Community | May 25, 2009 | 12 comments

Rethinking the Costs of Peace

source: http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15133

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Nader123
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/uploads/1243191246Israel_us_fighter_planes.jpg
In pledging to trim ineffective spending, President Obama declared that "there will be no sacred cows and no pet projects. All across America, families are making hard choices, and it's time their government did the same."

By asking earlier this month for $2.775 billion in military aid to Israel in his FY2010 budget request, it would seem that on this important policy issue President Obama’s commitment is more rhetorical than substantive. Since 1949, according to the Congressional Research Service, the United States has provided to Israel more than $100 billion in military and economic assistance. In 2007, the United States and Israel signed an agreement for $30 billion in additional military aid through FY2018.

Yet the provision of U.S. weapons to Israel at taxpayer expense has done nothing to bring Israelis and Palestinians closer to achieving a just and lasting peace. Rather, these weapons have had the exact opposite effect, as documented recently by Amnesty International, which pointed to U.S. weapons as a prime factor “fueling” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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12 comments // Rethinking the Costs of Peace

  • Highr0ller
    • 0
      Highr0ller [removed]  

    • To begin with, "terrorism" is a tactic employed by a wide array of political groups; it is not a single unified adversary. The terrorist organizations that threaten Israel (e.g., Hamas or Hezbollah) do not threaten the United States, except when it intervenes against them (as in Lebanon in 1982). Moreover, Palestinian terrorism is not random violence directed against Israel or "the West"; it is largely a response to Israel's prolonged campaign to colonize the West Bank and Gaza Strip

    • 2 years ago
  • Highr0ller
    • 0
      Highr0ller [removed]  
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    • THE GREAT BENEFACTOR

      Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War II. Total direct U.S. aid to Israel amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars.2 Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is roughly one

      ‐fifth of America's foreign aid budget. In per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year.3 This largesse is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain.4
      Israel also gets other special deals from Washington.5 Other aid recipients get their money in quarterly installments, but Israel receives its entire appropriation at the beginning of each fiscal year and thus earns extra interest. Most recipients of American military assistance are required to spend all of it in the United States, but Israel can use roughly twenty

    • 2 years ago
  • Ihatethemall
  • carmalite
  • Ihatethemall
    • 0
      Ihatethemall  
    • Ihatethemall:

      Thats not really our problem. There are many in this world that cannot defend themselves. Do we come to the aid of everyone? No we don't. Why should the worlds largest terrorist state be any differant.

    • 2 years ago
  • Nader123
  • Ihatethemall
  • Ihatethemall
  • Ihatethemall
  • Vierotchka
    • 0
      Vierotchka  
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    • Ihatethemall:

      This picture has nothing to do with Israel and Palestinians - it is a photo of a child who was badly wounded in an American air-raid on Basrah, Iraq, at the beginning of the war on Iraq.

    • 2 years ago
  • Nader123
  • carmalite
    • 0
      carmalite  
    • Nader123:

      I do not really understand this. Israel has a crack military and nukes, but how many, no one knows. Is it because they are surrounded that they feel that they can not defend themselves?

    • 2 years ago
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