But What Can You Do? tracks where 2026 candidates stand on U.S. weapons and funding for the government of Israel. How we check

Bill Hill

Independent · U.S. House, Alaska District 1
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How this mark works

We track key votes on sending U.S. weapons and money to the government of Israel. A check means every tracked vote they cast came down against sending more, on the side of peace and de-escalation. A question mark means a mixed record: they sided with sending up to half of the time. An X means they voted to send more weapons and money in over half of their tracked votes, even as the way those weapons and dollars were being used became more and more obvious. At exactly half, money this election cycle from a lobbying group we track, or an endorsement from a group that backs sending weapons, makes it an X. Only votes actually cast are counted. Where a candidate has no recorded votes on these bills, the mark comes instead from a reviewed reading of their public record (money from the lobbying groups we track, endorsements, and their own words since January 26, 2024). There an X also covers fully backing the conduct of the war by the government of Israel without significant reservations, and a question mark also covers speaking about Israel without saying clearly where they stand on U.S. weapons and funding. A dash means No Position Found: we found nothing in their own words about Israel, Gaza or the war.

See a dash? Ask the candidate where they stand, then send us their answer and we'll review it and update the mark. Or volunteer to help review candidates.

Two reviewers, reading the public record as a whole, agree: His one answer conditions military aid on U.S. and humanitarian law with benchmarks, withheld only if compliance cannot be shown, which is a conditions position. Reviewed by hand on 2026-09-28. This candidate has no recorded tracked floor votes.

Hill would condition U.S. military aid to the government of Israel "on adherence to U.S. law and international humanitarian law, with specific benchmarks for humanitarian access and reconstruction in Gaza". If compliance cannot be shown he would withhold it and invest those resources at home.

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Deep Dive

Bill Hill has said what he would do about American military aid to the government of Israel, in one answer to one question. Alaska Public Media, KTOO, the Alaska Beacon and the Anchorage Daily News built a joint candidate questionnaire for this year's election and asked everyone running for Alaska's seat in the U.S. House to finish the sentence "U.S. military aid to Israel should be ____." His answer reads: "Conditioned on adherence to U.S. law and international humanitarian law, with specific benchmarks for humanitarian access and reconstruction in Gaza. Both Israelis and Palestinians deserve security, peace, and dignity. If U.S. military assistance cannot be shown to comply with U.S. law and international humanitarian law, it should be withheld and those resources should be invested here at home."

That is a conditions answer rather than a cut or an increase. It ties the aid to two bodies of law, United States law and international humanitarian law. It names what compliance would have to be measured against, humanitarian access and reconstruction in Gaza, and asks for specific benchmarks for both. And it says what happens if compliance cannot be shown: the aid is withheld and the money spent in the United States instead. He has not said separately what the United States should send Palestinians, and no appropriation, no aid program and no dollar figure is named anywhere in it.

Bill Hill is the nonpartisan candidate on Alaska's November ballot and is running for federal office for the first time. He is a Dena'ina Athabascan from Naknek who grew up in the village of Kokhanok, has fished every commercial season since he was twelve, worked in union construction, and spent more than twenty-five years as a teacher, principal and superintendent. On November 3, 2026 the seat is filled by ranked-choice voting, and the ballot carries Nick Begich, the Republican incumbent, Eric Hafner, a Democrat, Jim McDermott, a Libertarian, and Hill, who is registered nonpartisan. All four reached it through Alaska's top-four primary of August 18, 2026, whose results were certified on August 31, 2026. Hill finished second with 32.5 percent.

The questionnaire answer is the whole of his record on this subject, and his campaign does not carry it any further. His platform runs to nineteen headings, from everyday costs and Alaska's fisheries to schools, veterans, fentanyl and a right to repair, and every one of them is about Alaska or domestic federal policy. Israel, Gaza, Palestinians and foreign aid appear nowhere on his campaign site, and he has not completed Ballotpedia's 2026 candidate survey. Twice this year he has mentioned the region in passing and each time he was talking about the price of fuel: in a KNOM interview in May he said that another war in the Middle East that's disrupted all of the supply chains is increasing the price of fuel just dramatically, and in an interview reported in September he named colleagues who are not going to vote for these haphazard tariffs or another war in the Middle East. Neither is about what the United States sends anyone.

