There has been an ongoing discussion on this site about the “Dershofoxmanitz” question – “Why do you single out Israel?” In addition to the other answers already given here’s another – because the US government has already singled Israel out.
Tax Day here in the US is a useful time to remember the overwhelming amount of aid that the US gives Israel every year. From the film Occupation 101:
This money is entirely military aid and Israel uses it to uphold its apartheid system. This is a truth not lost on Palestinians or the rest of the world. Part of why we focus on Israel is because we are responsible as US taxpayers.
I know paying your taxes is already a bitter pill to swallow, didn’t mean to make it worse. Here’s one thing you can do to feel better. Send a letter to President Obama telling him what you think about our financial support of Israel, and where those resources could be better used.
One should also keep in mind loan guarantees, oil guarantees,
tax-deductible contributions, as well as untold millions in
Israeli bonds purchased by Zionist-managed pension funds and labor unions. The true cost of Israel to the American tax-payer
since the Truman administration is certainly in the trillions of dollars.
The remedy to that whole mess is Palestinian unity, based on the principles that the PA has agreed with Israel.
There are too many rejectionists to those principles, Hamas and Likud, that the hotheads on both sides enable (in the addictive sense of the term).
You forgot the US-Israel Free Trade Area, which is basically a US consumer/industry funded subsidy that costs 100,000 jobs per year, cumulative $71 billion since signed.
And buys zero influence for peace.
http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/israels_government_abuses_free_trade_agreement_with_us/0017211
Israel is supported by the US government because the American people demand it.
they demand it because the truth is that the Palestinians exert their political will by deliberately murdering Jewish women and childre. Deliberately. The palestinians deliberately murder women and children to exact their political will. Deliberately.
this also directly supports the military industrial complex, something that should concern american taxpayers as well… have to keep preparation for war as the biggest expenditure of all…
"Israel is supported by the US government because the American people demand it."
I know this is an easy one to laugh at, but I have to comment. Have you ever been to America, Chris? I only wish that foreign aid would be put to the vote. If Americans had a choice, Israelis might get a few bags of flour and rice, some cooking oil, bandages, aspirin and fly swatters! What planet are you on?
The current foreign aid figure for Israel, $3.2 billion, is purely a state department figure and does not cover all the US governmental transfers and subsididies to Israel.
I discussed the real yearly aid figure in the comments to US Covers Israeli Health Care.
Now twelve weeks later I am beginning to believe that US governmental may be well over $30 billion/year.
If we address the total cost of Israel to the USA, the number is more than half the current national debt.
We should take it as a given that every Israel advocate is a Madoff.
@ Berel
"Israel is supported by the US government because the American people demand it."
The American people don't have a clue about the 3 trillion dollars they have paid to support
the Israeli side of the I-P dispute to date. An earlier blog article thread here this week goes into this in some detail. Many commenters furnished web site references so you can check it out yourself. Berel simply called these commenters liars & had no further response other than to
say Israel is merely reclaiming its land from biblical times–as if Nuremberg & international law subsequent have no meaning at all, thus, in effect, Berel's righteousness is based on Cain's club.
Now there's a worthy human, this Berel. How'd you like him next to you in the foxhole?
The USA-Israel Free Trade Agreement was the very first one made by the USA, and it is by far
the most "special" as is all the other entanglements with Israel, all decidedly to our proportionate disadvantage. What a surprise, ha?
Anyone who thinks the tail is not wagging the dog needs to investigate all our agreements with Israel, e.g., free trade, foreign aid, oil insurance, security insurance, missile & other warfare agreements, trade secret exceptions, patent exceptions, Intell exceptions, etc. Dig around on the net, gradually you will get the picture. If you are an average American, it ain't pretty…
I don't like "cost of war" arguments, and I don't like "cost of Israel" arguments. $1 would be too much to give to Israel. It's wrong because of what it's used for. I don't care what else it could be used for. Supporters of Israel could argue that $3 billion or whatever is a drop in the bucket, and it doesn't seem to have been adjusted for inflation since the 1970s. And they would be right. So what? Why do those who are opposed to apatheid and murder have to make their case in terms of how much the cost to do? It's a bad argument and a bad strategy.
