The reasons for funding Israel are diminishing

I'm starting to see it now.

Photo by Mohammed Abubakr/Pexels

After the horrid attack on October 7th in Israel, most Democrats supported its defense and mission to destroy Hamas and rescue hostages— morally and financially. Many of former vice president Kamala Harris’ campaign rallies and speeches were overrun with protestors shouting about genocide and the Biden Admin’s continued funding of it. Donald Trump’s rallies were mostly quiet on that front, though most understood MAGA’s support for Israel was no comparison— even if the support was mostly due to apocalyptic reasons stemming from evangelical biblical prophecies.

While I would love to write an entire book about why I, as a liberal Democrat, think progressives were wrong in focusing all their attention on the left, it’s clear Trump’s actions regarding Gaza have brought me closer to understanding their worldview.

Israel failed in war and policy

Before the current ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in January, I had already begun contemplating the success of Israel’s missions: destroy Hamas and rescue hostages.

Of the 251 hostages Hamas took on October 7th, eight have been rescued. Hamas has accused Israel of violating the current ceasefire many times, and Israel’s response is that Hamas violated it first: this necessarily means Hamas is still around. It’s true the IDF have demolished their infrastructure and leadership, but the Iranian proxy is still shooting rockets into Israel as of last month; the IDF admitted to a large enough Hamas presence to continue striking in Gaza. There have been numerous reports that Israel has withheld aid from Gaza as well—though I reject many of the accusations. It seems Israel failed by their own standards even with the U.S.’s financial, humanitarian, and military assistance.

When Hamas began returning hostages, it was a mixed bag of results: On the positive side, Israel had accomplished something many in the international community desired: a longer-term ceasefire agreement. A number of hostages were finally going home, including one resident in my home state of North Carolina after 484 days in captivity. But on the negative side, Hamas was the one returning hostages—not the IDF. Dozens of hostages have died throughout the war and many are still being held in Gaza by Hamas. Nevertheless, the ceasefire was indeed progress.

But just as Hamas was handing over hostages, and Palestinians began moving back to their destroyed communities, President Trump proclaimed to the world that he wanted to ‘clean out’ Gaza by force in order to rebuild it. He then brings Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to D.C. and changes the plan’s details: the IDF would now be forcibly removing millions of Palestinians, and Trump would take it over and make it into an international resort where some Palestinians would still remain. And after Bibi left D.C., Trump took another step towards injustice: he said all Palestinians would be forcibly removed and could not return.

Money for me, not for thee

Another thing that’s changed since Trump’s inauguration is his delegation of Musk and DOGE to root out wasteful spending and fraud. Elon Musk has claimed there’s plenty of it occurring, but is unable to articulate any specific explanation. And the funding issues he does mention are things we already know. Other problems ironically sprouted directly from the first Trump Admin. It seems the only thing Trump and Musk are concerned with is funding things they don’t like, presenting a tough dilemma between the Trump administration’s view of waste and that of many Americans.

As Trump froze billions of allocated dollars from going out, Musk repeatedly lied about wasteful spending—like alleging the U.S. sends $50 million in condoms to Hamas. Musk knows Tesla and SpaceX have secured tens of billions of dollars in government contracts. I like Musk’s companies, but are they less wasteful than saving the lives of poor, sick children in Africa or research opportunities for major universities or feeding starving populations in impoverished regions of the world? I don’t think so. The reasons people support sending HIV-treatment to kids does not necessarily have anything to do with economic benefits— as Musk and Trump ostensibly prioritize. If Musk thinks programs like the ones under USAID are wasteful, and the subsidies he receives from the government aren’t, he should provide a good argument for its distinction. And I think I know it: the clear economic and financial benefits to American taxpayers — not consumers, citizens, or manufacturers—compared to USAID’s more philanthropic motivations.

USAID’s allocated funds are around $40 billion annually—about 14 cents per American. Now, that’s more than Tesla and SpaceX’s funding from the federal government (not including EV tax incentives that save Tesla billions of dollars). To my understanding, these companies are indeed doing good work. And the fact that the government isn’t giving them “too much” relative to important programs or other companies is enough for me to reject the claim that Musk is simply acting nefariously. That doesn’t mean he’s not in it for personal reasons, but that’s a separate argument entirely.

In either case, I really do think Musk and Trump are attempting to root out what they consider to be fraud. And the things that meet that requirement to them tends to have a similar pattern: they don’t directly and intuitively benefit American taxpayers.

How does funding Israel benefit Americans?

It is not a surprise, especially if you paid attention to the progressive activists in the last year, that the U.S. sends more funding to Israel than any other country in the world—by far. Israel receives anywhere from $2-4 billion per year from the United States. However, under President Biden, the U.S. announced it was sending high altitude defense systems and 100 troops to Israel to intercept ballistic missile attacks from Iran and its proxies. In September 2024, the U.S. secured an $8.7 billion aid package for Israel. And more recently, the U.S. State Department notified Congress about a proposed $8 billion arms sale to Israel over the next several years.

I’ve been under the impression that sending funding to Israel is good for Western defense against Iran and its proxies— and that’s still true. But like I have stated, Musk and Trump aren’t too concerned with non-economic interests, especially overseas and related to armed conflict. As Iran’s power and influence slowly declined with the fall of the Assad, the ongoing destruction of Hamas’ leadership, Hezbollah’s utter humiliation and ceasefire with Israel, and of course, Trump’s new plan for the Palestinians living in Gaza, I’m just not sure the non-economic reasons for sending funding to Israel are sufficient for continuation— or at least as much as we currently provide. And it’s hard to imagine why Musk and Trump would either.

If part of the reason for Israel’s funding is to deter terrorism and anti-Western alliances, along with our general sympathies with the Jewish people (again, mostly due to Christian’s religious fanaticism), then when the situation improves, the funding should decline along with it. It’s understandable why we would send more funding than usual to one of our allies in an active war. However, once the IDF forcibly removes millions of Palestinians down the street to Egypt or across the river in Jordan, much of their concerns with terrorism will automatically become comparatively insignificant.

If the U.S. cannot afford to help dying children, or subsidize poor Americans’ healthcare, or assist Ukraine and Europe against Putin’s expansionist regime, then the arguments for Israel’s funding seem much less convincing. Don’t blame me — blame Trump and his cronies for setting the standard.

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Notes:

It is ironic and very strange to me how I fought tooth and nail against the left-wing progressives in support of Palestine for months during the election. My beef with activists wasn’t that they were protesting the war, or our funding of Israel, or even that some thought there should be a one state solution— those are all fairly reasonable opinions one should take seriously. My problem with them was that — I think — they blurred the lines for those casual voters who ended up thinking Trump and Harris were equally complacent of Israel’s war. With all the recent changes to U.S. policy, and the constant shift of power and influence in the Middle East, I've noticed a slow move toward becoming more sympathetic to the fight for Palestinian sovereignty. One game changer for me was seeing so many pro-Israel individuals eagerly supporting the forced removal of Palestinians, as though they were doing anything different than what Hamas wanted to do on October 7th— rid themselves of their enemies from the territory. If Trump and Musk maintain their standard for waste, and want to cut wasteful spending, the funding to Israel should be greatly diminished or completely reallocated as a tax-break for Americans.

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