The photo from southern Iran is difficult to forget. In the coastal city of Minab, rows of small graves now stretch across a cemetery — 166 of them marking the burial sites of children killed on Feb. 28 when a missile struck a girls’ elementary school during the opening hours of the new U.S./Israel—Iran war.
The strike destroyed classrooms and killed well over 160 people, most of them girls between the ages of seven and twelve.
Investigations by journalists and military analysts — and a preliminary probe by the Pentagon — suggest the strike was likely carried out by U.S. forces operating in the area.
Already, the images from Minab are seared into the memory of a new war — one that may prove to be the most consequential Middle East conflict since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
And like so many wars before it, this one will come with enormous costs — costs that American taxpayers will ultimately bear.
Military aid to Israel exceeds $300B since mid-20th century
Credit: Nidal Ibrahim
Credit: Nidal Ibrahim
Oil prices recently surged near $120 per barrel, before retreating and hovering around the $100 per barrel level as of this writing. Still, many believe that as a result of this war, prices are likely to go past $150 per barrel in the weeks ahead, threatening to trigger another recession. Global markets are rattled. Supply chains are tightening. Already, ordinary Americans are feeling the consequences in the most familiar places: at the gas pump, at the grocery store and in the monthly bills that already strain household budgets.
The question Americans should be asking is simple: Why are we here again?
The United States has been drawn into yet another Middle Eastern war — a conflict that many analysts believe was avoidable and that was strongly encouraged by Israel’s government, particularly Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This war of choice now threatens to reshape the Middle East for generations.
And once again, Americans will be the ones paying for it.
For decades, the United States has provided Israel with extraordinary levels of financial support. Adjusted for inflation, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, Israel has received more than $300 billion in American assistance since its founding in 1948, making it the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid in history.
Even in peacetime, Washington sends roughly $3.8 billion every year in military aid to Israel under a long-term agreement signed in 2016. That figure does not include additional wartime assistance, missile defense programs, emergency appropriations and supplemental packages that Congress routinely passes during major conflicts.
But there’s more: The baseline $3.8 billion is only the floor. In the wake of the genocide Israel perpetrated in Gaza that began in October 2023, the United States dramatically increased military support. Academic researchers estimate that at least $21.7 billion in American military aid has been provided to Israel since the conflict began. The numbers are staggering.
Yet the real cost of these policies is often hidden in plain sight.
Consider health care.
Israel maintains a universal health care system that guarantees coverage to all of its citizens. Medical care is treated as a basic public right. No Israeli family faces bankruptcy because a child needs surgery or a parent is diagnosed with cancer.
The United States, by contrast, spends more than $4.9 trillion annually on health care, yet millions of Americans remain uninsured or burdened by crushing medical debt.
Emergency rooms close across rural Georgia and the rest of America. Hospitals struggle to remain open. Families ration insulin and postpone doctor visits because of cost.
At the same time, American taxpayers continue underwriting billions of dollars in military assistance to Israel.
The contrast is hard to ignore.
Bipartisan voices question American ‘endless’ wars
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Every billion dollars that flows into foreign military aid represents resources that could otherwise strengthen American communities here in Georgia and elsewhere — rebuilding aging hospitals, lowering prescription drug prices or expanding health care access for millions of citizens.
Instead, those resources are tied to a foreign policy framework that has locked the United States into decades of costly military entanglements in the Middle East.
This reality is beginning to fracture the old bipartisan consensus in Washington. Voices across the political spectrum are increasingly questioning the wisdom of endless wars and unconditional military support abroad. Americans are asking why their tax dollars seem to fund conflicts overseas while domestic needs remain unresolved.
Enough is enough.
Enough American taxpayer money flowing endlessly into the Middle East. Enough American lives placed in harm’s way for conflicts that do not serve the long-term interests of the American people.
The human cost of these policies is not abstract to me.
My wife’s family hails from Gaza and she has lost more than 150 members as a result of the genocide Israel’s perpetrated in Gaza in which more than 70% of those killed were innocent women and children.
My own family hails from the Occupied West Bank, where the tacit apartheid system of control Israel exerts over all facets of Palestinian lives have made life a daily struggle. Moreover, recently a number of unarmed Palestinians Americans have been shot and killed by extremist Israeli settlers, all under the watchful and approving eyes of the Israeli occupation army. To date, there have been no arrests for these cold-blooded murders.
Indeed, on March 5, more than 30 U.S. senators — which shamefully did not include Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff (but did include Sen. Raphael Warnock) — signed onto a letter demanding the Trump Administration investigate the recent killing of a 19-year-old U.S. citizen in the occupied West Bank. He is the ninth American citizen killed by Israeli soldiers or extremist settlers since 2022, all with no consequences.
Iran is yet another forever war, and yet again we find American dollars and American troops being sent into harm’s way to protect the Israeli way of life. A war that was precipitated at the direct insistence and manipulation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel pushed President Trump and the United States into this war, and the consequences of this war of choice will be expensive and far-reaching, potentially costing American taxpayers billions of dollars.
The question Americans should now be asking their leaders is simple: How many more wars in the Middle East will we be expected to finance, fight and endure before Washington finally decides that American priorities — and American lives — should come first?
Nidal M. Ibrahim of Alpharetta is former executive director of the Arab American Institute and former publisher of Arab American Business Magazine.
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