Tucker Carlson doesn’t see it (no surprise there):

Carlson did not merely argue that the Gulf states matter more. He went further, portraying Israel itself as a net burden on the United States. He described Israel as “a completely insignificant country,” with “no resources” and a population of just nine million, arguing that it has relevance only because Washington provides it with a security guarantee. Carlson claimed the US has “no overriding strategic interest” in Israel and dismissed the relationship in blunt terms: “What are we getting out of this? Nothing. It’s only cost.”

This is a striking assertion about a state that has just signed a $32 billion gas deal with Egypt, sits atop vast offshore energy reserves, and possesses one of the most formidable concentrations of human capital on the planet as a global high-tech and defence power.

By the very structure of the agreement (between the US and Israel), most of the money returns to American industry through the procurement of US equipment and weapons. But beyond that, the true value of the assistance is not merely economic. Israel has turned the assistance into an engine of operational development, field testing, and technological upgrading whose impact extends far beyond the Middle East. Israel is not merely a “customer” of American weapons systems. It is a living laboratory, under real conditions, for the American military. …

In Israeli military culture, no foreign equipment remains foreign. Every platform undergoes “sovereign integration” – modification, adaptation, and transformation into a fully Israeli system. The same is true of the F-35. When Israel was required to prepare the aircraft for a strike scenario against Iran – a distance of approximately 1,700 kilometres – it encountered a critical limitation: range. The solution did not come from the United States but from Israel. Unique external fuel tanks were developed, attached to the sides of the aircraft’s fuselage, enabling extended range without the use of refuelling aircraft. This is precisely the solution that Washington itself needs in much more distant theatres – foremost among them China.

Israel also added an advanced layer of electronic warfare to the aircraft, focused on detecting and disrupting the Russian S-300 and S-400 air defense systems. As a result, Israeli aircraft were able, for the first time, to conduct deep-penetration missions without the enemy systems even detecting that they had entered hostile airspace. this capability was a very important component of the strike. The Chinese air defense systems are indeed different from the Russian ones, but the engineering similarities between them render the Israeli lesson relevant to the Pacific theatre as well.

Another upgrade implemented by Israel concerns the ability to carry heavy external ordnance.

This is by no means the first time I’ve read of the help Israel gives to our military, and there’s much more where that came from. It’s basic information, readily available. Carlson is almost certainly aware of it, but he’s become a mendacious Israel-hater (and Jew-hater, which we can infer from his nasty obsession and lies). Perhaps he should register as a lobbyist for Qatar.

The problem is that there is general public ignorance on this score, and Carlson plays on that ignorance and takes advantage of it. Ignorance is fertile ground for sowing lies, not just in the arena of Israel but in general.

A while back I watched a VDH video in which he spoke on the subject of the benefits to the US of its relationship with Israel in terms of aid and military intelligence. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find that video at the moment. So this will have to do: