Did you know the United States awards Israel over $5 billion in aid each year?
Did you know that Israel receives its annual foreign aid appropriation during the first month of the fiscal year, instead of in quarterly installments as do other recipients? This enables Israel to invest the money in U.S. Treasury notes. That means that the U.S., which has to borrow the money it gives to Israel, pays interest on the money it has granted to Israel in advance, while at the same time Israel is collecting interest on the money.
Did you know that US aid to Israel accounts for $14,346 for each man, woman and child in Israel?
Did you know that Israel has never been required to repay a U.S. government loan? Most U.S. loans to Israel are forgiven, on other loans, Israel was expected to pay the interest and eventually to begin repaying the principal.
Did you know that, excluding all of these extra costs, America’s $84.8 billion in aid to Israel from fiscal years 1949 through 1998, and the interest the U.S. paid to borrow this money, has cost U.S. taxpayers $134.8 billion, not adjusted for inflation?
Did you know that therefore the nearly $14,630 every one of 5.8 million Israelis received from the U.S. government by Oct. 31, 1997 has cost American taxpayers $23,240 per Israeli?
Don’t you ever wonder why you Americans have to pay all this money to Israel, which it uses to buy and manufacture weapons to occupate other people’s land, defying international laws, and to kill and terrorize hundreds and thousands of innocent people?
Interesting reads:
– The Cost of Israel to US Taxpayers by Richard Curtiss.
– Did You Know?
i used to wonder about this too back in the day. the problem is (and this is to be expected) most americans don’t know where Israel even is and when it comes to what their money funds and where it’s going the only thing they’d care about is their tax refund and what dvd player they’ll buy with it. it’s really nothing unordinary, it’s to be expected. most people in most parts of the world have no idea how their government spends their money and even if they do and they have ideological differences with it then the major concern will be why the US gives so much money to Arab countries or even North Korea.
its all about the money.
Actually, unlike what Nas says, we know where Israel is in the world, and more importantly we know how much Israel does for us in the world, especially compared to how little muslim countries do for us.
The 5 billion is an outright lie. Your source is completely unreliable. Most of the loans have not been forgiven. Your first source even cites the $48 billion given to Egypt as “other costs of Israel to U.S. taxpayers”. Ha! Does he count that as part of the 5 billion per year?
Some money has been given to Isreal to jointly develop advanced weapon systems, something arab countries might also be able to benefit from if they were capable of any advanced technology, of course.
Plus, Israel is obligated to spend most of it’s military aid on American arms, which helps keep our citizens employed and our arms industries healthy. And of course we get friendship, intelligence sharing, and an ally in the fight against muslim terrorism. We have given alot of money to arab countries from which we get nothing but hatred and government sponsored propaganda inciting their people to hate Americans.
Personally, I think we should cut off the aid we give Egypt and all other arab countries and give it to Israel instead, and everytime there’s a terrorist attack against the US, we should give them a billion more and tell them to build a new settlement with it. That would be a good motivation to get the terrorist muslims to stop attacking us.
Or else, we could cut off ALL the countries we give aid to and let them scrounge it up for themselves. I’m sure a few nukes in the arabian desert outside of mecca and medina would convince the saudis to pay an appropriate jizya to Israel and offset any losses they’d have from our cutoff.
I’m making these points just to show you that it is easy to have a different outlook from the herdlike view that you arabs all seem to share. We view Israel as our only true friend in the middle east. We view almost all the arabs as our enemies. Keep burning American flags in the streets and chanting Death to America and see how productive it is.
Gluon, I’m going to start with the part about the aid to Egypt first, which is not among the cited 5 billion dollars, but which can be seen as a cost of Israel to US taxpayers, because Egypt is getting that money in return for recognizing Israel and normalizing ties with it. So well, indirectly, it’s for the benefit of Israel.
As for the numbers being wrong or right, I think looking at the man’s history gives him some sort of credibility. You to me are basically a nobody who is making baseless claims that these numbers are wrong. Give me proof and then I’ll listen.
