how much aid does the US provide to Isreal annually?

Question

What percentage of US aid goes to Isreal?

Answer 1

A BREAKDOWN OF UNITED STATES AID TO ISRAEL

Financial Aid

The Israeli government is the largest recipient of US financial aid in the world, receiving over one-third of total US aid to foreign countries4, even though Israel’s population comprises just .001% of the world’s population and has one the world’s higher per capita incomes.

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Since 1949 the US has given Israel a total of $84,854,827,200. The interest costs born by US taxpayers on behalf of Israel are $49,937,000,000 – making the total amount of aid given to Israel since 1949 $134,791,507,200 (more than $134 billion).5
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The total cost of this financial aid to US tax payers per Israeli is $23,240.
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Since 1992, the US has offered Israel an additional $2 billion in loan guarantees every year.6
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Nearly all past loans to Israel have been forgiven – leading Israel to claim that they have never defaulted on repayment of a US loan – with most loans made on the understanding that they would be forgiven before Israel was required to repay them.
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In 1997 alone, the total of US grants and loan guarantees to Israel was $5.5 billion, i.e., $15,068,493 per day.

Military Aid

The United States provides direct and indirect military aid to Israel – totalling more than it gives to all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean put together, whose combined total population is 1,054,000,000.

According to a US Department of Defence Joint Report to Congress in March 2001, “It is in the United States’ national interest to promote the existence of a stable, democratic and militarily strong Israel, at peace with its neighbours […]”.7 According to a US State Department statement in November 2002, the US government is committed to “maintaining and enhancing Israel’s security and qualitative edge over any combination of adversaries” and “the important advantages the US-Israeli strategic relationship has and will continue to provide us.”8

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Foreign Military Financing (FMF) is grants to foreign governments financing the purchase of American-made weapons, services and training. Israel receives 50% of the FMF budget request. The large sums paid by the US to Egypt and Jordan are in recognition of the two countries signing peace accords with Israel in 1979 and 1994 respectively.

FMF Budget Request FY 2001: Total budget request: $3.54 billion
Budget request for Israel: $1.98 billion
Budget request for Egypt: $1.3 billion
Budget request for Jordan $75 million

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The Economic Support Fund (ESF) promotes economic and political stability in areas strategically important to the US. It is not intended for military usage, but allows the recipient government to free up other money, therefore providing indirect military aid. Israel receives the largest single grant of the Near East budget, which alone is 79% of the total ESF request.

ESF Budget Request, FY 2001:


Total budget request:


$2.313 billion




Budget request for Near East:


$1.828 billion, including:



Israel


$840 million




Egypt


$150 million




WB/GS


$100 million

Furthermore:

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18 of the 92 pending arms sales transfers in the year 2000 were to Israel;
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Israel has the world’s largest fleet of F-16s outside the US, currently possessing 200 jets -- with a further 102 on order with American manufacturer Lockheed Martin;
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In June 2001 Israel again requested $800 million in supplementary US aid. This was originally pledged to cover the cost of the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon – in other words, Israel was being paid for complying with international law. As Israel re-requests this package, administration officials have considered linking it to the implementation of the Mitchell Report, again effectively paying Israel to comply with international standards;9

Charitable Aid

Private donations to American charities initially constituted one quarter of Israel’s budget. Today, it is estimated that these tax-deductible donations exceed $1.5 billion per year. The ability of Americans to make what amounts to tax deductible contributions to a foreign government does not exist for any other country.

US aid to Israel: A violation of US law

US law prohibits the President from providing military aid to any country that “engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognised human rights”.10 Under the 1967 US Arms Export Control Act, it is illegal to use US weapons to carry out extra-judicial killings. This act stipulates that weapons be sold to “friendly countries solely for internal security and legitimate defence.”

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Since September 2000, the Israeli army has used attack helicopters, tanks and F-16 missiles to target Palestinian civilians, homes, forces, buildings and in demonstrations. In its Human Rights Report, the US State Department declared that Israeli army actions were an “excessive use of force”, noting that the Israeli forces used live ammunition, even when they were not in imminent danger, and that the Israeli military “shelled PA institutions and Palestinian civilian areas in response to individual Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians or settlers”.
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The Israeli government’s policies in the occupied Palestinian territories have been condemned by human rights organisations worldwide. The Israeli army’s “excessive use of force” towards Palestinian civilians and its policy of “state assassinations” violate international human rights law. In supplying military aid to such a state, the US is violating its own laws.


1 CIA World Factbook, July 2001
2 Zunes, Stephen, “The Strategic Function of US Aid to Israel” (Washington Report on the Middle East December 2002)
3 ibid.
4 Washington Report on the Middle East December 2002
5 Ibid, as of 1 November 1997.
6 Ibid.
7 Foreign Military Training and DOD engagements, Activities of Interest, vol. 1, (fiscal year 1999-2000), Joint Report to Congress, March 1, 2001. Full text available through Federation of American Scientists’ website
8 “US promises Israel $2.16 billion military aid 2004,” Reuters, 21 November 2002
9 The Jerusalem Post, 28/6/01
10 22 USC 2304(a)

Answer 2

This stage is characterized by severe immunodeficiency. There are signs of life-threatening infections and unusual tumours. There are symptoms such as:

persistent tiredness
night sweats
weight loss
persistent diarrhoea
blurred vision
white spots on the tongue or mouth (leukoplakia)
dry cough
shortness of breath
fever of above 37C (100F) that lasts a number of weeks
swollen glands that last for more than three months

Answer 3

Notyou311 may have a point, if we want to stop terrorists (read: "Palestinians"), we have to have Israel kill their families and take away their land. That *always* works!

