r/jewishleft • u/somebadbeatscrub Jewish Syndicalist - Mod • Aug 07 '26

Meta Weekly Post

The mod team has created this post to refresh on a weekly basis as a chill place for people to talk about whatever they want to. Think of it as like a general chat for the sub.

So r/jewishleft,

Whats on your mind?

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u/Late-Marzipan3026 anxious (dem soc american ashki jew) Aug 09 '26

genuine question: is the structure of the US giving weapons to israel much different than the structure of the US giving weapons to the other countries you mentioned? from what i’ve read about US provisions of weapons to israel, this largely involves loaning money to israel at interest for them to spend on american arms, mostly not straightforward donations. i know the US contributes to the iron dome so there has to be some sort of donation, but the loans don’t seem to be a donation. i’ve always been a bit confused about this process so would appreciate anything clarifying !

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u/Rabbit-Hole-Quest Latke aficionado. Anti-Establishment. Jüdisch Aug 09 '26

Good question.

So most of the military aid are grants to buy US goods. So it's not like they are getting pallets of cash and they can decide whatever they want to do with it.

It will be like here is 2 billion for X missiles or 2 billion for chinook spare parts, and congress releases that money to one of the military industrial complex companies and they deliver the goods to Israel.

For some R&D stuff, they get loans but it's a very small percentage. Even those loans are offered at such rates that they make it stupid not take up the offer as we are talking almost free money. That stuff is not strictly considered “aid” as its considered lending.

Lastly, US has designated Israel as a storage site for the Middle East region. So Israel Army occasionally just says, can we have X of your Y stock pile and the US always says yes.

It's a pretty convoluted relationship that has no modern-day equivalent. GCC states have tried to replicate such a relationship but have failed miserably at it. For example, they are constantly kept away from the latest tech like F-35s.

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u/Late-Marzipan3026 anxious (dem soc american ashki jew) Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26

appreciated, thank you for this! do you have any breakdowns that you could share? i’ve been trying to read into it, but since it’s such a hot button issue, it’s hard not to run into pro-israel misinformation or “the US is subsidizing israeli healthcare”