Regarding Americans knowing where Israel is or not, I’m not the kind of person to generalize, but just because you know doesn’t mean everyone else does. I’ve met and had conversations with many of your countrymen who have no clue where anything outside of the US is.
The rest of what you say just goes on to show how clueless you are about the whole situation.
The unfair and unconditional US support for Israel is what results in it having so many enemies in the Arab and Muslim world. The more it supports Israel in it’s terrorist actions, the more hatred it is sowing in the countries being terrorized.
The problem with the world today is that the US leaders think in exactly the same shallow and silly way that you do, creating more problems than solutions.
As for your tastless remarks about nuking outside Mecca, they alone make you unworthy of even replying to or trying to have a sane conversation with.
Hi Subzero,
And then what? If Israel and the US are friends, if they have shared interests, what is wrong with that?
American tax payer woke up a nice september morning to find out he was attacked by the same people who dream to destroy Israel.
American tax payer realizes that America and Israel are targeted by the same enemy…American tax payer is more than glad to know that his money is helping Israel protect him! It is as simple as that.
Now I am not saying this is right or wrong, but think about it for a second and put yourself in the American Tax Payer’s shoes? See the picture?
The problem with most of the muslim world is that the they deal with Israel as if it never happened, you guys still think of “what if Israel was not created” theories, you still dream about the day there will be no jews in palestine, you guys need to face it, Israel is your new neighbor, and with the help of The Almighty it is not going anywhere…sorry if this is harsh, but the only way toward peace is to deal with Israel not to look foreward to destroy it.
Salam for now.
Hi simcha,
For the past 2000 years there were Jews, Christians and (later) Muslims in Palestine and no Arab country ever suggested to get anyone out of Palestine, not even today. In 2002 the Arab countries had anonymously proposed a peace plan to recognise Israel and normalise ties in return of Israel retreating to 1967 borders, which was a UN resolution requirement anyway. Unfortunately, the call remains unanswered. So please stop the “destroy Israel” and “Israel’s right to exist” rhetoric.
The problem you seem to refuse to think about is that the creation of Israel was an extreme unjustice, the further occupation and terror Israel is inflicting on its neigbours is yet more unjust: it’s criminal.
I really wonder why you think that 9/11 was a deed of Arabs or Muslims? Is it because this is what your government is telling you? I bet they are also the ones telling you about your “only friend in the middle east”. I was in ths US in 2001 and I’m convinced that the 9/11 Commission Report is the biggest lie since the assassination of Kennedy, but this is another story.
Even assuming that Bin Laden was the orchestrator of 9/11, that still proves MMM’s point not yours. Many Muslims hate America because of its “unconditional support for Israel” and not the other way around. The fact that Israel is a Jewish country has nothing to do in the matter, Jews lived much better in Muslim countries than in Europe, some still live in Tunisia, Morocco and Iran despite all. Your government is trying to convince you that Jews and Arabs are natural enemies: we’re not. I almost had tears in my eyes when I read http://harissa.com/D_forum/Culture_Tune/sikhaled.htm.
Your government (if you’re American that is) which is telling you these lies is curiously the richest Administration in the whole US history, go check the Guinness Book of Records!
You’re right, we’re weak today and the US-Israel axis can do as they please for now, but in 50, 100 or 200 years things will change. Israel needs to sieze the opportunity of its strength to make more friends and not more enemies. Let’s learn from history.
-Imed
Simcha, It’s not about Israel and the US being friends. The US is friends with many countries, and that doesn’t bother anyone. Of course it is free to befriend any country it wishes.
The issue here is the unjust, unconditional and indefinite support that the US provides to Israel in everything it does inlcuding it’s terrorist actions, crimes and massacres. That’s where the problem is.
And when you start talking about attacks, and even though I don’t think any reason is good enough to kill innocent lives, think about the reasons and roots behind those actions. Trying to believe and convince yourselves that it’s because these people envy your freedom is a baseless and laughable lie that the US administration made up, it’s because of the US policies in the Middle East that are driven by greed and blind support for Israel.
