I know it’s stupid to try to chase after these lies. I’m gonna do it anyway. For those curious enough about Israel to follow me, maybe this will be a useful comment. Did US aid for Israel cost Californians their homes? In 2024 alone, the federal government spent 6.75 trillion dollars. That means aid to Israel was about half of a tenth of a percentage point (0.05%) of federal spending. For comparison, the $60 billion budget of USAID is about 16 times that, nearly 1% of federal spending. Another comparison: The US spends many billions to protect European countries. But most of that isn’t in financial aid to those countries, it’s in direct spending on deployments to the tune of about $80 billion per year, over 20 times the aid to Israel. You defend others with your soldiers, us only with aid. Uniquely among your allies, America, we refuse to ask that you risk the lives of your soldiers for our safety. And while Europeans spend barely 2% of their GDP on defense, relying on America to cover for them, Israel spent 4.5% of GDP - *pre*-October 7. Israel is far more an ally and far less a dependent than nearly any other ally America has. There’s a lot more to say about this aid - at Obama’s demand, 100% of it has to be spent in the US; the American weaponry it buys is more sophisticated and precise than Israeli equivalents, and so allows for more precise strikes with fewer civilian casualties; and so on - but I think the point is made. Do we have a right to your aid money, dear Americans? Of course not. It’s your money, and you should be careful how you spend it. Is the American contribution to Israel’s defense somehow outsized or strange in the landscape of America’s global defensive alliances? Absolutely not. You spend more in both blood and the costs of actual deployments on other allies. But here’s the best part: Those trying to end American support for Israel aren’t, in the end, hurting Israel. They’re hurting themselves. Here’s why. Israel will not fall if it loses American support. (Read that again, dear enemies. You really need to grasp this.) It built itself into a regional superpower long before America ever supported it. Its strengths run deep, just as our enemies’ weaknesses are fundamental, connected to the tyranny and illiberalism that prevent them from achieving healthy sustained growth that isn’t dependent on fossil fuel extraction. So how will our losing America’s support hurt our enemies? They take great comfort in the thought that the only reason we survive is American backup. If we lose that backup, they will lose that great comfort. But here’s the kicker. This lie is even sillier than it seems. Because we’re talking about California wildfires, which, you know, aren’t a federal matter. California’s economy is the fifth largest on Earth, bigger than Britain’s. It has the fifth highest per capita income in the country. So why does California have too few reservoirs and not enough firefighters? Is it because of federal money going to Israel, or possibly - going out on a limb here - because states with one-party rule tend to be poorly run? Which of those options best explains why the Sites Reservoir, for example, which was meant to dramatically expand water access for southern California, has been stuck in the planning stage for the better part of four decades now? Which better explains why the fire hydrants dried up? A lie, Churchill famously said, can travel halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. Our enemies have transformed this insight into a full-blown grand strategy. But no matter how good they’ve gotten at these lies, they remain lies. And so our enemies continue to lose, and continue to be surprised each time they lose.
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