Have Democrats or Republicans given more aid to Israel? We followed the money

Amid ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Iran, the United States’ decades-long alliance with Israel has come under the microscope. That includes the billions of dollars in foreign assistance, including military aid, that the U.S. provides to Israel annually.

These large sums of money have prompted a claim about which political parties — specifically, which presidential administrations — have allocated the most aid to Israel over the last 25 years..

For example, in October, a graphic (archived) circulated on Facebook claiming to show that Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden gave more financial assistance to Israel than Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump.

One Facebook user who shared the graphic, which showed caricatures of Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden sitting on stacks of dollar bills, wrote:

Today I learned… Many people associate strong American support for Israel with Republicans, especially Donald Trump. But the history of U.S. financial assistance to Israel tells a more complicated story.

The comparison shows approximately $23 billion during George W. Bush’s presidency, $28 billion under Barack Obama, $15 billion during Trump’s first term, and $25 billion under Joe Biden. These are rounded estimates of assistance during their respective periods, not amounts personally given by the presidents.

Here is an interesting detail: In 2016, Obama signed a historic agreement committing the United States to $38 billion in military assistance to Israel over ten years, subject to congressional approval. That agreement continued through Trump’s presidency and Biden’s presidency.

The Free Palestine movement has been particularly critical of Trump, but American support for Israel has remained a bipartisan policy for decades. Obama, Bush, Biden, and Trump all maintained substantial military assistance, even as their diplomatic approaches differed.

The question is whether public criticism of American support for Israel is being applied consistently across political parties. Are people judging presidents by their actual policies and financial commitments, or by their political identities?

The graphic also circulated elsewhere on Facebook and X (archived, archived).

The graphic suffers from several problems. It uses incorrect data for U.S. aid to Israel under the various presidential administrations. Additionally, the visualization neglects the complexities of how the U.S. obligates foreign assistance payments, and omits crucial context about which political parties controlled Congress under each president. 

As the poster pointed out, Congress — not the president — holds the “power of the purse,” meaning it decides how to spend public money. Therefore, a more-accurate way to frame the question the graphic attempted to answer would be: Did Republican or Democratic Congresses (rather than presidents) appropriate more foreign assistance to Israel?

However, there is not a simple answer to this question. As we outline below, factors such as changing fiscal years, budget processes and long-term funding deals with Israel complicate attempts to tally funding by party. 

Below, we outline U.S. foreign aid to Israel over the last 75 years — including during the Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden administrations — and examine how Congress and long-term funding deals influenced those decisions:

Why does US pay foreign assistance to Israel?

The U.S. and Israel have shared close diplomatic bonds since the creation of Israel in 1948, when President Harry S. Truman became the first world leader to recognize the new Jewish state.

Since then, Israel has received the most foreign assistance from the U.S. out of any country in the world since World War II, according to a 2025 report by the Congressional Research Service (PDF Page 2).

The high level of consistent financial support reflects historical ties, but also a desire to support Israel and its security as well as shared strategic goals in the Middle East, the report found. For example, the report documented how U.S. financial and military assistance for Israel surged after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks. 

Congresses under both the Biden and Trump administrations continued to provide support for Israel amid its controversial ongoing military action in Gaza and the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran.

Since 2001, the U.S. has sent an average of $3 billion in foreign assistance to Israel every fiscal year. According to the Congressional Research Service report, Israel receives most of its security assistance through the State Department’s Foreign Military Financing appropriations account (PDF Page 27). Grants or loans through this account allow foreign governments to buy U.S. defense equipment, services and training.

Foreign Military Financing from the U.S. has made up somewhere from 15% to 35% of Israel’s independent defense budget since 2004, according to the Congressional Research Service report (PDF Page 28, Figure 6). 

Aid to Israel under Bush, Obama, Biden and Trump

In an effort to correct the Facebook graphic, we used data from ForeignAssistance.gov, a U.S. government website where departments report money spent on foreign assistance, to present a fair an accurate account of how much foreign assistance Congress obligated to Israel during the Bush, Obama, Biden and Trump administrations.

As well as using official figures, our graph also corrects another oversight of the Facebook graphic: It directly compared two-term Presidents Bush and Obama to single or split-term Presidents Biden and Trump.

The graph below compares foreign assistance appropriated to Israel during presidential administrations since fiscal year 2001. It does not show whether Democratic or Republican presidents allocated more money to Israel because Congress holds the power of the purse.

Curious how we built the graph above? Check out our data here.

In total, across the Bush, Obama, Biden and Trump administrations: 

• Congresses during Republican administrations obligated $38.6 billion in foreign assistance to Israel.

• Congresses during Democratic administrations obligated $40.8 billion in foreign assistance to Israel.

According to ForeignAssistance.gov, money obligated to Israel during the Bush, Obama, Biden and Trump administrations was almost entirely earmarked for the military, as opposed to economic purposes. Funds during fiscal year 2001, Bush’s first fiscal year, were split 70% to 30% in favor of military purposes. Israel has received foreign assistance exclusively for military purposes since fiscal year 2018 (during Trump’s first term).

The contributions mainly came from the Foreign Military Financing appropriations account.

U.S. aid to Israel over past 75 years by Congress

As we noted before, the question is not as simple as asking which president allocated the most money to Israel because it is Congress, not the president, that actually appropriates foreign assistance. Congressional budgets govern how much U.S. aid Israel receives. 

The U.S. government tracks foreign assistance per fiscal year because Congress budgets per fiscal year. A U.S. government fiscal year runs from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 and is named after the year it ends (except for before 1976, when it ran from June 30 to July 1.)

