Our uniquely massive support for Israel has cost trillions of dollars and multitudes of lives. It has diminished our moral standing in the world, lessened our domestic freedoms, and exposed us to unnecessary and growing peril.

The majority of Americans – as well as our diplomatic and military experts – oppose this unique relationship. Yet, the lobby for Israel continues to foment policies that are disastrous for our nation and tragic for the region.

If we are to have Middle East policies that serve the national interest, that represent the highest values of our founders and our citizens, and that work to sustain a nation of honor, decency, security, and prosperity, then it is essential that all Americans become active and informed. Below are the facts:



American taxpayers give Israel over $8 million per day


(See report from Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress):


This to a nation, at its peak, of 7.4 million people – smaller than New Jersey. Israel has received more American money than any other nation on earth. It is more than we give to all the starving countries of Africa put together.

From 1950-53 Israel’s financial influx from the U.S. was one billion dollars; Israel at that time had 1.6 million inhabitants

In the past ten years, American taxpayers have given Israel approximately $200,000 per family of five.

This costs us even more:

US aid to Israel is given in a lump sum at the beginning of the fiscal year.
Since the US is operating at a deficit, this means that we borrow the money, give it to Israel, and then pay interest on it long after it is gone.

Israel, on the other hand, makes interest from it. Congress has mandated that Israel’s aid be immediately deposited to an interest bearing account with the Federal Reserve Bank.


UNEMPLOYED FOR UNEMPLOYMENT CHECKS
Additional financial costs: $3 trillion

About $1.5 billion to Egypt and $843 million to Jordan is dispensed annually under arrangements made to induce these countries’ friendly relations with Israel.
Billions of dollars have been lost to U.S. manufacturers because of the Arab boycott engendered by Israeli actions.
Enormous and continuing costs to U.S. consumers of petroleum, which surged to such heights that it set off a world-wide recession during the Arab oil boycott imposed in reaction to U.S. support of Israel in the 1973 war.
There are a multitude of such costs.

A report by an economist commissioned by the Army War College in 2003 to analyze the situation in full found that the total cost to Americans over Israel’s 60+ years has been $3 trillion.

Americans have a higher unemployment rate than Israel and 10 million families are reportedly sliding into foreclosure; yet Americans continue to give tax money to Israel.


US CASKETS RETURNING FROM IRAQ
On top of this are the costs of the Iraq war: hundreds of thousands of lives & over $3 trillion

The costs of the the Iraq war, which was promoted by Israel partisans, are almost incalculable and are still growing.

The war added trillions of dollars to the federal debt, and this doesn’t include future health care and disability payments for veterans.

Economists report that the global financial crisis was due, at least in part, to the Iraq war.

The same parties are pushing for a similar attack on Iran.

The Lobby for Israel overrules US experts


U.S. policies in the Middle East rarely reflect U.S. interests and values.

Instead, over the objections of a multitude of State Department and Pentagon analysts, they are largely driven by a variety of factors:

1. Special-interest lobbying. Fortune Magazine rates one of the many lobby organizations working on behalf of Israel, AIPAC, as the second most powerful lobby in Washington. Many analysts consider the pro-Israel interest group the most powerful lobby in our nation.


Senator William J. Fulbright aimed to bring a little more knowledge, a little more reason, and a little more compassion into world affairs and thereby increase the chance that nations will learn at last to live in peace and friendship — (wiki)
By the late 1960s Senator William Fulbright found that U.S. aid to Israel was being secretly funneled back to lobbyists in the U.S., who would use it to lobby for still more U.S. money to Israel.

The U.S. justice department and other agencies have often attempted to enforce U.S. laws

2. Israel partisans in the U.S. government and media: The efforts of a growing number of individuals with close ties to Israel (some are neoconservatives, others are neoliberals) who often hold key positions in U.S. administrations, the State Department, Pentagon, and media.

