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Yes, We Have No Bananas - David Frum

David Frum

Source and scope

David Frum, “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” The Atlantic, Ideas, 26 October 2026, 6:03 PM ET. Subtitle: “But please don’t blame the Jews.”

What to retain

Frum’s strongest argument is about scale and causation: eliminating aid to Israel cannot, by itself, finance American universal health care or explain American grocery prices. A separate question is whether particular assistance is strategically wise, morally defensible, or lawfully supplied. Keep those questions distinct.

The argument in sequence

The grocery advertisement and the implied tradeoff

Frum describes an independent PAC advertisement supporting Abdul El-Sayed’s Michigan Senate campaign. A couple return eggs and bananas because, the ad suggests, their grocery money is going to Israeli military operations and possibly Israeli universal health care. Its closing “they/them” line, aimed nominally at Mike Rogers, is read by Frum as a suggestive reference to Israel and its supporters. This is Frum’s description and interpretation; the original ad, its funding records, and any candidate involvement were not independently examined for this note. An independent PAC’s message should not automatically be attributed to the candidate as an authorized statement. [Supplied PDF, pp. 1–2.]

The important logical distinction is between opportunity cost and price causation. Spending money on an ally does preclude spending that same appropriation elsewhere. It does not follow that this spending materially caused eggs to become more expensive, or that ending it would lower the shelf price of bananas. Those propositions need an economic mechanism and evidence of magnitude.

A theme that crosses political camps

Frum also cites statements by Zohran Mamdani about housing and spending on Gaza, Marjorie Taylor Greene about Israel’s health care and American debt, and El-Sayed contrasting domestic health care with overseas bombs. His argument is that a familiar economic-grievance frame appears across the political spectrum. These examples are reported by Frum, rather than independently authenticated quotations in this note. They do not establish that every opponent of aid shares a motive or agrees with the ad. [PDF, p. 3.]

The numerical rebuttal

Frum contrasts the regular $3.8 billion annual military-assistance framework with the far larger scale of U.S. federal spending, grocery purchases, public-housing needs, and universal-health-care proposals. He also acknowledges the 2024 emergency package for Ukraine, Israel, humanitarian relief, and other partners. His narrow conclusion is defensible: ending regular aid is insufficient to fund the large domestic transformations invoked in the rhetoric. The comparison does not show that $3.8 billion has no valuable alternative use. [PDF, pp. 3–4.]

Assistance also has an American procurement and technology component

Frum emphasizes American-made equipment, joint missile-defense work, and possible economies of scale from foreign purchases of U.S. weapons. His examples include Iron Dome and Israeli F-35 orders. This supplies a strategic-benefit argument alongside the budget argument. Do not turn it into a claim that the assistance costs Americans nothing or automatically pays for itself. Procurement has real fiscal and resource costs; a net-benefit claim needs a comparison with alternative uses of those resources. Aircraft orders, deliveries, and future options are different categories. Frum’s precise F-35 counts and NATO-order comparison remain source-attributed here. [PDF, pp. 3–4.]

Smear tactics and historical scapegoating

Frum uses Hunter S. Thompson’s story about an alleged Lyndon Johnson campaign smear to illustrate how forcing a denial can spread an insinuation. Treat it as an anecdote reported by Thompson and reused by Frum, not an independently verified Johnson incident. The relevant debating lesson is that an opponent can make a target repeatedly answer a false premise. → 60 Knowledge/60.10 Argumentation/Shifting The Burden (Fallacy). [PDF, p. 2.]

He then invokes Karl Lueger’s 1899 anti-Jewish rhetoric in Vienna: real economic distress among artisans and craftspeople was redirected toward Jews as a politically useful villain. Frum sees a comparable mechanism when American economic frustrations are attached disproportionately to Israel and suggestive language about its supporters. This is a historical analogy and a judgment about rhetoric, not proof of the ad makers’ intentions. The Lueger quotation and the explanation of his constituency are transmitted through Frum; a primary historical source was not checked. [PDF, p. 4.]

Figures, calculations, and verification

Regular aid and exceptional wartime aid

  • Regular framework, supported by CRS: the FY2019–FY2028 MOU calls for $3.3 billion annually in Foreign Military Financing and $500 million in missile-defense support, totaling $3.8 billion. The MOU is a political commitment subject to congressional appropriation, not a statutory ceiling on all support. CRS, “The Current 10-Year Security Assistance Memorandum of Understanding.”
  • A larger wartime year: CRS’s May 2025 report lists $12.5 billion for FY2024 in its bilateral military-assistance and missile-defense series, compared with $3.8 billion for FY2023 and FY2025. The FY2024 amount includes the $8.7 billion emergency FMF/missile-defense increment. This series does not equal every category of Israel-related U.S. expenditure. CRS, Tables 1–2.
  • Frum’s broader package comparison: he describes the approximately $95 billion 2024 package as mostly Ukraine funding, roughly $15 billion for Israel, about $9 billion humanitarian relief including Gaza, and the remainder for other partners. Preserve that as his rounded account. For a precise debate total, define which law, fiscal year, recipient, and spending category are being counted. The whole $95 billion was not aid to Israel, nor was all humanitarian funding aid to Gaza. [PDF, p. 3.]