I couldn't find an exact figure, but as of 2004, they are the sixth highest recipient of foreign aid from us. (Transparency International, 2004) However, Washington-Report.org claims it is one-third of our foreign aid budget.

Can anybody else clarify this?

Answer 4

Not enough. They are going after the terrorists that are killing innocent people all over the world.

Answer 5

excellent question, another would be where is the aid allocated from?

Answer 6

Economist tallies swelling cost of Israel to US
By David R. Francis | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Since 1973, Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion. If divided by today's population, that is more than $5,700 per person.

This is an estimate by Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington. For decades, his analyses of the Middle East scene have made him a frequent thorn in the side of the Israel lobby.


Is U.S backing of Israel worth it?

For the first time in many years, Mr. Stauffer has tallied the total cost to the US of its backing of Israel in its drawn-out, violent dispute with the Palestinians. So far, he figures, the bill adds up to more than twice the cost of the Vietnam War.

And now Israel wants more. In a meeting at the White House late last month, Israeli officials made a pitch for $4 billion in additional military aid to defray the rising costs of dealing with the intifada and suicide bombings. They also asked for more than $8 billion in loan guarantees to help the country's recession-bound economy.

Considering Israel's deep economic troubles, Stauffer doubts the Israel bonds covered by the loan guarantees will ever be repaid. The bonds are likely to be structured so they don't pay interest until they reach maturity. If Stauffer is right, the US would end up paying both principal and interest, perhaps 10 years out.

Israel's request could be part of a supplemental spending bill that's likely to be passed early next year, perhaps wrapped in with the cost of a war with Iraq.

Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid. It is already due to get $2.04 billion in military assistance and $720 million in economic aid in fiscal 2003. It has been getting $3 billion a year for years.

Adjusting the official aid to 2001 dollars in purchasing power, Israel has been given $240 billion since 1973, Stauffer reckons. In addition, the US has given Egypt $117 billion and Jordan $22 billion in foreign aid in return for signing peace treaties with Israel.

"Consequently, politically, if not administratively, those outlays are part of the total package of support for Israel," argues Stauffer in a lecture on the total costs of US Middle East policy, commissioned by the US Army War College, for a recent conference at the University of Maine.

These foreign-aid costs are well known. Many Americans would probably say it is money well spent to support a beleagured democracy of some strategic interest. But Stauffer wonders if Americans are aware of the full bill for supporting Israel since some costs, if not hidden, are little known.

One huge cost is not secret. It is the higher cost of oil and other economic damage to the US after Israel-Arab wars.

In 1973, for instance, Arab nations attacked Israel in an attempt to win back territories Israel had conquered in the 1967 war. President Nixon resupplied Israel with US arms, triggering the Arab oil embargo against the US.

That shortfall in oil deliveries kicked off a deep recession. The US lost $420 billion (in 2001 dollars) of output as a result, Stauffer calculates. And a boost in oil prices cost another $450 billion.

Afraid that Arab nations might use their oil clout again, the US set up a Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That has since cost, conservatively, $134 billion, Stauffer reckons.

Other US help includes:

• US Jewish charities and organizations have remitted grants or bought Israel bonds worth $50 billion to $60 billion. Though private in origin, the money is "a net drain" on the United States economy, says Stauffer.

• The US has already guaranteed $10 billion in commercial loans to Israel, and $600 million in "housing loans." (See editor's note below.) Stauffer expects the US Treasury to cover these.

• The US has given $2.5 billion to support Israel's Lavi fighter and Arrow missile projects.

• Israel buys discounted, serviceable "excess" US military equipment. Stauffer says these discounts amount to "several billion dollars" over recent years.

• Israel uses roughly 40 percent of its $1.8 billion per year in military aid, ostensibly earmarked for purchase of US weapons, to buy Israeli-made hardware. It also has won the right to require the Defense Department or US defense contractors to buy Israeli-made equipment or subsystems, paying 50 to 60 cents on every defense dollar the US gives to Israel.

US help, financial and technical, has enabled Israel to become a major weapons supplier. Weapons make up almost half of Israel's manufactured exports. US defense contractors often resent the buy-Israel requirements and the extra competition subsidized by US taxpayers.

• US policy and trade sanctions reduce US exports to the Middle East about $5 billion a year, costing 70,000 or so American jobs, Stauffer estimates. Not requiring Israel to use its US aid to buy American goods, as is usual in foreign aid, costs another 125,000 jobs.

• Israel has blocked some major US arms sales, such as F-15 fighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1980s. That cost $40 billion over 10 years, says Stauffer.

Stauffer's list will be controversial. He's been assisted in this research by a number of mostly retired military or diplomatic officials who do not go public for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic if they criticize America's policies toward Israel.

Answer 7

Would that be on or off the books??