A New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, feared the reaction when he questioned the military aid we give to Israel, although he makes totally valid points (“Lots of folks will disagree with my column today”). I’ve edited out parts of his column where he goes wishy-washy:

Israel is in the headlines, evoking tumultuous debate. Yet one topic remains largely unmentionable, so let me gingerly raise it: Is it time to think about phasing out American aid for Israel down the road?

This is not about whacking Israel. But does it really make sense for the United States to provide the enormous sum of $3.8 billion annually to another wealthy country?

… Today, Israel has legitimate security concerns but is not in peril of being invaded by the armies of its neighbors, and it is richer per capita than Japan and some European countries. One sign of changed times: Almost a quarter of Israel’s arms exports last year went to Arab states.

The $3.8 billion in annual assistance to Israel is more than 10 times as much as the U.S. sends to the far more populous nation of Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world and one under attack by jihadis. In countries like Niger, that sum could save hundreds of thousands of lives a year, or here in the United States, it could help pay for desperately needed early childhood programs.

Aid to Israel is now almost exclusively military assistance that can be used only to buy American weaponry. In reality, it’s not so much aid to Israel as it is a backdoor subsidy to American military contractors, which is one reason some Israelis are cool to it.

“Israel should give up on the American aid,” Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli minister of justice, told me. He has argued that the money can be used more effectively elsewhere.

Daniel Kurtzer, a former American ambassador to Israel, agreed.

“Israel’s economy is strong enough that it does not need aid; security assistance distorts Israel’s economy and creates a false sense of dependency,” Kurtzer said in an email. “Aid provides the U.S. with no leverage or influence over Israeli decisions to use force; because we sit by quietly while Israel pursues policies we oppose, we are seen as ‘enablers’ of Israel’s occupation.”

“And U.S. aid provides a multibillion-dollar cushion that allows Israel to avoid hard choices of where to spend its own money and thus allows Israel to spend more money on policies we oppose, such as settlements.”

At some point when running for president in the last election, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren all suggested conditioning aid to Israel….. [but were apparently concerned about the negative reaction if they called for eliminating it].

It’s not just liberals. “Cut the stranglehold of aid,” Jacob Siegel and Liel Leibovitz argued recently in Tablet magazine, saying that the aid benefited America and its arms manufacturers while undercutting Israeli companies….