Aletho News

House committees pass $20 mill per day on behalf of Israel

By Alison Weir | Israel-Palestine News | July 12, 2021

Congressional committees recently passed two bills that contain provisions to disburse a total of over $7 billion on behalf of Israel in the year 2022. This works out to almost $20 million per day.

These provisions were included in the bills despite the fact that Israel just committed another onslaught against Gazan men, women, and children; despite Israel’s many actions that harm Americans; despite the fact that most Americans think the U.S. already gives Israel too much money; and despite the fact that aid to Israel is illegal under U.S. laws.

On June 30th, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense approved a bill that gives Israel half a billion dollars, and on July 1st the House Appropriations Committee advanced a bill that disburses nearly $6.4 billion on behalf of Israel.

APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE BILL

The latter bill, currently called the “2022 State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations” bill, includes a measure that would give Israel $3.3 billion in military aid. The Committee’s press release on the bill, however, does not mention the funding for Israel.

In addition to this $3.3 billion, the bill includes the following funding that benefits Israel:

• An additional $58 million on related programs for Israel, which AIPAC points out in a series of proud tweets that list them.

• The bill provides $1.65 billion to Jordan and $1.4 billion to Egypt stemming from previous agreements with their governments to desist from advocating for Palestinian rights.

• It also contains a section to provide $225 million for alleged assistance to Palestinians. In reality, such funding is largely intended to benefit Israel, and is often proposed and/or receives support from Israel partisans such as Nita Lowey.

Rationales given in the bill for this funding are that it would “advance Middle East peace” (i.e. lead Palestinians to accede to Israeli demands); “improve security in the region” (be used by the Palestinian Authority to continue to round up resistance fighters – the Palestinian Authority is known as Israel’s “day-to-day partner in governing the West Bank”); and to “address urgent humanitarian needs” (but doesn’t mention that these needs are caused by Israel’s ongoing military attacks and financial policies against Palestinians).

Portions of the aid are used as a combination threat and bribe; the money will not be provided if “the Palestinians obtain the same standing as member states or full membership as a state in the United Nations or any specialized agency thereof” or if “the Palestinians initiate an International Criminal Court (ICC) judicially authorized investigation, or actively support such an investigation, that subjects Israeli nationals to an investigation for alleged crimes against Palestinians.”

Such ‘humanitarian’ funding for Palestinians is considered important for Israel, as two prominent Israel advocates explain:

“Funding for Palestinian assistance programs has always flowed with bipartisan support because it was determined to reinforce Israel’s security and provide a measure of U.S. leverage and influence.

This logic was ratified by the support of the Israeli government for these programs. Israeli authorities understood that a breakdown in security, an economic collapse or a humanitarian crisis in the West Bank would place an enormous burden on Israel.”

These additional provisions bring the total amount of Americans’ tax money to be disbursed on behalf of Israel in the Appropriations Committee bill to at least $6.7 billion.

Added to that is the half billion in the defense subcommittee bill passed on June 30th, making the total amount of money to be disbursed on behalf of Israel approximately $7.2 billion. 

These provisions were passed despite the fact that most voters would likely oppose them, since, as mentioned above, surveys indicate that the majority of Americans don’t support such large funding to Israel. However, very few Americans know about the proposed funding, since mainstream U.S. news companies almost never report on such legislation (unlike Israeli and Israel-focused U.S. media).

EVEN MORE MONEY FOR ISRAEL…

And there are numerous additional expenditures on behalf of Israel throughout the bill that are not included in the above tabulation.

Among these are funding for operations to dismantle the Arab League boycott of Israel; millions of dollars provided for Jews resettling in Israel; portions of the $20 billion to “Democracy Programs” and the $4.5 billion to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom that are used to oppose support for Palestinian rights as allegedly ‘antisemitism’; funding to countries such as Bahrain, UAE, Morocco, and others resulting from enticements to procure their ‘normalization‘ policies with Israel, etc. A thorough examination of such additional programs could quite possibly add another billion dollars to be disbursed for Israel.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies before House Appropriation Subcommittee hearing on 2022 State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations bill on June 7, 2021. (Blinken had helped give Israel millions of additional dollars during its 2014 massacre of Gazans.) (C-Span)

AIPAC IS PLEASED

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – possibly the most famous of the hundreds of pro-Israel groups in the U.S. – applauded Congressional leaders for their action in passing the measures:

This money to and for Israel is not new. Over the years, Israel has received far more U.S. tax money than any other country on earth: on average over 7,000 times more per capita than anyone else.

And in addition to all of this are the lives destroyed and the multi-trillion dollar cost of the Iraq war, a tragic and disastrous quagmire promoted by Israel and its American partisans.

And on top of this are the costs, in both lives and treasure, of Israel-influenced policies regarding Syria, Iran, and others.

It’s time to end Israel’s strangle hold over American politicians. To tell your Congress members to vote against this massive funding for Israel, go here.

(And to tell them to enact legislation that protects Palestinian children, go here.)

Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel. 

July 12, 2021 - Posted by aletho | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Israel, Palestine, United States, Zionism