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What Tucker Carlson won’t tell you about U.S. military aid to Israel
Tucker Carlson sat across from United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee at Israel’s Ben-Gurion Airport and delivered a version of an argument that demagogues have recycled for centuries.
“Our country is not thriving,” Carlson said, “and we’re spending tens and tens of billions of dollars over time defending Israel.” His implication was clear: that same money could be spent fixing things at home. Why are we sending around $3.8 billion a year to a country with universal healthcare when many Americans can’t afford a dentist?
It’s a powerful line. But here’s the math Carlson doesn’t want you to do. The federal government spends roughly $7 trillion a year. We send more than $3.8 billion in annual military aid to Israel; that represents 0.054% of the budget. That’s approximately five cents out of every hundred dollars. The government spends the equivalent of the entire Israel aid package every five hours.
“Fine,” you might say, “but $3.8 billion is still a lot of money.” It is. But if that’s your standard, why single out this line item? After all, the government made $162 billion in improper payments last year — money sent to the wrong people, in the wrong amounts, by accident. That’s 42 times the annual aid to Israel.
If Carlson cared about fiscal responsibility, he’d be screaming about accidental overpayments, not a line item that rounds to zero. But he’s not. Because the money was never the point.
I say this not as a defender of any particular aid package. It’s legitimate for Americans to debate the merits of the U.S. sending military aid to Israel. I say this as an economist who has spent a career watching this exact rhetorical trick be deployed across the political spectrum, by politicians and pundits who know better.
What Carlson is doing is creating what’s known as a false dilemma: presenting two options as if they’re the only possibilities. Either we fund Israel’s military, or we fix our own pressing domestic problems. Pick one.
It sounds intuitive because it maps onto how households think. Each of us is used to making these daily calculations. If, say, I spend $100 going out to dinner, I can’t spend that money on groceries that would keep me fed for much longer.
But a government with a $7 trillion annual budget is not a household. We can easily conceive of how much money $100 is, and how far it will stretch. Almost none of us can readily do the same for $7 trillion.
That vast, vast sum funds thousands of programs simultaneously because it has to. Governments work in “stereo”: They have to fund defense, education, healthcare, foreign policy, disaster relief and food safety, all at once, all the time. And that’s just a fraction of the list.
The idea that we must choose between sending aid to an ally and fixing potholes in Ohio is designed to make you feel like someone is stealing from you. And it works.
Carlson knows that he’s deceiving his audience. He understands that cutting Israel aid to zero would not build a single hospital or hire a single teacher. Instead, it would most likely be redistributed within the State Department’s foreign operations budget, or shave a vanishingly miniscule amount off the huge and ever-growing U.S. budget deficit. Not exactly a game-changer for American healthcare.
He makes the argument anyway, because zero-sum thinking is one of the most powerful instincts in politics.
A recent study by some of my economics colleagues surveyed more than 20,000 Americans and found that people who see the world in zero-sum terms —where one group’s gain must come at another’s loss — are drawn to populist positions across the spectrum. On the left, they favor more economic redistribution; on the right, more immigration restrictions. The cognitive instinct is the same; only the target changes.
Both sides shamelessly overuse this tactic. Sen. Bernie Sanders, for instance, regularly plays it from the left — also, occasionally, regarding Israel. “We need health care for all Americans, not weapons for a war criminal,” he wrote on X this month, in response to a U.S. sale of arms to Israel.
Back in 2016, pro-Brexit campaigners plastered a red bus with the claim that Britain sent 350 million pounds a week to the European Union, money that should go to the National Health Service instead. The number was inflated, the trade-off was false, and Nigel Farage admitted as much the morning after the vote. But it worked: Vote Leave’s own campaign director later conceded that without the NHS claim, Remain would likely have won.
In Venezuela, Hugo Chavez built an entire movement on the premise that oil revenue spent on anything other than social programs was revenue stolen from the poor. He redirected billions from reinvestment in oil production toward social spending, starving the industry that drove the nation’s economy. When oil prices dropped, the productive economy collapsed. The social programs collapsed with it.
The honest version of Carlson’s argument — “I think military aid to Israel is not a good use of American resources, and here’s why” — could be a perfectly legitimate position. We can debate the strategic value of that aid and its humanitarian implications, as well as the proper allocation of the foreign aid budget. But by singling out this one-line item and building an entire narrative around it, Carlson is not making a fiscal argument. He’s constructing a villain. When your obsession with government overreach zeroes in on the half of a tenth of one percent of a $7 trillion budget that goes to Israel, the argument isn’t really about the budget anymore.
