A growing strand on the American Right now argues that Israel is a foreign policy liability—an expensive entanglement draining U.S. resources. The prescription is simple: cut aid, disengage, and domestic renewal will follow.

Nevertheless, that argument collapses when examined based on scale, comparison, and structure.

Let’s start with facts. The United States provides Israel roughly $3.8 billion annually—about 0.06% of its $6.1 trillion budget. Meanwhile, deficits run between $1.5 and $2 trillion per year, national debt exceeds $37 trillion, and entitlements alone consume over $3 trillion annually. In that context, Israel is not driving U.S. fiscal stress; it barely registers. Hence, eliminating that assistance would not alter the trajectory—it would simply remove a convenient talking point.

Further, comparison exposes the selectivity. The U.S. provides $10–12 billion annually to Ukraine, roughly $1.5–2 billion to Egypt, and $1.3–1.4 billion to Jordan, in addition to the long tail of Iraq and Afghanistan and the cost of maintaining more than 700 overseas bases. Thus, Israel is not exceptional—yet it is treated as if it were. What appears as a fiscal concern is, in practice, a narrative choice.

The composition of aid reinforces this point. Roughly 70–75% of U.S. assistance to Israel is spent inside the United States, tied to procurement from American defense firms. In other words, this is not external redistribution but a form of domestic industrial policy routed through an ally.

From there, the argument shifts from cost to return—and here, too, it weakens. U.S.–Israel trade reaches roughly $50 billion annually, while Israeli firms have invested over $24 billion into the U.S. economy, particularly in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and semiconductors. At the same time, Israel spends about 5% of its GDP on research and development—the highest in the OECD—positioning it as a key node in high-end innovation ecosystems that directly benefit the United States.

The deeper failure of the argument, however, is strategic. Roughly 20% of global oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, while the Red Sea and Suez Canal carry between 12% and 15% of global trade. Within this geostrategic framework, Israel functions as a forward-positioned security and technology platform. Jerusalem’s missile defense systems—developed jointly with the United States—have intercepted thousands of rockets under real operational conditions to protect this area.

On the other hand, Israel’s counter-drone capabilities address a rapidly expanding threat: systems such as the Shahed-136, costing between $20,000 and $50,000, can strike targets at distances of up to 2,000–2,500 kilometers. While modern warfare is increasingly defined by a $30,000 drone forcing a million-dollar response, the Jewish State is among the few states actively working to solve that equation with its new military lasers.

By contrast, recent battlefield data now converges with a more consequential reality: the war launched a few days ago between the United States and Israel against Iran has shifted this dynamic from indirect proxy testing to direct state-on-state confrontation. This escalation does not emerge in a vacuum; rather, it builds on observable patterns established between late 2024 and 2025, when Iran- alongside its backed actors- deployed hundreds of one-way attack drones across Ukraine and the Red Sea theater. Those operations demonstrated not only the scalability of low-cost strike systems, but also their role as a testing ground for broader strategic application.

As a result, what once functioned as an indirect laboratory of asymmetric warfare is now feeding directly into an active combat environment.

In turn, this transition is accelerating U.S.–Israeli cooperation on layered air defense and counter-UAS integration, while simultaneously exposing the structural limitations of Iran’s model when it is forced to operate beyond proxies and under the pressures of open conflict.

Ergo, remove a partner operating at that level, and the United States does not save money—it shifts costs into the future, where they reappear in the form of blood, time, and sudden surprise.

In geopolitical strategy, what appears inexpensive today is often what proves most costly tomorrow. Accordingly, cutting Israel out would not reduce exposure; it would reduce access. The result would not be disengagement, but diminished influence in a region shaped by Iranian networks, Russian adaptation, and Chinese expansion. Plainly, disengagement does not eliminate risk—it transfers initiative to actors who do not share U.S. interests.

At its core, then, the argument reflects a structural misdiagnosis. America’s pressures—$34 trillion in debt, institutional distrust, polarization, and weak productivity growth—are internal dynamics that persist regardless of alliances.

In fact, the trajectory is already shifting. U.S. aid now accounts for only about 15–16% of Israel’s defense budget—a declining share—and Israeli policymakers have already signaled reduced dependence after 2028. The grievance, therefore, is not only misplaced; it is already diminishing in relevance.

In tandem, this shift is already visible in procurement patterns: this month, Israel will start increasing its domestic defense production and export volumes—surpassing $13 billion annually—further reducing long-term reliance on U.S. assistance while deepening bilateral technological integration.

Thence, what emerges is a consistent pattern: U.S. structural problems are repeatedly externalized—first globalization, then China, then immigration, and now Israel—each providing a clear and politically convenient explanation while leaving underlying conditions untouched.

The State of Israel—a country of roughly 10 million people, geographically minuscule (over 640 times smaller than the combined landmass of Muslim-majority states)—is not the source of these pressures; rather, it becomes the focal point onto which frustration is redirected when confronting domestic constraints proves politically costly. In my assessment, this is not a strategy but a substitution—and substitution endures not because it is accurate, but because it is easier than acknowledging that the problem is internal.

Beyond doubt, a serious framework would focus on recalibrating aid, maximizing technological and security returns, and aligning alliances with strategic competition. Therefore, it would not be to treat Israel as a scapegoat, because the data does not support that conclusion.

In a media environment that rewards contrarian positioning, Israel becomes a proxy for broader dissatisfaction with U.S. foreign policy. Synchronously, some political commentators operate within ecosystems influenced—directly or indirectly—by foreign funding streams, including those linked to Gulf states.

Furthermore, digital media metrics show that contrarian foreign policy narratives—particularly those targeting U.S. alliances—consistently outperform traditional analysis in engagement, incentivizing amplification over accuracy.

Thereupon, an ideological convergence has begun to take shape within parts of the influencer space, blending “anti-imperialist” framing with isolationism. Within that hybrid narrative, the Palestinian issue becomes less a matter of regional understanding than a symbolic instrument for contesting U.S. power.

At the margins, this convergence overlaps with something older: environments in which hostility toward Israel becomes a socially acceptable proxy for hostility toward Jews. In those cases, Israel is not the true target—it is the cover. And the more the argument fixates on Israel, the less scrutiny is applied to the forces actually driving American decline.

Indisputably, Israel’s position at the intersection of religion, identity, and geopolitics makes it uniquely visible—and therefore particularly vulnerable as a target when broader frustrations seek expression. The result is not analysis, but displacement—and displacement always requires a subject.

If Israel were removed from this debate tomorrow, the deficits would remain, the debt would continue to grow, and institutional distrust would deepen—only the object of blame would change.

Because for many, Israel is not the problem—it is the explanation they reach for when the real problems are harder to confront.

Rather than halting support—which would only accelerate Israel’s rise as a top-tier defense innovator outside U.S. frameworks—Washington should pivot to joint production, integrated missile defense, and counter-drone innovation. The numbers are decisive: Israel intercepts over 90% of incoming threats, while Iranian drones costing roughly $20,000 are reshaping conflicts from Ukraine to the Red Sea. Undeniably, this creates a cost-imposition dynamic that favors the attacker unless offset by deeply integrated defensive systems.

Yet the irony is stark—Washington debates conditioning support even as U.S. forces rely on Israeli technologies for protection across multiple theaters.

Clearly, the choice is binary: integrate and maintain advantage, or hesitate and accept a widening gap in cost, speed, and vulnerability; and that is the debate the American Right cannot handle today.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)