Again, I do not agree with any such attacks, but I do see the roots of them that were sown by the US.
As for Israel being the US’ only friend in the Middle East, I’d not go as far as calling it that, the US is a toy, a puppet in Israel’s hand that it’s using for it’s own benefit and goals. I wouldn’t call that friendship.
Regarding what you said about us dealing with Israel as if it never happened and how we still live in theories of “what if Israel was not created”. I know you are referring to my post about that, which was a link to an article by some American guy, which I thought was interesting in a theoretical kind of way. Anyway, in reality, of course Israel is now a fact, and it has to be dealt with as such, and all of the Arab world knows that, and have been trying to find solutions for a peaceful Middle East, but it’s Israel that is not cooperating, breaking international laws, ignoring UN resolutions and continuing it’s terrorist actions and massacres, all with the full backing of the US.
So it’s Israel that should realize that it’s got neighbours that it has to live with peacefully and start taking the necessary steps to get there, not the other way around.
As far as I know, Israel is not being hostile to her neighbours, Jordan doesn’t have a Hizbollah, neither does Egypt, and even if they do, their governments are doing a great work of maintaining these groups under control. Lebanon was not as successful, and innocent lebanese are paying for their government’s liniency toward Hizbollah.
The US $$ always existed, but it grew to those amounts AFTER 9/11, it has nothing to do with freedom envy stupid stuff (I’ll leave that for republicans), but the facts are very simple, I have a friend, his ennemy come and hit me in the face, his ennemy is now my ennemy, I really won’t go and think why someone hit me in the face…Unless I was a total retarded.
> Imed, the link didn’t work, you can send me the french link instead…meanwhile check this link out http://www.harissa.com/D_Souvenirs/jetaisatunis.htm I hope it works: Zionism wasn’t welcomed by sefardim(middle-eastern and north african jews), nor by religious jews in europe,for it was a secular idea, hostilities and antisemitism were the reasons that made zionism take over.
Please Imed, you think it is not Ban Laden? humm, let me guess, the great conspiracy…you aren’t serious, are you?
Well, if you think that “Israel has not been hostile to its neighbours”, then I’m inclined to believe that you don’t know what happened over the past 70 years or, maybe, you just don’t want to know. Just notice that there was no Hizbullah at all before the invasion of Lebanon by Israel in 1982.
Your statement still confirms MMM’s point of view: the unconditional support has always been there since day zero. It’s not only the billions of USD, but also the acces to high-tech military technology, top-secret intelligence and, most importantly, a systematic veto of almost anything condeming Israel at the Security Council.
Here is the article again, the URL rendering mistakenly appended a dot: http://harissa.com/D_forum/Culture_Tune/sikhaled.htm
Now looking at the link you provided, can you please tell me whether what’s described in there is even comparable to what happened to the Japanese in the US after Pearl Harbor or to the Muslims after 9/11? Does this even compare to what happened to the Jews in Nazi Germany or in Spain after the Inquisition?
A serious attitude is to look at what happened and come with something reasonable. The only reason some Americans blame Bin Laden is because the Government said it was him without providing any evidence! Except if you think that the tape conveniently “discovered” in Afghanistan showing someone not even like Bin Laden is genuine. Have you ever seen the transcript of Bin Laden tapes?
After all, if someone has lied about the link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda then about the Iraqi WMD, why wouldn’t they lie about something else.
By the way, I’m not the only one thinking that the 9/11 Commission Report was more of an impossible consiparacy theory 🙂
-Imed
Israel makes and has enough money. They do not need America’s – simple as that.
