Jewish Insider has a fun scoop today that illustrates one of the iron laws of Western debate over the Middle East: The more knowledgeable one is on the subject, the more supportive of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship one is likely to be.
For example, U.S. aid to Israel is actually an economic stimulus program for American domestic manufacturers in defense-related industries. As a bonus, some hardware gets field tested in scenarios in which all of the risk is borne by Israel.
As a result, some of the maintenance of the U..S-led world order is offloaded to a capable ally while creating jobs here at home and keeping research and development humming along.
You can support this or you can oppose it, but this is what is meant by “U.S. aid to Israel.”
Yet opponents of U.S. military aid to Israel usually say things like “Americans are poor because the Zionist Occupied Government is sending their money to Jews abroad” rather than discuss the merits of actual policy, which is the opposite of sending Americans’ money away.
But because the arrangement is so beneficial to America, President Trump was shocked by the suggestion that U.S. policy would be influenced by these idiots. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to base defense manufacturing in Israel so as to defang the “aid” talking point among pundits who are far more influential in this debate than their range of knowledge would suggest they should be.
“When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed winding down U.S. military aid late last year,” Jewish Insider reports, “President Donald Trump was bewildered and did not immediately support the move.”
The president’s attitude seems to be: If a bunch of so-called America-first illiterates want to sabotage American defense manufacturing, they should just be ignored. To wit: “Trump could not understand why Netanyahu would propose ending American military aid to Israel and disagrees that the move would improve U.S. public opinion on the Jewish state, one source familiar with the president’s perspective told JI. He is skeptical that the plan would benefit either country, but is also not dismissing it out of hand, they said.”
One unfortunate lesson of the Gaza war has been that Israel really does need to increase its own production because Western countries are increasingly and openly allowing themselves to be manipulated by foreign propaganda. The inclusion of anti-Israel bobbleheads in the mainstream discourse is its own sort of DEI program: Everyone gets a seat at the policymaking table, even Columbia grads who think the Jews are new to the Land of Israel and failed conservative pick-up artists with a microphone and wifi.
But it isn’t as though the U.S. and Israel are going to stop working together for the benefit of both countries. They’ll simply have to rearrange the aid structure: “Likud lawmaker Amit Halevi, who has been the primary engine within the party pushing to phase out U.S. military aid, told JI that the model Israel has been presenting to the Trump administration and on Capitol Hill is this one of ‘joint projects and investments.’”
If that sounds familiar, it should: Missile defense (such as Iron Dome) is the type of program that falls under this rubric. Such programs also require government spending, though not as stimulative as the spending under the existing model. American taxpayers won’t see the same returns from having joint projects cannibalize more of the aid allocation, but the dishonest podcasters and their audience will think they’re actually getting a better deal, so they might pipe down a bit.
It’s yet another example of policy advocacy that is vocally anti-Israel but functionally anti-American. There’s a lesson there, but everyone with an open mind has already learned it.
