In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama pledged to "go through the budget line by line to eliminate programs that we can't afford and don't work." One week later, he sent his FY2011 budget request to Congress, which included a record-breaking $3 billion in military aid to Israel.
This requested increase in U.S. weapons to Israel -- part of a ten-year $30 billion agreement signed between the two countries in 2007 -- qualifies on both counts as a program that the United States can't afford and that doesn't work in establishing a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Data published recently by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation shows that U.S. military aid to Israel comes at a financial and moral price that this country cannot afford to pay. Its website reveals that this same $3 billion earmark for Israel could be used instead to provide more than 364,000 low-income households with affordable housing vouchers, or to retrain 498,000 workers for green jobs, or to provide early reading programs to 887,000 at-risk students, or to provide access to primary health care services for more than 24 million uninsured Americans.
If U.S. weapons were going to Israel for a good purpose, then perhaps a coherent guns versus butter debate would be appropriate. However, Israel repeatedly misuses U.S. weapons to commit grave human rights abuses against Palestinians who are forced to live under its illegal 42-year military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip.
During the Bush Administration, Israel killed at least 3,107 innocent Palestinian civilians, according to the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem. Israel also injured thousands more innocent Palestinians and destroyed billions of dollars of Palestinian civilian infrastructure including homes, schools, factories, government buildings, and even Palestine's only airport. The severity and scale of this killing and destruction were made possible by hi-tech U.S. weapons provided to Israel at taxpayer expense.
And during Obama's first year in office, Israel continued to misuse its stock of U.S. weapons to entrench its apartheid policies toward Palestinians by maintaining its illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip -- collectively punishing its 1.5 million Palestinian residents by severely restricting the flow of humanitarian relief -- and building illegal Israeli-only colonies on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
It was exactly to prevent this kind of misuse of U.S. weapons that Congress passed the Arms Export Control Act, which strictly limits foreign countries from employing U.S. weapons for any purpose other than "internal security" or "legitimate self-defense." Building apartheid walls and colonies to maintain a foreign military occupation, enforcing a medieval blockade, and killing and injuring innocent civilians by the thousands certainly cannot be considered legitimate and is self-evidently not for domestic security.
Yet despite this clear misuse of U.S. weapons by Israel -- most evident recently during its December 2008-January 2009 attack on the Gaza Strip which killed more than 1,300 Palestinians in just three weeks -- both Congress and the Obama Administration have failed miserably to hold Israel accountable for its violations of the Arms Export Control Act and cut off weapons flows to it as required by the law.
A few lonely voices on Capitol Hill -- such as Rep. Brian Baird, Rep. Keith Ellison, and Rep. Dennis Kucinich -- have spoken up bravely and truthfully about the consequences of U.S. weapons transferred to Israel, which a 2009 Amnesty International report cited as literally "fuelling" the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Unfortunately, President Obama has paid no heed to these Members of Congress. When questioned at a recent town hall meeting in Tampa about the impact of U.S. military aid to Israel on Palestinian civilians, the normally articulate Obama appeared visibly flummoxed before sputtering, "Look, look, look, the Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries." He then proceeded to duck the question with platitudes about peace.
The President's non-response to the question demonstrates that politicians prefer to turn a blind eye to the obvious incompatibility of trying to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace while giving Israel the weapons it needs to maintain its illegal occupation of Palestinian lands.
Before Congress gets to work on the President's budget request and considers transferring an additional $3 billion in weapons to Israel, it is long past overdue for the United States to reconsider whether we can afford this policy any longer.
They want to kick the Palestinians off their land, pure and simple.
In its 2004 report, the U.S. Senate 9/11 Commission declared that "mastermind of the 9/11 attacks," Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's "animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favouring Israel."
Also, in its analysis of terrorism, the Pentagon's Defense Science Board of the U.S. Defense Department concluded that "Muslims do not hate our freedom,...they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority [object] to what they see as one-sided support in favour of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the long-standing, even increasing, support for...tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan and the Gulf states."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3Y_AOOMtPQ
I worked in the U.S. Military Industrial Complex for 15 years, and the true benefit of U.S. Military aide far exceeds any documented numbers. Through bizarre privileged status agreements, Israeli Defense Contractors (Elta, IAI, etc.) often receive access to the latest/greatest U.S. military technology (I'm talking design level access, not merely finished products).
I don’t believe the access to these designs is ever financially accrued for as “aide”, and instead is viewed as falling under some type of shared development status - which has to my knowledge been a one way street. The particular case I had direct knowledge of involved optical sensing technology developed in a U.S. National Lab for and with funds from the U.S. Air Force. This technology was then transferred to Israeli Defense Contractors who did in fact improve upon it, but then sold it back to the U.S. Air Force at an exorbitant amount, an amount that would only have been justified if they had in fact developed all of the technology.
To rebut an earlier post, U.S. Defense contractors were hurt by this in several ways, not to mention the significant possibility that this U.S. funded technology will eventually be sold by Israeli Defense contractors to other friendly regimes. This transfer of U.S. intellectual property had significant value that was never accounted for and would never have been given to any other ally except Israel.
“Israel receives more aid than all of Latin America, Caribbean, & Africa combined. One of the richest countries in the world -- receives more aid than two continents -- some of the poorest regions in the world. -- around $500 per year for every Israeli citizen. -- America has put forward less than $300 million to fight AIDS in Africa. -- roughly 10 times more money to Israel than to fight the greatest plague since the middle ages”.
