(Kevin Brooks) wrote in message om...
(JGB) wrote in message om...
(Kevin Brooks) wrote in message . com...
(JGB) wrote in message . com...
(Kevin Brooks) wrote in message

The MAIN reason why Israel
gets $3B in aid annually is so that US defense contactors can sell Egypt,
Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan $5 billion in arms annually without
opposition from AIPAC, or increased Israel arms sales to China and other
states we'd rather they not sell their own advanced technologies to.
It IS quid pro quo, and not just based on sentiments.

Come now. We were providing extensive monetary aid to Israel before we
started selling major/modern arms to the neighboring Arabs.

Israel did get mostly civilian aid to help Israel integrate millions
of Jewish immigrants, but it was relatively little compared to the
aid that began to flow after the Six Day War when Israel proved its
capability of standing up to the SOviet Union, and Johnson saw Israel
as a potential asset. The US arms embargo to BOTH sides then was
effectively
jettisoned, allowing for the US to become the major armorer of both
sides
in the conflict.

Sorry, but we did not engage in major sales to Arab nations until the
very late 70's at the earliest, and more accurately in the 80's. hich
would make your accusation that we were providing aid to Israel
*because* we want to seel weapons to Arab nations...wrong.

AIPAC made problems for the US defense industry that was raging to
sell
AWACs (and indeed did sell them) to Saudi Arabia (which virtually
borders
on Israel) and everything else including the kitchen sink, and
displace
Britain, France and the USSR as major arms providers to the Gulf
States
in particular. And so, to quiet Israeli and AIPAC domestic opposition,
a quiet "understanding" emerged in which while the US would sell the
Arab states surrounding Israel THREE times as much in dollar value, at
a
good profit, while the arms sold to Israel would be technically
cutting edge, capable of overcoming the Arab numerical advantage, and
the US would finance these sales to ISrael with low cost loans and
outright grants. And that has been the situation since the late 1970s,
more or less. That is the real
reason why there is virtually no congressional opposition to US aid to
Israel, because the arms industry subcontractors have become dispersed
into
all 50 states, and most major congressional districts, and cutting off
aid to ISrael would result also in cutting off arms sales to the Arab
states
which would wound the defense indistry which exports around $14
billion
dollars worth of goods annually, half of which goes to the ME,
including
Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Jordan and others.

From what
I can recall, israel held out quite firmly for a significant aid
increase and additional one-time funds (i.e., paying for new airbases
to replace those lost when they gave up the Sinai) before they would
agree to sign the peace treaty with Egypt (Carter being oh-so-willing
to pay that tribute in return for his moment of glory).

I can understand why Israel, which had been pressured THREE TIMES

You are counting 56, when the israelis, supported by their erstwhile
Anglo-French allies, started the conflict?

And 1949 when Israel was forced to give up parts of the Sinai it
captured
as well. But Israel did not start the conflict in 1956. Egypt was
arming
and sending Palestinian fedayeen from the Gaza Strip into the Negev
and
murdering Israelis by the score without letup from 1950 onwards. Your
assumption
assumes that arming and sending terrorists into a country to murder
civilians
is not an act of war, even when it continuously violates an Armistice
(the
1949 armistice). It's like saying the US started the war with
Afghanistan
ignoring that Al Qaeda was being assisted and shielded by the Taliban
gov't.


nd 67, of which no less a
figure than Menachem Begin later stated it was time for Israelis to
face facts and accept that they went into that war with territorial
gains as their goal (though not their only goal, no doubt)?

That is sheer LIE! Israel had NO territorial conquests in mind at all.
Try
"The History of the Middle East Wars" by J.N. Westwood for starters.
It is both a lie and totally libellous. Israel did its utmost NOT to
go
into the West Bank, but King Hussein virtually begged Israel to come
and
conquer it by his inane and insane actions! What you say is the Arab
distortion
of history not unlike "Comical ALi's" assertions that there were no
Marines
in Baghdad.

since
1948 to repeatedly return the Sinai to Egypt, including the oil fields
that Israel had developed the last time to get US compensation, but
for the life
of me I can't understand the $2.8 B annual tribute to Egypt which
received
from Israel a much improved Sinai!

Which is less than what we provide to Israel.

Not only does Israel lost strategic
depth and costly infrastructure, but its own US aid is offset by a
similar
amount of aid to Egypt.

Nope, US aid to Egypt is *always* less than that provided to Israel;
AIPAC would have it no other way.

Not by much. $2.8 vs. $3. And why should EGypt get ANY??? It was the
aggressor
in 1948 and 1967, and indirectly in 1956 with Nasser's actions of
arming
terrorists and expropriating international properties by fiat.

Can you explain to me the rationale, or how
Israel
gained in that "bargain?"

They gained substantially. Billions in US aid on an annual basis. Care
to work out what the per-capita aid amount to Israel is versus that to
Egypt?

But Egypt outnumbers its adversary Israel by 12 to 1. SO are you
saying that
they should get 12 times as much aid to bolster their numerical
superiority
over Israel as well???

And you are aware that a goodly chunk of the US aid to Egypt
goes to non-military requirements as well?

It goes to line the pockets of politicians, if that's what you mean.
But
I have no objection to the US cutting off all aid to ISrael if it
also
cuts off all aid to Egypt and all arms sales to all sides in the
Middle East.
If the US, France, UK and Russia didn't sell tens of billions of
dollars worth
of arms into the region, Israel wouldn't need a thin dime! Do you
think that
Israelis like living in M-1 tanks and Apache helicopters? If the world
wants
to solve the ME problems, let the world ban all arms and aid from the
region!


The Egyptian army today, thanks to US
training
and arms, is far more dangerous than it ever was under SOviet
tutelage.

And is still no threat to Israel.

Quite a threat. The sale of 54 Harpoon cruise missiles to Egypt,
against which
Israel has no defense, could be a very serious threat, particularly if
the
Egyptians acquired nukes. ANd there are those in the Egyptian
parliament
calling on Egyptian development of nukes. In fact, the EGyptian army
has
never been a greater threat to Israel than today. Unlike the past,
when it
was armed and trained by the Russians, it is today a real army with
F-16s,
M-1A1 tanks (which are manufactured in Egypt under license) and quite
good
US training that has been ongoing since the first Gulf War. If they
pulled another stunt as Nasser did and moved into the Sinai, ISrael
would have no
alternative to nuclear war. It is today doubtful that ISrael could
defeat
the Egyptian army in conventional battle as was the case in the past.
As
for peace treaties, they come and go. Who today remembers the Treaty
of Sedan
between Germany and France of 1870, or the armistice of 1918? What
counts
is real capabilities and not scraps of paper. Scraps of paper can be
repudiated
and torn up in an instant. Bush went after Saddam and is cracking down
in
the ME in general mainly because he knows that Israel no longer can
count
on conventional superiority to win, and that the next major war in the
ME
would have to be nuclear, with Israel forced to throw the first punch
to
survive. The risk of that to the oilfields and everything overshadows
any
relatively minor risks and costs to the US fighting a few limited wars
in
the ME to make sure that WMD do not proliferate any further in the
region.
Because Israel will not wait with folded arms as others plot its doom.