Witty's response to a blog article entitled "On tax day, we ask, Why do we single out Israel?"
is:
"The remedy to that whole mess is Palestinian unity, based on the principles that the PA has agreed with Israel"
What should we make of Witty's response? Please tell me if you have a translation other than
keep funding Israel as we are at average US taxpayer expense, no matter how obscene you think that might be–your job is solely to support the US-Israel-& their Proxy PA vision, even if you
think that triad uber-power is myopic in the long term for all Americans, all Israelis, and all Palestinians. Please prove me wrong.
Yep, Witty is happy with 30 billion a year (link to eaazi.blogspot.com
to Israel, and he is fine with each Israeli having free health insurance at the expense of millions of gentiles here in the USA who have none, their expenses, plus illegal immigrant health costs, being absorbed disproportionately by working class gentile Americans.
Milk the crackers. (While you simultaneously ridicule them on MSM).
Our total blank check to Israel can easily pay off all our debts, themselves caused disproportionately by Jewish American governmental officials like Frank, coupled with his
Wall St counterparts on the other baton end. Check out that lizard, Greenspan, his fellow
reptiles, Reich through Geishner (sic?)….
Obama is in way over his head.
"What should we make of Witty's response?"
I think Witty's point is that everyone who disagrees with him is not mature.
Besides sending a letter to Obama, anotther thing folks can do today is to print out some copies of the Tax Day leaflets prepared by the US Campaign to End the Occupation and go hand them out at your local Post Office as people drop off their returns, The flyers are at
link to endtheoccupation.org
/>
and
link to endtheoccupation.org
Todd,
The gist of some other points, not this one, is that anyone that forms a strategy that is based on coercion rather than persuasion, will likely fail, in fact make things much worse for all concerned for a gamble.
Other approaches are more effective.
LOL
Yep, he's the mature one. Well, I'm not. I am reminded of he who who deserve a sharp snap of the wet towel in the
boy's locker room.
Why?
Because while he smugly covers himself with his thick towel (woven by others), others have nothing. And he actually
thinks that's because they are born idiots. He's a typical type who, like Bush, born on first base,
thinks he makes home runs on his own.
We need to ask ourselves: who has directly engineered this draconian welfare? Was it the Israelis themselves, from the distant shores of the Mediterranean? No, it was their Zionist fifth column living in the gated community down the street. Too many are trying to saw off the limbs of an oak with a nail file instead of attacking the roots that have systematically and relentlessly arranged all of this abuse of American good will, and unless stopped, will continue the abuse until the entire country has been brought to its knees. At which point they’ll move on to some other sucker.
@Ed
It sometimes seems that many in the Jewish community are dead set on proving the eternal or international Jewish parasite stereotype correct. Could they do more?
Richard Witty wrote:
"The remedy to that whole mess is Palestinian unity, based on the principles that the PA has agreed with Israel."
But Richard, what on earth makes you believe that an agreement with the Palestinians—damn near any agreement at all—will result in anything other than an *increase* in the aid that the U.S. shovels over there to the Mideast now?
Indeed, if one was solely concerned about money you're best bet to minimize the U.S. expenditures is to pray for the status quo. Look at what happened when Israel made peace with Egypt: Some tons of U.S. dough now getting dropped annually on Egypt and some increased tons went to Israel.
Or look what happened when the U.S. heeded the call of Israel and enacted the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to allow Russians jews to emigrate to Israel; the U.S. paid another ton of money to help that re-settlement, and then immediately got onto its present path of aiding *all* refugees to Israel every year.
So one can just imagine what's going to happen with any peace deal which of course has to involve the re-resettlement of of least some big number of settlers back into Israel proper. And then of course you'll have the PA saying they need additional aid too so as to implement the deal and ….
If I had one I'd bet my first-born that in eight ways from Sunday whatever deal is reached, or indeed with any significant sub-deals reached either, the U.S. is just gonna pay and pay and pay.
The US assisting the efforts for peace, even in military aid, is a good thing.
Its when the aid does not serve the interests of peace, that it becomes counter-productive.