The US Ambassador to Israel stated that all US Middle East policies are predicated on their effect on Israel. This is a highly inappropriate practice and one that is replicated in no other region. US policies should be based on American interests and priorities, not those of a foreign nation.

3. Campaigns by pro-Israel funders to engender Islamophobia: to create fear and hatred of Muslims, a highly diverse population of 1.5 billion people whose faith is one of the three Abrahamic religions and who worship the same God as Christians and Jews.

4. Israeli-centric news reporting by the U.S. media consistently misportrays the current situation and the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

5. Hollywood movies and television shows, which often play a significant role in shaping attitudes and beliefs. These shows, frequently produced by individuals with ties to Israel, depict Arabs and Muslims almost always negatively, Jews and Israelis almost never negatively, and Christians both positively and negatively.

[Interestingly, the oil and weapons industries are not responsible for our relationship with Israel. In fact, at times these industries have lobbied against U.S. support for Israel, which undermines their ability to do business in the region.]


Jonathan Pollard -- Israel granted Pollard citizenship in 1995, while publicly denying, until 1998, that he was an Israeli spy. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has voiced particularly strong support for Pollard, visiting the convicted spy in prison in 2002.
Israel promotes its own interests, which is the right of any nation.
However, this is done at the expense of Americans who fund it.


There is considerable evidence that Israel is not the close ally many Americans believe it to be:

The GAO has reported that Israel conducts the most intense spying operation against the U.S. of any of our presumed allies.
Intelligence experts consider Jonathan Pollard the most damaging spy in US history. For years Israel denied any connection to Pollard; now it actively lobbies for his release.
Israeli forces have killed and injured numerous Americans. Rarely, if ever, have there been significant consequences.
Israel has stolen U.S. technology, and passed it on to other nations, some of them U.S. adversaries.
The Israeli attack on the USS Liberty
In 1967 Israeli forces attacked a U.S. Navy ship, the USS Liberty, killing or injuring over 200 American servicemen.

An independent commission in 2003 by extraordinarily high-ranking U.S. military officers and officials found that

Israel had commited an act of war against the United States,

the US President had recalled rescue aircraft, and that

the President had ordered a cover-up on the incident.

These statements, recorded in the Congressional Record, were not reported by U.S. news media.

Israeli ethnic expansionism has caused regional misery, instability, and continual conflict.

Israeli aggression (Israel initiated all of its wars except one) and its violations of international law, human rights conventions, and UN resolutions, have created enormous hostility against it throughout the world.

The US, as Israel’s number one funder, is increasingly imperiled by hostility created by Israeli actions.

Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons poses considerable danger both to the region itself and far beyond.

it has refused to sign the nuclear proliferation treaty and the British American Security Information Council has found that in Israel “nuclear weapons are being assigned roles that go well beyond deterrence.”

While US intelligence agencies have so far found no indication that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, Israel’s possession of these weapons, combined with its history of aggression, create a compelling motivation for other nations in the region to acquire them for deterrence.

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/11/23/the-cost-of-israel-to-americans/

Besides,your Accounting has serious Flaws in it!
Counting and adding up Bananas and Potatoes!

However Its not bashing when facts are facts and personaly with so many americans suffering I think its a fine time to cut back on aid to other countries and since Israel is by far the largest recipient of aid lets start there.

Ah yes and the hidden costs are also worthy of discussion.



I shall return............

and that Site he's cited has been used to bash Jews and Israel before!
It is anything but a "Veterans"-site!

I wonder if the US knows just how much aid goes to fund terrorism against Israel and the terrorists - including building the terrorist murderers released last month brand new houses - all with US money aid. Whilst Israel uses aid for progression and for defensive purposes the US aid received by Gaza and Palestinian Authorities goes to fund more terrorism.

Besides you swallowed those numbers at the Site Hook,Line and Sinker!
Looks impressive when you lump all the money the US spends in the ME ad then debit Israel with it!
But it is a Huge Joke!

