US Aid to Israel

"Don't threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid." 

Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin during his Senate Foreign Relations committee testimony June 22 1982, regarding Senator Joe Biden threatening to cut off aid to Israel.

A Facebook friend of mine asked me about a photo comment reply of mine to the libelous lie that has been told for years; by those seriously demented mentally deprived anti-Israeli trolls  group of ignoramuses who sufferer from Falestinian Bamboozled Derange Syndrome (BDS), regarding the "Level of US Aid to Israel, I have replied that before ranting, raving and screaming at Israel they should consider this tidbit:

"Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip receive one of the highest levels of unrecorded aid in the world. Aid has been offered to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and other Palestinian Non-governmental organizations (PNGOs) by the international community, including International Non-governmental Organizations (INGOs) and the funds are largely unaccounted for.

According to certain analyses, Palestinians are the largest per capita recipients of international development assistance in the world (Lasensky [2004], 211, Lasensky-Grace [2006])."

"Until his death in November 2004, former PA President Yasser Arafat controlled Palestinian finances and faced widespread criticism for his lack of transparency, corruption, and misuse of foreign aid. Some observers described Arafat’s use of the PA treasury as his “personal cashbox” and allege that almost half of the $7 billion provided to the PA since its creation in the early 1990s may have been diverted by Arafat to political patronage and kickbacks."

Although the extent of Arafat’s misuse of PA money was never fully known, Israeli leaders, Palestinian reformers, and others repeatedly accused Mohamud Abbas and his inner circle of corruption; nevertheless, his total domination of Palestinian political life made him indispensable to those seeking his cooperation in achieving regional peace and many were forced to ignore such charges." David Samuels, “ In a Ruined Country,” Atlantic Monthly, September 2005.

So here is the truth behind US foreign military aid to Israel and how it actually benefits the US Taxpayer.

 "Currently, Israel receives $3 billion annually in US assistance through Foreign Military Financing (FMF). Seventy-four percent of these funds must be spent on the acquisition of US defense equipment, services, and training. Thus, "United States military aid to Israel is seen by many as a subsidy for U.S. industries", according to Kenneth M. Pollack."

Though President Harry Truman is fondly remembered for his part in the creation of Israel, few note that he had an unwillingness to supply arms to the Jews fighting for independence.

This total arms embargo, continued from 1948 until 1966 despite persistent pressure from US supporters of Israel, until the Kennedy Administration.

It was finally in 1962 that Israel was "allowed to purchase cash on the barrel", the HAWK anti-aircraft missiles system, its first major weapons system from the United States.

The State Department which was led by highly anti-Semitic members, was opposed to the sale. 

Kennedy felt justified in ordering it's execution after he failed to dissuade Egyptian President Nasser from escalating the arms race and after he learned that the Soviet Union had supplied Nasser with long-range bombers. 

The HAWK sale was significant not only because it was the first major direct arms transfer to Israel but also because that system required that Israeli soldiers be given extensive training in the United States and that spare parts be supplied to Israel. These were the first steps on a path which made Israel increasingly dependent on U.S. arms.

Very few remember the "next deal" of the sale of USED -read post US Military use "surplus" A-4 Skyhawk and how the decision to do so came only seven months after the United States had, for the first time, sold Israel offensive arms 200 NEW US Manufactured M-60 "Patton" tanks from a sales contract with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) had withdrawn. 

President Lyndon Johnson and his "administration" did not want to add jets to the hardware that it had already sold Israel. The Johnson administration, like its predecessors dating back to 1948, wished to avoid, if possible, entering into any strategic partnership with Israel. 

However, by early 1966 the United States decided that strategic exigencies, principal among them that of selling combat jets to Jordan in order to block Soviet influence in the region, dictated the transfer of these aircraft to Israel.  

The significance of the sale was explained by Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Warnke in a discussion with Yitzhak Rabin.

The United States had avoided becoming Israel's arms supplier, he said, because it wanted to reduce the risk of a U.S.-U.S.S.R. confrontation in the Middle East. 