One document that might add to this could not be read here. The statement he filed for Alaska's 2026 official election pamphlet is published by the Division of Elections at an address that refuses every way in that was tried, and his campaign Facebook page returns an error. Both addresses are on his research page so that anyone who can open them may.

The money

Checked the five lobbying groups we track; no direct 2026 support found

2026 support from the five lobbying groups we track
Nothing recorded (as of 2026-09-27) from the five lobbying groups we track; earlier cycles and earmarked donations not yet tracked.
Support-only OpenFEC data. Opposition independent expenditures are excluded.

In their words

“Conditioned on adherence to U.S. law and international humanitarian law, with specific benchmarks for humanitarian access and reconstruction in Gaza. Both Israelis and Palestinians deserve security, peace, and dignity. If U.S. military assistance cannot be shown to comply with U.S. law and international humanitarian law, it should be withheld and those resources should be invested here at home.”
Source ↗, 2026-09-20

Research log

The notes behind this card: what we looked at, what we found, and where each item came from.

Every page named below was opened and read on 2026-09-20 unless the entry says otherwise. His campaign site was read in full: the home page, the platform page, his story page, the press page, the endorsements page and the events page. Bands: Position (2024-01-26 onward), Reaction window (2023-10-07 to 2024-01-25), Earlier record (before 2023-10-07), Undated. Hill has never held office, so none of the congressional votes this site tracks is his, and no funding from the committees this site tracks is recorded on this record.

U.S. military aid and weapons to the government of Israel

  • [Position, read 2026-09-20; the guide published ahead of the August 2026 primary] The joint 2026 voter guide built by Alaska Public Media, KTOO, the Alaska Beacon and the Anchorage Daily News asked every candidate for this seat to complete the sentence "U.S. military aid to Israel should be ____." His answer reads in full: "Conditioned on adherence to U.S. law and international humanitarian law, with specific benchmarks for humanitarian access and reconstruction in Gaza. Both Israelis and Palestinians deserve security, peace, and dignity. If U.S. military assistance cannot be shown to comply with U.S. law and international humanitarian law, it should be withheld and those resources should be invested here at home." The guide carries no publication date of its own and is dated here to the day it was read; the questionnaire was put to the candidates before the August 18, 2026 primary.
  • What the answer settles: the aid continues, conditioned on adherence to United States law and to international humanitarian law, with specific benchmarks for humanitarian access and for reconstruction in Gaza, and withheld if compliance cannot be shown, with the money redirected to spending inside the United States. It names no weapon system, no appropriation and no sum, and it asks for neither an increase nor a cut.
  • Nothing else located, at any date. No other statement by him about weapons transfers, Foreign Military Financing, security assistance, an arms embargo or any bill on those subjects appears on his campaign site, on his Ballotpedia page, in the full KNOM interview transcript, in The Alaska Current's reports, in KNBA's profile of him, or in any other page read for this card.

U.S. aid to Palestinians

  • [Position, read 2026-09-20; the guide published ahead of the August 2026 primary] The only thing of his that touches this is inside the questionnaire answer above, where "humanitarian access and reconstruction in Gaza" are named as the benchmarks that American military aid would have to be measured against. That is a condition on the aid, not a commitment to send anything, and it is not stretched into one here.
  • Nothing else located, at any date. Neither the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, nor humanitarian funding for Gaza as an appropriation, nor the aid pipeline appears anywhere else in his published material.

Characterization of the conflict

  • [Position, read 2026-09-20; the guide published ahead of the August 2026 primary] One sentence of the questionnaire answer: "Both Israelis and Palestinians deserve security, peace, and dignity." It is the only characterization of the conflict he has been found making, and it takes no side on how the war is described.
  • Nothing else located, at any date. The words Israel, Gaza, Palestinian and Hamas appear nowhere on his campaign site or in any interview with him read for this card.