American taxpayers give Israel over $8 million per day

That would repair a lot of schools in America...instead of Israel using it to bomb schools in Gaza

Despite intense and sustained efforts to woo the Arab world with money and nice words, a newly released survey of the region finds that President Obama is at the bottom of a list Arabs admire most.

Obama is admired by just 4 percent of Middle East Arabs in the new survey released by the Brookings Institution and University of Maryland.

Above him:

13 percent prefer Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinajad.
6 percent prefer dead Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
5 percent chose Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez.
Even 5 percent chose French President Nicolas Sarkozy over Obama.
And when asked if there could be just one superpower, who would they like it to be, Arabs snubbed Obama again. The top choice, with 22 percent, was China, followed by Germany (15 percent), Russia (12 percent), France (10 percent) and Pakistan (7 percent). The United States also came in at 7 percent followed by just one country, Britain at 3 percent


Yet the Fool is throwing the closest thing to a Friend the US has in the ME,Israel,under the Bus!



Berthing in Haifa costs money,Mister!

That's a good place for the whole of the ME.....under a bus! Can I be the driver?

Will it be loaded with "goodies"? I like party poppers!

Isreal wants to talk the talk, they can walk the walk, but I for one don't want my kids or my tax dollars, making that walk with them!

I'm not bashing Isreal, or any particular ME country, I'm bashing our government for ALL the tangling alliances and BS they get us into in the ME! And NATO, the IMF, the WTO and all the corrupt Central Bank crony organizations that front for them...

F%$K em ALL!

But then,slash the money for everyone,and let them fetch!

Pay only for services rendered!

Without the USA, most would starve and be walking! We have the food and the refineries!

Having 4000 or more LONG RANGE Nukes, and a nuclear Navy, doesn't hurt us either

I would agree that in our own fiscal interests that Israel be weaned - rather quickly and begin to support herself financially

but I would say this of most countries where we are currently providing foreign aid

Israel has had ample ramp up time to prepare to stand on her own

Sooo people cant complain about funding another country?

IS it Israel bashing to complain when they take our cash drag us into wars and then spy on us? is that how far this country has sunk?

Its time to bring this debate to the budget cutting table.

This should be discussed before we slash grandmas social security and medicaid.

Are we rubes?

It is pretty clear that most Americans are not aware of the massive
amount of American Tax Payers money that is going to prop up a country

who violate International Law with impunity

Searching for my tent its damn time to occupy something.

I have been to the Dublin Occupy Dame Street and the Police Join in with smiling Faces because they are there to protect the people.

Back on topic....American taxpayers give Israel over $8 million per day


(See report from Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress):


This to a nation, at its peak, of 7.4 million people – smaller than New Jersey. Israel has received more American money than any other nation on earth. It is more than we give to all the starving countries of Africa put together.

From 1950-53 Israel’s financial influx from the U.S. was one billion dollars; Israel at that time had 1.6 million inhabitants

In the past ten years, American taxpayers have given Israel approximately $200,000 per family of five.

That is alot of cash

In these awful economic times our country could use that money.

Here is a thought

Imagine how the rubes among us would howl if Obama gave that kind of cash to the UAW to upgrade work skills.

It makes me sick that so much money goes to foreign aid when our country is almost bankrupt and talking about screwing up social security.

The amount of money going to Israel is not a significant fraction
of the Israeli budget and is a small fraction of our diplomatic
budget in the US.

It is money well spent to assist our longtime allies battling for
their very existence against regional and international bigots and
terrorists and those who try to make it easier to smuggle arms to
the Hamas terrorists for the support of attacks targeting innocent
men women and children.

Who cares about the Israli budget?
We, America, are on the verge of bankruptcy.
We, America are spending the Social Security fund I have paid into my entire life.

Why do you think we owe Israel anything?

What kind of "allies" are they?

I say stop sending them money. There is no reason to.

Unless the rumors are true that they are blackmailing America. I wouldn't put it past them.