The U.S., he said, would have preferred to continue that policy but could not because of the refusal of the Europeans, especially the French, to arm Israel. 

"We will henceforth become the principal arms supplier to Israel, involving us even more intimately with Israel's security situation and involving more directly the security of the United States" (emphasis added). 

It was not just the agreement to provide 50 Phantoms that was significant, he said, but also the sale of the Phantoms plus 100 Skyhawks and other equipment requested by Israel, which made the policy a distinct change from that of the past.

The sale was announced on December 27,1968. Israel was to receive 16 Phantoms in late 1969 and another 34 in 1970. It was the largest single arms deal signed to that point by Israel. The cost was $285 million and Israel paid in cash to avoid the need to pay interest on loans.

President Johnson's reluctance to sell Phantoms to Israel was based  on the reluctance to harm America's relations with the Arabs, particularly Nasser, whom the U.S. was still trying to court.

This actual FACT is revealed, for example, in Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearings held on June 9, 1967 

" It is a fact, is it not, that neither Soviet Russia nor the United States has given any material amounts of arms to Israel, and, if that is true, are they not relatively independent in their thinking at this point?

US Secretary of State Dean Rusk (from 1961-1969):

No, we have provided tanks and Hawk missiles and certain other kinds of equipment to Israel , but their principal arms supplier has been France ... The Israeli air force is almost all French supplied."

The Israeli lobby and its supporters in Congress saw the national interest from a different perspective asserted that U.S. -Arab relations would not be hurt by the sale of arms to Israel since the Arabs already considered U.S. policy unbalanced, and since repeated efforts to bring Nasser into the Western camp had failed. Finally, the notion that supplying Phantoms to Israel would undermine efforts to limit arms sales to the region was rejected as hypocritical because both the Soviet Union and the United States were pouring weapons into the Arab states.

Today when the US Government gives out military aid the great majority of it does not leave the shores of the US: for example the latest news of the F-23 sale. 

Trillions of hard earned dollars from US taxpayers are used to fund the Defense Department each fiscal year. Much of the money goes to buy new weaponry. 

In order to provide up to the date equipment, all arms manufacturers of the US military industrial complex and military contractors need to make sells of arms abroad. They do this in order to raise enough funds to continue their research and development and to make a profit to employ thousands of US taxpaying citizens. 

These US Defense Contractor employees salaries go to purchase necessities and services from companies and businesses in their hometowns that employee thousands of other tax paying US residents.

The funds allocated to foreign countries each year by Congress, go to shore up regimes "Friendly" to the USA. Countries like Iraq and Lebanon receive millions in US AID that is NOT ever spent in the USA or returned. 

There are NO demands made to them to REPAY.

Yet, when it comes to Israel the AID package money goes to purchase US military equipment, some new and some surplus. Like these mothballed F-14 Tomcat fighter jets awaiting demolition at 

Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, in Tucson, Ariz. U.S.

For example, basic necessities like ammunition -from 5.56mm bullets to 155mm Artillery shells, Hellfire missiles and even army boots and uniforms MADE IN THE USA by US employees. Israel uses it's "AID Package" to purchase so as to not forgo any alloted funds. 

If you have a basic knowledge of production you would know that in all forms of production you do not produce, or put into production the exact amount of items needed. Due to the strict demands of "ISO" quality control restrictions you always add, let us say 10 to 15% more to your production line in case of rejection or ruin.

So what happens to those let us say one thousand extra boots or ten Humvees or M-16's? 

What do you think? The US Government sells them off as surplus.

As US Citizens please note, YOU paid the company with your tax money to produce them, by contract. Ergo in order to recuperate your investment the US Government earmarks them as military aid for Egypt or Lebanon. Then you deduct the money from "their" aid package, however unlike with the "AID" givent the "Jewish State" these "Gifts" are never repaid.

As for Israel, Israel orders from US suppliers and their orders give jobs and taxes back into the US economy. 

