Already set to be the “largest military aid package” the US has ever offered to a single country in history, the Obama Administration has written a lengthy letter to US Senators today, informing them of intentions to “substantially sweeten” the already record offer in an attempt to try to get the Israelis to sign on the dotted line.
A $30 billion, 10-year aid package is due to expire, and the new package has been rumored to be in the realm of $37.5 billion, with talk it might go to as high as $40 billion as the Netanyahu government continues to resist signing it.
The latest push comes just a week after Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s top Israel adviser urged Israel to refuse any deal with Obama, promising much more if Trump is elected. Several Israeli officials have warned such a move could significantly shift US-Israel relations, making them a partisan issue.
Few details are clear about the new letter’s offer, though unchanged is the administration’s effort to ensure that Israel spends a larger percentage of the military aid on US-made weapons. Under the present deal, Israel is allowed to spend about 25% of the aid elsewhere, both on fuel and on funding their own programs.
While all indications are that funding for Israeli missile defense schemes will be baked into this new pact, the overall percentage allowed to be spent abroad is expected to drop significantly, which makes this as much a US subsidy for its well-connected arms makers as it is an aid package for Israel.
Not another penny. Ever.
What’s Trump up to? He said “Israel must pay”. But then he wants to throw dollars we don’t have at Israel.
Military aid to the Israeli’s is sick. How can 8 million people get this much money from the USA? Simple. They OWN the US Congress.
True, Tom, and Congress doesn’t have the balls to throw those leeches out, either. Why? They’re constantly blackmailed by the leeches who, btw, have all the juicy tidbits on them. There’s not much any POTUS can do. JFK tried, but wound up assassinated on the late Israeli PM’s orders.
How do you know that?
Gary,
If you’re going to continue to cut and paste hasbara talking points into comments here over and over, could you at LEAST correct the spelling errors? Israel’s intelligence agency isn’t the acronym “MOSAD,” it’s the word “Mossad” (actually HaMossad leModi’in uleTafkidim Meyuhadim, in English Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations).
“We” (i.e. the US government) sold F-15s to Israel on the condition that they keep sensitive technologies on those planes secret. Then they turned right around and sold those technologies to China.
You say “being able to pre-position military supplies in Israel in case we want to intervene in the Middle East” like it’s a good thing.” The problem with such a military capability is that there’s always some idiot who wants to USE it, and intervening in the Middle East is always idiotic.
Thank you for the spelling correction.
The Yazidis are happy that we intervened.
“We” didn’t intervene. At least I didn’t. Maybe you did. But if I had to bet, I’d bet you just sat on your ass eating chocolate covered pork rinds and mindlessly cheering on the bloodshed.
By “we” I mean the USA.
Oh, OK. I quit that street gang years ago.
Standard hasbara “talking points”. Tell me, why don’t we share the data from our x-Band radar that is in Israel, with the Israelis?
Who’s the coward who’s been removing my posts?
I’m the moderator who’s been keeping your posts removed after our automated system has removed them.
If you want your posts to not be removed, make them about something other than “the Jews.”
Where is freedom of speech? Someone must react against this power to restrict comments about any group or organization.
You have freedom of speech. You can say anything you want. Antiwar.com doesn’t have to give you a microphone to say it with, though, any more than you have to let me sit on your couch and eat your popcorn while I’m saying what I have to say.
Yes, I know that you included a thousand words of non-controversial verbiage before you started in on “the Jews” in the hope that it wouldn’t be noticed.
If you’re too lazy to identify who you’re talking about any more specifically than “the Jews” or “the Muslims” or “the Arabs,” you’re too lazy to comment on Antiwar.com.
“I am certain you removed it because it imparted important historical information”
Only Sunday and already a strong contender for Dumbest Thing I’ve Read This Week.
It must be frustrating to come to a battle of the wits unarmed. It shows in your tone, small-minded ad hominem snipe and the artless evasiveness of your “response.” (“Too lazy”? Somethings aren’t even worth asking for an explanation.) Anyhow, I still can’t figure how or why the smart people at Antiwar let “Thomas L. Knapp” monitor posts. I am looking it it, however.
Odd. The ones I ban for this stuff because they don’t even bother to be creative about it generally just say fair cop and go about their business. It’s the ones whom I think might bring some value to the place and just discretely ban the offensive comments of who whine endlessly about it, as if it’s some kind of unforgivable sin to notice their bad behavior.
Sigh. Look, if you want me to show you the door, I can. Just keep making an ass of yourself because it annoys you that you’re not allowed to track your Stormfront mud on the floor here. Or you can post your otherwise not too terrible comment without the “the Jews” crap tagged on at the end. I don’t really care which one of those things you choose as long as you get off the goddamn cross about it.
Oh my gosh. Do I smell a whiff of “Christian-baiting” with your “goddamn cross” crack? “The Papists,” perhaps?
I was amused to discover that you hold yourself out as the William Lloyd Garrison Center’s “director and senior news analyst.” Ironia mirabile! If Antiwar had been around in Garrison’s day, you would have blocked his posts for referring to “the Negroes.”
You’re an idiot. But that’s OK. Being an idiot isn’t against the rules here. So by all means, continue making an ass of yourself in good health.
I don’t know about you, but I am fed up with looking around at the hunger, homelessness, joblessness, and decayed infrastructure of our nation while seeing government constantly whining about how they must take care of Israel.
I think it is time to take all the friends of Israel in government, put them on a cargo ship, and send them to this land they clearly love so much more than their own!
No government can serve two masters, and a government that serves Israel cannot, does not, and will not serve the American people. A friend of Israel is no friend of America. In these dark times America needs leaders who will put America first, second, and third!
Jason Ditz, it only takes one sentence to give readers some context:
The U.S. diverts about one half of 1% of its annual military budget to shore up Israel’s military.
Israel projects mainstream (and not radical leftist fringe) American political, economic and cultural values and attitudes to a part of the world that is gradually and fitfully climbing the “consent of the governed” learning curve.
The problem is Israel requires that confiscation of land, water, etc. and applied bigotry and apartheid be considered as “mainstream American economic and cultural values”. The world is aware that the U.S. supplies Israel all of its latest technology, armaments and aircraft at the expense of U.S. taxpayers. It is Americans who need to be aware and climb the learning curve. The media are of little help in this cause.