Share of the federal budget

CBO reports FY2024 federal outlays of $6.752 trillion. Using that fixed historical denominator:

  • Regular $3.8 billion framework: 3.8 / 6752 × 100 = 0.0563% of outlays, about 5.6 cents per $100 of federal spending.
  • CRS’s $12.5 billion FY2024 subtotal: 12.5 / 6752 × 100 = 0.1851%, about 18.5 cents per $100.

These are scale comparisons between assistance totals and federal outlays, not a claim that appropriations, obligations, deliveries, and cash outlays all occur in the same period. Frum’s “about one-twentieth of 1 percent” is a reasonable rounded description of the regular baseline. Neither baseline nor wartime subtotal is “less than 0.00001%.” CBO, Monthly Budget Review: Summary for Fiscal Year 2024, Table 1.

Groceries: the 30-hour comparison

Taking Frum’s $1.1 trillion annual grocery-spending figure as an assumption, 3.8 / 1100 × 365 × 24 = 30.3 hours. Regular aid equals about 0.35% of that annual spending. This is a checked equivalence, not a proposal or prediction that canceling aid would deliver 30 hours of free groceries. The grocery-spending input was not separately verified here. [PDF, p. 4.]

Public housing: roughly 20 years of regular aid

Frum calls NYCHA’s almost $80 billion need a deferred-maintenance backlog. NYCHA’s own current FAQ describes $78.0 billion in projected physical needs over 20 years, updated with January 2026 data; its 2023 assessment was $78.3 billion. That definition includes future replacement and upgrade needs as well as existing problems. The more accurate label is 20-year capital needs, not exclusively an immediately overdue repair bill.

78 / 3.8 = 20.5 annual baseline-aid amounts. That demonstrates scale. It also means redirecting $3.8 billion could contribute meaningfully to a housing program; the calculation alone cannot decide priorities or establish why housing deteriorated. NYCHA, Physical Needs Assessment FAQs.

Health care: the 70-year comparison is scenario-dependent

Frum uses more than $32 trillion in additional federal spending over ten years for a Medicare-for-All-type expansion. At exactly $32 trillion, 32000 / 120 / 3.8 = 70.2: an average month of the assumed additional spending equals about 70 years of regular aid.

For context, Charles Blahous’s 2018 Mercatus study estimated $32.6 trillion in additional federal commitments for the specific Sanders proposal and implementation assumptions it modeled. That is an older, proposal-specific estimate, not a fresh universal price tag for every possible coverage reform, and it is not necessarily Frum’s exact source. Federal spending would also replace substantial existing private and state spending; the figure is not an equal increase in total national health expenditure. The safe claim is that this regular aid stream cannot finance a program of that federal scale on its own. Blahous, The Costs of a National Single-Payer Healthcare System, 30 July 2018.

Aid structure and the strongest counterargument

Direct use: regular FMF primarily finances defense equipment and services; it is not a direct appropriation for Israel’s civilian health-care system. The historical offshore-procurement exception allows some FMF spending in Israel and is scheduled under the MOU to end in FY2028. Avoid “every aid dollar must be spent in America.” CRS, “Foreign Military Financing” and MOU sections.

Fungibility: an opponent can correctly respond that subsidizing defense may free Israeli domestic resources for other uses, including civilian services. That is an indirect budget effect. Its existence does not establish that the subsidy explains U.S. grocery inflation or that ending it finances U.S. universal health care.

Strategic returns: CRS documents U.S. purchases of Iron Dome batteries and the integration of Iron Dome elements into the Marine Corps’ MRIC program. That supports a concrete technology/co-production benefit. Whether those benefits exceed the full costs, risks, and alternatives remains a policy judgment. CRS, “Iron Dome.”

Best opposing case: even a comparatively small appropriation can enable unacceptable conduct, create strategic liabilities, or be less valuable than a domestic alternative. American defense-contractor revenue does not settle those concerns. A sound rebuttal answers each claim separately: scale, price causation, direct recipient, indirect fungibility, strategic value, and legal or moral permissibility.

Economic scapegoating: the defensible distinction

Ordinary disagreement about foreign assistance can be legitimate, including opposition to all aid or to particular transfers. Frum’s stronger warning concerns a causal and rhetorical pattern: real domestic hardship is attached to a dramatically overstated foreign culprit, insinuations replace identifiable actors and mechanisms, and blame may migrate from the state or a policy to Jews collectively.

Assess what the speaker actually says and what the evidence supports. A scale error alone is not proof of antisemitism. Criticism of Israel, a named lobbying organization, or an appropriation does not automatically target Jews. When collective Jewish guilt or covert Jewish control is alleged, identify that content explicitly. Do not assume that “they/them,” detached from its complete context, proves the speaker’s meaning. → Jewish Conspiracy Theories > Economic scapegoating and the grocery-price claim · 60 Knowledge/60.1 Israel-Palestine/60.1.5 Arguments/Antisemitism.

Debate use

The practical material lives in Arguments notes > Aid to Israel, domestic priorities, and economic scapegoating: a short opening, pointed formulations, five cross-examination questions, the strongest objection, and a disciplined reply. The compact script is under 60.1 Israel-Palestine TP > United States Funding Israel.

What this source establishes: Frum’s argument and rhetoric; corroborated aid structure; reproducible budget comparisons; and a useful distinction between opportunity cost and causal blame.

What it does not establish: that every aid critic is antisemitic, that military procurement is costless, that assistance has no opportunity cost, or that a small budget share resolves allegations about the conduct of a war.