According to the Congressional Research Service, since the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, a president submits their suggested budget for the coming fiscal year in February. Congress then has until April 15 to agree on a budget resolution, or an agreement between the House and the Senate about how the next fiscal year’s budget will look. Congress then passes legislation that allows federal agencies to spend the budgeted money through the appropriations process and, if needed, legislation to allow for the proposed budget changes through the reconciliation process. 

Congress is supposed to finish the entire budgeting process by June 30 before the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1, but that almost never happens, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

ForeignAssistance.gov contains data on money obligated — meaning legally committed — as foreign assistance to Israel since fiscal year 1951. As mentioned above, Israel mainly receives foreign assistance in the form of Foreign Military Financing loans or grants that allow it to buy U.S. defense equipment.

To attempt to answer the question of which political party allocated the most money in foreign assistance to Israel, we used historical data to determine which parties had a majority in Congress when it passed budgets for fiscal years 1951 through 2026. Then, we used data from ForeignAssistance.gov that showed how much money the U.S. obligated in foreign assistance to Israel every fiscal year since 1951. 

The data was adjusted for inflation, making it possible to directly compare obligations over time. 

Putting these datasets together, we found that, since fiscal year 1951, there have been 22 Democrat-majority Congresses, nine Republican-majority Congresses, and eight divided Congresses that obligated foreign assistance for Israel. That split alone is likely enough to infer that Democrat-led Congresses have obligated the most funds to Israel in that time period.

That is also what the data shows. According to ForeignAssistance.gov:

• Democrat-led Congresses have obligated $160.4 billion in foreign assistance to Israel since fiscal year 1951.

• Republican-led Congresses have obligated $57.1 billion to Israel since fiscal year 1951.

• Split Congresses have obligated $80.5 billion since fiscal year 1951.

Curious how we built the graph above? Check out our data here.

In reference to the Facebook graphic above, the Bush, Obama, Biden and Trump administrations oversaw the following Congresses:

• Bush: one divided Congress (107th), two Republican Congresses (108th-109th) and one Democratic Congress (110th).
   
• Obama: one Democratic Congress (111th), two divided Congresses (112th-113th) and one Republican Congress (114th).
   
• Trump: one Republican Congress (115th) and one divided Congress (116th) during his first term.
   
• Biden: one Democratic Cognress (117th) and one divided Congress (118th).
   
• Trump’s second term has featured one Republican Congress (119th) at the time of this writing.

Divided Congresses, long-term deals complicate tally 

Using the figures above, on average: Democrat-led Congresses have obligated $7.3 billion per Congress while Republican Congresses have obligated $6.3 billion on average. This suggests that, on a Congress-by-Congress level, Democrat and Republican politicians both obligate substantial sums to Israel, but Democratic-led Congresses are more likely to obligate higher amounts. 

However, several factors complicate a tally like the one above. Most importantly, Congress has been divided, meaning that opposite parties hold majority control in the House and Senate, nearly as many times as it has been Republican-led since fiscal year1951. Foreign assistance obligated by a divided Congress does not fit neatly into a Republican vs. Democrat tally. Excluding these Congresses from a comparison, as we did above, neglects a sizable part of the United States’ overall foreign assistance to Israel.

Additionally, since 1999, memorandums of understanding, rather than individual Congresses, have largely governed how much money the U.S. obligates to Israel in foreign assistance each year. Presidents Bill Clinton, Bush and Obama all signed 10-year memorandums of understanding that committed increasing amounts of money to Israel. That means presidents have signed memorandums of understanding that carry over into the next administration. Obama last signed an MOU with Israel in 2016 that was due to expire in fiscal year 2028. However, it’s worth noting that these agreements are not always binding and Congress still has to appropriate the funds yearly. 

The effect of MOUs can be seen in recent years, where contributions to Israel have risen in line with these agreements, rather than any particular political whim of Congress or a president. For example, in 2016, Obama signed a 10-year MOU pledging $3.3 billion in foreign assistance in the form of Foreign Military Financing to Israel every year. U.S. obligations from this account have exceeded $3.3 billion since fiscal year 2017 under both Trump and Biden and respective Congresses, though they did not sign the initial agreement.

It is unclear how funds agreed to under these memorandums but obligated by individual Congresses should be counted. For example, Clinton, a Democrat, pledged upwards of $2.4 billion per year to Israel over 10 years. At the time Clinton made the agreement during the 106th Congress, Republicans held the majority in Congress. It is up to individual interpretation whether funds paid out as part of an MOU should be credited to the party of the president that negotiated the agreement or the parties in Congress that actually approved the money year after year.

A bipartisan issue

Given the issues we outlined above, our graph that showed how much money Democratic, Republican or divided Congresses obligated to Israel should be regarded more as an approximation than a hard truth. Above all else, the data we collected shows that U.S. support for Israel is bipartisan and dates back almost to the creation of the nation itself. 

Since 1999, MOUs have asked Congresses of both majorities to obligate set levels of foreign assistance. The current Obama-era MOU was due to run out at the end of fiscal year 2028.

The Israeli government had reportedly begun negotiations for a new MOU with the Trump administration at the time of this writing, suggesting U.S. foreign assistance to Israel could remain a bipartisan commitment for years to come. It remains to be seen whether recent events such as the wars in Gaza and Iran will affect U.S. lawmakers’ willingness to continue sending foreign assistance to Israel.

For more data-driven reporting from Snopes, we previously investigated whether Chinese investors were buying farmland in the U.S. and whether inflation rose more during the Biden or Trump administrations.