The Qualitative Military Edge agreement between the United States and Israel has cost U.S. taxpayers $310 billion since Israel was founded. Many people in the United States and around the world are upset with how the United States continues to support Israel as they besiege and bombard Gaza, resulting in what some estimates say are 200,000 deaths. What people may not be aware of is that it is U.S. law to defend and sustain Israel’s hegemony. The QME agreement between the United States and Israel has its roots in the 1960s during the peak of Cold War tensions. The U.S. saw Israel as an invaluable geopolitical ally to combat the expansion of Soviet influence into the Middle East. Lydon B. Johnson was the first president to speak publicly about arms deals with Israel.
The Six-Day War in 1967 proved Israel’s military capabilities, and the U.S. felt that Israel could be a valuable partner in combating Soviet influence in the Middle East. Following the Six-Day War, there was a spike in military and financial transfers to Israel using the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. The QME was further solidified during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 when a U.S. airlift of military supplies to Israel was critical in turning the tide of the conflict.
In 2008, in the last months of the Bush administration, the QME agreement between the U.S. and Israel became an official U.S. law by amending the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 to become the Naval Vessel Transfer Act of 2008. This law made it a legal requirement for the U.S. to ensure that any arms sales to Middle Eastern countries do not compromise Israel’s military superiority.