The Day the Missiles Got Through
All events in this article through Sept. 26, 2026, are historically accurate. Everything that follows is a hypothetical – and, hopefully, unlikely – scenario.
It is Jan. 5, 2029, three days after Iran launched hundreds of ballistic missiles at Tel Aviv and Haifa. Thousands of Israeli civilians are dead and many more wounded.
Iran had spent weeks probing Israel’s defenses. This time it launched enough missiles to overwhelm them. Israel’s stocks of Arrow and David’s Sling interceptors had been badly depleted, while the U.S. had stopped providing the financial and military support that once helped replenish Israel’s defenses. Iranian planners calculated that enough missiles would get through to inflict catastrophic damage.
They were right.
Residential neighborhoods, schools and hospitals were hit. Ben Gurion Airport remained untouched. Tehran announced that it wouldn’t target the airport and encouraged Jews to leave the country. Flights were booked for weeks.
World leaders condemned the attack, called for a ceasefire, and pleaded with Israel to not escalate the conflict with its response.
But the funding cutoff had left Israel dangerously short of the interceptors it needed to withstand another sustained attack.
The political response in the U.S. was divided on partisan lines. Republicans called on the U.S. to resupply Israel and to use U.S. forces to attack Iran. Republican leaders charged that Congress cut off Israel’s defenses and Iran got the message. Tel Aviv and Haifa paid the price.
Democratic leaders countered that Iran bore responsibility for the attack, that Israel still possessed one of the world’s most sophisticated militaries and that American weapons couldn’t provide a blank check for every decision of an Israeli government.
Outside the Capitol, the reaction was less restrained. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) organized demonstrations portraying the attack as another step toward Palestinian liberation. The scenes recalled Oct. 8, 2023, when the DSA’s New York chapter promoted a Times Square rally in solidarity with Palestinians and their “right to resist,” one day after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack. This time, however, the demonstrations attracted tens of thousands.
How did Israel, whose multilayered missile defenses had repeatedly protected it from Iranian attacks, become so vulnerable?
To understand how American politics had reached this point, turn the clock back to the fall of 2026.
The decisive midterm elections
The political ground had shifted rapidly. Ending U.S. military assistance to Israel had long been a position associated with the DSA, which called for ending both U.S. aid and weapons sales. By 2026, versions of that position had moved well beyond the socialist left. J Street, which described itself as pro-Israel, now advocated phasing out the American subsidies that helped finance Israel’s defenses.
In the U.S., support for Israel became a divisive issue in the 2026 midterm elections. Republicans favored continuing arms sales to Israel without imposing new restrictions.
But a growing number of Democrats saw constraining U.S. support for Israel as both good policy and increasingly good politics. A key turning point came on April 13, 2026, when J Street called for an end to U.S. subsidies for military aid to Israel.
J Street believed the policy would strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship. The next two years would expose a dangerous flaw in that proposition.
The 2016 U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding (MOU) contemplated $500 million annually for cooperative missile-defense programs, subject to congressional appropriation, plus $3.3 billion annually in foreign military financing (FMF). The missile-defense money did more than subsidize Israeli purchases. It supported the joint U.S.-Israeli programs and production capacity behind systems such as Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow.
Democratic candidates ran ads that attacked opponents who were supported by the pro-Israel AIPAC organization. They drew a connection to support for Netanyahu, who was portrayed as aligned with the Trump administration, and support for continuing the financial assistance provided through the MOU and FMF.
The result was that Democrats took a 52-48 advantage after the November elections. Newly elected Democratic Senators included Abdul El-Sayed (MI), Roy Cooper (NC), Troy Jackson (ME), Sherrod Brown (OH) and Josh Turek (IA).
In the House, the 2026 Democratic primaries became a graveyard for some of the party’s most reliable supporters of Israel. New York Rep. Dan Goldman lost to Brad Lander, who had pledged to oppose offensive weapons sales to Israel and to end U.S. financing of military aid. Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Adriano Espaillat fell to Darializa Avila Chevalier. In Minnesota, Rep. Angie Craig lost the Democratic Senate nomination by 20 points to Peggy Flanagan, who had accused Israel of genocide. By November, Jared Moskowitz and Debbie Wasserman Schultz had lost as well.
The message was not lost on the Democrats who survived. Supporting Israel no longer protected an incumbent from a primary challenge. Increasingly, it invited one.
The Democrats won 225 House seats, leaving 210 in Republican hands.
On Apr. 15, 2026, the Senate voted 40-59 against advancing one Bernie Sanders resolution blocking an Israeli arms sale and 36-63 against advancing another. More than three dozen members of the Democratic caucus supported each effort. But even with the newly elected senators, the consensus in Washington and Israel was that support for Israel was still safe, with at least eight pro-Israel Democrats, assuming there were no defections among Republicans.
Those votes involved offensive weapons. The more consequential question was whether Democratic resistance would extend to funding Israel’s defenses.
Elections in Israel offered even more consequential changes. On October 27, 2026, Israelis voted for the Knesset, and Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party gained 24 seats versus 23 for Netanyahu’s Likud party. After several weeks of negotiations, Eisenkot assembled an anti-Netanyahu coalition and became prime minister. He entered office believing that Netanyahu had badly damaged Israel’s relationship with Democrats and that he could repair it.
Post-election positioning
Eisenkot made a trip to Washington in early December 2026. He deliberately distinguished himself from Netanyahu. He promised congressional Democrats greater transparency over weapons use, a renewed diplomatic initiative involving Palestinians and Arab governments, and cooperation with congressional oversight.
