| Author | Message | | Guest | | Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2003 7:35 am Post subject: Israelis NOW in Washington to discuss $4 billion + $8 billio |
| Subj: Israelis NOW in Washington to discuss $4 billion + $8 billion
Date: 1/4/03 11:29:28 PM Pacific Standard Time
This is it folks, the moment of truth for us and for Congress. If they go ahead and approve this appropriation in the face of the present economic crisis, it will be an undeniable signal that the majority of both parties are in thrall to the Israel lobby and that they have betrayed the oath to the US Constitution that they signed when they took office. Get on the phone and let them know that there will a payback if they vote for this legislation.
Jeff
Israeli team in Washington to discuss request for $4 billion plus $8 billion on loan guarantees
By Aluf Benn and Moti Bassok, Ha'aretz Correspondents
January 5, 2002
A delegation of top Israeli officials set off
Saturday night for talks with their
counterparts in Washington. The
discussions will focus on Israel's request
for $4 billion to cover security expenses
related to Palestinian terror and the
anticipated war in Iraq, and another $8
billion in loan guarantees over a three to
five-year period to help Israel recover from
economic stagnation.
Israeli officials hope to wrap up an
assistance package prior to a U.S.
offensive in Iraq. Officials in Jerusalem are
keeping close tabs on talks between the
U.S. and Turkey about an agreement for a
similar aid package, which apparently will
be finalized within a few days.
Dov Weisglass, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's bureau chief, heads Israel's
delegation for the talks in Washington. He is accompanied by the
directors-general of the finance and defense ministries respectively, Ohad
Marani and Amos Yaron. The Israelis will meet Monday with an American
team headed by Gary Edson, deputy national security adviser for
international economic affairs. The Israeli team will detail economic
hardship faced by Israel as a result of Palestinian terror, and the anticipated
war in Iraq.
Connections between American aid and Jewish settlements in the
territories will also come up in the talks. During previous contacts, officials
discussed the renewal of linkage between loan guarantees and Israeli
settlement policy which was advocated by the White House in 1992. In the
1992 loan guarantee arrangement, the Americans insisted on reducing the
guarantees by sums equivalent to investments made by Israel in Jewish
settlements, and on imposing a ban on the use of U.S. aid beyond the
Green Line.
Israel could agree to deduct from current American aid packages sums
equivalent to its investments in the territories due to a desire to forestall still
more onerous American pressure. For example, Israel is concerned that
the Americans might demand a total freeze on construction beyond the
Green Line as a precondition for the conferral of aid.
On Capitol Hill, the two houses of the U.S. Congress will convene this week
for the first since the congressional elections in November. Israel's requests
for civil and security assistance and loan guarantees will require approval by
the new Congress. Israeli officials expect that Congress will approve the
various assistance requests, with a number of preconditions. In addition to
anticipated attempts in Washington to link the aid to an Israeli commitment
not to use the money in the territories, Washington could also demand that
economic assistance not be used by Israel to reduce its deficit.
U.S. officials could demand that Israel take additional steps to decrease its
deficit via steps such as the reduction of spending and services in its public
sphere. | |  | | Guest | | | | Guest | | Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2003 7:46 am Post subject: THE PRICE OF ISRAEL |
| THE PRICE OF ISRAEL
BY CHARLEY REESE
The Christian Science Monitor published in its Dec. 9 edition a story about Thomas
Stauffer, a consulting economist, who said recently that the total cost of U.S. support for
Israel since 1973 is $1.6 trillion, or twice the cost of the Vietnam War.
This is relevant because the Israelis have just demanded from the U.S. taxpayers another $4
billion to cover the cost of their oppression of the Palestinians as well as an $8 billion
loan guarantee.
Ladies and gentleman, there isn't a state in the union that is not facing a financial
crisis, and if the U.S. government caves in yet again to the Israeli lobby on this matter, it
will be prima facie evidence of mass insanity or of the worse corruption since the
administration of Ulysses S. Grant.
Stauffer made his speech in a lecture commissioned by the U.S. Army War College for a
conference at the University of Maine. He has converted past aid into 2001 dollars and counts
this cost as follows:
Israel has been given $240 billion (remember, this is current dollars), while Egypt has
been given $117 billion and Jordan $22 billion as bribes for signing a peace treaty with
Israel.
In 1973, when the Arabs attacked Israel in an effort to recover territory taken by Israel
in the 1967 war, U.S. support for Israel triggered the oil embargo. This, according to
Stauffer, kicked off a recession that cost $420 billion of output; the boost in oil prices
cost $450 billion; the necessity to build a strategic oil reserve, another $134 billion.
