from the American Conservative
Israel’s cabinet last month approved and sent to the Knesset a 2026 state budget that sharply increases both military spending and financing for propaganda operations abroad. According to reporting by the Jerusalem Post, the latter funding will be directed toward a variety of projects including foreign media campaigns, digital messaging operations, and efforts to counter and censor criticism of Israel’s U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza.
The proposed budget, quadruple last year’s allocation, also encourages coordination between government ministries and outside contractors, or “civil society organizations,” to disseminate Israeli propaganda abroad. It comes as Israel reportedly moves to renew and expand its memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the United States, extending it for up to 20 years rather than the traditional ten and likely securing at least $4 billion annually from U.S. taxpayers. Even as Israel’s assault on Gaza slows in pace, its government continues to require uninterrupted U.S. financing, weapons transfers, and diplomatic cover to sustain its occupation, prop up its U.S.-taxpayer-dependent domestic defense industry, and prepare for future regional conflicts, including an openly telegraphed war with Iran.
Israel has hemorrhaged U.S. public support after months of live-streamed mass killing in Gaza and growing international exposure of Israel’s treatment of Christians and Muslims in its occupied territories. Yet because Israel remains structurally dependent on U.S. political backing and taxpayer funds for its survival, the collapse of American public support represents an existential problem, one that Israeli leaders hope to solve through a boosted propaganda budget...
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