See? We give them money so theyll take the heat away from us. Of course back before the 1st gulf war. Our support of israel was their main beef with us.
There are three good reasons Israel is given military aid:
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To help it defend itself. Israel spends almost 3 times as much on defense as does the U.S., in terms of percentage of GDP. That’s a very hard number to sustain by itself - that would be like the U.S. spending 1.5 trillion a year on defense.
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Because Israel is an ally being threatened. You might as well ask why you gave aid to Britain under the lend-lease program. Immediately before WWII, the U.S. gave Britain 31 billion dollars in aid (the equivalent of approximately $400 billion today). Helping allies is why they’re, you know, allies.
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For leverage over Israel. If the U.S. stopped giving aid to Israel, the only way it could possibly influence Israeli policy is if it threatened to oppose Israel and give aid and support to Israel’s enemies. And we aren’t going to do that. The U.S. uses its leverage over Israel all the time. For example, the U.S. pressured Israel to avoid retaliating against Saddam when he fired scuds at them in 1991. If the U.S. can get Israel sucking at Uncle Sam’s teat, it can say, “Israel, if you launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear forces, you can plan to figure out how to raise that $29 billion on your own, 'cause you aren’t getting it from us anymore.”
The lend-lease program before WWII is what made the U.S. ‘the arsenal of Democracy’, and was a big part of the U.S.'s stature and political clout during and after WWII.
And BTW, 90% of lend-lease money came back to American defense manufacturers. But this only makes sense - what they’re doing is basically giving aid in the forms of tanks and planes. Only they’re giving them the money to buy them, rather than pay the arms manufacturers directly and ship only weapons to Israel. There’s really no difference.
I can imagine Israel calling that bluff, though. “Okay, we’ll raise the $29 billion by helping to modernize and train the military of… oh, let’s see… China?”
I’m sure the relationship is at times a strained and rocky one, with lots of unspoken understandings but it more-or-less mostly works more-or-less most of the time. Israel’s certainly a more reliable ally than anyone else in the region; just don’t try to push them around.
Inflation.
We didn’t start lend-lease because Britain was being threatened though, we started it because Britain was actively at war and was unable to produce adequate weapons for its own defense.
Israel on the other hand, while a few arab states still grumble about its existence, is far less threatened now then it has been in the past. And while it may still come under terrorist attack, those attacks aren’t from neighboring states but guerilla groups that aren’t likely to be fought off by the latest and greatest weapon systems, another couple tanks and planes aren’t going to do anything to keep Palestinian bombers from blowing up Sbarros.
As I drive over potholed roads, crossing structurally unsound bridges, I’ll remember to be grateful that we’ve chosen to ship anoth $30 billion to the ME!
I want to keep emphasizing just how large a sum we’re talking about here. $30 billion averages out to $600 million from each US state.
How much could your state do to improve its infrastructure with $600 million?
Wisconsin, to use but one example, estimates that its bridges need $2 billion worth of repairs, but the state is struggling to find the money. $600 million would sure put a big dent in that expense.
Israel, just so we have some sense of scale, is comparable to the state of Massachusetts in size and population. Israel will be getting a subsidy of $3 billion per year from us, for ten years.
Israel, by the way, has universal health care. Isn’t that nice for them?
I’m confused. Are you suggesting that mention of AIPAC should be taboo?
That makes no sense at all. AIPAC is a powerful organization that lobbies the US government on behalf of Israel. It advertises itself as “America’s Pro-Israel Lobby,” and the front page of its website is crowing today about the $30 billion aid package.
Of course AIPAC is relevant to this discussion.
No, it doesn’t.
Israel has a GDP of $170.3 billion and a defense budget of $11.9 billion. So defense is 7% of its GDP.
Total US defense spending, by the time you add in extra-budgetary expenditures such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and nuclear weapons expenditures (which are budgeted through the Department of Energy) is between 5% and 5.5% of its GDP. Cite.
According to this site, Israel spends $1429.03 per person on the military, while the US spends $935.64 per person on the military.
When it comes to large numbers, out of sight = out of mind. If you’re a dad with a wife and 3 kids, and someone comes up to you asking for $500 so they can give it to Israel, you’d probably punch them in the face.
According to this site, Iraq is costing each US citizen $1500. So that’s a subsidy of $16,363 for every resident of Iraq. In other words, we could give EVERY Iraqi the best prize anyone has won on Set for Life and still have spent less money. (and lost far fewer lives)
“We”? Did you emigrate from Canada to the US while we weren’t looking, Sam?
Not that you wouldn’t be very welcome, of course. But I thought you were still firmly established up there in the True North.