“Can you feel the resentment?” Carlson asked Huckabee. “Because it’s real.” He’s right that the resentment is real. Americans are frustrated about healthcare costs, stagnant wages and crumbling infrastructure. Those frustrations deserve serious engagement.
What they don’t deserve is to be exploited. The false dilemma of us or them is shameless manipulation driven by resentment — Carlson’s word — if not something far worse.
The post What Tucker Carlson won’t tell you about U.S. military aid to Israel appeared first on The Forward.
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War with Iran puts the US-Israel alliance at grave risk
The Iran war is strategically sound yet politically unsupported — an unstable foundation for a gamble that could reshape the Middle East. That creates danger for Israel, which needs the support of an American public that is rapidly drifting away.
For decades, the country’s greatest strategic asset has not been its military technology or intelligence capabilities — spectacular as these are — but rather the political, diplomatic and military backing of the United States. That relationship has not been merely transactional. It was supposed to rest on shared values and deep public support across the American political spectrum.
If that support erodes or disappears, Israel’s strategic environment will fundamentally change. To be blunt: it will not be able to arm its military. This creates a paradox. A campaign that has so far demonstrated extraordinary value for the Jewish state also stands a risk of fundamentally weakening it.
An alliance at its strongest
The conflict has showcased the depth of the current U.S.–Israel alliance. To many observers, and critically to Israel’s enemies, the operation has underscored not only Israel’s capabilities but also the reality that it stands alongside the world’s most powerful state.
The strikes have projected deep into Iranian territory, revealed astonishing intelligence penetration, and destroyed or degraded key threats. Israel’s enemies across the region have already been weakened by previous rounds of fighting since Oct. 7, and the current operation has reinforced the impression that Israel can reach its adversaries wherever they operate.
Moreover, Iran’s regime has managed to isolate itself to the point where most Arab countries are in effect on the side of Israel and the U.S. That projection — of an unbreakable and strong alliance – may ultimately be the most important strategic element of this war.
But therein lies the rub.
The political foundations of American support for Israel are eroding, which means the very element that currently strengthens Israel’s deterrence — American participation — may also be the one most at risk.
A just war, unjustified
Americans do not understand why their country is at war.
A Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted at the start of the conflict found only 27% of Americans supported the U.S. action, while 43% opposed it. Other surveys show similar results, with roughly six in ten Americans against the military intervention.
In modern American history that is highly unusual. Most wars begin with a “rally around the flag” moment when public support surges. Even conflicts that later became controversial — from Afghanistan to Iraq — initially enjoyed majority backing.
This one did not — in part because the case for it has not been made clearly to the public.
That error is compounded by years of polarization in American politics; declining trust in institutions and leadership; and the record of President Donald Trump, who has spent years spreading conspiracy theories and demonstrating a remarkable indifference to factual truth. It is no exaggeration to say that many Americans do not believe a word he says – which is perhaps unprecedented.
When a president with that record launches a war, at least half the country assumes the worst. Even if the strategic logic is sound, the credibility deficit remains.
The tragedy is that the war is, in fact, eminently justifiable. The Islamic Republic has long since forfeited the moral legitimacy that normally shields states from outside force. It brutally suppresses its own population, jailing and killing protesters, policing women’s bodies, and crushing dissent with an apparatus of repression. Its foreign policy is not defensive but revolutionary. Through proxy militias it has destabilized Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, as well as the Palestinian areas, in some cases for decades.
The regime has pursued nuclear weapons through a series of transparent machinations, deceptions and brinkmanship. Negotiations have repeatedly been used as delaying tactics while enrichment continued. Any deal that relieved sanctions would not simply reduce tensions; it would also inject new resources into a system dedicated both to repression at home and aggression abroad — one that is despised by the vast majority of its own people, as murderous dictatorships inevitably will be.
There is a doctrine in international law known as the Responsibility to Protect — the principle that when a state systematically brutalizes its own population, the international community may have the right, even the obligation, to act. By that standard, the Iranian regime has been skating on thin ice for years.
But with this clear rationale left uncommunicated, the politically dangerous perception has spread that the U.S. was reacting to Israel rather than acting on its own strategic judgment.
A perilous future
If Americans come to believe that Israel caused a costly war that they did not support in the first place, the backlash could be severe.
For centuries, one of the most persistent antisemitic tropes has been the accusation that Jews manipulate powerful states into fighting wars on their behalf. The suggestion that Israel can pull the U.S. into conflict feeds directly into that mythology. Once such perceptions take hold, they can be extremely difficult to reverse.
