http://www.globalissues.org/article/35/us-and-foreign-aid-assistance

This is an interesting read about aid and such worldwide.


We help Isreal because of the Christian influence in this country. Jesus was a Jew, regardless to the bad Jews who had him crucified, which had to happen for the story to be right anyway.

"Congress has legislated other special provisions regarding aid to Israel. Since the 1980s, ESF and FMF have been provided as all grant cash transfers, not designated for particular projects, transferred as a lump sum in the first month of the fiscal year, instead of in periodic increments. Israel is allowed to spend about one-quarter of the military aid for the procurement in Israel of defense articles and services, including research and development, rather than in the United States. Finally, to help Israel out of its economic slump, the U.S. provided $9 billion in loan guarantees over three years, use of which has since been extended to 2008. As of July 2005, Israel had not used $4.9 billion of the guarantees.

President Obama's Fiscal Year 2010 budget proposes $53.8 billion for appropriated international affairs' programs. From that budget proposes $5.7 billion for foreign military financing, military education, and peacekeeping operations. From $5.7 billion, $2.8 billion, almost 50% is appropriated for Israel. Israel also has available roughly $3 billion of conditional loan guarantees, with additional funds coming available if Israel meets conditions negotiated at the U.S.-Israel Joint Economic Development Group."


Why?

What?
Why is it conditional for a change?

For all of the whiners complaining about gov't expenditures, might you ask yourselves, why are we payrolling Israel?

The loan guarantees have been conditional for a long time. It is nothing new..

No. Most of history the loans were just guaranteed.
No conditions.

You have no idea what you are talking about..

The loan conditions have been negotiated since the 80's. The US tells Israel what they use the money for.

On March 25, 2003, the President sent to Congress a request for a supplemental appropriation that
included $1 billion in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) and $9 billion in loan guarantees
for Israel. One quarter of the FMF will be a cash grant to Israel and three quarters will be
used for purchases in the United States. The Presidents’s request attached conditions to the
loan guarantees: that the funds cannot be used in the occupied territories; that the President
can reduce the total of the loan guarantee by an amount equal to the amount Israel spends on
settlements in the occupied territories; that Israel will pay the subsidy; and that the President
will determine if Israel meets certain budgetary and economic reforms. The $1 billion in
military grants and the $9 billion in loan guarantees were included in P.L. 108-11, the
supplemental appropriations for FY2003".

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/IB85066.pdf

The Presidents request attached conditions pretty much sums it up. That is unless you have an alternate definition of "attached conditions".

Here is another one from 1992.. Same link..

Congress has incorporated the U.S. Administration position in law. Title VI of P.L.
102-391 (H.R. 5368, signed into law October 6, 1992), which authorized $10 billion in loan
guarantees for Israel, stated that the funds may not be used in the occupied territories. P.L.
108-11, the FY2003 supplemental appropriations, included $9 billion in loan guarantees that
cannot be used in the occupied territories.

Dictating what they can use the money for sounds like a condition for loan approval..

I think originally we supported Israel to keep the Soviets out

and by now we've been doing it so long that it's gotten too big to let go of

"President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Sharon established good relations in their March and June 2001 meetings. On October 4, 2001, Sharon accused the Bush Administration of appeasing the Palestinians at Israel's expense in a bid for Arab support for the U. S. anti-terror campaign. The White House said the remark was unacceptable. Rather than apologize for the remark, Sharon said the United States failed to understand him. Also, the United States criticized the Israeli practice of assassinating Palestinians believed to be engaged in terrorism, which appeared to some Israelis to be inconsistent with the U.S. policy of pursuing Osama bin Laden "dead or alive."

In 2003, on the heels of the Second Intifada and a sharp economic downturn in Israel, the U.S. provided Israel with $9 billion in conditional loan guarantees made available through 2011 and negotiated each year at the U.S.-Israel Joint Economic Development Group (JEDG)."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S.-Israeli_relations

Over the years, the United States and Israel have regularly discussed Israel's sale of sensitive security equipment and technology to various countries, especially the People's Republic of China. U.S. administrations believe that such sales are potentially harmful to the security of U.S. forces in Asia.

In 2000, the United States persuaded Israel to cancel the sale of the Phalcon, an advanced, airborne early-warning system, to China. In 2005, the U.S. Department of Defense was angered by Israel's agreement to upgrade Harpy Killer unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that it sold to China in 1999. China tested the weapon over the Taiwan Strait in 2004. The Department suspended technological cooperation with the Israeli Air Force on the future F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft as well as several other cooperative programs, held up shipments of some military equipment, and refused to communicate with Israeli Defense Ministry Director, General Amos Yaron, whom Pentagon officials believe misled them about the Harpy deal. According to a reputable Israeli military journalist, the U.S. Department of Defense demanded details of 60 Israeli deals with China, an examination of Israel's security equipment supervision system, and a memorandum of understanding about arms sales to prevent future difficulties.

The U.S. and Israel share common interests in democracy, freedom of religion, independent judiciary, capitalism, political balance in the middle east and freedom of the press among as chief common interests.
Israel and the U.S. also share deepening ties in virtually every social, cultural and economic area and Iarael is one of our strongest and most capable allies in the struggle against international terrorism.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3581.htm

Nearly every aspect of the U.S. - Israel relationship is discussed in detail with bibliographic references and supporting documentation at the jsource website:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ustoc.html

which is must reading for anyone genuinely interested in understanding Israel and Middle East conflict.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mftoc.html

Why shouldn't america support Israel? they both share a common denominator...they both stole land from the indeginous people. The people in charge in Israel aren't semetic nor hebrew which discounts their claim to the land. As a palestinian i have more right to live there than 89 % of the jews there. kudos to someone other than a muslim or palie for raising this question

Jews are the indigenous people of Israel. They are the earliest documented inhabitants of the region and they have continuously lived there for millenia. Jews are the original Palestinians. Islam is a relatively new development and moral Muslims are welcome neighbors if they don't make violent attacks but rather put down their weapons and live peacefully.

