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By Ellie Cook
Senior Defense Reporter
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Israel is a "laboratory" and testing ground for U.S. weapons, a longtime confidant and ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said, after the U.S. said it would stop providing billions of dollars of aid to Israel by the end of the year.
Ron Dermer, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and ex-Israeli strategic affairs minister, said during a podcast appearance Israel was "not just a laboratory" for cutting-edge weapons, but was "also a showcase for them."
"Because we're in an active conflict, we end up being a testing ground for so much of the technologies that keep Americans safe home and abroad," an Israeli Foreign Ministry source told Newsweek. They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on record.
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The U.S. and Israeli militaries cooperate very closely on military technology, including on air defense.
President Donald Trump's Golden Dome missile defense shield takes inspiration from the Israeli Iron Dome, which the U.S. helped Israel to develop. The U.S. Army uses Israeli-designed systems to protect its Abrams tanks, while Israel has its own version of the U.S.-made F-35 stealth fighter jet.
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Israel has its own powerful defense industry and experience fighting Iran-backed groups in Gaza and Lebanon in the past few years, as well as experience of direct confrontations with Iran, alongside U.S. forces. Israel has also carried out operations in Syria and the West Bank in this period.
"Having such a laboratory saves the United States' defense contractors huge amounts of money," Dermer said on the Commentary Magazine Podcast.
In a move that appeared to catch Netanyahu and other Israeli officials by surprise, Trump announced last week the U.S. would turn off the tap of roughly $4 billion in aid flowing to Israel by the end of 2026.
The U.S. currently provides Israel with around $3.8 billion in military aid each year, but the memorandum of understanding signed under former President Barack Obama outlining this commitment is due to lapse in 2028. As part of the deal, Israel was to eventually spend all the funds with U.S. defense firms.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday the U.S. believed Israel was now able to purchase American weapons, rather than receive funding support to buy U.S. equipment.
Netanyahu said earlier this year he hoped to wean Israel off U.S. military aid entirely, but said the process would likely happen over a decade.
Israel reported record weapons sales for 2025, which have more than doubled in the past five years as even countries highly critical of the war in Gaza rush to beef up their militaries with equipment tested in battle conditions.
And despite close personal ties between Trump and Netanyahu, questions have grown in both the U.S. and Israel about just how intertwined the two nations should be and the dynamics of power baked in to the relationship.
Trump said ahead of the midterm results that the aid destined for Israel had been used as a political tool by prominent Democrats to critique U.S. links with Israel.
After the resounding defeat in last week's midterms, top administration officials acknowledged the unpopularity of the U.S.-led Iran war was responsible for the Democrats retaking both the House and Senate from the GOP. Just days later, Trump declared Israel and other U.S. allies in the Middle East would need to pay back the U.S. any costs incurred for their defense against Iran's retaliatory strikes—although he did not explain how this would be calculated nor whether these nations had agreed to do so.
Meanwhile, the House of Representatives narrowly passed a version of the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, for the 2027 fiscal year in July, which included a provision on closer integration of the U.S. and Israeli militaries.
If enacted, the Pentagon would house a special coordinator to "expand and accelerate" research, testing and development of new technology with Israel. They would also oversee how new systems would slot into the U.S. military and which companies would produce them.
This person would work out which technologies Israel has developed, or the U.S. has helped Israel to build, which could be useful to the U.S. military.
Contact Newsweek editors for this story: Robert Greenall and Henry Holloway
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