There is a good point that that might be the case with some of the aid that goes to Israel now. It was initiated in its current form ironically by Jimmy Carter, to firm up the Israel/Egypt peace.
Many of the arguments that support the aid continuing are still relevant. The status of diplomatic relations is still the minority. Rejectionism and a formal state of war with Israel's immediate neighbors (even if deferred) is still playing.
It could melt with Syria, and has melted with the PA. But Lebanon with Hezbollah close to dominance is not likely to recognize Israel, even with the Arab League conditional concensus.
The United States pays, and is paid.
There is a need for a global police force, and if the world ponied up to support one that was substantive and just, then there might be consent for a global union.
Absent a functional world one, is it worse that the US attempts it to an extent?
Why Israel, some ask, why not (say) the oppression in Burma?
Well:
1) The Burma lobby isn't the most powerful in the US (unlike Israel)
2) There aren't endless calls of support of Burma by US politicians (unlike Israel)
3) Burma doesn't receive billions of US aid (unlike Israel)
4) There aren't newspapers, tv stations etc that have a pro-Burma editorial line (unlike Israel)
5) You can criticize the actions of Burma without being called a racist, terrorist etc (unlike Israel)
6) Burma is not occupying any other country (unlike Israel which is occupying all of one, a large part of another plus those farms)
7) Burma for all their sins do not discriminate so that people can loose internationally accepted rights if they give the "wrong" answer to the question are you Jewish (unlike Israel)
8) Burma is not the country that has broken more UN resolutions than any other (unlike Israel)
9) There is no need to boycott Burma goods because they aren't in your local store (unlike Israel)
10) Burma doesn't drive the US to have a foreign policy in the region at polar opposite to US values (freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law etc)
11) Burma wasn't founded from a war that included ethnic cleansing (unlike Israel)
12) Burma isn't a test case for relations between two of the world's major regions (unlike Israel)
13) Burma doesn't have nuclear weapons when even the rumour or suspicion of having them can lead to boycotts or even invasion (unlike Israel)
14) Burma hasn't recently targeted police stations, mosques, universities, hospitals etc, bombed civilian areas with illegal weapons and other war crimes (unlike Israel)
15) When asked why they do what they do Burma's junta doesn't use "God told us to" as an excuse (unlike Israel)
etc etc
The US assisting the efforts for peace, even in military aid, is a good thing.
Please tell me your joking. In what way does giving people money to buy or develop weapons, assist efforts for peace?
Where a community is under assault, assisting their defense is a good.
Didn't you read the paragraph that the statement was included in?
If you are interested in establishing conditions for aid, you have to undertake some clear and definitive thinking about what those reasonable conditions would be (not stated in rhetorical abstractions, but actions that if you were the person responsible, you could actually do).
That's what the Obama administration is facing. It is clearly very uncomfortable with Israel's new governments' stated and implied positions. (They dismiss Lieberman's statements as not representative of the policy of the administration as a whole. But, Netanyahu's statements they could not dismiss.)
I don't disagree with Witty. That would imply that he has an identifiable point of view, a perspective, an argument of SOME sort. His posts instead tend to be a macrame of lies and non-sequiturs.
He has a lot of reverence for Jews, just as I do. The difference is that I revere Albert Einstein and Walter Benjamin and HE reveres Baruch Goldstein and Mayer Lansky.
The US assisting the efforts for peace, even in military aid, is a good thing. – Richard
Richard, this has to take first prize for one of the most oxymoronic sentences I have seen here (and I didn't think you could top your "mature" comment from the other day, re: Dana), and it doesn't matter what the rest of your post says. It is more illogical than saying the key to peace is Palestinian unity, deliberately placing the onus on the hapless Palestinians for rectifying the morass and letting Israel off the hook. The craptacular quality of the Palestinian leadership does not excuse for one second what is being done in Palestine, but it is a useful scapegoat for liberal Zionists who look for any reason not to translate their supposed support for peace and a Palestinian state into a reality. Words are indeed cheap for those who aren't suffering and think time is on their side, even when it isn't.
