Debunking 6 AIPAC Myths About the US-Israel Relationship
Two former US government officials rebut the pro-Israel group's false claims and lay out the real cost of unconditional US support for Israel.
When we resigned from the Biden administration over its disastrous Gaza policy, we knew the time was now to reshape US policies toward Israel and Palestine so that they were actually in line with American interests. It’s why we started A New Policy in the first place. We also knew we were up against a powerful lobby – with AIPAC at the forefront – that has established a narrative so entrenched in US politics and media that it's hard for Americans not to accept that the unconditional US support for Israel is what is best for the United States. But our work in government and what we’ve witnessed over the last 17 months with Israel’s US-backed genocidal war in Gaza tells us that the US-Israel relationship is anything but beneficial to Americans, the region, and the world.
Americans are starting to wake up to this fact, but overcoming the reach of organizations like the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – a group that has a more than 40-year lead on us in size and influence – can only begin when the narrative about the US-Israel relationship is corrected. When the veil of myths is torn away, two questions come to the fore: First, if the US relationship with Israel costs more than benefits America, how should we revise that relationship? And second, if the relationship with Israel is not, on balance, in America’s interest in its current form, what should we think of an organization that does not just advance misinformation into our political system, but backs that misinformation with over $100 million of spending on American politicians and elections in the past cycle alone?
On its website, AIPAC lays out several reasons why it claims the Israel-US relationship is a “partnership that benefits us.” But in examining those claims, none survive even the most cursory of assessments. Building on our recent assessment that unconditional support for Israel is not in America’s best interest, we debunk six of AIPAC’s biggest claims below:
AIPAC Myth #1
The US-Israel relationship “helps keep us safe” because Israeli technology helps secure America, Israeli intelligence sharing pre-empts threats from the Middle East, and Israel deters and defeats our mutual adversaries.
The Facts
Israel’s militarized occupation, including its violent assault on Gaza that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of innocent people, is a driver of insecurity and is itself a causal factor for much of the risk that the US-Israel defense and intelligence-sharing relationship exists to address. America’s public association with Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian people, including through the provision of the funding and weaponry that enable it, creates far more challenges for America’s national security than it resolves. While the US and Israel do have a robust intelligence-sharing relationship, many, if not most, of the threats this relationship addresses are a function of Israel’s own actions, which generate regional instability as well as global threats to the United States, as the director of the US National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) observed in 2024.
At the same time, the presence of Israeli surveillance technology across America – technology that was tested on an occupied population and has been deployed to enable the murder of thousands of civilians – creates the potential for third-country access to our homeland security infrastructure and thereby is a potential threat to our nation in much the same way that People’s Republic of China technology embedded in US port loading systems does.
AIPAC Myth #2
The US-Israel relationship “promotes our values and interests” because Israel is a democracy that promotes “stability” in the Middle East and creates “lasting peace” for the region.
The Facts
Israel is no democracy. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Israeli NGO B’Tselem have all said Israel operates in whole or in part as an apartheid system. As Americans, we believe in freedom, liberty, and that all people should be treated equally regardless of ethnicity or religion. These are values that are fundamentally at odds with those demonstrated by Israel, as 5 million Palestinians currently live under Israeli military occupation without the right to vote, due process, and the right to self-determination simply because of their identity.
Furthermore, the notion that Israel joins the US in “promoting stability” in the Middle East is provably false simply by looking at the multiple conflicts Israel is engaged in – with Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria (portions of which it is currently occupying), Iran, and Yemen.14 Outside of direct conflict, the citizens of nations across the region strongly disapprove of Israel’s actions in Gaza, an obstacle to US goals for normalization of relations between countries in the region and Israel.
AIPAC Myth #3
Israel “protects [US] troops” by being a capable partner that reduces the need for US presence in the Middle East, is a leader in certain defense technologies (air defense, UAS, counter-tunnels), and is also helping the US “prevent and treat PTSD in American troops.”
The Facts
The need for American troops to be present and in harm’s way in the Middle East would be significantly reduced if the US was not constantly engaged in defending Israel from the consequences of the Israeli government’s own actions. Just last year, three American soldiers in Jordan – whose mission included interdicting the transfer of weapons intended for use against Israel – were killed and 30 wounded, while numerous American ships have been targeted by missiles as the US carries out strikes (that have not been authorized by Congress) against the Houthis, in a conflict that branched from Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza. Because of the decision to deploy US assets to defend Israel, the US Defense Department has had to spread itself so thin that for extended periods in the past year, there has been no US Carrier Strike Group in the Pacific due to deployments to the Middle East.
