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From: Paul Andrew Mitchell <paulandrewmitchell2004@yahoo.com
Reply-To: supremelaw@topica.com
To: paulandrewmitchell2004@yahoo.com
Subject: [SLL] Unrestrained $$$ Support of Israel: TWICE THE COST OF VIETNAM
WAR
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 11:34:12 -0700 (PDT)
Flashback: Economist tallies swelling cost of Israel to US
by David R. Francis
The Christian Science Monitor
December 09, 2002
Since 1973, Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion. If divided by today's
population, that is more than $5,700 per person.
This is an estimate by Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington. For decades,
his analyses of the Middle East scene have made him a frequent thorn in the side of the
Israel lobby.
For the first time in many years, Mr. Stauffer has tallied the total cost to the US of its
backing of Israel in its drawn-out, violent dispute with the Palestinians. So far, he
figures, the bill adds up to more than twice the cost of the Vietnam War.
And now Israel wants more. In a meeting at the White House late last month, Israeli
officials made a pitch for $4 billion in additional military aid to defray the rising
costs of dealing with the intifada and suicide bombings. They also asked for more than $8
billion in loan guarantees to help the country's recession-bound economy.
Considering Israel's deep economic troubles, Stauffer doubts the Israel bonds covered by
the loan guarantees will ever be repaid. The bonds are likely to be structured so they
don't pay interest until they reach maturity. If Stauffer is right, the US would end up
paying both principal and interest, perhaps 10 years out.
Israel's request could be part of a supplemental spending bill that's likely to be passed
early next year, perhaps wrapped in with the cost of a war with Iraq.
Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid. It is already due to get $2.04 billion
in military assistance and $720 million in economic aid in fiscal 2003. It has been
getting $3 billion a year for years.
Adjusting the official aid to 2001 dollars in purchasing power, Israel has been given $240
billion since 1973, Stauffer reckons. In addition, the US has given Egypt $117 billion and
Jordan $22 billion in foreign aid in return for signing peace treaties with Israel.
"Consequently, politically, if not administratively, those outlays are part of the
total package of support for Israel," argues Stauffer in a lecture on the total costs
of US Middle East policy, commissioned by the US Army War College, for a recent conference
at the University of Maine.
These foreign-aid costs are well known. Many Americans would probably say it is money well
spent to support a beleaguered democracy of some strategic interest. But Stauffer wonders
if Americans are aware of the full bill for supporting Israel since some costs, if not
hidden, are little known.
One huge cost is not secret. It is the higher cost of oil and other economic damage to the
US after Israel-Arab wars.
In 1973, for instance, Arab nations attacked Israel in an attempt to win back territories
Israel had conquered in the 1967 war. President Nixon resupplied Israel with US arms,
triggering the Arab oil embargo against the US.
That shortfall in oil deliveries kicked off a deep recession. The US lost $420 billion (in
2001 dollars) of output as a result, Stauffer calculates. And a boost in oil prices cost
another $450 billion.
Afraid that Arab nations might use their oil clout again, the US set up a Strategic
Petroleum Reserve. That has since cost, conservatively, $134 billion, Stauffer reckons.
Other US help includes:
• US Jewish charities and organizations have remitted grants or bought Israel bonds
worth $50 billion to $60 billion. Though private in origin, the money is "a net
drain" on the United States economy, says Stauffer.
• The US has already guaranteed $10 billion in commercial loans to Israel, and $600
million in "housing loans." (See editor's note below.) Stauffer expects the US
Treasury to cover these.
• The US has given $2.5 billion to support Israel's Lavi fighter and Arrow missile
projects.
• Israel buys discounted, serviceable "excess" US military equipment.
Stauffer says these discounts amount to "several billion dollars" over recent
years.
• Israel uses roughly 40 percent of its $1.8 billion per year in military aid,
ostensibly earmarked for purchase of US weapons, to buy Israeli-made hardware. It also has
won the right to require the Defense Department or US defense contractors to buy
Israeli-made equipment or subsystems, paying 50 to 60 cents on every defense dollar the US
gives to Israel.
US help, financial and technical, has enabled Israel to become a major weapons supplier.
Weapons make up almost half of Israel's manufactured exports. US defense contractors often
resent the buy-Israel requirements and the extra competition subsidized by US taxpayers.
