Why extremists are pushing a ‘America is paying for Israel’s free healthcare’ lie

US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wants you to believe that the United States is paying for Israel’s universal healthcare and subsidised education, at the expense of ordinary Americans.

This manages to be both untrue and remarkably disingenuous at the same time.

In July 2025, on the House floor, MTG stated, “USAID typically accounts for 15% to 20% of Israel’s defence budget, even though Israel, nuclear-armed Israel, has universal healthcare for their citizens and subsidized college for their citizens.  Here in America, we’re $37 trillion in debt.” And she has been pushing it hard ever since.

Greene never quite says that US money directly funds Israeli hospitals and universities, at least not in so many words. She doesn’t need to. She places two facts side by side. Insinuation does the rest.

Another unhinged proponent of conspiracy theory tropes, far-left media host Cenk Uygur, makes exactly the same claim, just with more social media smugness: “Israel has universal healthcare and paid family leave. We don’t. Why don’t they send us $14 billion?”

The story being sold is that US tax dollars are financing a rich country’s generous health and social welfare system while Americans go without. Compelling, manipulative, and completely untrue.

US assistance to Israel is for military purposes only. Nothing else. Not one dollar of US aid goes into Israeli healthcare, education, family leave, or any other form of social welfare.

Here’s the kicker, 90% of these funds must be spent in the US. The money buys military hardware and related systems.  Fighter jets, air defence, missiles, munitions, radar, command and control infrastructure.

So, the real beneficiaries are American companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and their supply chains. American factories. American engineers. American production lines.

Bottom line, US military aid to Israel sustains tens of thousands of American jobs. Billions of dollars in contracts flowing straight back into the US economy. That’s the economic reality, MTG, Uygur and others ignore, while performing moral outrage.

“Comedian” and self-anointed Middle East expert, Dave Smith, repeatedly frames U.S. aid to Israel as “immoral”, arguing that Americans are being taxed to support a wealthy foreign country with social services while they themselves lack basic safety nets.

The same tall tale, delivered with a different accent. Israel is framed not as an ally or a strategic partner, but as a parasite.

Smith also claims that the US was dragged into Middle East wars, driven by Israeli interests rather than US ones. Pure rhetoric, with no basis in fact.

In the case of Iraq, then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon explicitly warned the Bush administration against making Iraq “the centre of the war on terror” and “not to underestimate the consequences of invading Iraq.” Smith’s claims are both disingenuous and fundamentally dishonest.

Then we have Candace Owens, who sits opposite Piers Morgan and asks in earnest, “Can you name one positive thing that Zionists have contributed to America?” As Piers completely failed to point out, the answer is sitting right there in plain sight.

First, tens of thousands of American jobs. A constant stream of high-value defence exports. Joint weapons programmes, and access to Israeli tech and knowhow.

The US Army has adopted Israel’s Trophy system to protect its Abrams tanks. The two countries co-develop missile defence systems such as Arrow and David’s Sling. Iron Dome interceptors are now being co-produced in the United States. These are more than symbolic. They are invaluable integrated defence partnerships.

Israeli innovation has fed directly into civilian technologies used every day by ordinary Americans, from mobile phone technology and cybersecurity to medical devices, surgical robotics, agricultural tech, water management, AI and autonomous systems.

Israeli tech sits within the global tech ecosystem that powers Silicon Valley, finance, healthcare, and critical infrastructure, systems, from cybersecurity platforms protecting American hospitals and banks, to medical imaging tools in U.S. clinics, and the software running the devices people carry in their pockets.

I trust that answers Owens’ pressing concerns.

This isn’t about wilful ignorance or poor economics. It’s one more element in a broader, campaign to demonise and delegitimise Israel in the eyes of the American public and the wider Western audience.

The same people accuse AIPAC of being a “foreign agent” corrupting American democracy. AIPAC is staffed and funded by American citizens who lobby the U.S. government in exactly the same way as every other domestic interest group in Washington. Somehow, it’s specifically the lobby group in support of the world’s only Jewish state which is treated as uniquely sinister, illegitimate, immoral, undeserving.

The hypocrisy is grotesque. Qatar alone has spent hundreds of millions on registered lobbying and public relations in Washington and billions more across US universities, think tanks and media, maintaining one of the most aggressive foreign influence operations in America. Yet doesn’t produce the same obsession, or conspiracy theories.

MTG believes there are votes in it. Uygur knows there are likes, shares and subscribes to be had. Owens has built an entire brand on conspiratorial grievance posing as courage.

Tucker Carlson has gone all in, portraying Israel as a liability to the United States, a corrupting influence, a drain on American resources, while at the same time finding endless warmth for Qatar. One might ask where this new-found admirations for a regime that bankrolls Hamas, hosts Muslim Brotherhood ideologues and runs one of the most sophisticated propaganda operations on earth, comes from.

Cenk Uygur’s equally unhinged partner in crime, Ana Kasparian, peddles the very same conspiracies, but in her own inimitable “mean girls” fashion. She rants at Israelis telling them they are loathsome. She rubs her hands together as she informs us all that she hates them. Yet, when confronted, with a straight face, claims she doesn’t hate all Israelis, just the government. Hmm.

Then Iran… As such people demand intervention, sanctions and international action over Gaza, when it comes to the Islamic republic they discover “complexity”, reject any intervention, maintain silence and urge caution, even as the regime massacres thousands of innocents, brutally crushing the protests.

They also trumpet Islamic regime propaganda that protests are driven by Israel and the CIA, to promote regime change. A gross betrayal of Iranian protesters, as they die in the streets struggling for freedom.

This hypocrisy exposes the fraud.

“US money funds Israeli healthcare” is the perfect narrative device. Grievance becomes certainty, political failure becomes a story about Jews. Outrage becomes currency.

These charlatans are not simply being provocative or dishonest. Their behaviour is a warning sign. They are driving a cultural shift that once again, makes Jews the default explanation for societal ills. And that should worry us all.

Gary Cohen is a filmmaker and writer. His substack can be found here.