In addition to which the US military gains valuable research and development knowledge from the usage performed under combat conditions by the IDF. 

Of course you will not like this part but this exchange of technical knowledge has saved hundreds of millions of US tax dollars and US military lives.

Since the US military orders the production each year of numerous items for strategic reserve it cannot keep some equipment for extended periods in storage without renewal. Many of these items are sold off at reduced prices to recuperate partial production cost. 

This cycle of renewal prevents the closure of many factories and production lines, thereby giving jobs to many good hard working patriotic Americans.

Through the US AID packages the United States had gained the needed leverage on Israel by 1975 in its resupply of badly needed military supplies and equipment through the air-lift. 

The Yom Kippur war made it clear to Israel that the scale of military engagements in the Middle East had altered radically since 1967, and that it could therefore no longer be independent militarily. 

The dramatic lesson that was learned by Israel in the intensive fighting of the Yom Kippur War was that the quantities of arms and materiel consumed in just a few days of fighting demanded an industrial capacity that could not be provided by the Israeli military industries. 

The technological innovations that were needed at that time were beyond the capabilities of Israel. 

Kissinger may have persuaded Nixon to resupply the Israelis in 1973, however Kissinger then used this leverage purchased by resupply to push for Israeli withdrawals in Sinai. 

Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was apparently the only one who had read the Middle East policy map correctly. He understood that if he could move Egypt into the American orbit and offer a "diplomatic horizon" for peace, he would be able to get back the Sinai Peninsula.

For the standard anti-Zionists of all kinds, it is very convenient to point to the large amounts of foreign aid given to Israel as Mr. Dean alludes to. Of course, that aid is given to ensure that Israel will remain compliant with US wishes, and prevent a repetition of the Six Day War scenario, as mentioned above in the Senate hearings, which was a nightmare for the US State Department. 

Israel's' appearance as an independent regional player in 1967 showed that it was in a position to dictate the course of it's own affairs. This was in direct contradiction to what an imperialist power could allow.

It is a historically documented fact that Israel paid cold hard cash for all military equipment it received up until the Yom Kippur War of 1973. 

Israel uses it's "Military Aid Package" to purchase fighter aircraft, like the F-23, made in America by American workers at the cost of billions of US tax dollars. 

What the "Haters of Israel" fail to mention is that the billions in US aid given to Israel allows Israel to use the “credit loans” or "monetary aid funds" to purchase military supplies and equipment made in American factories by American Working men and women thereby creating a need/market to keep Americans at work!

What is never mentioned is that Israel's purchases of new equipment, light arms ammunition, shoes and clothing in the US has been done at the expense of the closure of Israeli businesses and industries. This has caused the lost of jobs for thousands of Israelis many of whom were from financially depressed "Development Towns".

Just this year the US House committee approved the additional $175 million for funding the Iron Dome missile defense system on condition that parts and components are purchased from American contractors thereby returning more than half of the funds provided for it by the Pentagon to the US economy!

Meaning that the US employees of those contractors, who pay taxes, are actually keeping their jobs thanks to Israel!

Another item the "Haters of Israel" consistently fail to mention is that the "Palestinians" have received billions in “humanitarian aid" which has disappeared into private Swiss accounts of corrupt "Palestinian" Authority officials or it goes to buy Russia, Chinese and North Korean weaponry. 

Neither do these detractors mention that the Arab countries around Israel have consistently ignored the plight of their "Palestinian" Arab brothers and have kept those displaced in the 1948 Israeli War of Independence in squalid UN (read hundreds of millions in US funding over the past 70+ years) refugee camps.

Has any one EVER pointed out or asked WHY the Arab countries; Lebanon, Syria and Jordan that these "refugees" live in, forcibly keep them in the camps and NEVER allowed them to become viable citizens of Arab countries? 

Emile Ghoury, secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee, in an interview with the Beirut Telegraph published on Sept. 6, 1949, stated:

"The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the act of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agree upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem.”