Anyway, back to the point: I don’t think anyone here disagrees with the proposition that monetary aid provides useful leverage over the policies of allies. The question seems to be, does that leverage have to cost us as much as $30 billion? Would we really lose all useful influence over Israel if we paid them somewhat less? I can see how it’s in Israel’s interest to put as high a price as possible on their willingness to cooperate with us (as far as it goes), but isn’t it in our interest to try to haggle that price down a bit? Is the influence we’re buying really worth a price tag of this magnitude?
Yep. And in a 2007 federal budget that involves spending something like 2.8 trillion dollars, you could sure single out any number of items that would be considered (by some, anyway) less deserving of funding than fixing Wisconsin’s bridges.
is one of numerous recipients of U.S. foreign aid. I’m sure you could find a big chunk of the 20+ billion we are spending annually on foreign aid in less critical regions of the world to slash to pay for U.S. instrastructure costs, but for some reason only U.S. military aid to Israel really concerns you in this regard.
Why, of course not. Neither should it be taboo to point out that it is a cheap and threadbare device to single out Evul Lobbies to drum up resentment against a particular policy, rather than sticking to ideas.
This tactic is used against other targets, including the elderly and gun owners (i.e. Evul N.R.A. and Evul AARP), by those who are frustrated that their positions lack traction with the American public, and who therefore seek to demonize rather than debate. It is perfectly legitimate to point that out without your screeching about “poisoning the well”.
A bit of irony there, don’t you think?
Um, if you’re objecting to mention of the American pro-Israel lobby, why is spoke- the one you’re picking on about it? It was John Mace back in post #5 who first brought the topic up, with what seemed to me like a perfectly rational and non-resentful statement:
I don’t see how acknowledging such basic facts in any way detracts or distracts from the discussion of “ideas”. Surely you agree that part of the reason the US gives so much aid to Israel is in fact because of the advocacy of the pro-Israel lobby? I mean, if the statement is a valid one, I don’t see why it should automatically be “cheap and threadbare” merely to mention it.
“The gov’t pays for lots of other wortheless things too” isn’t really an answer to the OP’s question of why we pay so much in aid to Israel. Presumably we could justify any expenditure in the US budget by pointing to something else equally as worthless that also gets funding. Must any OP that questions any US gov’t spending then have to mention all items in the US budget that they view as equal wastes of money?
Israel is the largest recipient though (not counting Iraq ). And if you think that we’re also wasting money sending cash to a particular other region of the world, you should start a thread and make your argument.
As I already pointed out, the OP also questioned aid going to other arab countries (one of which, Egypt, is the second largest recipient of US aid).
I caught that too. But when I wrote it, I was sitting in a hotel room in the eastern U.S. I was in the states all last week on a business trip. But I could have written the same thing sitting here. When I say ‘we’ in those circumstances, it’s usually because I think of the SDMB community and ‘we’ just comes naturally.
By the way, you guys have to cut down on your food portion sizes! I never managed to finish a restaraunt meal the entire time I was there.
You think the SDMB community won’t use the threat of aiding Israels enemies as a lever to influence their foreign policy? That’s probably a good bet, if only because there’s a limited number of fighter jets we could offer to buy Saudi Arabia with our combined14.00$ membership fees.
Well, they’re more a hybrid form of government: part democracy/part army. Truly, most of Israel’s military actions were dictated to the government by the military. That would be like General Petraeus giving orders to Bush I mean Cheney.
And on those occasions when Israel did conquer land, they evicted the inhabitants rather than emancipate them. Unless “emancipate” means to “strongly encourage to live elsewhere, like perhaps a refugee camp.”
American Jews … that is the only reason I can see, Republicans want the Kosher vote.
As for a ‘stable democracy in the Middle East’ reasoning, isn’t that what a Carrier Battle Group is supposed to be.
Pish, aid to Israel was started by a Dem prez and has continued regardless of what party held the presidency or congress in the intervening period.
And American Jews voted4 to 1 for Dems in the last election, so it’s not like their a huge Repub interest group.
As noted before your numbers are off. Israel’s military expenditure is high as % of GDP, but it’s no higher than what the U.S. was spending during the cold war. It’s definitely sustainable. Either way, this doesn’t explain why Americans and not Israelis should be paying for it.
We had a strategic interest in keeping Britain and France free. On the other hand, we have little strategic interest in keeping Israel Israeli. Putting aside humanitarian considerations for a moment, if Israel were annexed by Egypt or Jordan tomorrow nothing would really change. Israel isn’t in our top 15 trading partners (cite), we have no military bases there, they provide us with no natural resources, and they do not control any strategically important land.
I don’t think we have any real influence over Israel to be honest. If Israel thinks something is in their best interest they are going to do it despite what the UN or US thinks. For a recent example, look at their use of cluster bombs in Lebanon in violation of an explicit agreement with the U.S.