to a degree... yes... if you look at it from the side of the benefits to the US though....
An ally with bases and ports in the middle east.
An ally in the middle east that can strike at those the US doesn't like but can't attack directly.
An ally that spends billions of their own money on weapons systems (usually with US tech integration)
and the most important
Weapons development! (the secret sauce no one ever mentions)
The weapons go the Israel. Israel uses them in actual combat against actual enemies, sends back data. Weapons system get improved. Intel is developed, Tactics and strategies get tested and improved. Israel looks at systems and enhances them or builds better versions themselves. Tech transfer back to the US weapons development programs. While it is Billions in dollars spent, it's also billions and years saved in development. Some of this can be done in-house- via simulations and testing. But if you're trying to improve accuracy for your interceptors of ballistic missiles - real world data helps and is the reason why Ukraines Patriot systems have gotten increasingly better over the years at intercepting missiles and ballistic threats. Real world data on enemy systems performance is invaluable and usually only made available with the lives of your own soldiers.
Israel uses US planes - and those planes were up against Russian S-300 air defense batteries, and some of the newest anti stealth radars from China, in addition to Chinese long range air defense missiles. Knowing how your tech performs in real world conditions against those systems is worth ohhh so much more than a few billion. Especially as it also acts as an advertisement of your systems capability to potential buyers and simultaneously destroying the weapons sales of others.
Please understand that I'm not pro or against, but the US isn't just giving money with NO side benefits to itself. In this case, just so happens that both sides win win in their weapons systems development and improve their own capabilities.
Likewise with aid packages and weapons to Ukraine- lots of systems that were slated to be destroyed (at a considerable expense) are sent to Ukraine - the cost of replacing those legacy systems with new ones is the value put on them (even though they were about to be decommissioned). The US department of defense is compensated with funding to replace those systems. so on the one side- saving on costs of decommissioning, and then also getting brand new systems and money stays in the US. Those stock piles have somewhat dried up for systems Ukraine actually wants, so now the strategy is have European countries BUY new systems and then transfer to Ukraine. All the while, the US gets money, real world combat effectiveness data on these. Plus first dibs on new tech captured from the conflict. Real world data on EW tech, Russian, Iranian, Korean, Chinese tech being used in the conflict. The Ukrainians are on the frontier edge of drone tech, and tactics. Their systems are basics, no bling- but they are tested under actual combat conditions, against systems the US is likely to encounter in the next conflict. That data goes back to the US to improve next gen systems, tactics. Plus at the end of it all, when Ukraine walks out of this conflict- their army will be dependent on US and NATO spec'd tech. and those dependencies have long time lines and lots of money down the pipe for US manufacturers. (I'm ignoring the fact that it also wears down the power of Russia - mainly because at times, the US international policy tends to act as if Russia is an ally... likely because a tri-polar world is better for them in the near term than a bipolar with US vs China (or worse- US vs China AND Russia IF China feels Russia is weak enough- the Chinese have some long standing gripes and territorial disputes with Russia) - but that's all for another night)
