Aug. 11, 2024 - Dennis Prager Show
04:26
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| The point you made was, I can't believe I hadn't thought of it. | |
| I hate when I hear a great point and I think, why didn't I think of that? | |
| The depleting of Western arms because of the war in Ukraine. | |
| So even if places wanted to send arms to Israel, there isn't the quantity that was normally available. | |
| Did I hear you correctly? | |
| Correctly. | |
| Because nobody in the West has any. | |
| Ukraine itself is short on these types of arms. | |
| And I've been a longtime advocate when I was in government. | |
| Remember, I was in Knesset and I was the deputy minister. | |
| I was a longtime advocate of establishing munitions independence for the state of Israel. | |
| Not to be dependent on anybody because I was very much influenced by a decision made by the Obama administration back in 2014 in an earlier war with Hamas where the administration said we were killing too many Palestinians. | |
| And they began to delay the supply of vital munitions. | |
| And I concluded that Israel can never be in a situation where it's dependent on any foreign government to that degree. | |
| And I thought maybe we could get into another war that would be far larger. | |
| And all of a sudden, someone's going to turn off the faucet. | |
| And that is what has happened. | |
| And it greatly constrains our decision-making and our maneuverability. | |
| I assume that the reason that they didn't take your advice, although obviously they do have their own arms industry in Israel, is simply the economics of it. | |
| Because Israel has a budget and it can't be so imbalanced toward armaments. | |
| Is that the problem? | |
| Well, that was the argument that the Army gave me. | |
| The Army is a very powerful lobby in Israel, and they said, listen, we've already spent the money. | |
| But American armed aid to Israel, and of course we deeply appreciate the aid, it comes to about $4 billion a year. | |
| And once upon a time, that was a huge share of Israel's defense budget. | |
| It was about 50%. | |
| Today it's about 15%. | |
| And the question is, okay, what are the opportunity costs that are lost by receiving the $4 billion? | |
| We can't sell it to whom we want. | |
| We have to buy things that basically the United States tells us to buy because those $4 billion are in essence a subsidy for the American arms industry. | |
| All that money is spent in the United States on American arms. | |
| And I think also that type of relationship where we are the receiving of largesse from the United States opens us up to charges by politicians, and I won't name them, but you know them who will say, well, we can criticize Israel because we give you money. | |
| And I don't think that's appropriate for a country which is strong, which is affluent, and lives in a tough neighborhood. | |
| We can't afford to broadcast that type of dependency and weakness. | |
| So I recommend that we get into a relationship of equality, of cooperating with the United States, and not being on the receiving end, but really being a partner in areas like cyber defense, laser defense, certainly intelligence, weapons development. | |
| And that's a healthier relationship, and I hope we go to that. | |
| At the same time, we will achieve Munitions production independence in the future. | |
| So would it be a curse or a blessing or mixed if, let's say, next year an American administration would announce no more military aid to Israel? | |
| Well, it depends if we were in a position at that point to be independent. | |
| It would be very, very difficult if we weren't. | |
| And then, you know, we would be grievously exposed to aggression by all our enemies. | |
| So conclude. | |
| How long would it take Israel to become independent, in your view? | |
| It would take several years, I would imagine. | |
| It depends, you know, if we really expedite the process. | |
| I know there were certain types of munitions that even during... | |
| I was in the second Lebanon war in 2006, and the Bush administration even gave us criticism for using certain types of munitions. | |
| And we concluded that we had to make those munitions for ourselves. | |
| And we did. | |
| And I'm told I'm not an artilleryman. | |
| I'm a paratrooper. | |
| I'm an infantryman. | |
| But I'm told that our munitions are actually superior. | |
| That's right. | |
| And Israel would then be in a position to do what America and others do, as you mentioned, sell. | |
| So it would cover some of the costs. |
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