Derbig ... now there's an idea ... too bad that first E in Emet was knowingly erased a long time ago, eh?

Thanks for that lengthy Eisenhower snippet, upthread. I'd always thought 'our' response to the Suez incursion was actually due to the Soviet invasion of Hungary, and the (bygone) need for diplomatic synergy. This doc shows, though, that Eisenhower had his own views, considerably more sophisticated than we've grown accustomed to, about the political topology.

About this, though, you have me scratching my head:

Hamas is also a threat to the monarchists, like the Hashemites in Jordan... who are we really there defending? Maybe it's really the Gulf state monarchies and emirates. The Saudis, etc.

Could you say more about why you think Hamas is a threat to Abdullah? The Palestinians in Jordan are by and large middle class and secularized, outside of places like Zarq which security apparatus is more than able to handle. No natural allies among the Bedu or Transjordanians either, as far as I can tell. Maybe you have something else in mind?

Ditto for the Gulf states, who have their own ways of dealing with Islamists, home grown and otherwise ... and who are pretty good at ejecting 'guest workers' who would cause trouble...

Thanks for the links. They go some ways to undermining your arguments, though.

The assistance to Israel you're talking about is only the $3b/year in military assistance. Israel has also been in receipt of $3b/yr in economic assistance and access to a (circa 2003) $800m/yr rotating line of credit guaranteed by the US. Israel remains the largest recipient of US foreign aid (Egypt is the 2d largest ... used to be they were both the largest by far, but the gap has closed since Bush).

Saying that 2/3 of the money has to be spent on US defense contractors is not quite the same as saying it's 'just as the defense contractors want it', since Israel's DM can still competitively source (as opposed to the US approving $3b for Israel's Patriot system, outside of these numbers, which went to the contractor), and there's the issue of asset specificity ... you don't have an option of buying F-16s from an Israeli source, unlike the case with economic assistance where there's some elasticity.

Compare that to the total $1.8m economic assistance since Oslo in '93 (as of the very useful Feb 2006 CRS report you helpfully linked to), and the $2.3 million (2005 only) non-lethal security assistance, and you're looking at two clearly incommensurable cases. True, the PA gets more aid from the rest of the world, but you were talking about US aid.

You were concerned about leakage of US aid into Hamas' presumably terror-inclined schemes. The Telegraph story seems to validate those concerns, because the PA has no control over its own finances. However, the bulk of the USAID money was programmed, i.e. it went to private contractors/NGOs (80% US) or Palestinian PVOs (20%); there are stringent financial reporting structures for each such grant, co-op agreement or contract (there are differences between the regimes for each contract instrument), and as the CRS report says, $1m of the program was committed for audit expenses (if you're really bored, I can tell you from experience how these are done in development projects), and the Comptroller General was also required to audit.

That still leaves the potential that the 'direct' assistance (under the Presidential waivers, used only four times since Oslo) to the PA could have been looted ... but then, there's 'direct' and then there's 'direct'. In some cases, the state dept and other donors will deposit the funds directly into a recipient govt's account, and ask for a report from the proponent ministry ... but that would never happen in a highly sensitive case like the PA.

As the CRS report says, some of the funds that went directly to the PA were disbursed through the UN or UNWRA (which has its own auditing mechanisms, such as they are) or through the WB/Holz mechanism ($36 million), etc. That money is audited ; there are still ways to steal it, but it's not right to suggest that no one knows where it went. Other 'direct' assistance never went through the PA's hands at all ... paying utility bills to Israeli companies, purchasing equipment for police, paying for infrastructure projects, etc.

I know all too well how possible it is to loot money even out of these monitored and audited accounts, but the amounts are not what you would think ... and besides, what theft there was is more likely to have gone into someone's pocket as a bribe, or to pad someone's bank account than it was to pay suicide bombers. I say this from experience ... by and large, the driver is that everyone is poor, and they want to be less poor ... they don't want to get caught doing something that's going to put their families under the scrutiny of the security services, or take away their ability to provide.