Related rhetoric and lobbying

  • Nothing located, at any date. No statement by him about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, about any other advocacy organization on this subject, or about money connected to any of them was found. The endorsements he lists are unions, Alaska Native leaders and state legislators.

Safety and antisemitism (context, not a position on what America sends)

  • Nothing located, at any date. His platform carries a public-safety heading, and it is about first responders, policing and the fentanyl supply; it does not mention antisemitism, religious communities or hate crimes.

Other places he has named the region, none of them a position on what America sends

  • [Position, 2026-05-28] KNOM's interview with him, published May 28, 2026 by Ben Townsend, carried as a full transcript. Asked how an independent would decide who to vote with, on the example of members trying to limit the president's war powers over Iran, he answered about tariffs and then: "And then another war in the Middle East that's disrupted all of the supply chains is increasing the price of fuel just dramatically. I mean, we've seen it with our own eyes, right? I went one week filling my truck up, and it was at 140 some dollars to fill my truck up, and then the very next week was $175." The subject is the cost of fuel in rural Alaska. He names no country and says nothing about what the United States sends anywhere.
  • [Position, 2026-09-15] The Alaska Current, "Poll, DCCC boost independent Bill Hill", by an interview given in June and published September 15, 2026. It quotes him: "I will maintain that the people that I will be working with in Congress are the people who are going to be working to drive down the cost of health care ... realize that public education is an important institution in our nation ... want to drive down the costs of living in Alaska ... [and] who are not going to vote for these haphazard tariffs or another war in the Middle East". The ellipses and the bracketed word are the publication's. The same piece records that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added him to its "Red to Blue" program and that he has not committed to caucusing with Democrats.
  • [Position, 2026-03-06] The Alaska Beacon's report on the delegation's votes on the war with Iran, read through the Internet Archive because the live address refuses to open here. A spokesperson pointed the reporter at his social media, and the piece quotes a post of his: "Our leaders should be investing in lowering costs and making life better for working Americans, not putting American lives at risk in foreign wars without congressional approval," and "Six U.S. service members have died and billions of dollars have been spent in a matter of days. Meanwhile here at home, our schools are in crisis, healthcare costs keep rising, veterans are at risk of losing benefits, and everyday costs are just too damn high," and "We can't afford a costly war with no end in sight." The subject is the war with Iran and the war powers of Congress. Iran is a different question from what the United States sends to the government of Israel or to Palestinians, and nothing from it is on the card.

What the campaign site and his own pages say

  • [Undated; read 2026-09-20] His platform page carries nineteen headings: bring down everyday costs at the grocery store and the gas pump; protect Alaska's fisheries and ways of life; make billionaires and big corporations pay their share; cut taxes for small businesses and the middle class; ban congressional stock trading; healthcare coverage we can afford; an all of the above approach for cheaper energy; stand up for public safety and first responders; support Veterans; reduce the deficit; end billionaires buying our elections; end the fentanyl epidemic; give Alaskans access to high quality mental health and addiction treatment; champion our community schools; more vocational training, apprenticeships, and career and technical education; new projects that create good Alaska jobs; stand up for a woman's right to choose; defend our right to own guns; and give Americans the "Right to Repair" our own stuff. Every line under every heading is about Alaska or domestic federal policy. A case-insensitive search of that page for israel, gaza, palestin, hamas, antisemit, jewish, aipac, unrwa, foreign aid, middle east and foreign policy returns nothing.
  • [Undated; read 2026-09-20] His home page and his story page give his biography: Dena'ina Athabascan from Naknek, raised in Kokhanok, first out on the family drift boat at twelve and fishing every commercial season since, union construction worker, small business owner with his wife Diane in Bristol Bay, more than twenty-five years as a teacher, principal and superintendent, Superintendent of the Year in 2023. Neither page mentions foreign policy.
  • [Undated; read 2026-09-20] His press page lists his campaign's releases. The six most recent are union and Alaska Native endorsements and a return to the Bristol Bay fishing opener. None of the releases on that page is about foreign policy.
  • [Read 2026-09-20] His Ballotpedia page carries no campaign themes: it records that he has not completed Ballotpedia's 2026 Candidate Connection survey, and there is no earlier survey because this is his first run for federal office. No iVoterGuide profile for him was found for this race.
  • [Read 2026-09-20] His entry in the joint 2026 voter guide is the one place he has answered a direct question on this subject. The guide is published inside the page by a separate application, so its text is not in the page's own markup and a plain reading of the address does not reach it; the answers were read from the application's own data at https://app.electup.com/api/v2/embed/fd4b753c-7235-4437-ba20-2f924a118266/ballot and in a browser. The guide's introduction names Alaska Public Media, KTOO, the Alaska Beacon and the Anchorage Daily News as its builders and says the questions came from what their audiences asked to hear about.
  • [Read 2026-09-20] KNBA's profile of his campaign, published September 8, 2026, 1,187 words on his strategy, his coalition and his contrast with the incumbent. It does not mention Israel, Gaza, Palestinians, foreign aid or foreign policy at any point.