He points out that the United States has already guaranteed $10 billion in commercial loans
to Israel and $600 billion in housing loans, and he expects the U.S. Treasury will end up
paying for all of these. He goes on and on listing more costs, direct and indirect. Israel,
for example, is the only recipient of foreign aid allowed to spend a sizeable percentage of
the money on Israeli products rather than American. It's the only country from which our
defense contractors are required to buy a certain amount of Israeli-made equipment. It is the
only foreign country that gets its aid in a lump sum and then invests it in U.S. bonds so that
taxpayers not only make an annual gift to Israel but also have to pay Israel interest on that
gift.
The fact is that the Israeli government and its powerful lobby have taken advantage of the
good-heartedness of the American people. The American people are generous, but never generous
enough to satisfy Israeli demands for more of our people's hard-earned tax dollars.
It is one thing to provide emotional support. It is one thing even to guarantee coming to
the defense of another country if it is attacked. It is quite another to undertake the
permanent subsidy of a foreign country, something our federal government does not even do for
its states. We have all kinds of problems in the United States that need attention. It's time
to tell the Israelis ``We can no longer afford you.''
I highly recommend that you read the complete story in the Monitor
(www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209 /p16s01-wmgn.html). It should open your eyes to a problem that
will not be fixed unless the American people make their voices heard in Washington.
If we are going to be forced to subsidize a foreign country, I would rather it be France.
We can at least get a decent meal in France and enjoy the art treasures collected there.
Furthermore, France would not involve us in its quarrels.
It's America's policy of absolute support for Israel and Israel's cruel treatment of the
Palestinians that are a big part of our problem with terrorism. We stand convicted in the eyes
of the Muslim world of practicing a double standard by condoning Israel's human-rights
violations and protecting it from international sanctions. That, too, is a terrible price the
American people can no longer afford to pay.
(Write to Charley Reese at P.O. Box 2446, Orlando, FL 32802)
Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2002 4:41 am
Post subject:
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Where is the support for these claims? His assumptions are outrageous. His data is incomplete. He engages in double accounting.
Quote:
If we are going to be forced to subsidize a foreign country, I would rather it be France.
This pretty much shows how bright the author is.
Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2002 5:40 am
Post subject:
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Anonymous wrote:
Where is the support for these claims? His assumptions are outrageous. His data is incomplete. He engages in double accounting.
Quote:
If we are going to be forced to subsidize a foreign country, I would rather it be France.
This pretty much shows how bright the author is.
More spin from a Zionist who just wants to continue the flow of billions of US taxpayer dollars to Israel.. Charley Reese was right on...
US Financial Aid To Israel - Figures, Facts And Impact:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/11/12/us-financial-aid-to-israel-figures-facts-and-impact.php | | | | Guest | | Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2003 7:54 am Post subject: Passionate attachment to Israel |
| http://www.mediamonitors.net/jamesjdavid17.html
Passionate attachment to Israel
by James J. David
Is there any criminal act that Israel can do without being protected from criticism from the United States? If there is I haven't seen it. And I haven't seen it from the Bush Administration or from the Clinton Administration or from any administration before them. But when you consider the influence of Israel's lobby and its political action committees and the more than $41 million they've given to Congress and the White House, is it any wonder Israel is shielded from any shame?
For more than 54 years the Israelis have committed acts that no other nation would dare get away with. But even here in America, where it is not yet illegal to publicly ask the wrong questions, any public figure that does so is subjected to smears, intimidation, and the attempted destruction of his career and reputation by Jewish organizations and by the very cooperative news media.
A few examples of these criminal acts committed by Israel include the treacherous attack on the USS Liberty on June 8, 1967, killing 34 American sailors and wounding another 171. There can now be no disputing that Israel knew its identity, and that the ship was in international waters and clearly marked as a US Naval vessel. What was most treacherous though was not the perfidy of Israel but that of President Johnson ordering the recall of the sixth fleet when he found out that the attackers were not the Arabs but the Israelis. The treasonous compliance continues today as corrupt politicians refuse to take any action against Israel and continue their efforts in hushing-up the whole affair although there seems to be a strong campaign by the Liberty survivors and other brave patriotic Americans in exposing the Israelis of their criminal attack.
Another example of Israel's callous disregard for its supposed "ally" America was the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983, which killed over 200 US servicemen. According to former Israeli Mossad agent, Victor Ostrovsky, Israeli intelligence knew of the plan by Arab terrorists to bomb the building in plenty of time to warn the innocent men, but cynically refused to say anything.
