Key Takeaways:
- A Michigan Senate campaign ad from Cenk Uygur’s Rebellion PAC blames Israel for Americans’ grocery bills, depicting a family forced to put food back to set aside money for “killing Palestinians.”
- The ad’s central claims are flat-out false. It distorts a $26 billion aid package, ignores billions allocated to humanitarian relief and missile defense, and falsely suggests American taxpayers fund Israel’s universal healthcare system.
- Uygur has furiously defended the ad on X, calling critics cult members, while recycling the same antisemitic tropes about Israeli control of American politics he has promoted for years.
Is Michigan Grocery Store “killing Palestinians” The Vilest Political Campaign Ad un history?
“Honey, you’re going to have to put those eggs back,” a woman tells her husband as they browse the aisles of a grocery store.
“They don’t like eggs anymore?” he asks, visibly surprised.
“No, they like eggs,” she replies, raising her eyebrows as though stating the obvious. “But we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians.”
“What?” He looks at her incredulously. “Don’t we give Israel $4 billion a year anyway?”
“Yeah, and now we’re giving them another $26 billion,” she explains. “It’s like $161 per person. Apparently it’s costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza.”
“It’s terrible,” he mutters.
“Yeah,” she agrees.
“Don’t they get universal healthcare too?”
“Yeah, they do. We’re paying for that too, probably.” She shrugs. “Might as well put the bananas back.”
As though ticking another item off a “blame Israel” checklist, the ad flashes a graphic blaming the war in Iran for soaring American gas prices before turning its sights on Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers.
“Mike Rogers is for they/them,” the narrator declares, as images of Israeli leaders appear on screen. “Abdul El-Sayed is for you.”
The 90-second advertisement was released by Rebellion PAC, a political action committee co-founded by The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur, in support of Democratic candidate El-Sayed’s campaign in Michigan’s November 3 Senate election.
And it’s perhaps the most brazen examples of antisemitic scapegoating to appear in an American political advertisement ever.
No, Israel Isn’t Responsible for Your Grocery Bill
First, let’s establish something fundamental: the advertisement’s central economic argument rests on claims that are demonstrably false.
Start with the eggs.
The advertisement suggests that an American family must sacrifice a $7 carton of eggs because too much of their tax money is being spent supporting Israel.
Never mind that the average price of a dozen eggs was actually $2.27 in September 2026, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the more important question is why grocery prices have risen so dramatically in the United States in recent years. And does Israel bear any responsibility?
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the principal drivers included pandemic-related supply-chain disruptions, rising production and transportation costs, labor shortages, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine disrupted global supplies of wheat, corn and vegetable oils, while driving up energy and fertilizer costs. Those increases rippled through international food markets, raising the cost of producing, transporting and selling groceries, including in the United States.
Then there was avian influenza, which devastated American poultry flocks and sent egg prices soaring in 2024 and early 2025. Their subsequent decline reflected recovering supplies.
Indeed, the USDA found that grocery prices rose by 24 percent between January 2020 and January 2023, driven by these economic shocks. Nowhere in its analysis does American military assistance to Israel feature as a cause.
This ad isn’t really about eggs. It’s about telling Michigan voters that Israel is the reason life is harder, with a Senate race on the line. It comes from Rebellion PAC, which links back to @TheYoungTurks. Its founder, @cenkuygur, is @hasanthehun’s uncle and has a long history of antisemitic rhetoric. Prices and the economy deserve real answers, not a scapegoat.
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) October 26, 2026
The $26 Billion Deception
Then there is the advertisement’s claim that, on top of nearly $4 billion in annual assistance, America is giving Israel another $26 billion.
The latter figure comes from a 2024 emergency spending package, not some new $26 billion payment being made to Israel in October 2026. It is a recycled claim, much like the grocery-store footage itself, which was originally produced for Uygur’s 2024 presidential campaign and has now been repurposed for the Michigan Senate election.
More importantly, the package was never simply a $26 billion handout to Israel.
The legislation included more than $9 billion in humanitarian assistance, including relief for Palestinian civilians in Gaza and vulnerable populations elsewhere. Another $2.4 billion was allocated to American military operations in the Middle East, while $4.4 billion was earmarked to replenish American military stockpiles.
According to the Congressional Research Service, the package also included $3.5 billion in foreign military financing for Israel and $5.2 billion for missile defense systems, including Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Iron Beam.
