“The benefit is we won’t need to haggle every year, first with the administration and then with Congress. We’ll have a pretty much guaranteed top-line that will help us enormously in long-term planning,” said a former senior Israeli security official.“The downside, of course, is we’ll lose the ability for annual plus-ups on missile defense, anti-tunnel capabilities and other programs funded by the Pentagon in all but the most-extreme cases,” he added.
Congressional plus-ups for Israeli aid have surpassed Obama’s budget request in recent years by over 100%. US sources revealed that Israeli plus-ups surpassed budget requests by nearly $2 billion in the current agreement established in 2009. (READ MORE)
