On Friday morning, with 99.5 percent of the votes tallied, the Israeli Central Elections Committee published a final version of the Knesset seat count. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing bloc secured the most seats in the country's parliament after Tuesday's election, though significantly fewer than in 2022. The bloc, according to The Times of Israel, will enter the Knesset with 53 seats, while the main opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot will hold 48. With both groups failing to win the 61 seats needed for a majority, tricky negotiations between the nine Zionist parties and the two Arab-interest parties will be needed to form a governing coalition.

Regardless of who becomes Israel's prime minister, Americans can be confident about one thing: Israel's next leader will likely keep making war in the Middle East with American money and American bombs.

Under Netanyahu, who has served 19 nonconsecutive years as prime minister, Israel has been engaged in controversial and expansive wars across the Middle East. Throughout these wars, the U.S. has armed and funded Israel. Although Israel received aid throughout the Cold War, the U.S. increased its obligations starting in FY 1999 by regularly renewing 10-year funding commitments. Under the current agreement between the two countries, which went into effect in FY 2019, the United States pledged to provide $38 billion in military aid to Israel through FY 2028, subject to congressional appropriations.  

A large component of this aid—$33 billion pledged under the current agreement, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS)—has come through Foreign Military Financing (FMF) grants. These allow partner countries to purchase American weapons, with the costs "reimbursed" by American tax dollars. Data from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which manages U.S. arms transfers, show that from FY 2020 to FY 2024, almost $13 billion—90.5 percent—of U.S.-to-Israel arms transfers were paid for by American-issued FMFs. Last year, the CRS found that "annual FMF grants to Israel represent approximately 14% of the overall Israeli defense budget." 

Earlier this month, Al Jazeera reported that since Hamas' October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, the United States has approved $33.16 billion in arms transfers to Israel, almost all of which were funded by FMF grants. 

Netanyahu has said he plans to wean Israel off a donor-recipient aid system, preferring joint defense collaboration. The U.S. and Israel already jointly develop some weapons, such as the David's Sling and Iron Dome missile defense systems, but, as The Washington Post reports, the U.S. funds most of these projects. A CRS report from earlier this year explains how difficult it would be for Israel to transition away from U.S. assistance: "With a fleet of fighter aircraft that is almost entirely American-made and a missile defense architecture which relies on U.S. assistance," the CRS writes, "Israel may remain dependent for quite some time on U.S. supply chains and, in times of military operations, direct defensive U.S. military support."

Should an Eisenkot-led coalition come to power in the coming government negotiations, the prospect of America sending less money to Israel is slim as well. Eisenkot has been clear that his government would expect U.S. financial support, telling BizPortal earlier this week that he would keep seeking the $3.8 billion in annual aid the U.S. currently provides. He's also praised "[U.S. President Donald] Trump's decision to strike Iran together with Israel," telling the New York Post it was "courageous." 

Should he become the next prime minister, conflict between Israel and Iran, or with any of Israel's neighbors, is unlikely to be resolved, which, as the CRS report above indicates, comes at the cost of American taxpayers.

With over $32 trillion in debt held by the public, the United States clearly needs to cut spending. Military aid to highly developed foreign nations like Israel is an obvious place to start. However, given America's long history of signing checks for the country, combined with Trump's unwavering support, taxpayers hoping for such relief shouldn't hold their breath.

The post With or Without Netanyahu, Israel Will Want American Taxpayers To Keep Funding Its Wars appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Another New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani campaign promise could be closer to becoming reality. Remember the Department of Community Safety?  

As The New York Times reported last April, Mamdani originally envisioned that the department would "focus on expanding violence interrupter programs and mental health teams that respond to 911 calls." Mamdani initially proposed setting aside $1 billion a year for the agency. 

But that grand vision has not been fully implemented. In March, Mamdani signed an executive order to establish the Office of Community Safety (OCS) as a "first step" toward creating a Department of Community Safety. The OCS "develops citywide community safety strategies" and serves as an umbrella for other city offices, including the Office of Neighborhood Safety and the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes. Far from the billion-dollar price tag for a full-fledged department, the city's FY 2027 budget sets aside $40 million for the OCS. 