• US policy and trade sanctions reduce US exports to the Middle East about $5 billion
a year, costing 70,000 or so American jobs, Stauffer estimates. Not requiring Israel to
use its US aid to buy American goods, as is usual in foreign aid, costs another 125,000
jobs.
• Israel has blocked some major US arms sales, such as F-15 fighter aircraft to Saudi
Arabia in the mid-1980s. That cost $40 billion over 10 years, says Stauffer.
Stauffer's list will be controversial. He's been assisted in this research by a number of
mostly retired military or diplomatic officials who do not go public for fear of being
labeled anti-Semitic if they criticize America's policies toward Israel.
Comment: This article was published in 2002. Since then, the U.S. has continued
to dump billions and billions of dollars on Israel, even as the US economy stumbles and
millions of Americans struggle to find a job or make ends meet. The question of
why the U.S. supports Israel with obscene amounts of money and sacrifices the well-being
of its own citizens has never been answered; in fact, few have ever even dared to ask the
question. Those who have asked have been branded
"anti-Semitic". Apparently, loyalty to the Israeli Zionists takes
precedence over loyalty to the American people in the eyes of the vast majority of recent
U.S. leaders.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html
Work & Money: "Economic Scene"
Column
from the December 09, 2002 edition
Economist tallies
swelling cost of Israel to US
Since 1973, Israel has cost the United States about $1.6
trillion. If divided by today's population, that is more than $5,700 per person.
This is an estimate by Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington. For
decades, his analyses of the Middle East scene have made him a frequent thorn in the side
of the Israel lobby.
For the first time in many years, Mr. Stauffer has tallied the total cost to the US of
its backing of Israel in its drawn-out, violent dispute with the Palestinians. So far, he
figures, the bill adds up to more than twice the cost of the Vietnam War.
And now Israel wants more. In a meeting at the White House late last month, Israeli
officials made a pitch for $4 billion in additional military aid to defray the rising
costs of dealing with the intifada and suicide bombings. They also asked for more than $8
billion in loan guarantees to help the country's recession-bound economy.
Considering Israel's deep economic troubles, Stauffer doubts the Israel bonds covered
by the loan guarantees will ever be repaid. The bonds are likely to be structured so they
don't pay interest until they reach maturity. If Stauffer is right, the US would end up
paying both principal and interest, perhaps 10 years out.
Israel's request could be part of a supplemental spending bill that's likely to be
passed early next year, perhaps wrapped in with the cost of a war with Iraq.
Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid. It is already due to get $2.04
billion in military assistance and $720 million in economic aid in fiscal 2003. It has
been getting $3 billion a year for years.
Adjusting the official aid to 2001 dollars in purchasing power, Israel has been given
$240 billion since 1973, Stauffer reckons. In addition, the US has given Egypt $117
billion and Jordan $22 billion in foreign aid in return for signing peace treaties with
Israel.
"Consequently, politically, if not administratively, those outlays are part of the
total package of support for Israel," argues Stauffer in a lecture on the total costs
of US Middle East policy, commissioned by the US Army War College, for a recent conference
at the University of Maine.
These foreign-aid costs are well known. Many Americans would probably say it is money
well spent to support a beleagured democracy of some strategic interest. But Stauffer
wonders if Americans are aware of the full bill for supporting Israel since some costs, if
not hidden, are little known.
One huge cost is not secret. It is the higher cost of oil and other economic damage to
the US after Israel-Arab wars.
In 1973, for instance, Arab nations attacked Israel in an attempt to win back
territories Israel had conquered in the 1967 war. President Nixon resupplied Israel with
US arms, triggering the Arab oil embargo against the US.
That shortfall in oil deliveries kicked off a deep recession. The US lost $420 billion
(in 2001 dollars) of output as a result, Stauffer calculates. And a boost in oil prices
cost another $450 billion.
Afraid that Arab nations might use their oil clout again, the US set up a Strategic
Petroleum Reserve. That has since cost, conservatively, $134 billion, Stauffer reckons.
Other US help includes:
• US Jewish charities and organizations have remitted grants or bought Israel
bonds worth $50 billion to $60 billion. Though private in origin, the money is "a net
drain" on the United States economy, says Stauffer.
