If the GOP’s electoral wins next week are enough to take over Congress, one thing they’ve pledged to do is “stop out-of-control spending,” as their “Pledge to America” policy blueprint says. But don’t even think about touching the over $3 billion in annual aid the United States gives to Israel.
Politico‘s Laura Rozen reports, via the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, that House Republican whip Eric Cantor “would propose separating U.S. aid to Israel from the foreign operations budget, which the GOP may vote to defund”:
Cantor, of Virginia, said he wants to protect funding for Israel should that situation arise.
“Part of the dilemma is that Israel has been put in the overall foreign aid looping,” he said when asked about the increasing tendency of Republicans in recent years to vote against foreign operations appropriations. “I’m hoping we can see some kind of separation in terms of tax dollars going to Israel.”
Cantor’s statement was a sign that the Republican leadership was ready to defer to the party’s right wing on this matter. Some on the GOP right have suggested including Israel aid in the defense budget, and a number of Tea Party-backed candidates have said they would vote against what is known in Congress as “foreign ops.”
The Republican Party (as well as some Democrats) wants to decrease Social Security benefits, among other austerity measures, in their effort to reduce government spending. But government funding of an illegal and racist occupation? Keep the cash flowing.
This post originally appeared on Alex Kane's blog. Follow him on Twitter here.
“that House Republican whip Eric Cantor “would propose separating U.S. aid to Israel from the foreign operations budget, which the GOP may vote to defund””
ROTFL! That’s the way, Eric, you just put the “aid” to Israel all out there by its lonesome, to be examined and justified on its own merits. Please do that!
Gotta hand it to you Mooser, you always manage to find a little gem in a pile of crap. Always looking on the bright side. Say, but such hope and optimism sounds a little culturally un-Jewish to me, lol.
The $3B (or $6B) annual USA gift to Israel should be thought of as part of the military budget, not the foreign aid budget. And controlled by the military-industrial-Congressional-academia complex mechanism of budget protection. If USA can afford $1T for the Iraq war (or is that per year?) for military (including spying and debt-repayment or interest payments on prior-years military-spying debt), then surely it can afford a measly $3B/yr for Israel.
As someone once said (and I paraphrase freely), $10B here and $10B there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money. ($3B or $6B/yr just doesn’t make the grade. There is real reality and Washington reality.)
If there’s one thing the US public wants to cut, it’s foreign aid, and nobody was saying, “except Israel.”
Not to worry, “the public” will never know about the exception, let alone get to hear the pros and cons of why we should/should not give Israel so much we need to take money from our seniors who worked all their lives.
Since Egypt is the second biggest giftee, will it be up on the chopping block? Not likely since Egypt would not get anything if it quits playing cozy with Israel–just part of the package gift to Israel. As for the other recipents of foreign aid–yeah the Tea party folks will do their best to ax them all and brag about it on TV and nobody influential will complain.
A Christian blog has already raised the question why should the Republicans, led by the unique Cantor, be OK with spending our tax dollars on just one foreign country when they are all for smaller government and cutting spending everywhere (the small folks hang) and on every other country?
link to thechurchofjesuschrist.us
Cantor says we should cut funding every country that does not have the same interests as we do; the related question raised in the article I linked to next above asks, why Israel when Petraeus says what Israel is doing harms us and our troops? The Christian blogger should ask Chas Freeman.
American taxpayers fund between 20 and 25 percent of Israel’s defense budget (depending on how you calculate this). Twenty-six percent of the $3 billion in military aid we grant to the Jewish state each year is spent in Israel on Israeli defense products. Uniquely, Israeli companies are treated like American companies for purposes of U.S. defense procurement. Thanks to congressional earmarks, we also often pay half the costs of special Israeli research and development projects, even when – as in the case of defense against very short-range unguided missiles — the technology being developed
is essentially irrelevant to our own military requirements. In short, in many ways, American taxpayers fund jobs in Israel’s military industries that could have gone to our own workers and companies. Meanwhile, Israel gets pretty much whatever it wants in terms of our top-of-the-line weapons systems, and we pick up the tab.
