In addition to the billions in annual military aid the US already throws at Israel as a matter of course, the House of Representatives has added another $600 million in the pot, this time for missile defense subsidies.

Israel has several major missile defense systems, which by and large the IDF has decided are simply not cost effective. When such programs get defunded by Israel’s own government, the US seems eager to bankroll them.

The subsidies are part of the Qualitative Military Edge (QME) policy, which US hawks reiterated in the latest military spending bill as a pledge to “take all necessary steps to ensure that Israel possesses and maintains an independent capability to remove existential threats to its security.” Ironically, many of the QME bumps to Israel aid come as a direct result of US weapons sales to other nations in the region.