Haley Stevens slams Cenk Uygur’s anti-Israel ad: ‘Fearmongering’

Like many Americans, I am skeptical of U.S. military aid to Israel, for no other reason than I generally don’t think we should pay for another nation’s security. I’m happy to sell them weapons to fight terrorists who want to kill Americans, but they should pay full price.  

However, I don’t think it’s fair to specifically emphasize foreign funding for Israel as like, the main reason Americans can’t afford groceries. We have a trillion-dollar deficit, and spend wildly on all categories of defense, Medicare, and Social Security. That’s the problem.  

Maybe that’s why this ad, which was put out by Cenk Uygur’s Rebellion PAC, really rubs me the wrong way. Take a look. 

First off, that $26 billion was appropriated by Congress two years ago. President Biden signed off on it. The framing of this ad is that Republicans are going to send every last dollar overseas, but the idea of giving some military aid to Israel is popular and bipartisan. That doesn’t make it right, and I too would object to giving a foreign country more money solely for the purpose of “killing Palestinians.” That, of course, is a ridiculous and pathologically unfair framing. That money is for Israeli security and to support U.S. combat operations against terrorists in the region — terrorists who kill Israelis and want to kill Americans.  

New York Times columnist David French called the ad vile. He writes on X:  

“One thing that’s so despicable about far-left hatred of Israel is how quickly they just glide past the fact that Israel was subject to horrific terrorist violence. One does not have to agree with all Israeli policies (I certainly don’t) to know that this is a grotesque caricature.  

And Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens of Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed’s vanquished primary opponent, wrote on X:  

“This type of fearmongering about Israel is wrong. It is not a winning strategy for any state. It does nothing to help Michigan Democrats win up and down the ballot in eight days. Do we need to lower costs by building more homes, securing people’s health care, and creating a fairer federal tax code? Yes, we do!! How we do so is not by blaming the high costs of our goods on the only Jewish homeland in the world. I want to see Democrats succeed at every level, and that means keeping our focus on lowering costs for Michigan families and reining in this out-of-control President.”  

I’m with her.  

Now again, maybe we should spend less money on overseas entanglements, particularly in the Middle East. But this ad is ostensibly in support of El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate for Michigan, and other Democrats.  

This idea that if Democrats retake Congress, they are somehow going to run the federal government in a manner that puts more food on your table, that meaningfully lowers the prices of eggs, or anything else, that returns more of your tax dollars to you, is a fantasy. They are proposing the most expansive and expensive agenda in the history of this nation. They are promising to spend much, much more money on health care and education. And they’re actually not claiming that they will meaningfully cut defense spending: What Israel gets is a drop in the bucket.  

To be clear, it’s also totally fair to knock Republicans for failing to rein in spending at all. Except for a couple libertarian-leaning principled dissenters like Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, most of the GOP is happy to go along with massive spending that does in fact cause inflation and ultimately hurts the effective amount of your money you get to keep. But at least with the GOP, we get a mostly sane economic policy that contributes to sustained economic growth. I shudder to think what Dems will do when people who share Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warrens’s regulatory priorities get control of Congress.   

That’s what is really at stake next week: continued prosperity. So don’t let the far left ragebait you into thinking this is about sending every last egg to Israel.  

Robby Soave is co-host of The Hill’s commentary show “Rising” and a senior editor for Reason Magazine. This column is an edited transcription of his daily commentary.