“Aid to Israel is harder to calculate. Much is buried in DoD budgets & some costs such as lost interest from early disbursement, forgiven loans, etc. is difficult to calculate. Nonetheless, many estimates put total aid at near $5.5 billion”.
“US loans to Israel are also a source of confusion. Israel owes the U.S. government almost $3 billion in economic & military loans. It is often stated by Israeli officials that Israel has never defaulted on a loan from the United States. This is true, but only because loans are waived before default can occur. From FY 1994 -- FY 1998, Israel received $29 billion in waived loans. Currently, the total U.S. contingent liability for Israeli loans the amount the US will owe if outstanding loans are not repaid is about $10 billion”.
http://alawda.rso.wisc.edu/aidtoisrael.htm
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/june2003/0306020.html
Israel, its status as a modern military Sparta, and its inhumane subjugation of the native Palestinians would not be possible if not for the more than $100 bil. in U.S. aide over the past 60 years. Even if you choose not to believe that, it is absolutely the opinion of virtually all of the non-Israeli residents of the Middle East.
THE ISSUE NO ONE DARES SPEAK... is that this unequivocal support of Israel by the U.S. is the main reason (no, not the only reason) that Al Qaeda and other fundamentalist Islamic groups are/have targeted the U.S. for terrorism. It is the common rallying cry used by these groups against the U.S. Frankly, the other reasons these fundamentalists disdain the U.S., such as America propping up elitist regimes, infidel purveyors of western culture, etc., are all a bit esoteric when it comes to inciting the masses. The very real, very easily understood rallying cry is that their near helpless Palestinian brothers have had their land stolen and are being oppressed in inhumane ways by colonial Israelis who could not otherwise be capable of this subjugation if not for the massive support historically provided them by the U.S. And they are correct in believing this.
Israel should use their resources (military and lobby) to make peace with their neighbors. The USA should create incentives for Israel, the Palestinians, and Israel and their neighbors to make piece.
How is giving $3 billion dollars of USA tax (debt) funds going to help peace in that region or increase the reputation and standing of the USA?
Change we can believe in does not mean implementing George Bush’s foreign policies!
“Aid to Israel is harder to calculate. Much is buried in DoD budgets & some costs such as lost interest from early disbursement, forgiven loans, etc. is difficult to calculate. Nonetheless, many estimates put total aid at near $5.5 billion”.
“US loans to Israel are also a source of confusion. Israel owes the U.S. government almost $3 billion in economic & military loans. It is often stated by Israeli officials that Israel has never defaulted on a loan from the United States. This is true, but only because loans are waived before default can occur. From FY 1994 -- FY 1998, Israel received $29 billion in waived loans. Currently, the total U.S. contingent liability for Israeli loans the amount the US will owe if outstanding loans are not repaid is about $10 billion”.
http://alawda.rso.wisc.edu/aidtoisrael.htm
Furthermore, aid to Israel is designed to be balanced with aid to Egypt and Jordan in keeping with the camp David, it'd be hard to justify stripping Israel of it's support while continuing to aid the other signatories, and Egypt and Jordan actually NEED the support.
IMO, Israel would be better off weaning themselves off US aid just for the sake of their own sovereignty, but that's on them. I certainly don't want to cut them off to show solidarity with their enemies.
"U.S. military aid, a portion of which may be spent on procurement from Israeli defense companies, also has helped Israel build a domestic defense industry, which ranks as one of the top 10 suppliers of arms worldwide."
"Most analysts consider Israel’s ability to use a significant portion of its annual military aid for procurement in Israel to be a valuable aspect of its assistance package; no other recipient of U.S. military assistance has been granted this benefit. The proceeds to Israeli defense firms from purchases with U.S. funds have allowed the Israeli defense industry to achieve necessary economies of scale and produce highly sophisticated equipment for niche markets."
Moreover, while you may be correct (I didn't check) that the transfer amounts to 3% of Israel's overall budget, "[a]nnual Foreign Military Financing (FMF) grants to Israel represent 18.2% of the overall Israeli defense budget."
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf
And what? The US cannot give aid to any other country in the US unless they give to Israel first?
From today's LATimes editorial:
"So far, we're not persuaded. Campbell has been accused by the Fiorina campaign of voting to "cut aid to Israel." But in fact, in one of the cases it cites, what he really did was vote against increasing foreign aid by $30 million (over and above the usual $3 billion he'd already voted for and the additional $900 million he'd already voted for). He objected to the increase, he says, because the money would have come from aid set aside for the world's neediest countries."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-campbell27-2010feb27,0,7036626.story
Some facts:
Israel is not in an existential battle for its survival.
The atrocities against Jews in WWII were not committed by Arabs.
Israel's atrociities against the Palestiniansand other Arabs are not committed in self defense.
Israel is not an ally to the U.S. (evidenced by their continued spying against us)
The Israel lobby has infilitrated our government to work in their interests not in U.S. interests.
This infiltration is largely by Jewish Americans more loyal to Israel than to their own country.
U.S. politicians who don't act in the interests of Israel are targeted for electoral defeat.
Corporations and the military/industrial complex benefit monetarily from U.S. aid to Israel.
U.S. aid to Israel (and Egypt for that matter) is not in our national interests but theirs.
I'll await the same old tired arguments against the above but facts are facts. Get real!
And one last thing - crticism of Israel is not anti-semitism!
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-02-26/senate-republican-blocks-jobless-benefit-extension-update1-.html
I'd be happy to cut them all loose from the aid system, too, but of course the U.S. would have to pay the substantial reparations it owes Palestine and Iraq.