[Pay08]

This is the exact same logic as the people who complain about NASA "wasting" money.

But beyond the fact that the aid is basically a subvention for American defence companies (Israel spends way more than 3 billion on American weapons), it also protects American weapons manufacturers from Israeli competition through other terms in the agreement, which is actually a serious threat to them.

[traderj0e]

Yep it's the same logic. Everyone knows NASA is expensive, but people disagree over whether it's worth.

That full amount of weapons aid is a cost to taxpayers no matter how it's spun. Republicans cut aid to Ukraine because it was too expensive and other countries weren't giving enough, and the hypocrisy wasn't lost on people when our govt turned around and boosted the aid to Israel instead. If weapons aid were free like you're suggesting, that $10B+ Israel gets would also go to Ukraine and anywhere else we care about. And the Mid East is unimportant compared to Europe or east Asia, that's why no other major powers are fighting over it, so our "great adversary" is just the backwards country Iran.

[Pay08]

$10B+? Israel gets $3B a year, and spends approximately $30B on American weapons. I guess if you don't like gas in your care, the middle east is unimportant, yes.

[traderj0e]

$3.8B is only the baseline scheduled amount. We give more each time there's a war, like $17.9B for Gaza. There isn't a net cash flow to us either, they're getting it all for free. Where did you get the $30B figure?

During peacetime, there's enough oil production outside the Mid East that OPEC has no teeth, as we saw in the 2010s. Not that our strategy of supporting a non-oil-producing country has helped us get oil from the Mid East either. We sanctioned off one of the largest producers, and the others are always a fine line.