WASHINGTON — Israel is fighting enemies who stockpile rockets in civilian neighborhoods, dig attack tunnels under borders, and promise to repeat October 7 until the Jewish state is gone. In that war, heavy munitions are not a symbol. They are a necessity. When the Trump administration advanced a $2.8 billion package in September 2026 — 40,000 U.S.-built 2,000-pound bombs, financed through Foreign Military Financing — it was doing what allies do: equipping a democratic partner to win a fight Washington says it supports.
Rep. Ro Khanna had a different headline in mind. He called it “$2.8 billion of taxpayer funded bombs” and suggested the money should instead help Americans afford food and gas. The line is built for viral outrage. It is also false in the way that matters economically and strategically.
That $2.8 billion is not a suitcase of cash shipped to Jerusalem. It is a U.S. munitions order paid through FMF — American dollars that Israel must spend on American-made weapons from American contractors. Under the current MOU, nearly all military assistance already flows back into the U.S. defense industrial base: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, RTX, and suppliers in states across the country. By fiscal year 2028, 100 percent of that financing must be spent in the United States. Zeroing out the sale would not lower anyone’s grocery bill. It would cancel American factory work and leave Israel less able to destroy the infrastructure of groups that target both Israelis and Americans.
A Purchase Order, Not a Foreign Giveaway
Congress was informally notified of the pending deal: 20,000 Mk84 general-purpose bombs and 20,000 BLU-117 variants, among the most powerful ordnance in the U.S. arsenal. Reporting on the package made the financing mechanism explicit — Foreign Military Financing, meaning U.S. taxpayer dollars that Israel turns around and uses to buy weapons from the United States.
That is how the relationship has worked for decades, and it is why calling this “aid” misleads the public. The money stays in the American economy. It buys American steel, American avionics, and American jobs. Progressive lawmakers who treat the number like foreign charity either do not understand the program or choose not to explain it.
The Cheapest Major Ally America Has
Israel’s annual security commitment — about $3.8 billion under the current MOU, including missile-defense cooperation — is routinely attacked as extravagant for a country Israel’s size. Compare it to what Washington spends to station tens of thousands of U.S. troops abroad: on the order of $21 billion a year in Germany, roughly $27 billion in Japan, about $15 billion in South Korea, by common alliance-cost estimates cited in Washington Institute and related analyses. Israel’s direct package runs near $3.8 billion — and Israel has never asked America to send a single soldier to die on its borders.
Israel carries the fighting itself. It returns intelligence, combat data, and technology that the United States would pay multiples to replicate without an ally on the front line against Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the proxy networks that threaten U.S. interests in the same region.
What America Gets Back
John Spencer, a 25-year Army veteran and executive director of the Urban Warfare Institute, has spelled out the ledger in plain terms. Combat experience from Israel’s F-35 fleet feeds software updates and tactics for American pilots. Israel Aerospace Industries builds wings for the global F-35 program. The U.S. Marine Corps adopted the Tamir interceptor — born on Iron Dome — for its Medium Range Intercept Capability. Trophy, battle-proven against anti-tank missiles, now protects U.S. Army Abrams crews. RTX works with Rafael on missile defense; Boeing builds major Arrow components.
Spencer’s bottom line: the United States would spend many times more than $3.8 billion trying to develop, test, and combat-validate alone what decades of U.S.-Israel cooperation already deliver.
Israeli intelligence has disrupted plots aimed at Americans, tracked Iranian missile and proxy activity in real time, and in 2018 helped expose Iran’s secret nuclear archive — documented proof of a weapons program the West could no longer hand-wave away. No other U.S. assistance recipient feeds Washington that stream of actionable intelligence against shared enemies.
The Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv put it years ago in terms Israel’s friends should repeat: the word “aid” is misleading. “The more accurate and appropriate term would be ‘investment’ that provides enormous profit. Most of the resources are invested in the American defense industries toward the acquisition of advanced weapons, and not in Israel. The United States receives ongoing critical intelligence from Israel of major value, combat experience that tests and improves the weapons, joint development of weapons that are among the most sophisticated in the world, original and innovative technologies, and proven combat doctrines.”
That is not charity. That is the strongest security partnership the United States has in the Middle East — one that pays American workers and American warfighters at the same time.
The Politics of a False Choice
Khanna’s food-and-gas framing is politics, not budgeting. It asks Americans to believe they must choose between feeding their families and helping Israel stop terrorists — when the same transaction keeps the money inside U.S. factories and the munitions in the hands of the IDF, not Hamas.
Congress will always debate individual sales; that is its job. But the moral story is not complicated. Israel is a U.S. ally under attack. The bombs in this package are American-made. The dollars stay American. Cutting the deal punishes U.S. industry and weakens the ally on the front line of a war the civilized world cannot afford to lose — while pretending to stand up for the American worker.
Israel does not need apologies for defending itself. It needs the tools to finish the job — and Americans deserve the truth about where the money actually goes.
Sources
https://abcnews.com/US/wireStory/trump-administration-plans-send-powerful-bombs-israel-28-136479048, https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/ro-khanna-jeremy-scahill-debate-israel-west-bank-resistance-fifa-world-cup, https://jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/foreign_aid.html, https://www.aipac.org/memos/10-year-mou, https://besacenter.org/dispelling-myth-israel-largest-beneficiary-us-military-aid/, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/israels-new-mou-money-and-message, https://www.jns.org/opinion/john-spencer/what-does-america-get-for-3-8-billion-in-israel, https://spencerguard.substack.com/p/what-does-america-get-for-38-billion, https://www.inss.org.il/strategic_assessment/american-contributions-to-israels-national-security/, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/30/israel-netanyahu-iran-nuclear-documents-mossad
