{"id":18007,"date":"2013-05-27T12:25:27","date_gmt":"2013-05-27T16:25:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theredphoenixapl.org\/?p=18007"},"modified":"2013-05-27T12:25:27","modified_gmt":"2013-05-27T16:25:27","slug":"obama-to-increase-aid-to-israel-4-billion-per-year-beginning-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/2013\/05\/obama-to-increase-aid-to-israel-4-billion-per-year-beginning-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama to increase aid to Israel: $4 billion per year beginning 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"U.S.<\/a>
U.S. President Barack Obama chats with military personnel while viewing an Iron Dome missile battery on March 20 at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Written by Justin Raimondo<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The President, on his trip to Israel, presented Netanyahu with a new ten-year aid “package” totaling some $40 billion\u00a0\u2013 a $10 billion increase over the last such agreement.<\/strong><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

AntiWar.com<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0– Given the kind of society we have become \u2013 a country of<\/span>\u00a0whining spoiled brats<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0who have been living<\/span>\u00a0above our means<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0for years \u2013 every special interest group is up in arms over the alleged tragedy known as<\/span>\u00a0Sequestration<\/span><\/a><\/span>. While these automatic across-the-board spending cuts are portrayed as nothing less than<\/span>\u00a0draconian<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0by various lobbyists and their congressional sock puppets, in reality these are<\/span>\u00a0not even real cuts<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0as you and I understand them, but merely cuts in projected spending increases. Like<\/span>\u00a0the temperature in Hell<\/span><\/a><\/span>, the imperative in Washington is that spending must always increase: “austerity” means the tempo has momentarily slackened.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

From<\/span>\u00a0military contractors<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0to the<\/span>\u00a0academic establishment<\/span><\/a><\/span>, all the lobbyists are crying bloody murder: we are told air traffic controllers will be<\/span>\u00a0taken off duty<\/span><\/a><\/span>, and hospitals are<\/span>\u00a0warning<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0of cuts to vital services. Some of these cuts will hit hardest those who can afford it least: the<\/span>\u00a0very poorest<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0of the<\/span>\u00a0poor<\/span><\/a><\/span>. In this atmosphere, one would think a foreign lobby would be more discreet about calling for an<\/span>\u00a0exemption<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0in the foreign aid category. However, in the case of<\/span>\u00a0AIPAC<\/span><\/a><\/span>, the biggest pro-Israel lobby in Washington, subtlety is not at the top of their agenda.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the beginning of this month, AIPAC’s<\/span>\u00a0annual conference<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0featured a<\/span>\u00a0Capitol Hill blitz<\/span><\/a><\/span>, in which thousands of pro-Israel activists descended on Washington to pressure Congress to exempt Israel from the cuts. This was coupled with a demand that Congress vote to designate the Jewish state a “<\/span>major strategic ally<\/span><\/a><\/span>,” a characterization meant to divorce aid to Israel from the general foreign aid budget and put it in a special category of its own. After all, that’s what the “<\/span>special relationship<\/span><\/a><\/span>” is all about \u2013 right?<\/span><\/p>\n

As Tim Carney<\/span>\u00a0points out<\/span><\/a><\/span>, the corporate bunch affectionately known as the Military-Industrial Complex have a big stake in all this: two-thirds of the $3.1 billion in annual aid to Israel must be spent in the United States. US arms manufacturers<\/span>\u00a0reap the profits<\/span><\/a><\/span>, and the Israelis get<\/span>\u00a0free stuff<\/span><\/a><\/span>. Yet Carney is wrong about whose lobbying efforts make the difference in this case: I don’t think Lockheed-Martin could mobilize thousands of people to descend on Capitol Hill the way AIPAC, or<\/span>\u00a0Christians United for Israel<\/span><\/a><\/span>, can.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to<\/span>\u00a0Israel Hayom<\/span><\/a><\/i><\/span>, the most widely read Israeli newspaper, Tel Aviv has already been granted special treatment: instead of the expected 8 percent across the board cut all other federal programs will suffer under sequestration, the Israelis were recently assured by the White House that their share will amount to only<\/span>\u00a05 percent<\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet these “cuts” have already been circumvented by<\/span>\u00a0the President<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0himself, who, on his trip to Israel, presented Netanyahu with a new ten-year aid “package” totaling some<\/span>\u00a0$40 billion<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u2013 a $10 billion increase over the last such agreement. And since our special alliance with Israel is “<\/span>eternal<\/span><\/a><\/span>,” as the President rhapsodized, this amount will presumably increase unto eternity. Or until the American people put a stop to it \u2013 whichever comes first.<\/span><\/p>\n