Fact is, both Israel and Palestine have a lot of each other’s blood on their hands. I don’t want my money to help either side to kill more people. And from what I’ve seen, the killings on both side tend to always be innocent civilians, not the evil people who are causing the unrest and chaos. The only contribution America should make in this issue is an effort for peace. Otherwise, no money should go to either side (even though Palestine gets far, far less). Of course, I’m not saying that my solution is the ultimate solution that’ll solve all their problems. I do not mean for us to let Palestine go broke and poor and be at the very feet of Israel because Israel can live without our money. My point is, I don’t want my money to make things worse and I really feel that that’s what it’s doing right now.
I am not surprised that a couple of people didn’t appreciate Nas’ comment. When I first read it, I got a pretty defensive reaction too. But of course, I knew that it was well… a reaction. So, like on so many other posts (i.e. What If Israel Was Not Created) and comments, I decided to give it a day or two, see what others had to say first, and then decide whether I still wanted to contribute to the discussion. And to my great relief, MMM, you only thought that the article was interesting. Although, I hope you can understand how one may assume that you share the sentiments if you only posted the article and didn’t saying anything else in it. I’m not holding that against you of course, because I think it’s silly to have you write your opinion about EVERYTHING on EVERY post, but just to say, it wasn’t a proposterous assumption.
So let me start by saying, I’m an American who knows where Israel is, thank you very much. And although I’ve also read articles about young Americans who were unable to point out Iraq on a map during the start of our (unjust) war, I don’t think Americans are as bad as everyone makes us out to be all the time.
Americans are not dumb people who do not care about where their money is going. I’m not sure if you have to live in America and be an American to see what I see, because I sure as hell didn’t see it while I was living in France. I used to be frustrated with Americans too. Their lack of knowledge about what the hell’s going on in the world. And then when I returned, I came to a simple realization. Culture. American culture emphasizes on taking care of your own community. And I don’t just mean taking care of America itself, but more for your state, and then even more for your city, and most importantly more for your family. We focus on our little microcosm of life and although I believe there should be a nice balance of caring about your community and caring about the international community, it’s not as bad as everyone’s making it out to be. Sure, I sometimes meet people who do not know why Palestine and Israel are so frustrated with each other, but these are the same people who participate in AIDS Walks and volunteer time at the Food Bank. It’s part of our culture and it’s kind of just how things pan out in my country. We’re full of good people and I sometimes get tired of us always getting the bad wrap about being dumb and uncaring. We care, we participate, and we make a difference.
Maybe not many Americans know about how much money we’re giving to Israel and they don’t have a problem with Israel because Israel isn’t giving us any problems. And although I do not encourage this frame of mind, but if what I say is true… That Americans tend to care more about what hits close to home, then all we must see is Al-Qaida and angry extremist Muslims who bombed NY and who were kidnapping American soldiers.
Anyway, all this is just my little theory. I have stated no facts. Just telling you all how I see things through my eyes.
As for the conspiracy theory about, “Bin Ladin had nothing to do with 9/11”. I believe that as much as, “The Holocaust never happened”. **rolls eyes**
US can easily stop the conflict in the middle East . All they have to do is tell Israel they will shut off the tap till they end the occupation. Then Israel won’t have all the weapons generously donated by American taxpayers. See how tough they talk without tanks and jets bombers to hide behind. Jews groups can help as well by applying pressure on those who they know to end the occupation and avoid the consequences of further Palestinian as well as Irsaeli deaths. Without the occupation driven by greed there would be NO Hamas Or Hezbollah.
US can easily stop the conflict in the middle East . All they have to do is tell Israel they will shut off the tap till they end the occupation. Then Israel won’t have all the weapons generously donated by American taxpayers. See how tough they talk without tanks and jets bombers to hide behind. Jews groups can help as well by applying pressure on those who they know to end the occupation and avoid the consequences of further Palestinian as well as Irsaeli deaths. Without the occupation driven by greed there would be NO Hamas Or Hezbollah.
QUOTE “Jews groups can help as well by applying pressure on those who they know to end the occupation and avoid the consequences of further Palestinian as well as Irsaeli deaths.” /QUOTE
It is the jewish lobby itself that is applying pressure on the american government to support Israel! What are you talking about? Unless you are thinking about the stupid Naturei Karta…lol
>Jenn: Well said, although civilians are war casualties and you can’t avoid it most of the times.
