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Daily Fact & Act #04
Monday, 23 September 1991*
From Harlem
LMNOP - Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace
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*This is 1991, right? Recession, war on Iraq, lower markets, low employment, low job creation, weak dollar, a "president" who is out of touch-- "It's the economy stupid" --with the people, lies and rumors being touted by politicians and the press as truth, government actions causing mass protests in the streets.
Analysis
1). "Most Americans are not aware how much of their tax revenue our government sends to Israel. For the fiscal year ending in September 30, 1997, the U.S. has given Israel $6.72 billion: $6.194 billion falls under Israel's foreign aid allotment and $526 million comes from agencies such as the Department of Commerce, the U.S. Information Agency and the Pentagon. The $6.72 billion figure does not include loan guarantees and annual compound interest totalling $3.122 billion the U.S. pays on money borrowed to give to Israel. It does not include the cost to U.S. taxpayers of IRS tax exemptions that donors can claim when they donate money to Israeli charities. (Donors claim approximately $1 billion in Federal tax deductions annually. This ultimately costs other U.S. tax payers $280 million to $390 million.)
When grant, loans, interest and tax deductions are added together for the fiscal year ending in September 30, 1997, our special relationship with Israel cost U.S. taxpayers over $10 billion.
Since 1949 the U.S. has given Israel a total of $83.205 billion. The interest costs borne by U.S. tax payers on behalf of Israel are $49.937 billion, thus making the total amount of aid given to Israel since 1949 $133.132 billion. This may mean that U.S. government has given more federal aid to the average Israeli citizen in a given year than it has given to the average American citizen...
An increasing number of Israelis are pointing out" that these funds are not in Israel's best interest. Quoting Peled, Zunes said, 'this aid pushes Israel 'toward a posture of callous intransigence' in terms of the peace process." Moreover, for every dollar the U.S. sends in arms aid, Israel must spend two to three dollars to train people to use the weaponry, to buy parts, and in other ways make use of the aid. Even "main-stream Israeli economists are saying [it] is very harmful to the country's future.'"
U.S. Aid to Israel: What U.S. Taxpayer Should Know
2). "Probably the only members of Congress who even suspect the full total of U.S. funds received by Israel each year are the privileged few committee members who actually mark it up. And almost all members of the concerned committees are Jewish, have taken huge campaign donations orchestrated by Israel's Washington, DC lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), or both. These congressional committee members are paid to act, not talk. So they do and they don't.
The same applies to the president, the secretary of state, and the foreign aid administrator. They all submit a budget that includes aid for Israel, which Congress approves, or increases, but never cuts. But no one in the executive branch mentions that of the few remaining U.S. aid recipients worldwide, all of the others are developing nations which either make their military bases available to the U.S., are key members of international alliances in which the U.S. participates, or have suffered some crippling blow of nature to their abilities to feed their people such as earthquakes, floods or droughts.
Israel, whose troubles arise solely from its unwillingness to give back land it seized in the 1967 war in return for peace with its neighbors, does not fit those criteria. In fact, Israel's 1995 per capita gross domestic product was $15,800. That put it below Britain at $19,500 and Italy at $18,700 and just above Ireland at $15,400 and Spain at $14,300.
All four of those European countries have contributed a very large share of immigrants to the U.S., yet none has organized an ethnic group to lobby for U.S. foreign aid. Instead, all four send funds and volunteers to do economic development and emergency relief work in other less fortunate parts of the world."
The Cost of Israel to U.S. Taxpayers: True Lies About U.S. Aid to Israel
3) "Although Israel is an 'advanced, industrialized, technologically sophisticated country,' it 'receives more U.S. aid per capita annually than the total annual [Gross Domestic Product] per capita of several Arab states.' Approximately a third of the entire U.S. foreign aid budget goes to Israel, 'even though Israel comprises just . . . one-thousandth of the world's total population, and already has one of the world's higher per capita incomes.'
U.S. government officials argue that this money is necessary for "moral" reasons-some even say that Israel is a "democracy battling for its very survival." If that were the real reason, however, aid should have been highest during Israel's early years, and would have declined as Israel grew stronger. Yet "the pattern . . . has been just the opposite." According to Zunes, '99 percent of all U.S. aid to Israel took place after the June 1967 war, when Israel found itself more powerful than any combination of Arab armies...'"
U.S. Aid to Israel: Interpreting the 'Strategic Relationship'
Action
1). On July 22, Israeli forces bombed an apartment building in a crowded residential neighborhood in Gaza City. The attack, in which a US-build and US-financed F-16 fighter jet dropped a one-ton bomb, was ostensibly aimed at killing a Hamas leader, but the bombing killed at least 17 Palestinians, most of whom were less than 11 years old, and wounded more than 150. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the strike "a great success."
President Bush only called the attack "heavy-handed." But even White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer admitted that it was "a deliberate attack against a building in which civilians were known to be located" and that it was done with the knowledge "that innocents would be lost.
This is tantamount to an admission that the attack violated the U.S. Arms Export Control Act [U.S. Public Law 90-829], which prohibits the use of U.S. weapons against civilian targets.
1). Urge Government Accounting Office (GAO) Investigation of Israeli Violation of Arms Export Control Act
2). Endorse A Petition for International Investigation Committee on Ariel Sharon's crimes against humanity petition to Mrs. Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Currently there are over 903,340(20 Sep 02).
Fact
Benefits to Israel of U.S. Aid Since 1949 (As of November 1, 1997)
Foreign Aid Grants and Loans
$74,157,600,000
Other U.S. Aid (12.2% of Foreign Aid)
$9,047,227,200
Interest to Israel from Advanced Payments
$1,650,000,000
Grand Total
$84,854,827,200
Total Benefits per Israeli
$14,630 Cost to U.S. Taxpayers of U.S.
Aid to Israel
Grand Total
$84,854,827,200
Interest Costs Borne by U.S.
$49,936,680,000
Total Cost to U.S. Taxpayers
$134,791,507,200
Total Cost per Israeli
$23,240
IF instead of spending $134 billion dollars on aid to Israel - $23,000 per Israeli - we had, say, used the money for reparations to black Americans, it would have come to $3884 per African-American.
http://www.wrmea.com/html/us_aid_to_israel.htm
Sources
The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue & Democracy
Washington Report on Middle Easten Affairs
MADRE - An International Women's Human Rights Organization Demanding Human Rights for Women and Families
Stop American Billions for Israeli Bombs
SUSTAIN: Stop US Tax-Funded Aid To Israel Now
(With more news on the Caterpillar Corporation we reported on in Daily Fact & Act #02)
Books
Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got to Be So Hated
Gore Vidal, 11/2001
All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948
Walid Khalidi (Editor) Muhammad A. Khalidi (Editor), 6/1992
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