But some New York City councilmembers want a larger-scale "community safety" operation as Mamdani had originally envisioned. On Friday, city council members held a hearing on a bill to establish a Department of Community Safety. According to Gothamist, the bill's primary sponsor, Councilmember Lincoln Restler, has said that he has the support of 34 co-sponsors, enough for a veto-proof majority. Restler wants the department to coordinate homeless and mental health services, de-escalate emergency situations, and "expand violence interruption and public safety work done by nonprofit workers," reported the outlet. 

Just as New York City may be scaling up its community safety apparatus, another city voted to dismantle its community safety office this week. On Thursday, the Minneapolis City Council voted to eliminate the city's Office of Community Safety, which was created in 2022. 

According to KSTP 5, councilmembers argued that "the agency had not delivered results worth the cost," and some "said the office did not improve oversight of the Minneapolis Police Department."

A Minneapolis City audit from this year also found that the city's Neighborhood Safety Department (which is part of the city's OCS) failed to "properly oversee its contracts," reported FOX 9.  And according to an investigation by the outlet, one "prevention consultant billed over $270,000 for personnel, rent, and food, yet the city never produced a single receipt for the company." 

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey opposed shuttering the office. He told MPR News that "those who are bringing this proposal both don't understand what it takes to run safety departments for a major city, nor do they have any plan for how these essential services should be delivered under their own proposal."

As MPR News noted, New York City's Office of Community Safety is different from Minneapolis's model. In Minneapolis, the office oversees the police, 911 emergency responders, and the fire department, along with neighborhood safety groups. In New York, the office does not oversee the police, 911 emergency services, or the fire department. Still, Frey tried to defend the Minneapolis Office of Community Safety by claiming its model has been "nationally recognized" in places like New York, reported MPR News. 

New York City's Office of Community Safety is still relatively new, and it may be difficult to judge its effectiveness. It's fair to question whether the answer to enhancing safety is more bureaucracy and government-supported nonprofits. If New York is to sink more taxpayer funding into turning the office into a department, it would be wise to study Minneapolis's apparent mismanagement and mistakes.

The post NYC Looks To Scale Up Mamdani's Office of Community Safety. Minneapolis Leaders Just Voted To End Theirs. appeared first on Reason Magazine.

Britain must prepare for a decade of pain as the country faces the worst decade for household income on record after John Healey’s "tinkering" Budget, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned.

The post Prepare for Decade of Pain, Warns IFS appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

IISS study questions overreliance on American support and ‘overdependence on expensive, high-end systems’

Gulf states are going to have to reconfigure their trillion-dollar defences given the damage inflicted on their economies and the questionable continued value of US bases in the face of Iranian attack, according to a study by the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The report says that in the weeks before the 8 April ceasefire, 12 regional states, overwhelmingly in the Gulf, faced 4,670 Iranian one-way attack drones and more than 1,400 ballistic missiles. Nearly half were aimed at the United Arab Emirates. Although the vast majority were repelled, one estimate of the damage to energy infrastructure cited by the report is put as high as $58bn (£43bn).

Prime minister says room for manoeuvre was limited by geopolitical crises and Labour’s 2024 manifesto

Andy Burnham has admitted his first budget as prime minister was not as radical as he would have liked because of the economic uncertainty facing the country.

He said he would have liked to have gone further with this week’s announcement – including with higher energy support payments – but felt hemmed in by external events such as the war in Iran, which has pushed up borrowing costs.

Up to 1.4 million people could benefit from change to trading allowance announced in budget, with some saving hundreds in tax

The amount Britons can earn from a side hustle without paying tax will rise to £3,000 next year in a fillip for those who make extra cash from hobbies or reselling.

Up to 1.4 million people could benefit from the change announced in the budget, with the chancellor confirming the tax-free “trading” allowance will increase from £1,000 to £3,000 in April 2027.