>Subzero: I agree with Jenn about your opinion vis-a-vis some articles you post here, unlike Jenn, I get frustrated when you don’t write what you think.
Peace
Jenn, I totally understand your point of view, and of course, nobody can generalize and say that Americans have no idea about what’s going on in the world, where or why it’s happening. And I personally never resort to generalizations because they’re simply wrong.
I also know that the American people are very good , warm and caring people, and I never implied otherwise. It’s the US administration that is the problem, not the people of the US, that’s why this post is a question to all those good Americans on why they’re paying to help Israel in what it’s doing.
In my comment, I just wanted to demonstrate to Gluon that he’s wrong when he generalizes and says that everyone does know the facts about Israel, where their money is going, …etc.
And to you and Simcha, I understand how some of the posts that I put on here without my opinion might be a bit misleading on where I stand on the issue, which could be a bit frustrating.
I’ll try to make my position clearer whenever possible, as sometimes I myself need to think about it a bit more before throwing in my 2 cents.
Jen,
I perfectly understand that you’re fed up with so many people calling Americans idiots, uneducated and unaware of World affairs. I lived in California for some time and I was truly impressed with the nicety of the people and I’m yet to find a nasty American. One of my 3 best friends is American.
Unfortunately, what the rest of the World sees from America is wars. Look at news reports: it’s wars or threats of wars all over North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Sudan, Cuba, Venezuela and so on. All of which with direct or indirect US involvement. The point of the post, if I understood correctly, was “why would a nation accept such terrible unjustice?”.
What I hope we agree on is that we need to understand the logic behind the other’s position. It’s plain stupid to claim that Americans went to Iraq to kill as many Muslims as possible or that Muslims want to destroy America because they hate freedom.
Following the 9/11 events, I’ve never seen anyone asking the question “why?”. Everyone seemed to accept the unspoken consensus that “Bin Laden hates us and our freedom”, any questioning was regarded as treason.
I know that it’s too easy to roll eyes to what we don’t want to know. It took me a lot of courage and determination to convince myself that Israelis are not blood thirsty beasts whose sole purpose is to exterminate the Palestinians: 10 years ago I would have rolled my eyes at anyone claiming this.
I’m sure that millions would still answer your claims of American awareness and involvement with an eyes roll. It’s the too easy explanation that we want to live with, it saves us getting into details, contexts and motivations (understanding the other). Anyone drifting from this “comfortable” thinking is a conspiracy theorist who’s coming to destroy the cozy logic we built in our minds to feel that we know what’s happening.
Salam!
-Imed
🙂 I’m not quite sure if all Americans really buy into the idea that Al-Qaida hates us because we have freedom. I even feel silly for having written that. haha! But trust me, I did ask myself, “What would make these people hate us soooo much, that they’re even willing to kill themselves? I mean, this is no ordinary hate. They are seriously pissed off at us!!!”
Oy… Anyway, I appreciate your kind and respectful comments very much. I’m more used to getting nasty feedback whenever a comment. hehe!
The American comedian, David Cross, has a good joke about the whole bullshit “They hate us for our freedoms” Bush propoganda. He says that if this were true then Al Qaeda would blow the hell out of a really free country like the Netherlands. I am not a knee-jerk defender of Israel, but I will say that they more closely reflect American values than do Muslim nations like Saudi Arabia where women are basically political prisoners as far as I am concerned.
Ianni, the issue here is not which countries’ values are more aligned or reflect each other better.
You don’t support a country indefinitely and unconditionally in every terrorist act, every massacre, every war just because it’s so-called values reflect yours more than some other country.
And, talking of values, are you saying that committing war crimes is one of your values?
I’m sure no American would regard that as an American value, although it is true that the USA did commit war crimes in Iraq and Vietnam, just like Israel is doing in Palestine and Lebanon.