Another reason why no one likes right-wing Jews

Come on, *nobody*?

From "Off the Wire", Seattle Times, Aug 10 1991

A woman aboard a flight from Berlin to Tel Aviv tore off her dress and, completely naked, shouted "Bring me Shamir! I want Shamir!" She was apparently referring to Israel's 75-year old prime minister.

Yeah, i think my quibble is with "threat".

Also, while we're at it, "Arab street".

If I were the possum, I would wear eye protection

OT, but it just came into my box ---

Busheviks still trying to legalize the 'Jack Bauer' scenario (also at sig):

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/washington/27intel.html

PS those aid figures are several years out of date. Current aid is ~1.9 billion of which 900 is civilian aid in the form of no interest loans. … Aid to Israel is scheduled per an existing act of Congress to unwind to <$200 million a year in the next 4 years, roughly.

You’re right that the figures I added were out of date … but the updated figures are very different from what you’ve written here.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/U.S._Assistance_to_Israel1.html

This link shows military grants at 2.3 billion, 120 million in civilian grants … not including the 800 million line of no-interest credit I mentioned (which is probably also out of date). The civilian number is, as you say, a result of Netanyahu’s proposal in 1998 to reduce the economic assistance and replace it with military assistance. It's less than you thought, though the total (mil+civ) is much greater.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/IB85066.pdf+US+aid+to+Israel&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=23&gl=us

http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/RL33222_20080102.pdf

These links include disc of US aid to Israel during Fiscal Year 2007 in the Congressional Research Service’s “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel,” written by Jeremy M. Sharp, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs, updated January 2, 2008. According to this report, the US gave Israel at least $2,500.2 million in 2007. This number does not include the $137.894 million spent on joint U.S.-Israeli missile defense projects or the $1.4 billion in loan guarantees made available to Israel in 2007.

The FAS report also discusses the loan guarantees and other non-grant military and economic aid

Also, Contrary to ordinary U.S. policy, Israel has been and continues to be allowed to use 26% of this military aid to purchase equipment from Israeli manufacturers. According to CRS, “no other recipient of U.S. military assistance has been granted this benefit.” Thanks in part to this indirect U.S. subsidy, Israel’s arms industry has become one of the strongest in the world. “In 2006, it was the 9th leading supplier of arms worldwide.”

Also - Egypt receives 2.3 billion in direct military aid each year.

Nope. From the FAS report link below,

The United States is to reduce Economic Support Funds (ESF) to about $400 million per year by FY2008 in keeping with a plan to reduce economic aid to both Israel and Egypt. The Administration requested $415 million in economic grants and $1.3 billion in military grants for FY2008 for Egypt.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33003.pdf+US+aid+to+Egypt&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=21&gl=us

The US gave the PA $450 million dollars last year in military aid and training which is more than they gave to the entire nation of Jordan.

No idea where you got that number, and it makes no sense at all. From this link,

http://italy.usembassy.gov/pdf/other/RS22370.pdf

In 2007, the US provided $50 million for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s West Bank and Gaza program, as well as $77 million directly to the Palestinian Authority. The United States does not provide money to the PLO or Hamas. There are a number of restrictions on how US aid to Palestinians may be spent and it is strictly audited.

The US cost to maintain troops in South Korea is $8-9 billion per year. The US cost to maintain troops in Germany is about $17 billion per year. The US cost to keep Taiwan and China apart is classified but it involves one full carrier group 24/365.

Which has what to do with it?

In addition, the US government buys (purchases) ~$4 billion worth of high tech gear from Israel. Israel exports about $9 billion to the US commercially.

Ditto … Israel’s exports to the US relate to this ‘inflammatory’ discussion of aid how?

If you don't like that level of transfer of wealth, stop buying gasoline. It represents the single largest transfer of wealth, ever.

So, my options for examining foreign aid policy to Israel is a consumer boycott of a product Israel does not export? Are these things really comparable, to you?