Economist tallies swelling cost of Israel to US
By David R. Francis | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Note from David Duke – The following article came from the mainstream daily the Christian Science Monitor and is very pertinent to our current pro-Israel policy. It shows the incredible cost of that policy, and how cost effective the powerful Jewish lobbies are. By investing a few hundred million in campaign donations and exerting media support for favored candidates and approbation for their disapproved candidates, they reap an exponential benefit in U.S. aid.
The actual cost of our pro-Israel, Jewish supremacist policy has been far greater than this three year old estimate. This article was written before the human and economic disaster of the Iraq War. One can argue quite convincingly that the Iraq War was a direct outcome of the Jewish supremacist, pro-Israel policy of the United States, driven by the Jewish supremacist Neocons in Government, the powerful Israeli Lobby and their allies in the mass media. This war for Israel has already cost America more than 300 billion in direct funds and will extract many billions more for the ongoing medical treatment (many for life) of tens of thousands of Americans wounded and maimed. And of course, there is no end in sight for the war. The war continues at a direct cost of over $1 billion dollars per week. Casualties continue to mount.
It is difficult to estimate the ultimate impact of the American dead and seriously wounded on the economy. If 10,000 men are lost with an average income of over the $30,000 for their next 40 years, the loss to the economy is enormous, and these long term costs are almost never factored in. When the breadwinner of a family is killed or maimed, the taxpayer cost to that family can also be quite large.
Not only is the cost of this Israeli-orchestrated Iraq War not brought into the following equation, neither is the cost of September 11 attacks. For years, American policy in the Mideast region has been driven by the Israeli Lobby. The tiny nation of Israel receives almost a third of the foreign aid budget that America allocates to the whole world. It is this policy that has caused the tremendous hatred against America that drove on the hijackers and terrorists. Even bin Laden himself has said that his chief problem with the U.S. is the Israeli control of our Mideast Policy. Notwithstanding the words of the very Jewish, David Frum, President Bush’s 911 speechwriter, America was not attacked because the hijackers “hated our freedom,” what they hated was our Israeli-controlled Mideast policy.
What was the total monetary cost of 911 on the American economy? It is so high it is almost incalculable. In physical structures and insurance costs, it is in the hundreds of billions of dollars. To that you must add the loss of thousands of jobs, a 4-5 percent decrease in tourism, and the loss of tremendous equity in the markets of the United States. Just the increased security costs because of 911 could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars. Most estimates of the cost of 911 are at least as high $1 trillion dollars in the American economy and many say it could be as high as $3 or $4 trillion dollars.
So the figures below amassed by David R. Francis maybe shockingly low as to the real cost of letting this foreign nation and its extremist ideologues control America’s Mideast policies. Yet, it is still low as to the probably real cost of our Israel-centric policy, it is still at an enormous cost to average American.
Francis uses the figures of $5,700 per person as the true cost of our pro-Israel policy. That includes every man woman of child in the United States. I think a more accurate appraisal of costs should be to the individual taxpayer in America. The number of Americans who paid taxes (not just those who filed returns) is 88.5 million which means that the cost per taxpayer is actually $15,904 dollars, an intolerably high cost to the average working person in America.
It is an exorbitant cost that the Jewish supremacist media almost never address. We are truly indebted to David R. Francis, Jr. and the Christian Science Monitor for this data. – David Duke
Economist tallies swelling cost of Israel to US
originally published December 9, 2002
By David R. Francis | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Since 1973, Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion. If divided by today’s population, that is more than $5,700 per person.
This is an estimate by Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington. For decades, his analyses of the Middle East scene have made him a frequent thorn in the side of the Israel lobby.
For the first time in many years, Mr. Stauffer has tallied the total cost to the US of its backing of Israel in its drawn-out, violent dispute with the Palestinians. So far, he figures, the bill adds up to more than twice the cost of the Vietnam War.