He met privately with Democratic leaders and asked them to restore the traditional bipartisan relationship. Eisenkot put the question bluntly: “You told Israelis that Benjamin Netanyahu was the problem. Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer prime minister. What is the problem now?”
The response was disappointing.
Progressive Democrats told Eisenkot that replacing Netanyahu didn’t resolve their fundamental objections to American military assistance.
John Fetterman (D-PA) had repeatedly dismissed speculation that he would change parties. As late as September 2026, he declared himself a “lifelong Democrat” and promised that if the Senate flipped, he would remain the 51st Democratic vote.
But citing the eroding support among Democrats for Israel, in December he changed parties and became a Republican.
For several weeks, Democrats thought voters had given them a comfortable 52-seat majority. They never got to govern with it.
Meanwhile, the incoming Democratic caucus held its organizational meetings. Support for Israel became a central issue in committee assignments and chairmanships. Party rules expressly allow consideration of loyalty to the party agenda. Progressive members demanded that ending – or substantially conditioning – military assistance to Israel become a caucus priority.
One newly elected senator who favored ending military assistance wanted a seat on Armed Services or Appropriations. Democratic leaders noted that there were more applicants than seats and that support for the caucus’s foreign-policy agenda would weigh in assignment decisions. The senator got the assignment.
The 2027 and 2028 battleground
For years, many Democrats had portrayed Netanyahu as the principal obstacle to restoring the traditional U.S.-Israel relationship. By February 2027, Netanyahu was sitting on the opposition benches. Yet congressional opposition to military assistance didn’t recede. It intensified.
For his part, Eisenkot worked to mollify the Democrats. He announced tighter procedures governing U.S.-supplied weapons, promised greater congressional reporting, offered to reopen diplomatic negotiations with Palestinians, froze the expansion of some settlements, removed or reversed controversial Netanyahu policies, and emphasized that the requested $500 million was for defensive systems protecting Israeli civilians, not offensive operations.
Eisenkot told Congress that the issue wasn’t simply money.
Israel could spend additional billions. The problem was industrial capacity, lead times, U.S. components, joint production and the enormous number of interceptors consumed in a saturation conflict.
That warning had been there from the beginning. In Sept. 2026, The Wall Street Journal reported a CBO estimate that replacing depleted U.S. interceptor inventories could take five years, with the U.S. having expended as much as two-thirds of some interceptor inventories during the Iran war. In other words, replacing the money wouldn’t necessarily replace the missiles.
Democratic leaders said their policy was not anti-Israel. Rather, it reflected opposition to subsidizing a wealthy ally, concerns about Israeli policies that survived Netanyahu, and a belief that Israel should finance its own defense.
As the existing MOU approached expiration at the end of fiscal 2028, negotiations over its successor intensified. Democrats controlling Congress made clear that they wouldn’t appropriate another $500 million annually for cooperative missile defense. Trump demanded that the existing level be preserved.
J Street’s criticism of Israeli policy had focused heavily on Netanyahu, but its case for ending American subsidies went beyond him. Israel, it argued, was wealthy enough to finance its own defense. Eisenkot’s election therefore didn’t alter the logic of J Street’s position. It continued to advocate phasing out the existing financial arrangement.
In the end, Republicans were able to secure a compromise with House and Senate Democrats. The administration negotiated a successor MOU calling for $100 million annually in cooperative missile-defense funding, one-fifth of the previous level, and Congress appropriated that amount.
J Street declared the transition a success: the U.S.-Israel relationship was now a partnership rather than a dependency.
But the reduction did more than shift the cost of Israel’s defense from American to Israeli taxpayers. In this scenario, years of predictable U.S. funding had supported joint production, advance procurement and the industrial capacity needed to replenish interceptors after a major conflict. Israel could replace the lost American dollars. It couldn’t replace the lost production time.
Israel tried to compensate with its own money and accelerated domestic production. But expanding production lines, obtaining U.S. components and rebuilding depleted inventories took time. By late 2028, Israeli officials were privately warning Washington that interceptor stocks had fallen dangerously low. Meaningful increases in production were still at least a year away.
The Iranian response
Iran was watching. It publicly welcomed the reduction in American support and privately studied what it meant for Israel’s defensive capacity. All along, it was rebuilding its missile supply in a way that was difficult for Israel and the U.S. to detect.
In late Dec. 2028, a group of Jewish activists entered the Temple Mount/Al-Aqsa compound and attempted to pray near the Dome of the Rock. There was a confrontation with the guards. Nobody was injured, but the incident was widely publicized in the Western media, with some calling it a “desecration of one of Islam’s holiest sites.”
In response, Iran launched a series of limited missile strikes on Israeli military targets. This was designed to measure the robustness of the Israeli response, encourage Israeli planners to expect continued limited attacks, and further deplete what Iran believed was an already low supply of interceptors.
Iran said its war with Israel that had begun in 2025 was never over. It remained committed to the military defeat and destruction of Israel.
Although Israel’s supply of interceptors was a closely held secret, Iran did calculations based on shipments from the U.S. and the number it estimated had already been fired. Iran calculated that at least one missile in 10 would penetrate Israel’s depleted defenses. It was right.
Nearly three years earlier, J Street had argued that Israel was wealthy enough to pay for its own defense and that ending American subsidies would put the relationship between the two countries on a healthier footing. Israel had the money. What it couldn’t buy back was the production capacity and time lost after Washington reduced its support. By January 2029, it didn’t have enough interceptors.
Iran fired the missiles and bears responsibility for the Israeli civilians it killed. But the scenario offers another lesson. Deterrence depends not only on what an enemy is willing to do, but on what it believes you are able – and Israel’s allies are willing – to stop.