I like Israel but no country in the world deserves 1 dime of US tax payer money.
I agree 100% with you. American aid usually does more harm than good to local economies and in this case makes Israel too dependent on the USA. Bad deal for all parties involved.
The rarely mentioned aspect of aid to Israel is that it’s a function of our commitment to maintain Israeli military superiority, dating to the cold war to some extent, and to the withdrawal from the Sinai specifically. Unlike Eisenhower’s promise to safeguard Israel’s access to maritime trade made the first time they gave the Sinai back, I think this commitment should be kept. However it could be kept in a number of ways. We sell Israel’s enemies approximately four times the arms we sell Israel, the same platforms, some of it paid for by the countries involved, some paid for by aid. Clearly if we didn’t provide the Saudis, Egypt, Jordan et al, the necessity of providing Israel aid to purchase arms would largely disappear. Of course that would mean $8 billion or so in reduced armament sales, so it’s not likely to happen.
Then you should'n't have pushed Camp David down their throat.
What is omitted here is that the US pays the bulk of NATO and Europe's defense which is an exponentially larger sum. That money falls under the radar because it is part of the US Defense Budget and not called foreign aid.
And Europe truly are socialists who have opted to eviscerate their defense spending in favor of social programs while the US taxpayer foots the bill for defending them. Europe can afford to defend themselves but opt not to.
Israel OTOH is a tiny country with a huge defense budget due to the surrounding hostiles. Israel has long argued to receive the same treatment as Europe and be included in the defense budget. Arguably since the end of the cold war, with the ME being the center of the hostile to US world and its strategic importance because of oil, and with the contributions of Israeli military technology, Israel has a valid point.
"I like Israel but no country in the world deserves 1 dime of US tax payer money."
The article doesn't say how much of that "military aid" ever leaves the United States. I believe it's fairly little, most goes right to American defense industries. The same with the military aid money given to the Egyptians. We're subsidizing their future war.
What! Not even Haiti?