this post was submitted on 30 May 2025
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This is both true, and not entirely accurate.
Israel spends something like $24 on their defense. The $3B that the the US gives them (and it's $3B, not $4B, based on what I can find) is largely in the form of military materials: ammunition, bombs, air defense systems, etc. So what we give them is about 20% of their total defense spend, and yeah, that's a lot.
But the flip side of that is that American workers in American factories are the ones building the bombs, missiles defense systems, making the bullets, etc.; the money that the gov't gives Israel ends up creating a benefit for workers in the form of work that wouldn't otherwise exist. I'd have to see a real economic analysis, but this might be a case of each dollar that the gov't spends creating more than a dollar of effect. (And yeah, I know that a lot of that effect is going to e.g. Raytheon shareholders rather than line workers. But still.)
BUT
The fact that we see an economic benefit in terms of jobs and growth by giving Israel aid doesn't mean we should. Because we're directly funding the genocide of the Palestinians.
I assume there's supposed to be a B on the end of that figure. But it's funny picturing them spending just twenty-four bucks.
Yes, $24B, sorry.
If they spent $24.00 on their own defense, and the US gave them $3B, then, uh, they'd be 100% dependent on the US.
Imagine spending that 3 billions on American health care workers.. rather than Raytheon
It wouldn't even be noticeable. We spend a total of about $4.5 trillion [EDIT: on healthcare]; $3B is 0.07% of that total.
And, BTW, we have terrible outcomes for how much we spend.
Is that 4.5 trillion including cost to the individual? Or just production.
Because I imagine the cost to the individual is a lot higher than it normally would be because of the profit incentive.
I imagine the number would be somewhat lower if it was near cost because it's govt funded. Curious how significant that difference would be
Gov't funded doesn't drop the cost that much. Countries in the west that are single-payer and/or have national/socialized healthcare systems pay between 1/5 and 2/3 of what we do per capita, on average. It might be better in countries where the entire supply chain is subject to price controls (e..g., China), but I don't know. But, regardless, if our system cost 20% of what it does now, or $900B, $3B would still be only .3% of the entire expenditure. Part of the problem is that, as far as western countries go, the US is just big. The population of Israel is estimated to be about 9.5M, compared to 340M or so for the US.
Again, to be clear: I'm not suggesting that we should be giving--or selling--Israel anything at this point.