The race

  • [Read 2026-09-20] Ballotpedia's page for Alaska's at-large district: "Incumbent Nicholas Begich (R), Eric Hafner (D), Jim McDermott (L), and Bill Hill (Nonpartisan) are running in the general election for U.S. House Alaska At-large District on November 3, 2026." Its page for the primary gives the filing deadline as June 1, 2026 and the top-four primary as August 18, 2026, and records the results as certified: Nicholas Begich 44.6 percent and 72,696 votes, Bill Hill 32.5 percent and 53,008, Eric Hafner 3.8 percent and 6,175, Jim McDermott 1.2 percent and 1,951, out of 162,932 votes cast among fifteen candidates. Ballotpedia's own note on that page records that John Brendan Williams withdrew after advancing, that Matthew Schultz, Clay Strickland and Yaquelin Reynoso also withdrew, and that Jim McDermott replaced Williams on the ballot.
  • [Read 2026-09-20] The Alaska Beacon's account of how the field was settled, by James Brooks, published September 2, 2026 and read on KTOO, which carries it. Under Alaska's system every candidate runs in one primary, the top four advance, and in November voters rank them; if a candidate takes more than half of the first choices they win outright, and otherwise the last-placed candidate is eliminated and those votes are redistributed. It describes Hill as a fisherman and former superintendent from Bristol Bay and a first-time candidate for federal office. The article says the official results were published that Monday, which was August 31, 2026.

Places that could not be read, so nothing is claimed from them

  • https://elections.alaska.gov/doc/oep/2026/HILL,%20BILL_US%20Rep_Eng_06.25.26-PWeb , his candidate statement in Alaska's 2026 official election pamphlet. The Division of Elections host refuses every way in that was tried, and meets a browser with a human-verification page. Nobody has read it for this card, and it is the document most likely to carry a 2026 answer from him in his own words.
  • https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61584980618511 , his campaign Facebook page as Ballotpedia lists it, which returns 400. The Alaska Beacon quoted a post of his from that account in March 2026, so the account does carry statements; the feed itself was not read and nothing beyond the Beacon's quotation is claimed from it.
  • https://www.instagram.com/billhillforalaskans/ , https://x.com/BillHillAK , https://www.tiktok.com/@billhillforalaskans , https://www.youtube.com/@BillHillForAlaskans and https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-hill-462aa111/ were not read. The addresses are printed rather than linked.
  • https://alaskabeacon.com/2026/03/06/alaskas-congressional-delegation-votes-to-support-american-israeli-war-with-iran/ , the live address of the Beacon report. It does not open from here; the Internet Archive's copy of March 11, 2026 opens and is what this page links.

