US to sign Israeli arms Package

US to sign Israeli arms Package

news.bbc.co.uk

US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns is set to sign a deal that will provide Israel with $30bn (£14.8bn) of military aid over the next 10 years.

(visit the link for the full news article)

$30bn is an awful lot of money. Is it better spent on underpriveledged Americans, bolstering the levies in New Orleans and tackling the drugs & illegal immigrant situations?

Or is this just a case of "jobs for the boys" as approx 64% of it must be spent within the US arms industry

And just what is America's national obsession with propping up Israel? Why is this even needed?

news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

$30 billion over 10 years really isn't that much to the U.S. government.

I do agree that it's weird that we still feel the need to give so much aid to Israel though. The modern State of Israel is like 60 years old now, you'd think they'd be able to afford their own defense by now.

Originally posted by djohnsto77
$30 billion over 10 years really isn't that much to the U.S. government.

Given the current value of the dollar on the world market, and the state of the US economy, its worth a whole lot more right now, surely?

I do agree that it's weird that we still feel the need to give so much aid to Israel though. The modern State of Israel is like 60 years old now, you'd think they'd be able to afford their own defense by now.

I agree. Its not like they are helpless is it? They managed to build their own nukes - allegedly - so why do they need the US to give them $30billion? Are they incapable of looking after themselves?

[edit on 16/0807/07 by neformore]

I agree, I think they can probably afford it them selves.
And three billion a year is a heck of a lot of money no matter how you look at it. Just ask the families that pay the taxes.

so thats 40 billion in weapons to the Arabs

and now 30Billion dollors to the Israelis (but in reality its a sneaky way of getting the money to the arms infustry in the US, Goverment gives Israel US tax money, Israel in kind return the money and get the weapons. why not just give them the toys?

and with Israels econemy cant they afford their own stuff or are they use to handouts?

edit:

i wish i had investments in Boeing and other weapons and so on companies
their stock must be increasing at the sound of this news

I have no doubt the stock price is jumping as we speak. The defence aid will usually come in the form of weapons. The single source linked did not menchen that but it will be interesting to see what they get with the U.S. tax dollars.

Hell it was just released recently that the USA is spending 12 Billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan! I keep wondering where all of this money is coming from???

I fully support the USA assisting Israel in the Middle East. Many here obviously think a lot different but we are all allowed to have our opinions..... Well unless you live in one of those nice Shia communities surrounding Israel. Oh and if you are a woman in one of those communities just forget about ever having an opinion.

One of the reasons I support the country in the M.E. that allows personal freedoms.

I keep wondering where all of this money is coming from???

Your pocket.

If people feel so fired up to support the Israeli colony, they should sign their own checks.
Personally I don't want to see a penny of my tax dollars going to support them.

Gee - I wonder how much money did Iraq pay for their weapons, which they never ever receive? But Israel is another story - they always get what they payed for. Who give a f*ck about Iraq - missing weapons, rifles, money, everything. Must not let Isreal down. Naaaah-haaaa! That is how business works today kids. Plain and simple.

Hey guys, i'm from israel and ill try to explaing things the way i see it (and probably a lot of us here)

Avcourse, israel has their own advanced capabilities, we got nukes (supposedly :@@ that we developed ourself's, were developing verry sufisticated weapons around here, thats true we can take cerr of our selfs, however their is a lot of things you dont know about the money issues here, everyone wants more money to their paychecks every damn day, (like everywhere is assume) theirs a lot of strikes couse this individual and that individual dosent get paid enogh, the reality is that its true no one gets paid verry well here and thats becouse an enourmose amount of money gose directly to national security fundings,why? check the latest threats from iran, check the latest syrian army movment's un the golan,check the latest announces made by hizzbullah, well the truith is simple, their is going to b a major war here with one of those countries soon, and damn right i think we need a bit of help to stand a chance with this huge countries,and the way i see it? its a personal intrest of the US that israel will stay on the map for a lot of reasons...

What ya think?

P.S sorry for the bad english

[edit on 18-8-2007 by A-s-o-t]

I think we keep sending arms and money to israel because no politician here wants to be the one to say no.He who does would be the target of the israeli lobbiests And mitary contracting groups.Its gone on so long its like a tradition now instead of a well thought out policy.I too feel its about time israel start supporting their own armed forces.Maybe having to actually support their own war efforts may cut down their more adventurist campaigns.

Originally posted by Xfile
I think we keep sending arms and money to israel because no politician here wants to be the one to say no.He who does would be the target of the israeli lobbiests And mitary contracting groups.Its gone on so long its like a tradition now instead of a well thought out policy.I too feel its about time israel start supporting their own armed forces.Maybe having to actually support their own war efforts may cut down their more adventurist campaigns.

