Aid to Israel compared with aid to U.S. tornado victims: take a guess who gets more

Destruction in Alabama (L), and Gaza

By Richard Edmondson

Each time disaster strikes somewhere inside the U.S., the Zionists who run Washington make a big show of rushing to provide assistance to the poor, poverty-stricken Gentiles whose A-frame homes, house trailers, and small businesses have been wrecked by the latest “aberration” of nature.

“I’ve never seen devastation like this. It is heartbreaking,” said Obama Friday while touring the state of Alabama—decimated by what was the worst tornado outbreak in at least 37 years, and maybe even the worst in history.

On Tuesday and Wednesday approximately 258 tornadoes, some up to a mile wide, hit not only Alabama, but also Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia, with some of the twisters traveling more than a hundred miles on the ground. The storms included a multiple-vortex tornado that hit Cullman County, Alabama, as well as one particularly massive funnel cloud, perhaps a mile wide, that rampaged through both the cities of Birmingham and Tuscaloosa and is estimated to have traveled some 180-225 miles altogether. At least 350 people were killed and thousands were left homeless.

Obama has authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, to coordinate disaster relief efforts, and according to Reuters, “the president was eager to show that federal relief is on its way and that he is not taking the disaster lightly.” But how much help can these traumatized Americans realistically expect from their government?

FEMA is at best a band aid. In dispensing disaster assistance money, the agency authorizes up to $28,000 per household—not nearly enough for a family which has lost everything in a major storm or other catastrophe. Also, the words “up to” are particularly important, since the full $28,000 is not guaranteed to every household in every case. Sometimes it’s only a fraction of that. This money “is meant to help you with critical expenses that cannot be covered in other ways,” reads the official FEMA website. “This assistance is not intended to restore your damaged property to its condition before the disaster.”

Moreover, much of the help comes in the form of low interest loans—rather than outright grants. “While some housing assistance funds are available through our Individuals and Households Program, most disaster assistance from the federal government is in the form of loans administered by the Small Business Administration,” says the website.

FEMA comes under the Department of Homeland Security, which for the 2011 fiscal year submitted a budget of $56.3 billion. But the vast bulk of these funds were for security, terrorism prevention, and immigration enforcement. A relatively paltry $1.95 billion was earmarked to DHS’s Disaster Relief Fund. (see pdf document, FY 2011 Budget in Brief, Homeland Security, p. 10).

By contrast, the Obama administration requested $3 billion in foreign military financing for Israel for fiscal year 2011. This includes $2.75 billion for the purchase of 20 F-35 fighter planes as well as $205 million for up to ten “Iron Dome” batteries. (see pdf document, U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel, by Jeremy Sharp, p. 1 ) Under the terms of this agreement, Israel is allowed to use approximately 25 percent of this aid to purchase military equipment from Israeli manufacturers—a benefit allowed to no other recipient of foreign aid. All other recipients must purchase from U.S. manufacturers. In addition, there are also other “hidden costs” involved in our unremitting support for the Zionist state. As Alison Weir wrote in 2008:

On top of this, Egypt and Jordan receive large sums of money (per capital about 1/20^th of what Israel receives) to buy their cooperation with Israel; and Palestinians also receive our tax money (about 1/23^rd of that to Israel), to repair infrastructure that Israeli forces have destroyed, to fund humanitarian projects required due to the destruction wrought by Israel’s military, and to convince Palestinian officials to take actions beneficial to Israel. These sums should also be included in expenditures on behalf of Israel.

When all these other considerations are factored in, the total cost of our support for Israel far exceeds the $3 billion per year tagged as “direct aid” to the Zionist state, and quite literally dwarfs the $1.95 billion allocated for Americans hit by tornadoes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters. Add to that the $3 trillion for wars fought on Israel’s behalf and the disparity becomes gigantic. It certainly shows where “our” government’s priorities lie.

Israeli settlement of Ariel, in the illegally-occupied West Bank

Worth keeping in mind, of course, is that the natural disasters we are witnessing seem to be hitting the country with ever increasing frequency these days. According to the Weather Channel, the month of April this year set a record, with a preliminary count of 453 tornadoes. This far exceeds the number recorded in previous years for the same month. Prior to 2011 the record was 267 tornadoes in April of 1974.

So high is this month’s twister count in fact that it is within range of the all-time record number of tornadoes ever recorded in a single month. That record—of 543 tornadoes—was set in May of 2003.

“There have been over 5,200 severe weather reports (tornadoes, hail, and high winds/wind damage) so far in April,” said the Weather Channel in a report updated on April 30. “On average, only about 3300 severe weather reports are tallied in an entire April nationwide.”

Just two weeks ago, on April 16, at least 60 tornadoes erupted in seven states, with 28 of those centered in North Carolina, which was by far the hardest hit state. It was the largest tornado outbreak in that state’s history, and approximately 4,700 people registered for disaster assistance. So how much money will they get? Roughly $2.8 million, according to the Fayetteville Observer—which would average out to a bit over $595.70 each.

Of course, the people of Alabama and North Carolina should count their blessings. At least the Zionists aren’t blockading their states and preventing building supplies from entering as they are in Gaza. Thank goodness for small favors.

Map of North Carolina showing where tornadoes hit on April 16

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

US weapons to Israel are disincentives to peace

By Josh Ruebner

23 April 2011

Against the background of Israel’s contempt for international law and violations of Palestinian human rights, and as Washington now considers raising the debt ceiling and making even more substantial cuts to the 2012 budget, Josh Ruebner argues that “the moral, financial and political costs of arming Israel can no longer be ignored”.

