The Aid to Israel Costs 4 Pints of Guinness a Year

As the polls opened on November 3, 2026, Donald Trump phoned in to Fox & Friends with a surprise: “Bibi Netanyahu and I have made a deal that we give Israel $4bn a year, and we made a deal months ago that we’re stopping… We’ve already agreed that by the end of this year we won’t be paying Israel.” The idea, he said, came from Netanyahu himself.

By midnight the Democrats controlled Congress. Plenty of issues carried them there, but one slogan travelled further than most: “Stop sending our tax dollars to Israel.” Very few of the people chanting it ever asked where those dollars actually go.

Here is the answer.

The current agreement between the two countries was signed under Obama in 2016 and covers 2019 through 2028. It promises Israel $3.3 billion a year in Foreign Military Financing and another $500 million for joint missile defense. Those are the “$3.8 billion” on every protest sign. But the money is not wired to Jerusalem. According to the Congressional Research Service, the bulk of it is spent on American weapons and American services, which in practice means F-35s from Fort Worth, F-15s from St. Louis, and interceptors from Tucson. What Israel receives is hardware. The cash stays home.

Israel once had a small exception, a provision called Off-Shore Procurement that allowed roughly a quarter of the funds to be spent with Israeli manufacturers. The 2016 deal wound it down, and by 2028 it is gone. From then on, the so-called aid is a hundred percent American jobs.

Call it what it is: a subsidy for the US defense industry with an Israeli shipping label.

And the bill to the American taxpayer? Take 360 million Americans, assume about half of them pay taxes (we can’t count the kids in), and $3.8 billion works out to roughly $21 per taxpayer per year. Narrow it to the 100 million or so who actually owe federal income tax and it is still under $40. In a Manhattan bar, where a pint of Guinness runs $9 or $10, that is about four drinks. Four pints a year bought an entire campaign season of the oldest cartoon in the antisemitic sketchbook, the Jew living off someone else’s paycheck. Cheap lie. Old lie.

Why, then, would an Israeli cheer the end of it? Because Israel paid a much higher price than four pints of Guinness, and it was never paid in money. It was paid in permission and unfortunately also in blood.

Remember May 2024? Israel was trying to bring its hostages home, and Washington held back a shipment of 1,800 2,000-pound bombs and 1,700 500-pound bombs to keep the IDF out of Rafah. A country that depends on someone else’s checkbook does not decide alone when to fight.

History shows us that Israel does best when it is cut loose. When France slapped an embargo on Israel in 1967 and kept the warplanes Israel had already bought, Israel’s answer was to build its own industry, and out of that came the Kfir, the Merkava and, decades later, Iron Dome. In the 1980s Israel designed the Lavi, a fighter good enough to rival the F-16. Washington leaned on Jerusalem until it was scrapped in 1987. The Off-Shore Procurement arrangement was introduced by Congress only after the Lavi died. In plain terms, Israel was allowed to spend some of the money at home as compensation for shelving a jet that threatened American sales.

Nor is ending the aid a Netanyahu invention, or even a right-wing one. Yossi Beilin, a Labor and Meretz veteran and one of the fathers of Oslo, made the case in Israel Hayom under the headline “It’s time to wean ourselves off American aid,” warning that “assistance creates dependence.” This is already a 40-year-old desire. In the early 1990s, Likud finance minister Yitzhak Moda’i floated giving up Israel’s $1.2 billion in yearly economic aid, to the shock of his own cabinet. In 1996, Netanyahu went to Congress, spoke of “childhood’s end,” and ended economic aid. This January he told The Economist he wanted military aid tapered to zero “within the next 10 years.” People who disagree on almost everything agreed on this: a state whose defense budget has jumped by more than 150% in ten years does not need a stipend worth less than 1% of its economy.

Not everyone in Israel agrees, though. Gadi Eisenkot says Netanyahu blindsided the public, and Yair Golan calls the move a “severe blow to Israel’s security.” Their worry is honest. But as an Israeli voter, where they see a cushion, I see a rope around the neck. We are allowed to disagree.

But I want to go “full Jewish” on this for a minute: Scripture already described the alternative 3000 years ago. In the Book of Numbers, the prophet Balaam looks down on the Israelite camp and calls it “a people that shall dwell alone.” Many hear loneliness in those words. I hear independence. I see a people that stands on its own two feet and does not wait for a clerk in Washington to approve its right to self-defense. I see a nation that shops wherever it likes, manufactures whatever it can, and pays the invoice itself. Israel can do all three. Easily.

Then there is modern politics. Over the past two years, cutting off the aid plan for Israel moved from the student quad to statewide ballots. Abdul El-Sayed made it central to his Michigan Senate race. Brad Lander in New York said he “will not vote for any additional US military aid to Israel, offensive or defensive.” Candidates like them will help decide what follows the current agreement. Ending the grants removes their favorite talking point. There is nothing to “stop sending” once nothing is being sent. The political leverage is over.

As for the online haters: For years, the replies under every Israeli headline recycled the same lines about Israel living off American welfare and Uncle Sam paying for Israel’s wars. This will remove a very important piece of the ability to regurgitate hatred online. At least on this topic. But I have a feeling they will survive this. The trolls will always invent new material; they always do, but this particular routine is over. It is difficult to call someone a “freeloader” while he is paying cash or buying from someone else. Worst-case scenario, they will change their tune and say “Israel is harming America by NOT buying American produce“.

In any case, what comes next should look like any healthy alliance: two sovereign countries trading weapons, developing technology together, and co-investing as equals. Partners, not patron and client.

America has been Israel’s closest friend, and that friendship does not depend on an annual check. Israel was never anyone’s charity. Now nobody will be able to pretend otherwise.

And regarding “daddy”? Israel never had an “American daddy” anyway. Our Father is in heaven, not on Capitol Hill.