Is Israel Getting All the Attention Because the US Funds it the Most?

Some people think that Israel gets so much attention because of the financial and military contribution from the US. I call bullshit on that theory. It only holds water if you ignore that most military and foreign aid contributions come in the form of infrastructure such as military bases and soldiers. A professor named Hillel Frisch tallied the cost of all that infrastructure and found that the U.S. gives the equivalent of $27 billion to Japan, $21 billion to Germany, and $17 billion to South Korea in military aid per year. That includes tens of thousands of soldiers in each of those countries, which is the biggest sacrifice of all. If you are only concerned with raw dollars, then you need to ask why Egypt – which gets about half as much military aid from the U.S. as Israel does, provides a similar blockade to Palestinians and far surpasses the kind of human rights violations often blamed on Israel – is not even in the same ballpark as Israel in terms of criticism?

Some will argue that even these figures don’t tell the whole story. They’ll claim that in non-Israel countries, most of the U.S. military aid budget goes to defend American interests, whereas the aid given to Israel is some kind of lobbyist-driven donation. Well, military aid for Israel is far from a donation. First of all, until the fall of the Berlin Wall, Israel served as America’s buffer against Russian-influenced Arab countries. That relationship provided the added benefit of testing a lot of U.S.-provided weapons in real combat situations, providing proof of concept while also boosting the fortunes of American defense companies and their workers. Funding Israel’s military has always benefited the U.S. in the same way that funding other countries’ armed forces benefits the U.S.

Coming soon…

Coming soon…