In April 1996 the Israelis attacked an U.N. refugee camp in Qana, Lebanon and killed 103 innocent men, women, and especially children. A U.N. investigation determined the attack was intentional and stated that " while the possibility cannot be ruled out completely, the pattern of impacts in the Qana area makes it unlikely that the shelling of the United Nations compound was the result of technical and/or procedural errors." Shortly after this report the U.N. Security Council voted to condemn Israel for the attack and all nations with the exception of the U.S. voted in favor of the resolution. In other words, intentionally slaughtering 103 civilians was not sufficient for the United States to condemn Israel. Yet, when Hezbollah attacks Israel's illegal occupation of southern Lebanon and results in the deaths of two Israeli soldiers the U.S. is first to condemn this legal resistance.
During the past 27 months the Palestinian resistance from the brutal and illegal Israeli occupation has resulted in more than 2000 Palestinians and 670 Israelis killed. When Israelis are killed or injured by Palestinian suicide bombers the White House wastes not a second to harshly condemn these brutal acts, and it does so in an understandable manner. But when Israelis drop a one-ton bomb in the center of a Gaza City apartment complex and kills 15 innocent Palestinians including 9 small children the U.S. issues a diplomatic statement criticizing the attack only as using "excessive force." Other times when Palestinian children are slaughtered for throwing stones at tanks the United States remains silent.
These are just a few of the criminal acts committed by the Israeli government and shielded from criticism by U.S. politicians or even reported by the controlled media.
Although September 11th brought the fight on terrorism to the front burner, it seems that the United States protects Israel from any criticism here too. An Israeli instant-messaging firm Odigo confirmed that two employees received text messages warning of an attack on the World Trade Center two hours before terrorists crashed planes into the New York landmarks. (Ha'aretz, December 20, 2002.) Is it possible that Israel had foreknowledge of the attack? Could this be the answer why the 4000 Israeli employees at the World Trade Center never showed up for work that tragic September morning? If this is the case then the fact that Israel's government had prior knowledge of the pending attack and not warned the Americans makes them as guilty as our enemy. Whatever the case, our government must make a complete and thorough investigation without any threats from Jewish and Israeli interest groups.
Shielding Israel from criticism and supporting the Jewish state no matter what crimes she commits has caused the United States the loss of respect around the world. In addition, Israel has cost American taxpayers more than $120 billion in the past 40 years. Our one-sided unbalanced Middle East policy has created the hatred of millions and the primary cause of terrorism that has landed on our own soil.
Criticizing our government's dangerous policies and its submissions to the Jewish lobby doesn't make anyone less patriotic or any less of an American. George Washington said it best when he stated that "passionate attachment to another nation produces a variety of evils...the illusion of common interests where no real common interests exist; adopting the enmities of the other; and participation in the quarrels and wars of the other without any justification. Still another evil is that such a passionate attachment gives to ambitious, corrupted or deluded citizens the facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country."
James J. David is a retired Brigadier General and a graduate of the U.S. Army's Command and General Staff College, and the National Security Course, National Defense University, Washington DC. He served as a Company Commander with the 101st Airborne Division in the Republic of Vietnam in 1969 and 1970 and also served nearly 3 years of Army active duty in and around the Middle East from 1967-1969. | | | | Guest | | Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2003 7:58 am Post subject: Liberating America From Israel |
| Liberating America From Israel
by Paul Findley
Nine-eleven would not have occurred if the U.S. government had refused to help Israel humiliate and destroy Palestinian society. Few express this conclusion publicly, but many believe it is the truth. I believe the catastrophe could have been prevented if any U.S. president during the past 35 years had had the courage and wisdom to suspend all U.S. aid until Israel withdrew from the Arab land seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
The U.S. lobby for Israel is powerful and intimidating, but any determined president-even President Bush this very day-could prevail and win overwhelming public support for the suspension of aid by laying these facts before the American people:
Israel's present government, like its predecessors, is determined to annex the West Bank-biblical Judea and Samaria - so Israel will become Greater Israel. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, who maintain a powerful role in Israeli politics, believe the Jewish Messiah will not come until Greater Israel is a reality. Although a minority in Israel, they are committed, aggressive, and influential. Because of deep religious conviction, they are determined to prevent Palestinians from gaining statehood on any part of the West Bank.
In its violent assaults on Palestinians, Israel uses the pretext of eradicating terrorism, but its forces are actually engaged advancing the territorial expansion just cited. Under the guise of anti-terrorism, Israeli forces treat Palestinians worse than cattle. With due process nowhere to be found, hundreds are detained for long periods and most are tortured. Some are assassinated. Homes, orchards, and business places are destroyed. Entire cities are kept under intermittent curfew, some confinements lasting for weeks. Injured or ill Palestinians needing emergency medical care are routinely held at checkpoints for an hour or more. Many children are undernourished. The West Bank and Gaza have become giant concentration camps. None of this could have occurred without U.S. support. Perhaps Israeli officials believe life will become so unbearable that most Palestinians will eventually leave their ancestral homes.
