Trump’s pledge to end $3.8 billion in annual aid leaves the core architecture intact: commercial sales, stockpiles and Section 219 co-production keep weapons flowing. Congress must close every channel, not just the appropriations line.
Why Voters Turned on Arming Israel
Analysts have spent much time over the past week trying to explain the “blue tsunami” that swept the United States during the Nov. 3 midterm elections. Democrats gained historic majorities in both the House and Senate, teeing up for a confrontational two years with President Donald Trump.
Many voters clearly wanted their elected officials to stop writing blank checks for Israel and to end the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. About 6 in 10 U.S. voters told an Associated Press election survey that attacking Iran was the wrong decision. A Chicago Council poll found that 68 percent of Americans said the war had not been worth its costs. According to the same study, 56 percent favored reducing or eliminating U.S. military aid to Israel. The Chicago Council also reported that 57 percent of Americans backed restrictions to prevent U.S. military aid from supporting Israeli operations against Palestinians.
Trump’s Aid Cut Falls Short
The White House appears to have taken notice. Vice President J.D. Vance wrote on X that “the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone. … The reason we lost is the war.” He also cited the desire to “change our relationship to Israel” as a factor in some Trump voters choosing to back Democrats.
Discussing Republicans’ loss, Trump himself admitted to the Wall Street Journal that “Iran was a piece of it.” And in an apparent acknowledgment that supporting U.S. military aid to Israel carried a political cost, Trump announced on Election Day that the United States would end the $3.8 billion in annual military aid to the country by the end of this calendar year. Trump later told 60 Minutes that “there is a great dislike, incredibly, for Israel.”
Trump’s announcement marks a watershed moment in U.S. foreign policy. But U.S. aid to Israel won’t end with a phone call. The current U.S.-Israel military aid agreement runs through fiscal year 2028; Trump did not explain how the United States would halt funding sooner. What’s more, cutting Israel’s annual U.S. military aid package would still leave room for supplemental military funding. It also would not stop Israel from buying American weapons through government sales and commercial contracts.
Who Pays Matters Less Than Supply
For Israeli authorities and their supporters, maintaining the flow of U.S. arms to Israel is far more important than who pays for them. If Israel—rather than U.S. taxpayers—pays for a bomb, that does not mitigate the bomb’s impact when Israel drops it on a Palestinian family. The United States will remain complicit in Israeli genocide and apartheid as long as U.S. arms keep flowing.
The new Congress should end all U.S. arms transfers to Israel. It can start by removing the $3.8 billion in military aid from fiscal 2027 appropriations and by blocking supplemental military funding. The House has already passed a spending bill that earmarks these billions in arms for Israel. Congress must remove that earmark before the appropriations bill becomes law.
Lawmakers should also prohibit new arms sales and deliveries to Israel under existing contracts, commercial export licenses, and stockpile arrangements. Congress should ensure full transparency around U.S. military aid and both government and commercial sales to Israel, as some information is not public. Voters deserve to know whether the U.S. government has truly stopped the flow of arms to Israel or simply tweaked the mechanisms by which Israel receives them.
Why Arming Israel Persists Anyway
It is critical, too, that Congress strike Section 219 from the House-passed National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2027. The provision would expand military cooperation with Israel through joint weapons development and production. In particular, the provision would direct the Defense Department to designate an executive agent to expand military technology cooperation with the country. Section 219 promotes joint ventures, co-production, and integration of jointly developed or Israeli-origin technology into U.S. military systems.
Congress should also reject Republican Rep. Don Bacon’s H.R. 10796 bill, which would advance a similar initiative. Pentagon co-production preserves the machinery that enables Israeli abuses—without the safeguards that Congress wrote into law to prevent the United States from arming repressive regimes.
The Van Hollen Resolution Test
Finally, the Senate should adopt Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s resolution drawing on Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act, which bars security assistance to any government engaged in a consistent pattern of gross human rights violations. If approved, the resolution would force the State Department to submit, within 30 days, a report covering abuses against Americans and Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. On Sept. 29, 47 senators, including all but one Democrat, supported a motion to advance the resolution, but 51 voted against it. The resolution thus failed.