The U.S. after 911 and with the bombing attacks of airlines, subways, schools, hotels and embassies has developed an acute understanding of the terrorist attacks Israeli citizens face everyday. The U.S. understands that Israel has a right to lands won in defensive wars in 1967 and 1973 and why Israel must have security as a top priority. The U.S. understands that lands reliquished or surrendered in these wars was generally not confiscated. The U.S. is capable of making the distinction between legitimate warfare and war crime attacks on civilians (terrorism).

The U.S. and Israel share common interests in democracy, freedom of religion, independent judiciary, capitalism, political balance in the middle east and freedom of the press.

Israel and the U.S. also share deep ties in virtually every social, cultural and economic area. Israel is one of our strongest and most capable allies in the struggle against international terrorism.

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3581.htm

Nearly every aspect of the U.S. - Israel relationship is discussed in detail with bibliographic references and supporting documentation at the jsource website:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/ustoc.html

which is must reading for anyone genuinely interested in understanding Israel and Middle East conflict.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mftoc.html

This, and the Israeli State gives the military-industrial complex here an excuse to wage an eternal war on "terror", which in turn favors the international banking cartel and criminals like Bernanke.

slowhand, you obviously don't know history or have a brainwashed version of it...i forgive you though since you're from America, jews are NOT the indiginous people. The so called jews that came from egypt led by Abraham took the land by force and slaughtered over a million people in the process. Please tell me what the people of Cannon consisted of.

Cannaanites, Philistines

everybody took their land from somebody

the area known as "Judea" was renamed Palestine by the romans in honor of the jews ancient enemy the Philistines after they forcibly removed and relocated the entire jewish population

According to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

"Jewish history began about 4,000 years ago (c. 17th century BCE) with the patriarchs - Abraham, his son Isaac, and grandson Jacob. Documents unearthed in Mesopotamia, dating back to 2000-1500 BCE, corroborate aspects of their nomadic way of life as described in the Bible. The Book of Genesis relates how Abraham was summoned from Ur of the Chaldeans to Canaan to bring about the formation of a people with belief in the One God. When a famine spread through Canaan, Jacob (Israel), his 12 sons, and their families settled in Egypt, where their descendants were reduced to slavery and pressed into forced labor.

After 400 years of bondage, the Israelites were led to freedom by Moses who, according to the biblical narrative, was chosen by God to take his people out of Egypt and back to the Land of Israel promised to their forefathers (c.13th-12th centuries BCE). They wandered for 40 years in the Sinai desert, where they were forged into a nation and received the Torah (Pentateuch), which included the Ten Commandments, and gave form and content to their monotheistic faith.

The exodus from Egypt (c.1300 BCE) left an indelible imprint on the national memory of the Jewish people and became a universal symbol of liberty and freedom. Every year Jews celebrate Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Pentecost) and Succot (Feast of Tabernacles), commemorating events of that time.

During the next two centuries, the Israelites conquered most of the Land of Israel and became farmers and craftsmen; a degree of economic and social consolidation followed. Periods of relative peace alternated with times of war, during which the people rallied behind leaders known as judges, chosen for their political and military skills as well as for their leadership qualities.

The weakness inherent in this tribal organization in face of a threat posed by the Philistines (sea-going people from Asia Minor who settled on the Mediterranean coast) generated the need for a ruler who would unite the tribes and make the position permanent, with succession carried on by inheritance."

http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Facts+About+Israel/History/HISTORY-+Biblical+Times.htm

According to the history of Judea,

Judea lost its independence to the Romans in the 1st century BCE, by becoming first a tributary kingdom, then a province, of the Roman Empire. The Romans had allied themselves to the Maccabees and interfered again in 63 BCE, following the end of the Third Mithridatic War, when general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus stayed behind to make the area secure for Rome. Queen Alexandra Salome had recently died, and a civil war broke out between her sons, Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II. Pompeius restored Hyrcanus but political rule passed to the Herodian family, first as procuratores and later as client kings. In 6 CE, Judea came under direct Roman rule as the province of Iudaea. Eventually, the Jews rose against Roman rule in 66 CE in a revolt that was unsuccessful. Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE and much of the population was killed or enslaved.

The Jews rebelled again 70 years later under the leadership of Simon bar Kokhba and established the last Kingdom of Israel, which lasted three years, before the Romans managed to conquer the province for good, at a high cost in terms of manpower and expense.

After the defeat of Bar Kokhba (132-135 CE) the Roman Emperor Hadrian was determined to wipe out the identity of Israel-Judah-Judea, and renamed it Philistina (after the ancient enemy of the Israelites; the Philistines). Until that time the area had been called "province of Judea" by the Romans. At the same time, he changed the name of the city of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina. The Romans killed many Jews and sold many more into slavery; many Jews departed into the Jewish diaspora, but there was never a complete Jewish abandonment of the area.

"Why are we helping Israel"


No Gentiles running Hollywood!

"Jewish history began about 4,000 years ago (c. 17th century BCE) with the patriarchs"

you expect the jews to speak any truth when it comes to their history?