And now Israel wants more. In a meeting at the White House late last month, Israeli officials made a pitch for $4 billion in additional military aid to defray the rising costs of dealing with the intifada and suicide bombings. They also asked for more than $8 billion in loan guarantees to help the country’s recession-bound economy.
Considering Israel’s deep economic troubles, Stauffer doubts the Israel bonds covered by the loan guarantees will ever be repaid. The bonds are likely to be structured so they don’t pay interest until they reach maturity. If Stauffer is right, the US would end up paying both principal and interest, perhaps 10 years out.
Israel’s request could be part of a supplemental spending bill that’s likely to be passed early next year, perhaps wrapped in with the cost of a war with Iraq.
Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid. It is already due to get $2.04 billion in military assistance and $720 million in economic aid in fiscal 2003. It has been getting $3 billion a year for years.
Adjusting the official aid to 2001 dollars in purchasing power, Israel has been given $240 billion since 1973, Stauffer reckons. In addition, the US has given Egypt $117 billion and Jordan $22 billion in foreign aid in return for signing peace treaties with Israel.
“Consequently, politically, if not administratively, those outlays are part of the total package of support for Israel,” argues Stauffer in a lecture on the total costs of US Middle East policy, commissioned by the US Army War College, for a recent conference at the University of Maine.
These foreign-aid costs are well known. Many Americans would probably say it is money well spent to support a beleaguered democracy of some strategic interest. But Stauffer wonders if Americans are aware of the full bill for supporting Israel since some costs, if not hidden, are little known.
One huge cost is not secret. It is the higher cost of oil and other economic damage to the US after Israel-Arab wars.
In 1973, for instance, Arab nations attacked Israel in an attempt to win back territories Israel had conquered in the 1967 war. President Nixon resupplied Israel with US arms, triggering the Arab oil embargo against the US.
That shortfall in oil deliveries kicked off a deep recession. The US lost $420 billion (in 2001 dollars) of output as a result, Stauffer calculates. And a boost in oil prices cost another $450 billion.
Afraid that Arab nations might use their oil clout again, the US set up a Strategic Petroleum Reserve. That has since cost, conservatively, $134 billion, Stauffer reckons.
Other US help includes:
• US Jewish charities and organizations have remitted grants or bought Israel bonds worth $50 billion to $60 billion. Though private in origin, the money is “a net drain” on the United States economy, says Stauffer.
• The US has already guaranteed $10 billion in commercial loans to Israel, and $600 million in “housing loans.” (See editor’s note below.) Stauffer expects the US Treasury to cover these.
• The US has given $2.5 billion to support Israel’s Lavi fighter and Arrow missile projects.
• Israel buys discounted, serviceable “excess” US military equipment. Stauffer says these discounts amount to “several billion dollars” over recent years.
• Israel uses roughly 40 percent of its $1.8 billion per year in military aid, ostensibly earmarked for purchase of US weapons, to buy Israeli-made hardware. It also has won the right to require the Defense Department or US defense contractors to buy Israeli-made equipment or subsystems, paying 50 to 60 cents on every defense dollar the US gives to Israel.
US help, financial and technical, has enabled Israel to become a major weapons supplier. Weapons make up almost half of Israel’s manufactured exports. US defense contractors often resent the buy-Israel requirements and the extra competition subsidized by US taxpayers.
• US policy and trade sanctions reduce US exports to the Middle East about $5 billion a year, costing 70,000 or so American jobs, Stauffer estimates. Not requiring Israel to use its US aid to buy American goods, as is usual in foreign aid, costs another 125,000 jobs.
• Israel has blocked some major US arms sales, such as F-15 fighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1980s. That cost $40 billion over 10 years, says Stauffer.
Stauffer’s list will be controversial. He’s been assisted in this research by a number of mostly retired military or diplomatic officials who do not go public for fear of being labeled anti-Semitic if they criticize America’s policies toward Israel.