In other words, billions were earmarked for systems designed to intercept rockets and missiles fired at Israeli civilians by the very terrorist groups Cenk Uygur has spent years running cover for. Yet the advertisement portrays that defensive spending as money used to “drop bombs on Gaza.”
And what about the nearly $4 billion America supposedly gives Israel every year?
That figure refers to a longstanding security assistance agreement, negotiated under Barack Obama, which provides approximately $3.8 billion annually for military equipment and missile defense cooperation.
Now consider that against the wider federal budget.
According to the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, Washington spent approximately $7.4 trillion in fiscal year 2026. Of that, $1.05 trillion went toward interest payments on America’s national debt alone.
That’s roughly $2.9 billion every single day.
Put another way, the federal government spent as much servicing its debt in approximately 32 hours as it provides Israel in an entire year under the regular security assistance agreement.
That $3.8 billion represents approximately 0.05% of total annual federal spending.
Are Americans Really Paying for Israel’s Universal Healthcare?
Notice the convenient use of the word “probably” in the advertisement. Without it, the claim that Americans are paying for Israeli healthcare would be an outright factual assertion, and a demonstrably false one.
The United States does not fund Israel’s universal healthcare system.
Israel’s healthcare system operates under its National Health Insurance Law, which has guaranteed coverage to all Israeli residents since 1995. That includes Jewish and Arab citizens alike, as well as qualifying permanent residents, regardless of religion or ethnicity.
And who pays for it? Israelis themselves.
The system is financed through mandatory, income-related health insurance contributions paid by adult Israeli residents, alongside funding from the Israeli government’s own tax revenues.
The Israeli National Insurance Institute explicitly explains that it collects these contributions and distributes the funds to the country’s healthcare providers. Children and certain other groups are exempt from paying contributions but remain covered.
American military assistance does not pay for Israel’s universal healthcare system.
Whatever the Problem, Cenk Uygur Always Finds the Same Culprit
Promoting the video on X, Uygur declared: “We have to suffer here at home, so Israel can get all its wars. That’s why they buy politicians like Mike Rogers.”
New @RebellionPac ad dropping in Michigan. We have to suffer here at home, so Israel can get all its wars. That’s why they buy politicians like Mike Rogers. He promised to serve Israel “unconditionally,” but never made that promise to you. https://t.co/mtgVOyNczg
— Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) October 24, 2026
The insinuation that an American politician who supports Israel has effectively been purchased by a foreign power, serving its interests over those of his own constituents, is familiar territory for Uygur.
One of his favorite accusations is that Israel controls American politics.
In July 2025, he announced that “It is not antisemitic to say Israel controls Congress.” By February 2026, he had apparently crunched the numbers and determined that “94% of Congress works for Israel,” while also alleging that American presidents had been bribed by the Israeli lobby to betray their own citizens.
And Uygur’s determination to find Israel’s fingerprints behind international events extends well beyond Washington.
In January 2026, as Iranians risked their lives protesting against the Islamic Republic, Uygur had apparently cracked the case of who was really behind the unrest: Israel, of course.
And yet, in Uygur’s world, Israel can apparently orchestrate an uprising in Iran while simultaneously concealing how badly it is being hit by the regime’s missiles. In March, he claimed that Israel was hiding the true extent of Iranian attacks because it did not want the world to know the war was going badly.
Congressional politics. Iranian demonstrations. American wars. And now the price of eggs.
Is there anything Israel doesn’t control in Uygur’s world? Well, except for his ability to expose its supposed secrets, apparently.
Naturally, when critics pointed out the antisemitic tropes in his latest advertisement, Uygur had a familiar response: accuse them of being the problem.
“If you think this ad is antisemitic, you’re in a cult and don’t know it,” he declared.
What makes this episode so troubling is not simply the economic misinformation, although that alone deserves scrutiny. It is the recycling of a familiar accusation: that Americans are being deprived of what they need because their government serves Israel instead of them.
And to see that message packaged as an advertisement supporting a candidate in a United States Senate race is profoundly disturbing.
The advertisement turns that accusation into an ordinary domestic scene: a couple shopping for groceries, forced to put food back on the shelves because Israel supposedly comes first.
The eggs were never the point.
Hatred for the world’s only Jewish state was.
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© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
