The US not only disregards its own laws in support of Israel, but actively ignores its own citizens social benefits to pay for Israeli “defense”

Americans struggling to afford groceries, keep their Medicaid, or avoid homelessness might want to consider a strategic rebrand. Based on federal spending patterns from 2023-2025, the most effective way to secure government assistance isn’t being a US citizen in need, it’s being the Israeli military. While Congress cites “fiscal responsibility” to justify stripping food stamps from 47 million hungry Americans, they’ve somehow found $26+ billion for weapons deliveries to Israel since October 2023. Turns out the US government can move heaven and earth to help people, just not the people who actually live here.

Since October 7, 2023, the US has delivered 90,000 tons of arms and equipment to Israel via 800 transport planes and 140 ships. That’s more logistics capacity than FEMA deployed for Hurricane Katrina, but sure, let’s talk about how there’s “no money” for rental assistance. On December 29, 2025 $8.6 billion for 25 F-15IA fighter jets, announced days after Trump and Netanyahu had dinner at Mar-a-Lago. For context, that’s more than a third of the entire annual budget Congress just proposed cutting from HUD rental assistance programs. Or, that’s roughly the education budget for k-12 for ALL children in the state of Pennsylvania. Americans facing eviction should maybe try showing up to Mar-a-Lago with a weapons wish list, seems more effective than applying for Section 8.

The weapons deliveries have been obscene in scale, approximately 14,000+ MK-84 2,000-pound bombs, 57,000+ 155mm artillery shells, 14,000 tank cartridges, plus thousands of precision-guided munitions. When Israel needs bombs, the Biden administration bypassed congressional review twice using “emergency authority.” When Americans needed pandemic-era SNAP benefits continued, Congress shrugged and let them expire, cutting $90 per person monthly from 41 million people overnight. Emergency authority for bombs: available immediately. Emergency authority for food: sorry, that’s socialism. Annual baseline aid to Israel continues at $3.8 billion—$3.3 billion in weapons plus $500 million for missile “defense”. The April 2024 supplemental added $8.7 billion more, including funding for Iron Dome and the new Iron Beam laser system. Meanwhile, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which helps 6 million American households not freeze to death in winter, is slated for complete elimination. All federal LIHEAP staff were laid off in April 2025.

Let’s be clear: Israel gets $8.7 billion for state-of-the-art laser defense systems. American seniors choosing between heating and eating get nothing. The message is that Palestinian children, or the Israeli right to kill those children, are apparently a greater threat to US national security than hypothermia and starvation. The US has used its Security Council veto seven times since October 2023 to block resolutions on Gaza, standing alone or nearly alone against the entire international community. November 2024: vote was 14-1. June 2025: 14-1 again. September 2025: alone at the Council’s 10,000th meeting blocking a ceasefire. Try to imagine the US spending this kind of political capital defending Americans’ right to healthcare. Can’t do it, can you? That’s because it’s never fucking happened.

When the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on charges of using starvation as a method of warfare, the Trump administration sanctioned six ICC judges, including those who authorized the warrants. ICC staff lost access to bank accounts, credit cards, email, and travel visas. The US also sanctioned three Palestinian human rights organizations for the crime of helping with the investigation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s position: “We will not tolerate ICC abuses of power.” But when state governments “abuse power” by denying Medicaid to eligible Americans through paperwork technicalities, disenrolling 25 million people including over 5 million children, where are the sanctions? Where’s Rubio’s righteous indignation? Nowhere, because apparently “abuse of power” only matters when it threatens weapons sales. When South Africa brought genocide allegations to the International Court of Justice in January 2024, President Biden dismissed it: “What’s happening is not genocide. We reject that.” The US filed its first ICC brief in 25 years, to defend Israel from prosecution. When 771,480 Americans experience homelessness, the highest number ever recorded, Biden’s response was to propose more social benefit cuts. Guess which crisis gets diplomatic protection and which one gets austerity.

