STATUS: PUBLIC RELEASE
This repository documents the full cost of the United States' strategic and material relationship with the State of Israel. The objective is to surface the eight categories of cost that the relationship imposes on the American public, the American government, and American strategic interests, in a form that voters, journalists, and policy analysts can verify line by line.
The investigation was opened June 12, 2026. A verification pass was completed June 14, 2026 covering approximately 80 specific load-bearing factual claims across all 14 numbered cost files and the 6 supporting files. Findings, corrections, and the audit trail are recorded in VERIFICATION_LOG.md at the repository root. The investigation is published unsigned per OWG standing policy effective June 12, 2026; the legacy PGP key (9267A71E3F0A4EED2F973F9BA3E252F24635CC6C) remains in the repo for verifying earlier OWG signed artifacts from sibling investigations.
- Direct financial aid. Annual Memorandum of Understanding security assistance, supplemental appropriations, missile defense co-production, Israel Bonds, EXIM exposure, USAID West Bank/Gaza pre-2024.
- Indirect financial aid. Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon foreign aid lines whose principal strategic purpose is preserving Israel's regional posture; ROTC programs, IMET, and other military exchanges; refugee resettlement programs whose cost flows ultimately to the Israeli displacement balance sheet.
- Military operational cost. US Navy carrier deployments to the Eastern Mediterranean, USAF tanker bridges supplying Israeli operations, replenishment of munitions consumed in Israeli operations, special-mission unit deployments tied to Israeli intelligence priorities, US air defense detachments in Israel.
- Diplomatic cost. UN Security Council vetoes that isolate the US from majority allies, alienation of Global South coalitions, friction with European partners over ICC and ICJ cases, embassy security premiums in regions where the US-Israel relationship is the proximate cause of threat.
- Strategic opportunity cost. Iran sanctions framework cost in lost trade, Russia-Iran-China alignment opportunity, Saudi-China rapprochement opportunity, lost negotiating leverage with Gulf states, and the over-deployment of US strategic attention to a single regional theater at the expense of Indo-Pacific posture.
- Counter-terrorism cost. Post-9/11 domestic security and counter-terrorism appropriations traceable to grievance vectors that name US-Israel as causal, force-protection costs on US bases in the region, cyber-defense costs from regional state and proxy actors.
- Intelligence and counter-intelligence cost. US counter-intelligence resources expended on Israeli espionage operations against the US (Pollard precedent, more recent operations), Israeli access to US signals intelligence and the cost of compartmentation overhead, narrative-shaping costs through the think-tank and lobby pipeline.
- Domestic political cost. Lobby expenditure to influence US elections, primary-targeting costs that distort representative selection, free-press chilling effect on Mideast coverage, congressional oversight time and committee resources consumed by Israel-relevant matters.
This work shares investigative DNA with the OWG Epstein investigation and the OWG Dark Money Ukraine investigation, which independently surfaced material relevant to several cost categories here. Material identified in those investigations as Israel-relevant has been pulled forward into this repository with provenance markers preserved.
Parent investigations:
- jpuckett11/ObsidianGroup_Epstein (public)
/home/obsidian/ObsidianGroup_DarkMoneyUkraine(private)
- GitHub handle: jpuckett11
- Organization: Obsidian Watch Group
- Contact: via GitHub issues or jpuckett11@users.noreply.github.com
Every claim sourced from a parent OWG investigation carries a [[Epstein/<file>]] or [[DarkMoneyUkraine/<file>]] provenance marker. Every dollar figure cites the appropriations bill or DoD/State budget line that contains it. Every operational claim cites either a primary source (DoD release, GAO report, CRS report, court filing, FOIA return) or a primary-quoting news account with a URL. No claim stands without traceable provenance.
This investigation is released publicly under the OWG byline. Journalists, researchers, advocacy organizations, and policy analysts are welcome to cite, excerpt, reproduce, or build on this work under the LICENSE terms in this repository. The investigation is structured as a balance sheet, not as advocacy: claims are sourced line by line; ranges are given where source figures vary; counterfactual reasoning is shown where attribution requires it.
No signed artifacts have been produced. Per OWG standing policy as of 2026-06-12, new artifacts are released unsigned. Existing OWG signed artifacts from prior investigations remain signed and verifiable under PGP key 9267A71E3F0A4EED2F973F9BA3E252F24635CC6C.
This investigation makes no allegation of criminal conduct against any specific named living individual unless that conduct is documented in court records or has been charged by a prosecuting authority. Documented financial contact, business contact, scheduling contact, or social contact is reported as such. Public officials acting in their official capacities are reported on by their public conduct.
Where claims rest on a single source (notably the Acosta "belongs to intelligence" quote sourced to Vicky Ward's 2019 Daily Beast reporting from an anonymous "former senior White House official"), the single-source sourcing is flagged explicitly in the relevant file. Where claims rest on leaked materials whose chain of custody is itself contested (notably the Handala October 2024 leak of former PM Ehud Barak's emails), the leak provenance is noted and the cross-confirmation with independently-sourced streams (DOJ EFTA production, FBI memos, public corporate filings) is the verification mechanism.
Supporting files pulled from the OWG Epstein investigation carry explicit JE PROVENANCE and PUBLIC RELEASE STANDARDS headers at the top of each file.
| Path | Contents |
|---|---|
obsidian-vault/ |
Working analysis files, linked vault format |
methodology/ |
Source-handling protocols, verification standards |
analysis/ |
Synthesized cross-file analysis |
intelligence/ |
Indicators, named-entity tracking |
corporate/ |
Corporate-structure mapping for defense contractors and lobby entities |
FOIA_Letters/ |
Outgoing FOIA correspondence (DoD, State, Treasury, Commerce) |
CHAIN_OF_CUSTODY.md |
Document integrity manifest |
signing_key.asc |
OpenPGP public key (legacy; new artifacts not signed) |
SECURITY.md |
Reporting protocol, threat model |