Don't you get it why so many people here doubt your sincerity and commitment to a just peace (and I am not including the anti-Jewish and conspiracy theorists or the hyperboholics here, who have their own agenda)? I just wonder how long you can continue like this until you twist yourself into a permanent knot with the contradictions and fallacies that pepper your thought process about Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and US policy.
You seem like a decent and intelligent man, and I admire you for braving this comment section everyday. But I hope you will come to realize, hopefully before it's too late, that by not interrogating these contradictions and fallacies head on, you have colluded in harming the cause of a just peace between both peoples. The longer you refuse to do that, the heavier the psychological and moral burden you will have to bear when you finally quit justifying and excusing the unjustifiable and the inexcusable. I think deep down you and so many liberal Zionist apologists I know absolutely know this, but still cling to the same tropes and empty slogans after all these years. To recognize our complicity in an unjust and immoral system IS a painful burden to bear for many people (although I think it should actually be liberating), so too many of us would prefer just to stave off this deep moral and spiritual crisis indefinitely. But in the end, this is just a self-defeating prescription for disaster for all concerned. And this just doesn't go for Israel; it holds true for our own country and other places around the world where inequality and injustice exist.
katin
I have to take issue with the way you are framing a certain part of the frame of your question, not fitting them into the frame and having to reconcile your own anti-semitism with the fall of the DOW and a lot of other things going on in this country. It's complicated, so quit acting immature and understand that I want only good things to come out of our extermination efforts. Rome wasn't built in a day. Can you see that the Palestinians came to America to find freedom?? Don't you want to be free? The Palestinians could construct something beautiful and lovely like Trump Towers but they'd rather strap bombs to themselves. I have to go to a brist but I'll be back.
Thank you for reading my post.
–Richard Witty
"Israel is supported by the US government because the American people demand it."
The American people don't have a clue about the 3 trillion dollars they have paid to support
the Israeli side of the I-P dispute to date.
Sheldon
Of course they don't. The 3 trillion story is total bullshit. The American people do know that
Rykart,
Its a lie to sign my name on a post of yours, wherever you do so. Please use "I" when you have something to say.
The consistent difference in my approach from a dissenting one, is that I am fundamentally seeking what to propose, what to apply, rather than what to oppose.
Opposition is barely a first step. I can't really understand those that end at opposition throughout their careers.
So, I'll ask you again.
What do you propose?
What do you see as possible?
What do you believe is the most effective way to achieve that?
Witty – you made the claim first – so shoot – go for it – most of us want to hear what it is you propose.
Please , say it loud and clear – what do you propose ?
Here's something all can do.
Sen Kerry is to be a speaker at the AIPAC convention along with Hoyer and the usual traitors.
Call Kerry's office and tell his aide that you see that Kerry is going over to AIPAC to make his pledge of alleigence to a foreign country.
Then say you are curious as to why congress doesn't go ahead and move to Israel since not one of them represents the US.
And oh yeah…ask him why we give Israel 3 billion a year for weapons when Israel sells 4 billion of weapons a year to other countries.
American
An excellent idea.
Witty. Let me begin by saying i don't regard your question nor anything you post as sincere. You are certainly aware of proposals put on the table and rejected one after the other by Israel. Every year, the UN puts forward a proposal for "peaceful resolution of the conflict"..the international consensus of full withdrawal to the pre june 67 borders. The entire world lines up on one side and 2 nations (+ a handful of bought off puppet states and coral atolls in the South Seas like Naru Paulu and Tuvalu) line up on the other to reject it.
Iran? people like you are not serious. That's why you're not TAKEN seriously. Many have examined the situation and made a very sensible proposal. Since Israel doesn't trust Iran and NO ONE trusts Israel, let's support a nuclear-free zone in the Mid East, subject to international inspection and verification. Iran expresses willingness to sign such a declaration, Israel, predictably, refuses (just as they refused to sign the NPT). Who is the rogue state?
But your racism doesn't allow you to acknowledge the fact that it is IRAN whose security needs should be addressed, given that a nuclear-equipped, belligerent jewish state which has repeatedly attacked its neighbors with horrific loss of life is constantly threatening it, due to its LEGAL enrichment of uranium, backed by the very country which destroyed Iran's secular democracy in 1953.
