The Cost of Israel to the American Taxpayer

Abu Juwairiya

Junior Member
"The financial cost of Israel to U.S. taxpayers. Between 1949 and
1998, the U.S. gave to Israel, with a self-declared population of 5.8 million
people, more foreign aid than it gave to all of the countries of sub-
Saharan Africa, all of the countries of Latin America, and all of the countries
of the Caribbean combined – with a total population of 1,054,000,000 people.


In the 1997 fiscal year, for example, Israel received $3 billion from the
foreign aid budget, at least $525 million from other U.S. budgets, and $2 billion
in federal loan guarantees. So the 1997 total of U.S. grants and loan guarantees
to Israel was $5.5 billion. That’s $15,068,493 per day, 365 days a year.


If you add its foreign aid grants and loans, plus the approximate totals
of grants to Israel
from other parts of the U.S. federal budget, Israel has
received since 1949 a grand total of $84.8 billion, excluding the $10 billion in
U.S. government loan guarantees it has drawn to date.


And if you calculate what the U.S. has had to pay in interest to borrow
this money to give to Israel, the cost of Israel to U.S. taxpayers rises to $134.8
billion, not adjusted for inflation.


Put another way, the nearly $14,630 every one of 5.8 million Israelis had
received from the U.S. government by October 31, 1997, cost American taxpayers
$23,241 per Israeli. That’s $116,205 for every Israeli family of five.


None of these figures include the private donations by Americans to
Israeli charities, which initially constituted about one quarter of Israel’s
budget, and today approach $1 billion annually.
In addition to the negative
effect of these donations on the U.S. balance of payments, the donors also
deduct them from their U.S. income taxes, creating another large drain on the
U.S. treasury.


Nor do the figures above include any of the indirect financial costs of
Israel to the United States, which cannot be tallied
. One example is the cost
to U.S. manufacturers of the Arab boycott, surely in the billions of dollars by
now. Another example is the cost to U.S. consumers of the price of petroleum,
which surged to such heights that it set off a world-wide recession during
the Arab oil boycott imposed in reaction to U.S. support of Israel in the
1973 war." ('The Cost of Israel to the American Public', Page 2 By Richard Curtis, 1998)
 
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