We send aid to Israel because they are one of our biggest allies in a region where we need an ally that we can trust exclusively.

Just because there are a few people on this site that try to spread their anti- semitism around, to infect all, they assume all americans feel should feel the same way. Well you are wrong!

These people love the fact that we still send aid to Russia and never say a word about it. All you anti semites are, are a bunch of bigots!

Israel is an economically, technologically, and militarily advanced country, with a per capita rate of $14,000, which is higher that that of all neighboring Arab countries, including the oil-rich Saudi Arabia. It is ranked as the world's sixteenth wealthiest country, yet the US aid to Israel constitutes 30% of the total US foreign aid budget
Israeli population is 5.8 million, which only constitutes one thousandth of the world's total population. Between the years 1949 and 1998, the US has provided a total of $84 billion in aid to Israel, which exceeds that given to all countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined, with a total population of about 1.054 billion people.

The Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of the United States, which provides guidelines for the eligibility of certain countries to purchase US-made weapons and military equipment, states in section 116 that "No assistance may be provided under this part to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." However, Israeli army engages daily in degrading and inhumane treatments towards Palestinians, such as prolonged detention without charges, strip searches at checkpoints, beatings, torture, and home demolitions. According to Amnesty International, Israel is the only country that legalizes torture.

Similarly, section 4 of the Arms Export control Act prevents the US government from selling defense articles to countries that abuse their use for non-self-defense purposes. In 2001, the US State Department described the actions of Israeli army against Palestinians as an "excessive use of force," referring to the use of live ammunition when soldiers were not in a pending danger. This clearly shows that the US does not agree with the way these weapons are being used against Palestinians, yet the US military aid to Israel continues consistently as agreed between both countries.

howcome nobody is saying anything about this? 3 billion in aid to an entire country with the population of the Dallas-fortworth area?

Since the establishment of the State of Israel, Israeli scientists have made important contributions in genetics, computer sciences, electronics, optics, engineering and other high-tech industries. Israeli science is well known for its military technology, as well as innovations in the sphere of agriculture, physics, and medicine.

Four Israelis have won Nobel Prizes in the sciences

High-tech industries have become central to Israel's economy, particularly over the last decade. With Israel's limited natural resources and emphasis on education, large numbers of young people are joining the high-tech work force. As a result of the country’s success in developing cutting edge technologies in software, communications and the life sciences, Israel is frequently referred to as a second Silicon Valley. As of 2004, Israel receives more venture capital investment than any country in Europe,and has the largest VC/GDP rate in the world, seven times that of the United States. Israel has the largest number of startup companies in the world after the United States. Outside the United States and Canada, Israel has the largest number of NASDAQ-listed companies.Israel also has one of the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita.

Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation: 109 per 10,000 people. It also boasts one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.
Israel is ranked third in research and development (R&D) spending; eighth in technological readiness

does this this sound like the kind of country that needs 3 billion in aid?

also somone mentioned our aid to russia, well according to this
www.vaughns-1-pagers.com...
in 2006 russia got $52,000,000 the same year israel recieved $2,520,000,000

So anyone who opposes sending billions of their tax money to Israel does so because they're anti-semites?

BS

I like Jewish people just fine, but the state of Israel is our biggest strategic liability, and hardly a reliable ally. It's an aggressive, invasive colony carved out of other people's land, and those people are now (very angry & impoverished) refugees.

My opposition to our aid to Israel has nothing to do with any animosity to Jews, I've probably been to more synagogues than churches in my life

[edit on 8/18/07 by xmotex]

xmotex: good post

Everyone always says they are a strategic friend, i fail to understand how there is a mutual benefit to being allies with israel. This friendship has brough us nothing but trouble. Also, i think Israel is at the point where they can be removed from the proverbial tit, they have enough weapons to completely dominate the entire middle east, and the intelligence to be self sufficient, they no longer need the handouts from us. Its like bill gates applying for foodstamps, it retarded. im not anti-israel, but there comes a time to kick the baby birds out of the nest, ya know?
Its a classic ploy to label anyone who questions our policies about israel as a anti-semite, jew hater, nazi, etc. this is exactly the reason why our aid continues and exactly the reason why we are missing 2 towers in new york.
furthermore, before i end my little rant, if it was in americas interest to keep the playing field lopsided in israel's favor why would we be sending arms to other mideast countries, where they could potentially fall into the hands of extremists? anybody remember iraq in the 80's, or the taliban?

high-5 for guaranteeing our future wars...

Originally posted by BugZyZuncle
Just because there are a few people on this site that try to spread their anti- semitism around, to infect all, they assume all americans feel should feel the same way. Well you are wrong!

These people love the fact that we still send aid to Russia and never say a word about it. All you anti semites are, are a bunch of bigots!