And while it is true that Israel is a leader in certain defense technologies, this is in no small part due to the vast sum of US tax dollars that Israel is allowed to channel directly into its own defense industrial base, to the point that the US subsidizes an industry that competes directly with American companies around the world, at the cost of American jobs. Finally, as to Israel’s contributions to combating military PTSD, which AIPAC vaunts, it is important to add a cautionary note that, as the Israeli media itself reports, the Israeli government has systematically failed to address its own soldiers’ increasing pleas to care for the vast growth in PTSD in their own ranks.
AIPAC Myth #4
The US-Israel relationship “addresses 21st century challenges” like “cyber-security, healthcare, artificial intelligence, water scarcity, food security, climate change and renewable energy.”
The Facts
In just the first 120 days of Israel’s war on Gaza, greenhouse gases from Israel’s military operations exceeded the annual total emissions for 26 countries and territories, one study found.
US subsidies to Israel’s defense sector also defray the cost for Israel to deliver universal healthcare to Israeli citizens – at the same time that Congress is considering proposals to cut $880 billion in federal spending, likely meaning significant cuts to the Medicaid program that supports 72 million Americans. Rather than defraying the costs of Israel’s free healthcare system, the nearly $18 billion in taxpayer funds given to Israel for its defense last year alone could have provided healthcare for more than 6 million American children living below the poverty line.
While Israel has made technological innovations when it comes to managing water scarcity, these advances are not cost-free to the US – they, like other “joint technological development” benefits, are sold back to the US for profit, typically via private Israeli companies. These opportunities would exist without unconditional support and billions of US taxpayer dollars.
AIPAC Myth #5
Israel “invests in [the US] economy,” supporting nearly 100,000 American jobs, and is “the second-largest source of foreign listings on the NASDAQ after China.”
The Facts
The US suffers from a trade deficit with Israel. The US invests over $40 billion annually in Israel in return for Israeli foreign direct investment into the US of only $22 billion. By comparison, Ireland, which recently joined South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, contributes $322 billion to the US economy in foreign direct investment, while Spain, a country that the US is exploring sanctions against due to its refusal to permit arms headed for Israel to transit its ports, contributes $81 billion annually in foreign direct investment to the US. While AIPAC's NASDAQ citation is factually accurate, if viewed through the lens of direct foreign investment, the US loses money every year on Israel, while other countries contribute much more to our economy.
AIPAC Myth #6
The US and Israel confront “common threats,” including WMD proliferation, “state-sponsored terrorism,” and "Islamic radicalism."
The Facts
Israel is the only undeclared nuclear weapons state in the world that has not ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment has named Israel as a country “generally reported as having undeclared offensive chemical warfare capabilities,” and “generally reported as having undeclared offensive biological warfare programs.” In addition to terrorizing the Palestinian population under its control, Israel has a well-known assassination program that targets civilians, including scientists, and has also bombed civilian infrastructure in Yemen.
Israel’s actions are a primary driver of recruitment for armed groups in the Middle East, the threat of which to the US would be greatly reduced absent our continued military, political, and diplomatic support for Israel. In short, when it comes to the “common threats” that AIPAC identifies, Israel is either, in some cases, out of sync with longstanding US goals, or, in the others, a major contributing factor to the generation of those threats.
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Rather than being a strategic benefit, US support for Israel in its current form comes at a net cost to America. And none of the limited benefits the United States may accrue from this relationship require that we support it unconditionally. A more balanced and reciprocal arrangement, as we have with all other nations, would serve both US and Israeli interests. By prioritizing our national interest and curbing the worst impulses of Israel’s extreme right, the US would cut diplomatic, military, and economic costs to ourselves, save thousands of Palestinian lives, and also substantively and strategically advance Israel’s own goal for its people to live in peace within the broader Middle East. That would be a loss for AIPAC’s propaganda and political machine, but for Palestinians, Israelis, and Americans, it would deliver, finally, a strategic benefit that is real.
Josh Paul and Tariq Habash are co-founders of A New Policy, which was founded in October 2024 with the goal of reshaping US policies toward Israel and Palestine and bringing them in line with America’s interests. Both Paul and Habash resigned from the Biden administration over its policy of unconditional support to Israel's assault on Gaza.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Zeteo.
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