There’s a simple explanation for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s opposition to Iron Dome and other defensive systems. In the past she has said that she supports Israeli defense systems because, in her words, “I do not believe that adding to the death count of innocent victims to this war is constructive to its end.”
For whatever reason, then, the Democratic trendsetter has changed her mind on the constructiveness of dead Israeli civilians.
But because of her status as a trendsetter, other fellow Democrats—especially, but not only, those with national aspirations—have followed her lead. What is their reason? Well, they have mostly claimed that Israel can pay for Iron Dome by itself. “Israel is a first world country, and it can pay for the defensive systems it needs,” declared anti-Israel conspiracy theorist Ro Khanna. For her part, AOC says much the same: “I believe the Israeli government is well able to fund the Iron Dome system.”
AOC’s turnabout is transparent—she changed her mind on the value of dead civilians because the Democratic Socialists of America, one of the leading Hamas-aligned hate groups in the country, told her to. Ocasio-Cortez wants the DSA’s endorsement, and if it means stepping over bodies on her way to accept it, then that is what she will do.
Khanna and AOC don’t have supporters as much as they have fans. Those fans don’t really care what practical effects cutting Iron Dome funding would have. But the self-styled centrists and moderates do. So the “Israel can pay for it since it’s entirely to Israel’s benefit” excuse gives the moderates a way to get in line with progressives while still sounding like wonks instead of idealogues.
Meet the America First left. It is no more charming than the America First right.
The problem is that it isn’t true that Iron Dome is none of our concern. The America First left is thus living a lie—the very same lie that America First rightists tell themselves. The Horseshoe Theory strikes again.
There are two kinds of benefits that Iron Dome funding brings to America: direct and indirect. An example of an indirect benefit: It is an immensely cost-effective way to prevent escalation in the Middle East, since it allows Israel to absorb rocket attacks that would otherwise necessitate an overwhelming military response. And preventing escalation in the Middle East saves American lives.
One theory behind funding Iron Dome, then, is: It is good to save American lives.
But the indirectness of that particular benefit opens space for naysayers to claim otherwise (though it would be surprising if they actually believed such claims). So if that were where the argument ended, AOC and Khanna and others could claim some kind of “both sides” stalemate in which two legitimate but unprovable claims must coexist.
But it does not end there. In fact, it begins there.
As one Congressional Research Service report on Iron Dome explains succinctly: “In March 2014, the United States and Israeli governments signed a coproduction agreement to enable components of the Iron Dome system to be manufactured in the United States, while also providing the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) with full access to what had been proprietary Iron Dome technology.”
Let’s take the first part first, because it’s so simple even an anti-Zionist could understand it. For about a decade, Raytheon’s plant in Arizona was the critical core of Iron Dome parts production in America. In November 2025, a new plant in Arkansas came online, moving even more of the process from Israel to America. Now, the manufacture of missile components for Iron Dome interceptors is mostly an American process. In other words, just like much of what is called “aid” to Israel, the money is spent on the U.S. economy and in fortifying American manufacturing. Along with the new Arkansas facility, Reuters reports, Raytheon received a $1.25 billion contract to supply Israel.
American jobs, American money, American manufacturing—if these are unimportant to Iron Dome’s critics, they should say so. Ignoring them entirely is an act of profound bad faith.
Meanwhile, access to the missile-defense technology is its own return-on-investment, since the U.S. gets to see data from the tech’s deployment in wartime scenarios. So: Iran fires missiles at Israel, and the U.S. sees what works and what doesn’t without its own civilians being the live targets.
Which is why, in the end, opposition to Iron Dome in the U.S. generally takes an ideological, and not a mathematical or practical, primary basis. One cannot argue that there are no benefits to the U.S.; one can only argue that those benefits—investment in the U.S. economy, job creation, a steady boost to domestic manufacturing, and of course lives saved—aren’t meaningful.
