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Notes -
Palestine wouldn’t exists without US support now. Assuming someone is willing to sell the Israeli’s guns does anyone think they couldn’t go out and find $40 billion to give a willing seller?
They probably would be a little short on pure mass of arms so would need to buy.
Israel is a net arms exporter, exporting 12.5bn of weapons in 2022, while importing a really tiny amount of arms. US 'aid' is valued at 38bn over a 10-year period from 2016, and Germany increased arms exports 10fold from 2022 to 2023... to 330m. Israel is an arms exporter and has the best defense industry in the region (Turkey is doing pretty alright too), and just because Israel focuses on high tech shit doesn't mean their bullet and bandage industry is nonexistent. The Israeli feelers are merely looking to backstop inventory shortages, although it should be noted that Israeli maximal doctrine is 'sustained four front war without support'. Between their domestic arms industry and their strong economy, and whatever jew money/mind control conspiracies we wish to add on, the Israelis do not need external support to continue prosecuting their war aims. Whether this is a good dollar value versus opponents lobbing shitbottle rockets and digging up tunnels GLA style is another question for another time.
This really isn't a trivial amount in the scheme of US foreign aid, even if it is a trivial receipt for Israel. I tend to ascribe to the Matt Yglesias view that the situation would be improved for Israel if we turned off the foreign aid but continued to allow US military contractors to sell them weapons. It would make it more difficult to argue that Israel is a US client state -- an argument that isn't correct, but is enabled by the unnecessary payments.
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