Once beloved worldwide, the U.S. government finds itself reviled in most countries because it provides unconditional support of Israeli violations of the United Nations Charter, international law, and the precepts of all major religious faiths.
How did the American people get into this fix?
Nine-eleven had its principal origin 35 years ago when Israel's U.S. lobby began its unbroken success in stifling debate about the proper U.S. role in the Arab-Israeli conflict and effectively concealed from public awareness the fact that the U.S. government gives massive uncritical support to Israel.
Thanks to the suffocating influence of Israel's U.S. lobby, open discussion of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been non-existent in our government all these years. I have firsthand knowledge, because I was a member of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee in June 1967 when Israeli military forces took control of the Golan Heights, a part of Syria, as well as the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza. I continued as a member for 16 years and to this day maintain a close watch on Congress.
For 35 years, not a word has been expressed in that committee or in either chamber of Congress that deserves to be called debate on Middle East policy. No restrictive or limiting amendments on aid to Israel have been offered for 20 years, and none of the few offered in previous years received more than a handful of votes. On Capitol Hill, criticism of Israel, even in private conversation, is all but forbidden, treated as downright unpatriotic, if not anti-Semitic. The continued absence of free speech was assured when those few who spoke out-Senators Adlai Stevenson and Charles Percy, and Reps. Paul "Pete" McCloskey, Cynthia McKinney, Earl Hilliard, and myself-were defeated at the polls by candidates heavily financed by pro-Israel forces.
As a result, legislation dealing with the Middle East has been heavily biased in favor of Israel and against Palestinians and other Arabs year after year. Home constituencies, misled by news coverage equally lop-sided in Israel's favor, remain largely unaware that Congress behaves as if it were a subcommittee of the Israeli parliament.
However, the bias is widely noted beyond America, where most news media candidly cover Israel's conquest and generally excoriate America's complicity and complacency. When President Bush welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, sometimes called the Butcher of Beirut, as "my dear friend" and "a man of peace" after Israeli forces, using U.S.-donated arms, completed their devastation of the West Bank last spring, worldwide anger against American policy reached the boiling point.
The fury should surprise no one who reads foreign newspapers or listens to BBC. In several televised statements long before 9/11, Osama bin Laden, believed by U.S. authorities to have masterminded 9/11, cited U.S. complicity in Israel's destruction of Palestinian society as a principal complaint. Prominent foreigners, in and out of government, express their opposition to U.S. policies with unprecedented frequency and severity, especially since Bush announced his determination to make war against Iraq.
The lobby's intimidation remains pervasive. It seems to reach every government center and even houses of worship and revered institutions of higher learning. It is highly effective in silencing the many U.S. Jews who object to the lobby's tactics and Israel's brutality.
Nothing can justify 9/11. Those guilty deserve maximum punishment, but it makes sense for America to examine motivations promptly and as carefully as possible. Terrorism almost always arises from deeply-felt grievances. If they can be eradicated or eased, terrorist passions are certain to subside.
Today, a year after 9/11, President Bush has made no attempt to redress grievances, or even to identify them. In fact, he has made the scene far worse by supporting Israel's religious war against Palestinians, an alliance that has intensified anti-American anger. He seems oblivious to the fact that nearly two billion people worldwide regard the plight of Palestinians as today's most important foreign-policy challenge. No one in authority will admit a calamitous reality that is skillfully shielded from the American people but clearly recognized by most of the world: America suffered 9/11 and its aftermath and may soon be at war with Iraq, mainly because U.S. policy in the Middle East is made in Israel, not in Washington.
Israel is a scofflaw nation and should be treated as such. Instead of helping Sharon intensify Palestinian misery, our president should suspend all aid until Israel ends its occupation of Arab land Israel seized in 1967. The suspension would force Sharon's compliance or lead to his removal from office, as the Israeli electorate will not tolerate a prime minister who is at odds with the White House.
If Bush needs an additional reason for doing the right thing, he can justify the suspension as a matter of military necessity, an essential step in winning international support for his war on terrorism. He can cite a worthy precedent. When President Abraham Lincoln issued the proclamation that freed only the slaves in states that were then in rebellion, he make the restriction because of "military necessity."
If Bush suspends U.S. aid, he will liberate all Americans from long years of bondage to Israel's misdeeds.
Mr. Paul Findley, who served as a Republican congressman from Illinois for 22 years, is the author of 'They Dare to Speak Out' and a member of the American Educational Trust's Foreign Relations Committee. | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
