(Kevin Brooks) wrote in message . com...
(phil hunt) wrote in message ...

Couldn't Israel have funded construction itself? Another small
country, Sweden, manages to.

No. Israel has grown rather dependent upon the billions annually
provided in US aid (depending upon whose numbers you use, US aid would
be equal to somewhere around between 3 and 6% of their GDP). According
to year 2000 numbers, Israel had a GDP that was just over half that of
Sweden, and a lower per-capita GDP to boot. Go-it-alone is not a
likely avenue for israel; they even required South African capital to
develop their BVRAAM, the Derby.

YEs, but isn't it interesting, Kevin, that in 1970 Israel's GNP was
$3,050 per capita versus Japan's $3,000 at the time (look it up).
Yet today, after perhaps $80 billion in US aid since, Israel's per capita
GNP, is now, as you state, half of Japan's or Sweden's. Mind you, in 1970
Israel had already taken the "territories" before the major stream of
US aid and arms had really begun. Besides the never ending wars the
Arabs have forced on Israel, not to mention the boycotts and the like,
the new arms race, where nearly $6 billion in US arms sold to EGypt,
Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Jordan, forces Israel not only to require
the $3 billion in aid annually to keep up, but also requires a massive
internal effort to keep a military reserve and a military-industrial
complex so heavy and so distortive of Israel's economy, and diversive in
forcing so much of its talent into arms production, which overall
is sterile in terms of fostering economic growth, that I honestly wish
the US, and the rest of the world, would simply impose a GLOBAL embargo
on ALL AID AND ARMS SALES into the region completely! If the Egyptians,
Saudis and other Arab and Muslim states had NO access to advanced arms
from the West or East, and had to develop and produce all their own
internally, Israel would be better off even without the aid or arms
sales to it!!! I am totally convinced of it. The Israeli arms industry
is way too big, and way too controlled by the US thanks to the aid,
that overall is a drag on the economy, but nonetheless necessary as long
as the enemy and hostile Muslim states have access to US and other
international sources of modern arms. This is why Israel's growth has
lagged. If the world stops selling the Muslims states $10 billion in
arms annually, Israel would be able to stop taking $3 billion in US
aid AND STILL BE ECONOMICALLY BETTER OFF in the long run.