Military Aid to Israel Is Immoral Because It’s Immoral, Not Because It's Expensive

Reactionary talking points won’t advance progressive goals, at home or abroad

Federal reserve building

Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, the US has sent Israel about $12.5 billion in military aid. Israel has used US weapons and bombs to target civilian infrastructure, leading to the deaths of civilians and children.

These are war crimes. Under international and US law, it is illegal for the US to supply weapons to a nation that is using them to commit war crimes. The US has nonetheless continued to ship Israel arms, in defiance of all legal and moral principle.

The Biden Administration’s actions here are heinous. But on social media Biden’s Israel policy is often attacked not solely on the grounds that it is immoral, but on the grounds that it is too expensive. One viral tweet this weekend, for example, declared that whole towns in North Carolina were washed away “with zero support from the current administration while they send another $8.7 billion to Israel for bombs to murder more people.”

We have plenty of money

As many people pointed out, this particular tweet is in fact a lie. The Biden administration has expeditiously approved disaster relief for flooding in North Carolina. More, Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act provided some $27 billion in funding to develop green technology and reduce climate change—an investment which is designed to prevent and mitigate extreme weather events like hurricanes.

The $8.7 billion for Israeli aid is bad because you should not provide military aid to a country committing war crimes. But that $8.7 billion did not deplete US resources. It did not prevent Biden from sending disaster aid; it did not prevent him from spending $27 billion on climate change. Arguing that it did is simply false. It’s a lie. And lies do not help the Palestinian cause. They simply make you look like a liar who can be dismissed.

More, this particular lie is a reactionary right-wing talking point that has been deployed for decades to kneecap progressive priorities, at home and abroad.

Republicans since at least Reagan have insisted that the US does not have enough money to ensure the health, education, and welfare of its people, and that we need to impose austerity policies to balance the budget and strengthen our country.

As one recent example, Republicans just blocked a bill to expand the child tax credit—a policy that during the pandemic lockdowns pulled millions of children out of poverty. The excuse was that the bill was not sufficiently funded—or, in other words, that the US didn’t have enough money to pay for it.

Republicans are of course hypocritical here. They have no problem pushing through massive tax cuts or gutting IRS funding so that rich tax cheats can steal from the government with impunity. Political scientist Jonathan Bernstein calls this , the Republicans war on budgeting. As I explained in a post some time back:

When the GOP says they care about deficits, what they mean is that they hate spending on things they don’t like and want more spending on things they do like. “Responsible budgeting” just means, “Republican spending priorities.” The GOP has absolutely zero interest in balancing budgets—which is why deficits consistently spike under Republican presidents. It’s hard to control the deficit if you change the meaning of the term “deficit” to mean “spending I don’t like” and change the term “balanced budget” to mean “spending priorities I like”. 

For purposes of the war on budgeting, Republicans pretend that the US is poor or struggling financially. They argue that we can’t afford to forgive student loans, lift people out of poverty, provide free healthcare to all, and pay for the nation’s defense. So, they argue, we should just pay for bombs.

Abundance, not austerity

It’s tempting to engage on GOP’s own terms, and argue that, if our resources are so restricted, we should not pay for bombs, and instead shoul focus on priorities at home. But acceding to austerity budgeting is a mistake.

The United States is an extremely rich country. We have the resources to provide enough for all. The barrier to progressive, redistributive policies in the US is ideological and political, not material.

We just demonstrated this during the pandemic. Under Trump and then, especially, under Biden, the US authorized a massive $5 trillion in pandemic relief in 2020 and 2021. That money went to help businesses; to unemployment relief; to individuals in the forms of direct checks. The US spent more than any other country on pandemic relief in overall dollars; it’s outlay amounted to 27% of GDP, which was larger than any other country in the world except Japan.

If Republican austerity arguments were correct, this massive gush of spending should have led to economic disaster. But it did not. On the contrary, in 2023 and 2024, the US economy grew faster than any of its economic rivals. US inflation rates were also lower than in virtually all comparable economies.

Spending to help people weather disasters, it turns out, is not a waste of resources. It’s an investment—and the same could be said of programs to house people, pull them out of poverty, and provide them with health care. The US is not a household or an individual; it does not have to stay strictly within the limits of its income. It is a nation state which has the capacity to print money and borrow and spend to create conditions in which prosperity is possible for all.

For a huge, wealthy nation like the US, framing spending as a series of trade-offs rarely makes sense. The US does not have to choose between (for example) pulling people out of poverty and making sure everyone is vaccinated. It can and should do both—not least because disease can push people into poverty and poverty can be an incubator for contagion.

The question for spending for the US should be, “Does spending on this advance public welfare? Will this increase abundance and flourishing? Or will it cause harm?”

So, for example, should the US provide military aid to Ukraine? The answer there is a pretty straightforward, “yes.” Aid to Ukraine helps a democratic nation resist a fascist imperialist. More, Putin has repeatedly tried to spread fascism not just to his neighbors, but to the US. He wants to install a right wing MAGA government here—a right wing government which will end democracy, terrorize the public, and end social spending. The investment in defeating Putin is an investment in furthering progressive policy goals at home; they are continuous, not opposed. (I make that argument at greater length here.)

In contrast, aid to Israel encourages a far right government to commit war crimes and destabilizes the entire region. It gives Netanyahu standing and influence to try to boost Trump and destroy all hope for left domestic policy progress. It’s a horrible way to spend our money not because it busts the US budget (which it does not) but because it leads to horrible policy outcomes.

Don’t let the right wing limit your imagination

It makes sense to think about and acknowledge financial constraints on some issues. States and cities, for example, do need to balance their budgets, and often have to make difficult trade-offs based on available funds.

That’s why defund the police is an important movement; huge bloated police budgets cannibalize resources for schools, hospitals, and public housing. Under the guise of spending on public “safety”, cities give giant bags of cash to police departments which target and brutalize marginalized communities, while refusing to spend on infrastructure and resources which would actually make people more safe. That’s a disaster of values, but also a disaster of budgeting. Educating people about the financial trade-offs in this context is vital.

But, again, the federal government simply doesn’t work like that. The US does not have to balance its budget every year. It can make investments which pay huge dividends—as it did in 2020 and 2021, when pandemic era spending paved the way for massive economic growth and prosperity.

Progressives need to make the case that we have the resources to help each other and build. We should not be arguing that we are a poor country, unable to meet our obligations.

The truth is that aid to Israel, like aid to Ukraine, is hardly a blip in the US budget. We can afford it, as we can afford to feed and clothe and provide health care for our people, and as we can afford to provide aid to those who need it across the world.

We shouldn’t pay to help Israel bomb children because bombing children is evil. The moral case is indisputable and convincing. We don’t need to pretend to be poor in order to argue that funding war crimes is wrong.

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