Heavily abridged. URL in title. [Opinion. Cut ‘em loose. Sink or swim time. If Israel can’t survive in land gifted by the Brits without US money and arms, then that’s taps. All she wrote. The fat lady sings. Time to end the gravy train. Just before the credits: “We’ll always have Somaliland.” Israel’s Suicidal Rupture with the U.S. Israel is turning on its last important ally in an act of suicidal hubris. Chris Hedges: 24 Jun 2026 Israel is sabotaging the negotiations with Iran and alienating its last important ally by refusing to halt its attacks on Lebanon and withdraw from its occupation of the south. It is determined to reignite a regional conflagration that could see Iran perpetually close the Strait of Hormuz and plunge the global economy into a global depression. And it continues its genocide in Gaza. Israel is contaminated by racism and genocidal violence. It is blinded by a repugnant moral superiority. It is corrupted by a class of Zionist billionaires in the U.S. who use their wealth to bend foreign policy to serve Israeli interests. It is equipped with a nuclear arsenal Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened to use. It is a menace to the region. It is a menace to itself. And it is a menace to us. Israel’s vision of a “Greater Israel,” designed to ensure Israel’s military dominance throughout the Middle East, depends on harnessing the wealth and military power of the U.S. Over two-thirds of the major arms and munitions Israel imports — without which it could not carry out its genocide of the Palestinians, turn southern Lebanon into a moonscape and bomb Iran, Syria and Qatar — are manufactured and provided by the U.S. And because the Israel lobby, for decades, has owned Congress, because its Zionists allies police and control the media, because it is able to siphon tens of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to sustain its military adventurism, Israel is blind to its own limitations. It is willing to inflict harm on its allies, including the U.S., in service to itself. “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world,” Vance retorted. Between 1946 and 2024, the U.S. is estimated to have provided Israel with over $300 billion in military and economic assistance, adjusted for inflation. The cost of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan alone are estimated, by Brown University, to be between $4 to $6 trillion, with much of that to be paid in the coming decades in the form of medical and disability payments to war veterans and their families. This time the price is too high. Israelis, intoxicated by the fantasy of being the chosen people, do not have friends. They do not have allies. They have those they use and those they slaughter. Israeli leaders are so out of touch with reality they are threatening to go to war with Iran without the U.S. Avigdor Lieberman, the former defense minister and current leader of the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party, has called for Israel to build a ballistic missile force and said that if he was in charge, he would direct the Mossad to overthrow the Iranian government.