• The US has already guaranteed $10 billion in commercial loans to Israel, and
$600 million in "housing loans." (See editor's note below.) Stauffer expects the
US Treasury to cover these.
• The US has given $2.5 billion to support Israel's Lavi fighter and Arrow missile
projects.
• Israel buys discounted, serviceable "excess" US military equipment.
Stauffer says these discounts amount to "several billion dollars" over recent
years.
• Israel uses roughly 40 percent of its $1.8 billion per year in military aid,
ostensibly earmarked for purchase of US weapons, to buy Israeli-made hardware. It also has
won the right to require the Defense Department or US defense contractors to buy
Israeli-made equipment or subsystems, paying 50 to 60 cents on every defense dollar the US
gives to Israel.
US help, financial and technical, has enabled Israel to become a major weapons
supplier. Weapons make up almost half of Israel's manufactured exports. US defense
contractors often resent the buy-Israel requirements and the extra competition subsidized
by US taxpayers.
• US policy and trade sanctions reduce US exports to the Middle East about $5
billion a year, costing 70,000 or so American jobs, Stauffer estimates. Not requiring
Israel to use its US aid to buy American goods, as is usual in foreign aid, costs another
125,000 jobs.
• Israel has blocked some major US arms sales, such as F-15 fighter aircraft to
Saudi Arabia in the mid-1980s. That cost $40 billion over 10 years, says Stauffer.
Stauffer's list will be controversial. He's been assisted in this research by a number
of mostly retired military or diplomatic officials who do not go public for fear of being
labeled anti-Semitic if they criticize America's policies toward Israel.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly reported the amount of
housing loans guaranteed by the US.
See also: Editor's note
regarding objectivity in this column. |
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Israel Has Never
Repaid A US Loan
From RePorterNoteBook@aol.com
11-27-2
- An AP story has just come out on aid to Israel, and along with several
other problems, it contains a sentence that we should all call our newspapers to correct.
I have just called AP itself, and asked them to correct the story. In case they don't,
please call your local newspapers and ask them to give more accurate information, as
follows:
- In its current report, AP says that Israel has never defaulted on a
loan. The real fact is that ISRAEL HAS NEVER REPAID A LOAN. THE MONEY NEVER RETURNS TO THE
US TREASURY.
- I gave AP the following reference: an excellent article by longtime
journalist and executive editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Richard
Curtiss:
- "...friends of Israel never tire of saying that Israel has never
defaulted on repayment of a U.S. government loan. It would be equally accurate to say
Israel has never been required to repay a U.S. government loan. The truth of the matter is
complex, and designed to be so by those who seek to conceal it from the U.S. taxpayer.
- Most U.S. loans to Israel are forgiven, and many were made with the
explicit understanding that they would be forgiven before Israel was required to repay
them. By disguising as loans what in fact were grants, cooperating members of Congress
exempted Israel from the U.S. oversight that would have accompanied grants. On other
loans, Israel was expected to pay the interest and eventually to begin repaying the
principal. But the so-called Cranston Amendment, which has been attached by Congress to
every foreign aid appropriation since 1983, provides that economic aid to Israel will
never dip below the amount Israel is required to pay on its outstanding loans. In short,
whether U.S. aid is extended as grants or loans to Israel, it never returns to the
Treasury."
- http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/1297/9712043.html
- If the newspapers say that the AP contention that Israel "never
defaulted on a loan" is not incorrect, you might want to mention John Stuart Mill's
observation that the greater evil is not the violent conflict of parts of the truth,
"but the quiet suppression of half of it."
- The AP article can be viewed at:
- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=536&nc
- The Israeli Holocaust Against the Palestinians by Michael Hoffman and
Prof.Moshe Lieberman 6 x 9 paperback. 110 pages. A MUST READ!!
- For book send $20.00 donation to: RePortersNoteBook.com
253 west 72nd st #1711 New York, NY 10023 212-787-7891
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$10 Billion Yearly to Israel
By James P. Tucker Jr.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/10_22_01/_10_Billion_Yearly_to_Israel/_10_billion_yearly_to_israel.html
You read about Israel receiving $3.5 billion
in foreign aid each year from the United States but there is much more-hidden in the
budget.