Your posts are pleasingly incoherent until your efforts to camouflage your extreme bigotry break down. Then it's back to obfuscation again. Israel/Palestine is the same story with you. The victimizers must have their "security needs" met while the victims have their land stolen and their lives ruined.
Richard,
I still don't think you've understood the fact that it's the Palestinians (NOT the Israelis) that are under assault. It's the Palestinians that are dying every day, NOT the Israelis. It's the Palestinians that are losing their homes and livelihoods, NOT the Israelis. Yet you're trying to justify giving billions is military aid to the Israelis, so that MORE Palestinians can be killed.
Israel have always had the upper hand, and this military aid has magnified the number of casualties.
I'm certain Richard understands. What you do not understand is that the palestinians are the authors of their misery. Take gaza (Please). In return? Thousands of rockets genocidally aimed and launched at Israel.
Military aid has minimized the casualties. Without it, the Israeli leadership would decide that it has to destroy the palestinian ability to kill Jews, once and for all, totally.
Shafiq,
They are BOTH under assault and under threat of assault.
Thats the reason the reconciliation as a goal is much more important than selectively applied "justice".
Selective justice is a pendulum swing. Its not clear if it swings further in each, or less. If it were perfectly clear that when anger-oriented justice relaxes, then maybe that would be worth allowing to just indulge in.
I think it is nearly always a certainty that an active attempt to regard and treat the other as human, is FAR MORE effective.
That is the most important agreement, and can be made before a political one.
@ Witty
"Its when the aid does not serve the interests of peace, that it becomes counter-productive.
There is a good point that that might be the case with some of the aid that goes to Israel now. It was initiated in its current form ironically by Jimmy Carter, to firm up the Israel/Egypt peace."
I don't see anything ironical about Carter's stance at all. He is the one that has been consistent. It is Israel that has not been loyal to the peace he set up and the US has been paying for with its
huge combined aid annually to Israel (no conditions) and Egypt (don't annoy Israel). Carter
views the subsequent continued apartheid, and most especially, the ever expanding settlements as counter-productive to both US vision of expanding peace and a violation of
the spirit and intent of use of our aid, both economic and military–by Israel. Israel gets around
Carter's original mutual contract terms, as it were, by calling everything "purely defensive" in nature, and because no transparency monitoring was ever put in place regarding what Israel
does with our taxpayer money.
RE: "The United States pays, and is paid."–Witty
With our own money, plus interest.
The aggregate of our special dealings with Israel amounts to the most one-sided sweet heart
deal in US history. It effectively makes Israel the 51st State, with all the benefits and then some
(like national health insurance, and guaranteed oil, and its own foreign policy), but none of the obligations of the US federal system.
@ Berel
" The 3 trillion story is total bullshit. The American people do know that"
Here Berel is addressing the earlier comments in this thread which document what they say with web reference urls. Berel never answered the documentation afforded. Here he just repeats
his unsupported claim all those sources are lies. When you're Berel, you never feel the need
to document anything. Anyone who has reviewed the data on the net, including that from
official government sources, knows that the 3 trillion refers to the USA's total direct and
indirect bankrolling of Israel so it could do what it wants regarding the Palestinians… Remember
for example, the gas crisis in the USA attendant Israel's '73 war?
@ Berel
" the palestinians are the authors of their misery"
This claim is right up there with Berel's earlier post claiming that the Jews are merely reclaiming their land.
He's as rigid as Julius Streicher.
Witty: "Rykart,
Its a lie to sign my name on a post of yours, wherever you do so"
Rykart made it obvious to all it was a joke–would that others would be so polite, for example those who have made it appear as if Eva, or Jim Haygood, or 5 dancing schomos" (most recently)
had actually sent in the comments. Strange, I never heard Witty castigate such actual theft of
real people's names.
Richard,
If BOTH are under assault, then you should be fine with neither getting aid or both getting an equal amount.
At the moment, the status quo favours Israel massively. You can't talk about true justice when one is still being favoured over the other.