Here’s where it gets truly grotesque. Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act, US law, passed by Congress, you know, binding legal stuff, explicitly prohibits military assistance to any government that “prohibits or otherwise restricts, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance.” In April 2024, USAID sent Secretary of State Blinken a 17-page memo documenting Israel’s “arbitrary denial, restriction, and impediments of U.S. humanitarian assistance.” The memo, cleared by 10 USAID officials and signed by Samantha Power (you know, the woman who literally wrote a book about America’s failure to stop genocides), concluded Israel was deliberately blocking aid, creating “one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in the world.”

A separate State Department bureau, the one actually responsible for refugees and humanitarian aid, reached the same conclusion: Israel is blocking aid, Section 620I is triggered, $830 million in weapons funding must be frozen immediately. Four different State Department bureaus told Blinken that Israel’s assurances about facilitating aid were “not credible or reliable.” A confidential memo to Blinken had the subject line: “Famine Inevitable, Changes Could Reduce but Not Stop Widespread Civilian Deaths.” So what did Blinken tell Congress on May 10, 2024? “We do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.” That’s a lie. It’s such an obvious, documented, receipts-everywhere lie that Stacy Gilbert, a senior State Department advisor who worked on drafts of Blinken’s report, resigned in protest. Her statement: “There is abundant evidence showing Israel is responsible for blocking aid. To deny this is absurd and shameful.”

But when Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins talks about SNAP, she frames cuts as fighting “fraudsters and the people who are corrupt.” The government will ignore its own experts documenting famine to keep weapons flowing to Israel, but scrutinize American families buying groceries for “fraud.” Got it. Starving Palestinians to death isn’t fraud. A poor family buying chicken with SNAP? That’s the real scandal.

Current food insecurity statistics: 47.4 million Americans face food insecurity, highest rate since 2014, food banks distributed 5.9 billion meals in 2024, 65% of food banks report increased demand, and the San Antonio Food Bank went from serving 120,000 weekly to 170,000 during the 2025 shutdown. But sure, let’s cut another $186 billion. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act contains approximately $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts over ten years. The Congressional Budget Office projects 11.8 million people will lose Medicaid coverage by 2034. Combined with ACA subsidy expiration, 17 million Americans could become uninsured. For comparison, that’s more people than the entire population of Israel losing healthcare. But Israel gets $8.7 billion for Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Iron Beam laser defense, while Americans get “personal responsibility” lectures about not being able to afford insulin.

Trump signed an executive order in March 2025 directing the closure of the Department of Education, which has lost 50% of its staff. Five of ten Head Start regional offices closed. Approximately $943 million less in Head Start funding was disbursed in Q1 2025 compared to 2024. The SAVE student loan repayment plan was terminated, affecting 8 million borrowers now in forbearance with no path forward. The Supreme Court blocked Biden’s broader forgiveness plan that would have helped 40 million borrowers. The Department of Education’s position: The law is clear: if you take out a loan, you must pay it back. Cool. Does that apply to Israel too? Because the US has provided $158 billion in aid since 1948, almost entirely military assistance that’s never repaid. But sure, let’s lecture 25-year-olds with sociology degrees about fiscal responsibility.

The fiscal choices reveal moral priorities. Emergency authorities exist for bombs, not food. Political capital gets spent vetoing ceasefires, not fighting for healthcare. The government can move heaven and earth to arm Israel but can’t process Medicaid paperwork without disenrolling 5 million children. The evidence suggests a simple solution for struggling Americans: just become Israeli. Based on federal spending patterns, that’s the only nationality entitled to unwavering US support. Can’t afford food? Should’ve been born in Tel Aviv. Need healthcare? Should’ve applied for Israeli citizenship. Facing eviction? Should’ve settled in the West Bank, apparently those residents get more US support than Americans living in West Virginia. The US government has demonstrated it possesses unlimited capacity. Just not for us. Not for Americans.

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