown.

The U.S. provides financial support to Israel and the U.S. in Israel are widely said to have a special relationship.

But what does the U.S. get out of that relationship and is it time for the U.S. to

rethink its commitments to Israel.

It was John Hoffman comments.

How would you characterize the relationship,

either militarily or socially or culturally,

between the United States and Israel since you know the mid

1950s. Sure so I would characterize it the way that President Kennedy

characterized it. It is a quote-unquote special relationship it is truly unique in its

manifestation and really what I mean by this is diplomatically, politically,

militarily, this relationship is not akin to America's relationship with really any other country on earth, you know, and at the heart of this special relationship is really the unparalleled amount of aid that the

United States provides to Israel 300 billion adjusted for inflation since World War

2 continued at 3.8 billion annually. So I try to situate this within the broader context of

US Middle East policy and just showing that the US-Israel relationship is not only exceptional in

terms of America's approach to the Middle East but almost you know it's

exceptional in terms of America's engagement with relations writ large across the world.

When people who are, especially in Congress, big supporters of Israel and are defending the United States writing those big checks every year.

They talk about, look, this is a democracy in the Middle East.

It is a critical ally.

It is in the vital national security interests, not to be confused with

merely being in national security interests of the United States.

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