It isn’t as if Israel is a poor, struggling, Third World country: its GDP puts it in the<\/span>\u00a0top forty<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0richest countries on the world. Israeli propagandists are always boasting about how they’ve made the<\/span>\u00a0desert bloom<\/span><\/a><\/span>: the endless parading of Israel’s technical achievements, particularly in the booming high tech sector, is a major<\/span>\u00a0hasbara<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0<\/i>theme. Yet somehow a minuscule “cut” in aid \u2013 in reality, a cut\u00a0in the rate of increase<\/i>\u00a0\u2013 is going to bring about the<\/span>\u00a0downfall<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0of the Jewish state? The days when the Israeli settler colony depended on outside assistance for its very survival are well over.<\/span><\/p>\n

At a time when domestic programs are on the chopping block, why should the Israelis expect \u2013 nay,<\/span>\u00a0demand<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/span>\u00a0\u2013 an exemption? Why can’t they suffer the sequestration in silence, and be happy it wasn’t worse for them?<\/span><\/p>\n

Apparently some in the pro-Israel community have been thinking the same heretical thought, because AIPAC’s aggressive “Israel first” strategy<\/span>\u00a0reportedly<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0caused a bit of a stir, prompting fears of a backlash from some. As the\u00a0<\/span>Forward<\/span>\u00a0<\/i>reports<\/span><\/a><\/span>:<\/span><\/p>\n

“J Street, the dovish pro-Israel group, immediately understood the implications of AIPAC’s rhetorical shift after getting word of the pitch made by AIPAC members on Capitol Hill. Dylan Williams, J Street’s director of government affairs, told the Forward that ‘it seems a little tone deaf. We have a unique public perception issue.’ He added that congressional aides had told him they were ‘surprised that some groups \u2013 that people from AIPAC \u2013 were asking for this.'”<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Seen in the larger context of the administration’s ongoing feud with Tel Aviv \u2013 from Netanyahu’s informal<\/span>\u00a0endorsement<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0of Mitt Romney to<\/span>\u00a0the fight<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0over Chuck Hagel \u2013 AIPAC’s\u00a0chutzpah<\/i>\u00a0shouldn’t be at all surprising. In the world of Washington lobbyists, it’s all about power \u2013 having it, keeping it, and using it. If you don’t use it, you lose it.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is vitally necessary for the Israel Lobby to tamp down<\/span>\u00a0dangerous<\/span><\/a>\u00a0talk<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0that they’re losing it, because fear is their greatest weapon. The fear they strike in the hearts of politicians who don’t want to wind up like many of the other legislators who thought they could escape the Lobby’s wrath \u2013 and soon learned otherwise. It’s much easier to give in to the Lobby’s demands than go the way of Senators<\/span>\u00a0Chuck Percy<\/span><\/a><\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0William Fulbright<\/span><\/a><\/span>, y<\/span>\u00a0Roger Jepsen<\/span><\/a><\/span>, all three felled by Lobby-coordinated campaigns. Congressmen<\/span>\u00a0Paul Findley<\/span><\/a><\/span>,<\/span>\u00a0Earl F. Hilliard<\/span><\/a><\/span>, y<\/span>\u00a0Pete McCloskey<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0are among the scalps the Lobby can rightfully claim. And while their<\/span>\u00a0smear campaign<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0against Hagel didn’t succeed in stopping his confirmation as Secretary of Defense, it was a useful exercise in that it serves as a<\/span>\u00a0warning to others<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0who might be thinking of straying off the reservation:\u00a0Don’t go there!<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

J Street issued a<\/span>\u00a0statement<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0soon after AIPAC’s assault on Capitol Hill, denouncing any effort to separate out aid to Israel from the requirements of sequestration as appearing to put Israel’s demands “above those of the millions of ordinary Americans who are being hurt, or the vital domestic programs that are taking a hit.” While this may be true, J Street is rather missing the point. To wrest an exemption granted to no others is precisely the demonstrative way in which AIPAC needs to flex its lobbying muscles. Isn’t this what the “special relationship” is all about? As Ayn Rand put it, “<\/span>Love is exception-making<\/span><\/a><\/span>,” and the romantic relationship between the US and Israel, whatever its ups and downs, continues unabated in Washington.<\/span><\/p>\n

Out in the sticks, however \u2013 i.e. outside the Beltway \u2013 this exception-making for Israel is not all that popular, as J Street rightly worries. The problem, however, is that the American people have very little to say about it \u2013 and don’t know about it, in any case. As long as the political class lives in fear of the Lobby, our annual tribute to Israel will be paid in full \u2013 yes, even before we feed our own people. Because that’s what love is all about.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Justin Raimondo The President, on his trip to Israel, presented Netanyahu with a new ten-year aid “package” totaling some $40 billion\u00a0\u2013 a $10..<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38012,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,166,172,21,181,84,189,97],"tags":[228,197,200,204,227,345,211],"class_list":["post-18007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-government","category-healthcare","category-international","category-labor","category-statements","category-us-military","category-us-news","tag-colonialism","tag-imperialism","tag-israel","tag-palestine","tag-racist-oppression","tag-reactionary-watch","tag-zionism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redphoenix.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/33702fafe493ac4046540634dd269336_l.jpg?fit=575%2C390&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18007\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redphoenix.news\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}