AJ+ Labs
“The special relationship between Israel and the United States goes deep…real deep. It’s based on security, conflict and most of all money. Most of it for the Israeli military. But with over 400 killed in Gaza just this July and the Israeli military’s long list human rights abuses, is this special relationship worth the price?”
You forgot that the US allows tax exemptions for private donations to Israel – thus we lose tax revenue and help encourage financial support of Israel – Israel is the only such country which has this benefit. You also forgot that when Israel borrows money from us, they never have to pay it back – I think this is called the Cranston Amendment.
Not JUST tax deductions, a whole raft of favored trading incentive serving US businesses… Just in case you wonder how US supermarkets (locally Trader Joes, where margin IS the deciding factor in what gets stocked, as an example) have shelves full of Israeli food products… PRODUCE and other items, that somehow could be competitive with produce from your own state and locality.
But to answer the question “What has US aid really bought?
A front-line heavily armed client state in a regional extractive resource war.
My departed father, who smuggled guns to Israel in the late 40s and later the ADL regional coordinator for the southeast US until his death, undoubtedly did NOT expect that outcome. He was blinded, in my estimation, by loyalty to the religion, which he was NEVER a scholar of (when my mother found out he was lecturing at UNC-Asheville on Jewish Studies she laughed out loud and said: “Your father never had a religious bone in his body!), American Exceptionalism (the government supports it so it must be right), and crass consumerism of the products that ongoing-but-not-always-hot extractive resource war garnered for America, with no thought as to the long term consequences or moral/ethical implications of the methods used.
Your video is highly slanted against Israel, U.S. aid to which is no where near half of all foreign aid. That’s one lie.
Most of the money provided to Israel comes back to the U.S. in the form of contracts (meaning JOBS) with American companies. Can’t say that about any other country to which the U.S. provides foreign aid.
Amnesty International and the United Nations are highly prejudiced against Israel so any opinion provided by either should be taken with a grain of salt. Neither of these august organizations ever makes serious comments about the actual “war crimes” perpetrated by the Palestinian Authority or Hamas against Israel. For that matter, neither has much to say about the war crimes committed by Syria and other Arab countries or about horrendous human rights abuses in Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia or Venezuela.
Not at all
Actually, there is one other country that could use that aid money to create jobs – the United States.
Yep. Joel appears to have this quaint notion that if that $3billion is withheld from Israel then it simply…. disappears.
Err, no, it wouldn’t.
If Obama ever withheld that $3billion from Ya’alon then he’d simply turn to the Secretary of Defense and hand him that money, and say “Here, Chuck, you spend it”.
Net impact on the US economy: zero.
Actually, probably that would be a marked positive effect, since $3billion worth of extra high-tech military hardware would require more bases, more facilities, more support infrastructure.
I thought *I* was a cynic…
What you have stated is equally misleading though: Israel is by far the largest recipient of foreign aid by the US bar none; it’s an artificial first world country in part as a result. Concerning jobs, I don’t want my economy helped in any way by what is demonstrably an Apartheid state. As for Amnesty International, just go their site and see how much they have in fact had to say against abuses in countries about which you allege they are relatively silent.
Sorry, but I just don’t think appropriating land and having a US/European outpost in the Near East is bound to have a good outcome in either the long or short run, esp. when that outpost is designed to variously divide, suppress, and appropriate the resources of the less fortunate peoples of the region, be it for our benefit or that of our allies.
joelsk44039: “Most of the money provided to Israel comes back to the U.S. in the form of contracts (meaning JOBS) with American companies.”
Yeah, funny that: the USA gives Israel a $3billion gift voucher, marked “redeemable at any reputable Merchant of Death”, but with a little note saying “offer valid only in the USA”.
How dare Uncle Sam! How dare he insist that US dollars can only be used to purchase US military hardware!
Doesn’t he know that Israel wants to spend those US dollars on its **own** domestic military-industrial complex?
Oh, wait, it does: alone amongst all recipients of US military aid Israel is entitled to immediately skim 20% off the top and spend it on Israeli-built armaments.
Fancy that, heh? Uncle Sam is actually subsidizing the Israeli armament industry (a competitor, remember) to the tune of $600million each and every year.
Sweeeeeeeeeet.
Joel: “Can’t say that about any other country to which the U.S. provides foreign aid.”
Actually, you can. All other recipients of US military aid are required to spend 100% of that military aid money on the purchase of US built military equipment.
None of them – not a one – is entitled to skim off a single cent to spend on their own domestic arms industry.
Nobody is, except Israel, who skims off $600million of that money each and every year…..
Most of the money provided to Israel comes back to the U.S. in the form of contracts (meaning JOBS) with American companies. Can’t say that about any other country to which the U.S. provides foreign aid.
The “foreign aid” sent to Egypt comes to mind as it is mostly earmarked to be sent right back to US arms manufacturers
I have read on other sites that the total $233 billion of US tax dollars to Israel. The main thing this money has bought is 66 years of conflict, growing terrorism and fundamentalism among 25% of the world that is muslim. That money would have been better spent on US roads, US schools, US education, US technology. I heard that Israel, a country with more millionaires per capita than the US, gets something like $14,000 per citizen per year from the US aid. If US aid and diplomatic immunity were pulled, the Israelis would be forced to find an honest peace based on international law rather than the law of the Merkava tank and F16
It’s even more of a slap in the face to US citizens when you consider that every US taxpayer dollar given to Israel frees up an Israeli taxpayer dollar that can then be spent giving Israeli citizens universal healthcare, topnotch education, improved infrastructure, etc. It’s criminal IMO,
How much lost tax revenue is involved from donations, tax deductible, to Israel? Of course the actual donation money is lost as well, by the fact that it is money that could otherwise support american institutions..
Thats not true. There are different forms of US taxpayer aid to a rich foreign country (Israel) – military aid is one component of it. There is also economic aid, there are “loan guarantees” (which are never repaid), we subsidize their own defense industry and they repay by selling advanced weaponry to our enemies (e.g. the Chinese fighter planes carried Israeli missiles when they took down the US navy observation plane). I feel we ought give half of that aid to the Palestinians to build their businesses and infrastructure so these unfortunate 4 million refugees can have half-way decent lives as Europeans/Russians romp on Palestinian land in Tel Aviv.
American taxpayers are also victims of Israel’s growth by stealth; suckers too.
American taxpayers are the suckers from all the largesse handed out to Israel. And for what gain other than to prop up one of the world’s most despised regimes?