American taxpayers give Israel at least $10 billion each year, nearly three times the
publicly acknowledged $3.5 billion.
The precise amount cannot be determined; the funds are hidden in different programs in
different federal agencies.
Hidden subsidies "are frequently listed under innocuous budget titles" in a
"budgetary sleight of hand," said a report by William D. Hartung of the World
Policy Institute.
Congress routinely approves about $3 billion in foreign aid to Israel.
Next year's Foreign Operations FY 2002 Appropriations legislation (H.R. 2506), which
passed the House, 381-46, on July 24 and the Senate, 50 to 46, on Oct. 15, publicly
details a portion of the economic and military assistance-called "grants"-slated
to be given Israel.
In the section of the appropriations bill, titled "Foreign Military Financing,"
Congress provides:
. . . Not less than $2,040,000,000 shall be available for grants only for Israel, and not
less than $1,300,000,000 shall be made available for grants only for Egypt: Provided
further, That the funds appropriated by this paragraph for Israel shall be disbursed
within 30 days of the enactment of this Act or by October 31, 2001, whichever is later:
Provided further, That to the extent that the Government of Israel requests that funds be
used for such purposes, grants made available for Israel by this paragraph shall, as
agreed by Israel and the United States, be available for advanced weapons systems, of
which not less than $535,000,000 shall be available for the procurement in Israel of
defense articles and defense services, including research and development . . .
The money is placed into bank accounts, which Israel can draw upon to purchase equipment.
Meanwhile, bankers garner huge profits from interest on the "grant money" at the
expense of U.S. taxpayers.
However, another $2.5 billion "loan" is often made so Israel can purchase
additional arms from American companies. This "loan" is quietly forgiven in an
amendment to an obscure piece of legislation each year.
"Forgiveness" legislation is a popular foreign policy weapon.
The other giveaways are carefully hidden from the public and many of the legislators who
vote for the $15.6 billion foreign aid package and other legislation that transfers tax
dollars to Israel.
Many more billions are given away by selling "surplus" modern military
technology at steep discounts. Some such "surpluses" are discounted by 85
percent of market value.
A 1996 report by the Arms Sales Monitoring Project of the Federation of American
Scientists found that the United States gave away or sold at a steep discount weaponry
that cost taxpayers $8.7 billion.
So taxpayers paid twice: once for the forgone proceeds from the sale of still-useful
weaponry to foreign nations and again for the cost of replacement items.
Another conduit of American tax dollars to Israel is the "economic support
funds" administered by the Agency for International Development. It is funded by the
"international affairs" budget. In fiscal year 1999, Israel received $1 billion
from this source, which is typical. Next year Israel will receive $750 million.
HOW 'BOUT AMERICA?
Another means of secret funds for Israel was reported by David P. Yohanna of Chicago
in March, 1993. He wrote in the Chicago Tribune:
"The true total aid to Israel in 1993 is as follows: on budget, $3 billion;
off-budget, $1.2 billion; interest paid by U.S. on above, $50 million; U.S. loan
guarantees to Israel, $2 billion; compound interest on previous grants (1951-1992), $5
billion.
"Total 1993 grants, interest, loan guarantees and compound interest: $11.3
billion," Yohanna wrote.
This accounting does not take into consideration Israeli bonds that are widely sold, not
only to supporters but to unsuspecting taxpayers in every state.
American Free Press has no detailed studies but it appears that 40 years ago most states
outlawed state purchases of securities from outside the country. But apparently such laws
were repealed or are being ignored in all 50 states, benefiting Israel by even more
billions.
But much of the disguised funds for Israel come from "petty cash" operations
that go undetected. For example, during fiscal year 1997, the Pentagon gave Israel $68
million worth of weaponry under something it calls the "excess defense articles
program."
Obviously, $10 billion a year, if spent at home instead of going to fuel Israel's war
machine, could benefit Americans handsomely. Two examples:
o Only a fraction of the $10 billion could offset the $300 million in annual
"savings" the administration wants to accomplish by reducing much-needed
benefits given to disabled veterans and families of those killed in war by 10 percent.
o A modern transportation system, with fast, on-time trains, efficient airline service and
unclogged highways could quickly emerge if funded by $10 billion a year.
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