Even people who reject antisemitism outright can absorb a softer version of the same idea: that American interests are being subordinated to Israeli ones. In a political environment already marked by growing skepticism toward Israel, that perception risks deepening the erosion of support that has been underway for years.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio seemed to inadvertently feed such notions by suggesting in recent days that the U.S. had to attack Iran because Israel was going to do so “anyway,” and then America would have been a target. It was a short path from that to conspiracy theorists like Tucker Carlson blaming Chabad for the war.
A future Democratic president, facing a base that appears to have abandoned Israel, may feel far less obligation to defend it diplomatically or militarily. Even a Republican successor could prove unreliable if the party continues its drift toward isolationism.
That likelihood is compounded by studies showing that a large part of the U.S. Jewish community itself no longer backs Zionism. That process is driven by Israel’s own policies, including the West Bank occupation and the deadly brutality of the war in Gaza.
So the very war that is showcasing the best the U.S.-Israel alliance has to offer is also at risk of fundamentally damaging that partnership. Particularly if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — the rightful object of much American ire — manipulates the Iran campaign into an electoral victory this year, the alliance’s greatest success could also be its undoing.
The post War with Iran puts the US-Israel alliance at grave risk appeared first on The Forward.
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Report: Iran’s New Military Plan Is Regime Survival Through Regional Escalation
Members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) attend an IRGC ground forces military drill in the Aras area, East Azerbaijan province, Iran, Oct. 17, 2022. Photo: IRGC/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – After last year’s devastating conflict with the United States and Israel, Iranian leaders have reportedly adopted a major strategic shift aimed at expanding the war across the Middle East to secure the regime’s survival, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Previously, Iran responded to foreign strikes with limited, targeted reprisals. The new doctrine abandons that approach, aiming instead to escalate the conflict regionally, particularly against Gulf Arab states and critical economic infrastructure. The goal is to disrupt the global economy and pressure Washington into shortening the war.
This decision followed the twelve-day war with Israel in June 2025, during which Israeli and US strikes eliminated senior Iranian military leaders, destroyed key air defense systems, and severely damaged nuclear facilities. In response, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei—before his elimination early in the current conflict—activated a strategy designed to maintain continuity even if top commanders were neutralized.
Central to this approach is the so-called “mosaic defense” doctrine: a decentralized military structure in which the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) operates through multiple regional command centers. Each center can conduct operations independently, allowing local commanders to continue fighting even if national leadership is incapacitated. This makes the military apparatus more resilient to targeted strikes.
Analysts cited by the Wall Street Journal suggest that Tehran’s calculation is to make the conflict costly enough for all parties to force the US and its allies into a diplomatic resolution.
However, the plan carries enormous risks. By escalating attacks on regional states and international economic interests, Iran could provoke a broader coalition against itself. Despite prior military losses, Iranian forces retain the capability to launch drone and missile strikes, maintaining their influence over the ongoing conflict.
For Iranian leaders, the immediate priority remains unchanged: the survival of the regime, even if it requires a major regional escalation.
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Katz Warns Lebanon to Disarm Hezbollah or ‘Pay a Heavy Price’
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz and his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias make statements to the press, at the Ministry of Defense in Athens Greece, Jan. 20, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Louisa Gouliamaki
i24 News – Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Saturday warned Lebanon’s leadership that it must act to disarm Hezbollah and enforce existing agreements, cautioning that failure to do so could lead to severe consequences for the Lebanese state.
Speaking after a high-level security assessment with senior military officials, Katz directed a message to Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, saying Beirut had committed to enforcing an agreement requiring Hezbollah’s disarmament but had failed to follow through.
“You pledged to uphold the agreement and disarm Hezbollah — and this is not happening,” Katz said. “Act and enforce it before we do even more.”
The meeting took place in Israel’s military command center and included Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and other senior defense officials, as Israel continues operations on multiple fronts.
Katz emphasized that Israel would not tolerate attacks on its communities or soldiers from Lebanese territory.
“We will not allow harm to our communities or to our soldiers,” he said. “If the choice is between protecting our citizens and soldiers or protecting the State of Lebanon, we will choose our citizens and soldiers — and the Lebanese government and Lebanon will pay a very heavy price.”
The defense minister also referenced Hezbollah’s leadership, warning that the group’s current chief could lead Lebanon into further destruction.
“If Hassan Nasrallah destroyed Lebanon, then Naim Qassem will destroy it as well,” Katz said.
Katz stressed that Israel has no territorial ambitions in Lebanon but said it would not accept a return to the years in which Hezbollah launched repeated attacks on Israel from Lebanese territory.
“We have no territorial claims against Lebanon,” he said. “But we will not allow Lebanese territory to again become a platform for attacks against the State of Israel.”
He concluded with a warning to Lebanese authorities to take action against Hezbollah before Israel escalates its response.
“Do and act before we do even more,” Katz said.