Israel has been waging a ruthless war against the Palestinian people for over a year. Millions have lost their homes, livelihoods, and loved ones. Slaughter and destruction on this scale is an expensive endeavor. The American ruling class is the main financial backer of Israeli aggression and has spent eye-watering sums to keep innocent Palestinian blood flowing.
Billions for death and destruction
A Brown University study found that from October 2023 to September 2024, the US approved at least $17.9 billion in military aid to Israel. According to the authors, this represents, “A fraction of the full value of US support for this war, which will only be determined over time.”
The real figure is impossible to determine because the Biden-Harris administration approved hundreds of undisclosed arms deals. The executive branch is not required to inform Congress of sales below $14 million for major defense equipment, or below $50 million for defense “articles and services.” There were over 100 such deals between October 2023 and March 2024 alone. According to a Reuters report from June 2024, US arms shipments since October 7, “Appear consistent with what Israel would need to replenish supplies used in [its] … intense military campaign in Gaza.”
If that wasn’t enough, the ruling class plans to send $20.3 billion more in arms over the next couple of years through the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. The FMS agreement includes “50 Boeing F-15 combat aircraft ($18.8 billion), over 32,000 120mm tank cartridges ($774 million), an unspecified number of tactical vehicles ($583 million), 30 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles ($102 million), and 50,000 high explosive mortar cartridges ($61 million).”
Besides direct military aid to Israel, the American state has also sent billions in “security assistance” to Arab countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, whose governments watch while Palestinians are slaughtered. The US has also spent at least $4.86 billion and counting on direct combat in the region, including defending shipping from attacks by the Houthis in Yemen. The Brown study calls this figure a “conservative estimate” which is “likely to rise steeply.”
Incomplete estimates of American military aid to Israel since October 7 far surpass annual spending on the National School Lunch Program. / Image: RCA
Capitalists are parasites
Who foots the bill for the ruling class’s murderous largesse? Through our labor acting on nature, workers produce all new economic value in society. Most of the value we produce is subsequently pocketed by bankers, billionaires, and their politicians. Some of it goes to fund Israel’s genocidal war—whether this value is expressed as dollars collected in taxes or accumulated capital invested in military production.
Why don’t we have a say in where our money and the things we produce are sent? The American state is a tool that the American capitalists use to defend their property and profits. To maximize profits, they would rather ruin entire countries and massacre entire peoples than invest in useful production that benefits society.
Books not bombs! Healthcare not warfare!
The (still incomplete) figure of over $22.76 billion spent on Israel’s war against the Palestinians represents only one year of military spending on just one of US imperialism’s wars. Compare this to the $17.3 billion spent on the National School Lunch Program in fiscal year 2023. According to the US Department of Agriculture, 7.2 million children still went hungry that same year.
The total amount of money spent on warfare is incomprehensibly enormous, but so is the power of the American working class. If workers in the arms and logistics industries were organized for a militant class struggle, they could shut down Israel’s war machine. When workers are organized in a mass communist party, we will be capable, not only of stopping all imperialist wars, but also reorienting production to useful projects that can provide meaningful jobs and provide everyone with an incredible quality of life.
Workers do not benefit from wasting our time and money on producing what is, at best, scrap metal and, at worst, tools of death that will murder our fellow workers and oppressed people around the world. Under a workers’ government, we could instead spend these billions on education, healthcare, infrastructure, and the development of science and technology.