| INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS - LOOKING GLASS NEWS | |
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Who's Arming Israel? |
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by Frida Berrigan and William D. Hartung Foreign Policy in Focus Entered into the database on Thursday, July 27th, 2006 @ 14:45:13 MST |
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Much has been made in the U.S. media of the Syrian- and Iranian-origin
weaponry used by Hezbollah in the escalating violence in Israel and Lebanon.
There has been no parallel discussion of the origin of Israel's weaponry, the
vast bulk of which is from the United States. The United States is the primary source of Israel's far superior arsenal. For more than 30 years, Israel had been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance and since 1985 Jerusalem has received about $3 billion in military and economic aid each year from Washington. U.S. aid accounts for more than 20% of Israel's total defense budget. Over the past decade, the United States has transferred more than $17 billion in military aid to this country of just under 7 million people. Israel is one of the United States' largest arms importers. Between 1996 and 2005 (the last year for which full data is available), Israel took delivery of $10.19 billion in U.S. weaponry and military equipment, including more than $8.58 billion through the Foreign Military Sales program, and another $1.61 billion in Direct Commercial Sales During the Bush administration, from 2001 to 2005, Israel received $10.5 billion in Foreign Military Financing—the Pentagon's biggest military aid program—and $6.3 billion in U.S. arms deliveries. The aid figure is larger than the arms transfer figure because it includes financing for major arms agreements for which the equipment has yet to be fully delivered. The most prominent of these deals is a $4.5 billion sale of 102 Lockheed Martin F-16s to Israel. Given the billions of dollars of aid it provides to Israel every year and the central role of U.S.-supplied weaponry in the Israeli arsenal, the United States has considerable leverage that it could use to promote a cease fire in the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah before more Israeli and Lebanese civilians are killed and displaced. President Bush needs to go beyond vague calls for “restraint” to demands for a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, bringing in other key actors in the region, including Iran and Syria. Click here for the full World Policy Institute report. FMS DCS Total 2001 $766,026,000 $4,019,000 $770,045,000 2002 $629,426,000 $1,427,000 $630,853,000 2003 $845,952,000 $16,455,000 $862,407,000 2004 $878,189,000 $418,883,000 $1,297,072,000 2005 $1,652,582,000 $1,110,223,000 $2,762,805,000 2001-2005 TOTALS $4,772,175,000 $1,551,007,000 $6,323,182,000 Year FMF ESF Supplementals NADR-ATA TOTAL 2001 $1,975,644,000 $838,000,000 -- -- $2,813,644,000 2002 $2,040,000,000 $720,000,000 -- $28,000,000 $2,788,000,000 2003 $2,086,350,000 $596,100,000 $1,000,000,000 -- $3,682,450,000 2004 $2,147,256,000 $477,168,000 -- -- $2,624,424,000 2005 $2,202,240,000 $357,120,000 $50,000,000 $210,000 $2,609,570,000 2006 (estimated) $2,257,200,000 $273,600,000 -- $526,000 $2,531,326,000 2007 (requested) $2,340,000,000 $120,000,000 -- $320,000 $2,460,320,000 TOTALS 2001-2007 $15,048,690,000 $3,381,988,000 $1,050,000,000 $29,056,000 $19,509,734,000 William D. Hartung is author of "Tangled Web 2005: A Profile of the Missile Defense and Space Weapons Lobbies" and a senior research fellow at the New School, where Frida Berrigan is a senior research associate. Both are Foreign Policy In Focus scholars. ______________________ Read from Looking Glass News U.S. Financial Aid To Israel: Figures, Facts, and Impact U.S. Aid to Israel: The Subject No One Mentions America's Covenant with Israel: A Pact with the Devil U.S. gives Israel a large new camp Israel looks to U.S. for new aid after withdrawal Israel requests extra US $2.2bn Is Israel running out of Bombs? Israelis secretly arm Iraqis, Iran gets blamed US Wants to Sell Israel ‘Bunker-Buster’ Bombs |
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