I understand the strategic advantages. However, we allegedly strive for higher ideals.

Sure. But sometimes the detractors of US policy on Israel will cast that support as if there was no benefit to the US for providing it. That there's no reason other than as a benefit to the Israelis - so it must be Americans subordinating the country's interest in favor of a foreign power. In truth, though, Israel has long occupied a strategically important place in advancing our foreign policy interests.

In this part of the world, there are no choices for allies that are consistent with our higher ideals. This forces us to consider horrible trade-offs. In thinking about the suggestion that Saudia Arabia - Saudi Arabia! - might be a better option and why that wouldn't work, I was reminded of the dilemma posed to the U.S. towards the end of the Arab Spring. We had to choose whether or not to allow (or at least tolerate) the military coup of Abdul El-Sisi in Egypt, particularly after he massacred a whole bunch of Morsi supporters:

[A] fierce internal debate soon broke out over whether and how to sanction Egypt further, a fight that many officials told me was one of the most agonizing of the Obama administration’s seven years, as the president’s most powerful advisers spent months engaged in what one called “trench warfare” against each other. It was an excruciating test of how to balance American values with its cold-blooded security interests in an age of terrorism. Some of Obama’s top White House aides, including his deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, and the celebrated human rights champion Samantha Power, now U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, urged the president to link further military aid to clear progress by Sisi on human rights and democracy. But Secretary of State John Kerry, then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Hagel’s successor, Ash Carter, argued for restoring the aid. Trying to punish Sisi would have little effect on his behavior, they said, while alienating a bulwark against Islamic radicalism in an imploding Middle East. “Egypt was one of the most significant policy divides between the White House and the State Department and the Department of Defense,” says Matthew Spence, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Middle East policy.

politico.com - We caved obama foreign policy legacy

We ended up providing military and financial support to Sisi, despite it being entirely contrary to our higher ideals. For the simple reason that we determined it was in our best interests that there be a stable check against the then-acute threat of spreading Islamic radicalism. Sisi, for all his evils, was not a radical Islamist, and so we chose to stand him up.

That's part of why I asked the question about what happens if we cut Israel off, because it is to our advantage to have a strong military power that isn't: i) Team Russia; ii) Team China; or iii) Team Islamic Radicalism. There's always been a strong anti-interventionism in liberal/progressive critiques of US foreign policy, and there's nothing wrong with making the argument that on balance it isn't worth the benefits of supporting Israel (or Egypt or Saudi).

BTW, that argument against Israeli aid is stronger now than it has been in a while. For the first 50 years or so of Israel's existence, it was critically important to Cold War geopolitics - the Soviets were supporting most of the Arab states who were livid at the West, and so Israel was an essential toehold in the region. They were unabashedly against the Soviets. Plus, the US depended greatly on direct imports of oil from the region. Then as the Soviet threat evaporated, we were concerned deeply about radical Islamic regimes and organizations in the area - and again, Israel was one of the major not Islamic powers in the region. And then even as that concern started to fade, renewed worry about a newly aggressive Russia and the rise of China cautioned against giving up power in the region.

But now we're in a time when our direct reliance on Gulf oil is super-low, our concern about Islamic terror organizations has waned, Russia has been terribly weakened, the middle east is not our highest priority theater for dealing with China, and the Arab Spring died on the vine - leaving all the secular authoritarian kingdoms and dictatorships in place. Even Saudi is getting a little reformist - sure, women are still subject to guardianship requirements and there's no political freedom and you can still be convicted and executed for being gay, but they'll let women drive now. So there's that.

But we shouldn't repeat the mistakes of Trumpist "America First" beliefs that because America is strong the rest of the world doesn't matter. And that therefore anyone who is supporting a robust American role abroad must be betraying American interests, else that money would be only devoted to Americans rather than (say) supporting NATO or providing food to starving kids through USAID programs. Deploying American hard and soft power abroad does serve our interests, and there are benefits to America in having Israel be the strongest military power in the region.