American taxpayers give Israel over $8 million per day*
...and this costs us over $15 million per day
While people are losing jobs, homes, and hope, politicians – dominated by powerful special interests – are sending more of our tax money to Israel than to any other country on earth, even though Israel is in violation of numerous human rights conventions and UN resolutions and is maintaining a brutal military occupation over
Palestinians.
In a unique arrangement, Israel (one of the world’s smallest and richest nations) receives our money in a lump sum at the beginning of the year.
Since the U.S. operates at a deficit, this means that the U.S. borrows this money and then pays interest on it long after it has been given to Israel. Israel, on the other hand, makes interest on it.
With this money Israel has created one of the most powerful and aggressive militaries on the planet. Since fall 2000 Israeli forces have killed over 6,430 Palestinians (1,463 of them children), and in
response Palestinian resistance groups have killed 1,084 Israelis (128 of them children).
Our aid to Israel helps to fund this tragic violence and prevents peace.
Additional money sent abroad on behalf of Israel
The US also gives large sums to other countries to silence their opposition to Israeli injustice.
We send about $1.5 billion to Egypt and $843 million to Jordan annually, under diplomatic agreements in which these countries abandoned opposition to Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.
A report commissioned by the Army War College in 2003 found that the total cost to Americans over Israel’s 60+ years of existence has been $3 trillion.
The Iraq War connection
Many analysts have demonstrated that Israel supporters were key in pushing the Iraq war. In addition to its incalculable cost in lives and suffering, the Iraq war has added substantially to the federal
debt and, according to a Washington Post article by two top economists, was a cause of the global
financial meltdown. [http://tiny.cc/7pj62]
For detailed information on the influence of Israel partisans in the buildup to the Iraq war, see the excellent work by Stephen Sniegoski, Kathleen Christison, Stephen Green, Jeffrey Blankfort, Grant
Smith, John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt. [http://tiny.cc/7pj62]
For more information see:
* $8 million/day is from the Congressional Research Service – see http://ifamericansknew.org/stats/usai
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