Identifiable U.S. government subsidies to Israel total over $140 billion since 1949. This makes Israel by far the largest recipient of American giveaways since World War II. The total would be much higher if aid to Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and support for Palestinians in refugee camps and the occupied territories were included. These programs have complex purposes but are justified in large measure in terms of their contribution to the security of the Jewish state.
Per capita income in Israel is now about $37,000 — on a par with the UK. Israel is nonetheless the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, accounting for well over a fifth of it. Annual U.S. government transfers run at well over $500 per Israeli, not counting the costs of tax breaks for private donations and loans that aren’t available to any other foreign country.
-Freeman
must read: Satloff’s reply to Freeman
link to nixoncenter.org
unbelievable
Bob, you mentioned military aid to Lebanon but this was nothing worth mentioning. In its 60-year history up to 2006, Lebanon received no military aid from the US except between 1981 and 1984 when the Lebanese military had some dealings with the Israeli military and it got $37 million in annual aid and after that it dropped to half a million dollars a year for training. After the US provided all the firepower to Israel to destroy parts of Lebanon along with the cluster bombs in 2006, it provided $220 million in aid in 2007 that went to pay for logistical equipment such as hundreds of Humvees for the army and Dodge Chargers for the police and about 20 refurbished Huey helicopters of Vietnam vintage. It also provided m16s for the army and 12 hand-launched Raven unmanned drones (that are 36 inches long) to help patrol Israel’s border. All this great aid has come with political strings attached. There is a current freeze in effect on $100 million in aid for more logistical stuff and training that was held up by Congress while it investigated if the tree-cutting soldier had been shot by a Russian AK47 or a US M16. It was unfrozen a couple of weeks back but re-frozen last week because Lebanon welcomed Ahmadinejad. In 2007, Iran gave Lebanon over $1billion to rebuild the 36,000 homes destroyed by Israel using American bombs in 2006.
“It also provided m16s for the army…”
Would anyone want those if they could get AK47s?
How about the foreign aid to Egypt, which is given so that the peace continues between Egypt and Israel?
Why does Israel need tax dollars from poor workers in the US? They keep telling us how advanced they are, how successful their economy is. Anybody who goes there can see the high standard of living that they have. The people who really need the cash are, of course, the Palestinians – to build housing, schools and their economy. The people stopping them from having a chance at a very modest standard of living are, of course, the featherbedded Israelis. About time US workers pulled the plug on defending a war crazed bunch of wealthy welfare addicts.
To pay the parasites in the yeshivas to rock back and forth all their lives.
Netanyahu is pulling the plug on them: everybody has to work from now on
Probably wants to get into the EU. Too many welfare cases don’t look so good
No problem; Israel got into the OECD last Spring–the fab group just ignored Israel’s 4 million Arabs in the W Bank and Golan Heights; of course Israel and the OECD did count the Israeli settlers.
I know. And they complain about Greece having cooked their books to get into the EU.
Mind you, there where complaints about Israel’s admission to the OECD, and not only from the Palestinians.
link to
.guardian. co.uk/comm entisfree/ 2010/mar/0 9/israel-p olicy-econ omic-oecd
link to
.haaretz.c om/print-e dition/new s/israel-s et-to-beco me-oecd-s- poorest-me mber-1.265 726
Do any other OECD members receive US aid? Why not send some to Canada? Harper is eager to buy fighter jets and God knows what else.
Seriously: I don’t see why Obama can’t stare down AIPAC after the midterms over this ‘cutting foreign aid except Israel’- business. Bush senior did it. Obama could score points on the home front (social security and America first), pro-peace front, put Netanyahu and Lieberman in their place, show some spine (finally).
US foreign aid by country
link to vaughns-1-pagers.com
Israel and Egypt together get one third of all US foreign aid, the former unconditional, the latter on condition it rubber stamps Israel right or wrong.
Forgot almost, OECD countrys :
link to oecd.org