Israel may be forgiven for failing to realize the current fiscal woes of the United States. After all, US military aid to Israel not only sailed unscathed through last week’s passage of the 2011 budget, but reached the record level of 3 billion dollars.

The United States additionally provided Israel 415 million dollars for procurement, research and development of joint US-Israeli missile defence projects, including 205 million dollars to fund Israel’s newly-deployed Iron Dome system.

This anti-missile battery already has altered significantly the strategic balance in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when Israel successfully shot down incoming rockets fired from the Gaza Strip earlier this month. With the assured diplomatic backing of the United States to prevent Israel from being held accountable by the international community for its illegal blockade, Iron Dome will embolden Israel to tighten its siege and escalate its attacks on the occupied Gaza Strip by providing its citizens with additional protection against retaliatory fire.

US funding of Iron Dome is but one example of many of how US weapons transfers to Israel enhance Israeli military dominance over Palestinian freedom and create perverse economic disincentives for Israel to defy US policy goals, such as halting Israel’s colonization of Palestinian land, ending its collective punishment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and negotiating in good faith a lasting peace agreement.

As long as US weapons continue to flow, Israel will feel free to disregard the Obama administration’s mild blandishments and half-hearted attempts to bring Israel to the negotiating table. Unfortunately this disincentive structure is set to be reinforced over the coming years.

Under a Bush-era agreement, US weapons transfers to Israel are scheduled to total 30 billion dollars during 2009-18, an annual average increase of 25 per cent above previous levels. With this 2007 Memorandum of Understanding, the United States solidified Israel’s position as the largest recipient of US military aid this decade. In line with increases proposed under this arrangement, President Obama asked for a record-breaking 3.075 billion dollars of weapons for Israel in his 2012 budget request.

A new online database – How Many Weapons to Israel? – casts doubt on whether the United States can afford, either morally, financially or politically, to continue transferring weapons to Israel at taxpayer expense without examining the ramifications of this policy.

During 2000-09, the United States licensed, paid for, and delivered to Israel more than 670 million weapons and related equipment, valued at nearly 19 billion dollars, through three main weapons transfer programmes (Foreign Military Sales, Direct Commercial Sales and Excess Defence Articles). These weapons transfer programmes accounted for nearly 80 per cent of the more than 24 billion dollars in military aid appropriated to Israel during these years. The bulk of the remaining money was spent by Israel on its own domestic arms industry, a unique exemption written into law for Israel. All other countries receiving US military aid are required to spend the whole sum within the United States.

Military aid to Israel ran the gamut from the patently absurd - one used food steamer valued at 2,100 dollars – to the lethal – 93 F-16D fighter jets valued at a total of nearly 2.5 billion dollars. With nearly 500 categories of weapons transferred to Israel, the United States is pervasively, intricately and comprehensively involved in arming its military.

These weapons transfers also make the United States deeply complicit in almost every action the Israeli military takes to entrench its illegal 43-year military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip and the apartheid policies that undergird its government’s stance toward Palestinians.

From September 2000 to December 2009, roughly the same period during which the United States transferred these 670 million weapons to Israel, the Israeli military killed at least 2,969 Palestinians, of whom 1,128 were children, who took no part in hostilities, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem.

For example, Israel killed 446 unarmed Palestinians, including 149 children, with missiles fired from helicopters. The Pentagon classifies the number, types and value of missiles transferred to Israel; however, the United States gave Israel nearly 200 AH-64D Apache, Sikorsky CH-53 and Cobra helicopters from which at least some of these lethal missiles were fired. It was likely one such US-supplied missile from a US-supplied helicopter that Israel fired in the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on 29 December 2008, which killed five sisters, Jawaher (age four), Dina (age seven), Samar (age 12), Ikram (age 14), and Tahrir Baulusha (age 17) during an attack on a nearby mosque.

Israel’s misuse of US weapons to commit human rights abuses like these against Palestinian civilians should trigger sanctions against, rather than increasing amounts of military aid to, Israel. The Arms Export Control Act limits the use of US weapons to “internal security” and “legitimate self-defence”. Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip is defined by the US government as a foreign military occupation, and the killing of thousands of unarmed civilians in support of a military occupation cannot be justified as legitimate without distorting the meaning of self-defence.

In addition, the Foreign Assistance Act strictly prohibits US foreign assistance to any country that “engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights”. The State Department’s recently released 2010 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices documents amply, if not comprehensively, Israel’s human rights abuses of Palestinians.

As Washington now considers raising the debt ceiling and making even more substantial cuts to the 2012 budget, the moral, financial and political costs of arming Israel can no longer be ignored.

If the Obama admininstration is serious in its efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and genuine in its stated commitment to the universality of human rights, then it must utilize the significant leverage the United States wields over Israel through its military aid programme. By terminating weapons transfers to Israel at least until Israel upholds its obligations under US and international law, ends its illegal military occupation of Palestinian land and negotiates in good faith a just and lasting peace with Palestinians, the United States can create an incentive structure to achieve its frustrated policy goals.

Josh Ruebner is National Advocacy Director of the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a national coalition of more than 350 organizations working to change US policy toward Israel/Palestine to support human rights, international law and equality. He is a former Analyst in Middle East Affairs at Congressional Research Service