By Chris Menahan – Information Liberation
The United States has spent at least a record $23 billion on military aid to Israel and related US operations to defend Israel since October 7th, according to a new paper from Brown University’s Costs of War project.
U.S. spending on Israel’s military operations and related U.S operations in the region total at least $22.76 billion and counting. This estimate is conservative; while it includes approved security assistance funding since October 7, 2023, supplemental funding for regional operations, and an estimated additional cost of operations, it does not include any other economic costs.
This figure includes the $17.9 billion the U.S. government has approved in security assistance for Israeli military operations in Gaza and elsewhere since October 7 – substantially more than in any other year since the U.S. began granting military aid to Israel in 1959. Yet the report describes how this is only a partial amount of the U.S. financial support provided during this war.
Related U.S. military operations in the broader region since October 7 are part of the fuller picture. In particular, the U.S. Navy has significantly scaled up its defensive and offensive operations against Houthi militants in Yemen, which the Houthis claim is related to Israel’s war in Gaza. Hostilities have escalated to become the most sustained military campaign by U.S. forces since the 2016-2019 air war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. U.S. operations in the region, including in Yemen, have already cost the U.S. government $4.86 billion (included in the overall figure, above, of $22.76 billion).
This Houthi-related conflict has also cost the maritime trade an additional $2.1 billion, because shippers have been forced to divert vessels or pay exorbitant insurance fees. U.S. consumers may experience paying higher prices for goods as a result.
You can read the full report here.
The CFR reported in March that the US has given Israel some $310 billion in cumulative aid, which doesn’t include the billions of dollars the US also gives to Israel’s neighbors as bribes to “normalize relations” with the Jewish state.
The number also does not include the estimated $1 trillion the US spent on the war in Iraq to advance Israel’s interests.
It came out on Sunday that the US is reportedly also now offering Israel a new “compensation package” including “diplomatic protection and an arms package” if they’ll agree not to hit certain targets in Iran that would assuredly trigger a massive response and drag the US into World War III.