Please show me how, by asking the question I posed after the original article, I - or any other person in this thread - is being anti-semitic.

To turbokid

The Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of the United States, which provides guidelines for the eligibility of certain countries to purchase US-made weapons and military equipment, states in section 116 that "No assistance may be provided under this part to the government of any country which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." However, Israeli army engages daily in degrading and inhumane treatments towards Palestinians, such as prolonged detention without charges, strip searches at checkpoints, beatings, torture, and home demolitions. According to Amnesty International, Israel is the only country that legalizes torture.

M8,as a 3 years soldier in the israeli army their is some things that people outside of our nation just dont see and only seeing what your media wants you to see, you talked about inhuman rights...

dose your media points the exact individuals that having this "inhuman rights"?? NO all they show you is the peoples suffering from this but TOTALY saying these are random citizens or somekind of a frustration that an israeli soldier takes out on the first arab he sees, witch is total BS!!!

those individuals that going throgh this thing are terrosrists/terrorist related....and please do the math yourself before boycoting israel like this ok?! israel is practicaly surrounded by peoples hwo's soul ourpose is to whipe out israel off the map! and thats a quote!

We have a dosen threat warnings every damn day about a palestinian preparing to do this and that, or a group of extremists are planing to strike a base,and i'm talking dosens of these warnings, i hand those warnings to the field commander my self m8!!

I would really like to see you handling this kind of stress in roadblocks full of palestinians knowing that one of them is about to take out a grenade from his bag and take out soldiers...stripsearches? hell yeah!! we got an information on someone hwo is about to act then yes we gather the ones that fits the description and stripsearch the hell out of him,why?? couse if one soldiers life depends on reaveling this grenade in someones underware then yes it WILL b done, no matter what agencys thinks, so dont get the missleading that we stripsearching them for some sick ass purpose, hell one time we got an idiot hwo hide a bomb belt strraped to his lower body (naked), we had to stripp him on to this level!!
do you check what your army is doing in iraq?? the same damn thing m8! only here we do not judge them, couse we know what its like!

you cant imaging the stress of living here with these threats! and as far as house demolitions, they are all demolitions of terrorist houses!!!

We do not have something agains them, its just the extremists that worries us, and we will do EVERYTHING in our power to stop the next victim!!

And as for the money aid... Syria, Lebanon,Iran,Palestine...all of them are calling for our inialation,3 of them are major states with awfull amount of power!!! you do the math...these countries are closer then ever to a war with us only for their own sick pleasure of destroing the zionists or what ever the #, yes we do need aid to face those idiots,and why we need aid? not becouse we cant stand against them (we took all 3 of them in the 6 days war alone!! only it was syria egypt and jorden) so why the aid? couse it is a USA interest that israel will dominate the middle east!! and in the end of things? it dose protects the US...

So stop throwing alagations that you dont know from up close and personal like we do here,and see things in prespective.

P.S just for the heads up, i dont have any kind of mean to dissrespect you, so dont b offended or something...

Cheers

Originally posted by neformore
[They managed to build their own nukes - allegedly

- so why do they need the US to give them $30billion? Are they incapable of looking after themselves?

Not quite, neformore.

Israel only managed to build it's nuclear programme due to "generous" help from the UK and France. without technical expertise and supplies of heavy water, nuclear fuel and the like, Israel would not have a nuclear programme.

For all intents and purposes, Israel has never stood on it's own two feet and to be honest, if Military "aid" was stopped today and they had to pay for it themselves, their much vaunted IDF would not be so great.

Their economy is far to small to maintain the defence infrastructure that they have, with a GDP of around $180 Billion dollars, or around £90 billion pounds.

They apparently spend around $11 billion dollars (around £5.5 billion pounds) on defence, but I doubt this figure includes the military "aid" rendered by the US.

This figure amounts to around 6% of their GDP spent in the defence budget, but is still pitiful in cash terms when compared to the likes of the UK, France or the bloated US defence budget.

So, left to their own devices on $11 billion a year, I think we can safely assume that Israel would be terminally weak and would certainly not enjoy the advantage over their Arab rivals.

which brings me to my final point.

With the above taken into account, how can Israel or pro-Israel supporters honestly brag about the "mighty" IDF, when in reality, it is a proxy Army paid for by the American tax-payer.

It's a straw man and if the US or anyone else suddenly stopped the cash flow, no amount of bragging will save them from a glaringly obvious fact. They cannot afford the military they enjoy and they only have one on the whim of the West.

And as far as the point made above about Israel being surrounded by hostile neighbors - well this didn't happen in a vacuum. It's not as if it's just some mindless bigotry that came out of nowhere - this is a reaction to the circumstances of Israel's creation.

When you decide to colonize someone else's home, you can't expect the former inhabitants or their neighbors to be particularly happy about it.