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As devastating natural disasters cause mass destruction across the southeastern United States, politicians and leaders are more concerned with arming Israel to the teeth than preparing and rebuilding their own communities.

By Fadi Kafeety, Jacobin

Last week, Hurricane Helene battered the southeastern United States after the storm ravaged the Caribbean and parts of Central America. Making first landfall in the Florida panhandle before raging across another eleven states, the hurricane caused extreme levels of devastation as it tore through Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Virginia with torrential rainfall that caused major flooding.

With upward of 230 confirmed deaths and many still unaccounted for, including workers at a Tennessee plastic factory who were forced to work through the hurricane, the damage and loss from Helene has made it one of the deadliest hurricanes of the century in the United States. As if Helene’s devastation weren’t enough, another similarly powerful storm, Hurricane Milton, is currently barreling down a similar path.

an aerial shot of a town devastated by a hurricane

Yet on the same day that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced a $9 billion shortfall in funding desperately needed to address the damages from Helene, Israel publicized that it had secured another $8.7 billion aid package from the United States to “significantly strengthen critical systems such as [the] Iron Dome and David’s Sling while supporting the continued development of an advanced high-powered laser defense system.” This latest aid package does not include the nearly $18 billion provided to Israel in military aid since October 2023, on top of the additional $20 billion that was approved this August.

It was not until October, amid fierce backlash, that the government announced a onetime assistance package of $750 to victims of Helene, a meager amount for victims and survivors relative to the losses they have incurred.

On that same eventful Thursday, the Tennessee National Guard stated that it will be sending more than seven hundred soldiers to the Middle East in the coming days as part of a yearlong task force deployment to the region while the state suffered from unprecedented levels of devastation, a move that has caused widespread anger. In addition to the troop deployment in the Middle East, which will bring the total known number of US soldiers in the region to around 43,000, “squadrons of F-15E, F-16, and F-22 fighter jets and A-10 attack aircraft” will be sent to “double the airpower on hand” in a clear act of dangerous escalation in the region.

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