Not on the card, and why

  • His remarks about the price of fuel, supply chains and another war in the Middle East, and his post about the war with Iran and the war powers of Congress. All three are set out above. None of them is about what the United States sends to the government of Israel or to Palestinians, and Iran does not go on a card front. The two fuel-price remarks are described in the deep dive so that a reader can see exactly how close he has come and judge for themselves.
  • His domestic platform in detail. The card names the number of headings and says they are domestic; reciting every line under them would be padding on a card with nothing to report. All of it is set out above.
  • The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's "Red to Blue" listing and the polling reported about his chances. Race handicapping, not a position on this question.
  • David Richey's statements. Richey ran in the same August primary as a nonpartisan candidate and finished thirteenth with 0.4 percent. His Ballotpedia page carries long passages calling for the United States to end its "special relationship" with Israel and naming a figure for what has been given. None of that is Bill Hill's and none of it is on this card; it is recorded here only because our research warned that the two get mixed together, and it was checked.
  • The records of Nick Begich, Eric Hafner and Jim McDermott. No one else's record is narrated on this card.

Sources retrieved for this card (address; opened or could not open; date)

  • https://billhillforalaskans.com/ (opened; 2026-09-20; undated)
  • https://billhillforalaskans.com/bills-platform/ (opened; 2026-09-20; undated)
  • https://billhillforalaskans.com/bills-story/ (opened; 2026-09-20; undated)
  • https://billhillforalaskans.com/press/ (opened; 2026-09-20; undated)
  • https://billhillforalaskans.com/endorsements/ and https://billhillforalaskans.com/upcoming-events/ (opened; 2026-09-20; undated)
  • https://ballotpedia.org/Bill_Hill (opened; 2026-09-20)
  • https://alaskapublic.org/news/2026-alaska-primary#/alaska-us-house/candidate/bill-hill (opened; 2026-09-20; his entry in the joint 2026 voter guide, read in a browser and from the application's own data at https://app.electup.com/api/v2/embed/fd4b753c-7235-4437-ba20-2f924a118266/ballot; the guide carries no publication date)
  • https://ballotpedia.org/Alaska%27s_At-Large_Congressional_District (opened; 2026-09-20)
  • https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_House_election_in_Alaska,_2026_%28August_18_top-four_primary%29 (opened; 2026-09-20)
  • https://www.ktoo.org/2026/09/02/in-alaskas-u-s-house-race-a-libertarian-and-a-federal-inmate-advance-after-late-withdrawals/ (opened; 2026-09-20; published 2026-09-02)
  • https://knom.org/2026/05/28/bill-hill-recaps-visit-to-nome-kotzebue-ahead-of-u-s-house-election/ (opened; 2026-09-20; published 2026-05-28)
  • https://thealaskacurrent.com/2026/09/15/bill-hill-democrats-congress/ (opened; 2026-09-20; published 2026-09-15)
  • https://www.knba.org/news/2026-09-08/bill-hills-dark-horse-bid-for-alaska-congressional-seat (opened; 2026-09-20; published 2026-09-08)
  • https://web.archive.org/web/20260311211939/https://alaskabeacon.com/2026/03/06/alaskas-congressional-delegation-votes-to-support-american-israeli-war-with-iran/ (opened; 2026-09-20; published 2026-03-06, copy taken 2026-03-11)
  • https://ballotpedia.org/David_Richey (opened; 2026-09-20; read only for the wrong-person check)
  • https://elections.alaska.gov/doc/oep/2026/HILL,%20BILL_US%20Rep_Eng_06.25.26-PWeb (could not open; 2026-09-20)
  • https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61584980618511 (could not open, 400; 2026-09-20)
  • https://alaskabeacon.com/2026/03/06/alaskas-congressional-delegation-votes-to-support-american-israeli-war-with-iran/ (could not open; 2026-09-20; read through the Internet Archive)
  • This is a record of what was checked on 2026-09-20, not a claim that no other statement exists.

Also in this race

  1. ✗ Nick Begich III (Republican)
  2. ✓ Eric Hafner (Democrat)
  3. ✗ Jim McDermott (Libertarian)

All Alaska candidates.

But What Can You Do? tracks where 2026 candidates stand on U.S. weapons and funding for the government of Israel. Every claim on this page goes through at least two verification steps. Open Find Your Candidates for votes, funding and contact details.