How does US aid to Israel compare per capita with aid to other US allies like Egypt or Jordan?
Executive summary
U.S. military aid to Israel has averaged roughly $3–4 billion per year under the existing 10‑year Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) [1] [2]. By contrast, available sources in the provided set emphasize that U.S. assistance to other regional partners like Egypt and Jordan is substantially smaller in absolute terms, though precise per‑capita comparisons are not fully spelled out in these documents [1] [3] [4].
1. What the headline numbers say: Israel’s steady, large annual package
Congressional and public‑data summaries describe Israel’s current baseline as a multibillion‑dollar annual security relationship—often cited as about $3–4 billion per year under the 2016 10‑year MOU and in related reporting about mid‑2020s transfers and emergency aid [1] [2] [5]. Reporting also highlights episodic additions—fast‑tracked or emergency transfers and proposed arms sales worth billions—which push annual U.S. security assistance to Israel higher in some years [5] [2].
2. What “per capita” would mean here — and why the available sources don’t give a neat answer
Per‑capita comparisons require dividing U.S. aid totals by recipient populations. The documents provided give robust figures for Israel’s annual military financing and historic cumulative aid [1] [3] but do not supply standardized per‑capita calculations comparing Israel explicitly against Egypt or Jordan in the extracts furnished. Therefore, available sources do not mention a ready-made per‑person ranking across those three countries in the materials you supplied [1] [3].
3. Context: Israel is an unusually large cumulative recipient of U.S. aid
Multiple sources stress that Israel has received more U.S. assistance cumulatively than almost any other country since World War II and remains a top recipient of U.S. arms transfers and security aid—reflecting a long‑standing strategic relationship and a unique 10‑year MOU structure [3] [4] [1]. Advocacy and think‑tank pieces note that Israel’s per‑capita GDP is relatively high compared with many other U.S. aid recipients, which shapes debates about whether large U.S. grants remain economically justified [6] [7] [3].
4. How Egypt and Jordan typically figure in U.S. assistance portfolios (limits of our sources)
The supplied search results emphasize Israel and general U.S. foreign assistance platforms (e.g., ForeignAssistance.gov) but do not include detailed, cited annual or per‑capita aid numbers for Egypt or Jordan in the text excerpts you provided. Thus, available sources do not mention specific per‑capita figures for U.S. aid to Egypt or Jordan in the current reporting set [8].
5. What analysts and advocates highlight when making per‑capita comparisons
Commentators who argue Israel receives outsized assistance point to Israel’s high cumulative receipts and to the $3–4 billion annual military baseline in the MOU, often contrasting that to the economic size and wealth of Israel [1] [2] [3]. Conversely, pro‑aid voices and strategic analysts emphasize Israel’s role in regional security, the U.S. interest in preserving Israel’s qualitative military edge, and the fact that much U.S. aid to Israel takes the form of defense financing interoperable with U.S. systems [4] [5]. The supplied sources show these competing frames in reporting around potential new MOUs and arms sales [2] [4].
6. Practical steps to get an exact per‑capita comparison
To produce a definitive per‑capita comparison you need two pieces of data for a common year: (A) the official U.S. aid amounts to each country (ForeignAssistance.gov is the central source cited by these materials), and (B) the recipient country population for that same year. The ForeignAssistance.gov country pages and the CRS and public‑data summaries cited here would be the place to extract standardized dollar amounts by year before dividing by population [8] [1].
7. Takeaway for readers: strong claims require precise, comparable data
The sources provided establish that Israel receives several billion dollars annually in U.S. military aid and is the largest cumulative U.S. recipient since 1946 [1] [3]. However, available sources do not present a ready, cited per‑capita table comparing Israel, Egypt, and Jordan in the excerpts supplied; making that comparison responsibly means pulling the yearly aid totals from ForeignAssistance.gov and matching them to population figures for the same year [8]. Policymakers and advocates use competing frames—strategic necessity versus equity and economic capacity—to interpret the raw numbers [4] [7].