So much for Israel and its economy

Post Reply New Topic

That is the way it is now, but that is not how it should be.

ruveyn

As a practical question, is that really true? Someone please correct me, but do most of our allies pay for the US presence on foreign soil? Italy, Germany, UK, South Korea, Japan, etc? Is the economic benefit of those bases to the host country reflected in the same numbers?

Given the amount of offsets required under most US government equipment sales, particularly those to the State of Israel, I'd personally suggest that a realistic accounting of those "grants" might put at least some of the material benefit elsewhere.

In fact, I don't think this is actually true at all.

From what I've read, the U.S. 'gives' Israel a small bung to aid U.S. military industry and that is frankly peanuts compared to what it squanders on the Arab world.

It's not a huge sum as I remember rightly - it's tiny. But whatever it is, it should go. The Israelis don't need it - they're a modern, civilised nation and people that are well capable of fending for and handling themselves.

I definitely think that Britain could do to cut off aid to Israel and the Palestinians (the vast majority of UK and EU funding goes to Palestinians). The Palestinian leadership would play hell if they lost their funding because they would actually have to do the job of governing their people properly instead of being the authoritarian, corrupt and repressive wasters that they are.

I've asked Jews I've known why they don't go to Israel. Their answer is simple: America has more opportunity. Israel is crowded, the cost of living is obscene, you can't go to the grocery store without worrying about getting blown up. An interesting fact is that there is more dissent in Israel among Israelis about Israel than there is about Israel among American Jews, and by extension the Gentiles in America who keep getting flogged with "anti-semitism" labels if they raise any questions about how Israel runs its affairs, or why it gets so much aid. At this point the only thing really keeping Israel going is US aid. Israel has several problems: they are overly reliant on the US, they were overly reliant on the "generation of heroes" (those who liberated Israel in 1947 and fought the early wars) to act as a deus ex machina and swoop down to save the country whenever it got into a pickle. Ariel Sharon was the last of them, and when he exited the stage, the country floundered. He had plans to modernize the Israeli govt, so that it could stand on its own, but was stricken down before he could implement them. I'm surprised Israel hasn't suffered from stagflation before now-foreign aid tends to do that to a country, look at South Sudan or parts of Mexico that have a lot of workers in the US sending money home. Israel could've easily structured itself to be 100% independent of foreign aid, as ruveyn suggests, but they got hooked on the teats of US aid and American Jews sending money, and now are suffering.

By any reasonable definition, US Aid of 3 Billion USD, while no small sum of money, is not "the only thing really keeping Israel going". If we go by Wikipedia, the (PPP adjusted) GDP of the State of Israel is 248.7 Billion USD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel

US Aid is a discount on weapons systems, for which you pay the full price for replacement parts. It is how we get rid of dated systems, you can have it, but you cannot resell it.

It is also a testing ground where other people get to lose wars to show the defects in our weapons.

Since deposing a government that 13,250,000 people voted into office a year ago, we just gave four F-14s to Egypt. None of them went to the Democratic Forces.

Aid keeps the production lines running, we live on war industries.

All of our aid supports the State being stronger than the People.

I stand with Ike, upkeep on weapons systems is wheat that will not become bread, schools that will not be built, and wages that will barely cover staying alive. We export poverty and inflation, and Nationalism.

Israel was a community of survivors with very strong bonds, and common goals, we fixed that, now they are political parties, where ours bribes theirs, and theirs bribes ours.

The ability to project power lead to a premptive war, and now some second hand Russian anti aircraft weapons make than obsolete. Not having an air force will be a game changer.

Facts on the ground, they could not take the Beruit Damascus Highway.

They could not take the Bekka Valley. Back when they had air power.

American Aid has never been good for the people of any country.