Americans starve so that Israelis kill! Everything you need to know about US taxpayers’ money in ‘Israel’

Many concerns are being expressed among pro-Israel groups and inside Israel about cutting the U.S. financial aid to Israel if it starts to implement Netanyahu’s annexation plan.

A joint Israeli-Arab rally against Israeli plans to annex the West Bank took place in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on Saturday evening. Senator Bernie Sanders addressed the rally in a video from the US. He expressed his support to the protestors, stating that “any plans to annex any parts of the West Bank must be stopped.”

Last month, AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the most powerful pro-Israel group in the country, said it would be a mistake to allow Israel’s annexation of parts of the West Bank to weaken US-Israel ties.

“Some have proposed reducing our ties with Israel because they object to the potential decision by Israel’s leaders to extend Israeli sovereignty to parts of the West Bank,” AIPAC statement said.

“Some have proposed reducing our ties with Israel because they object to the potential decision by Israel’s leaders to extend Israeli sovereignty to parts of the West Bank,” AIPAC statement said.

18 Democratic senators, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, have warned of the impacts of Israeli annexation to Israel’s bilateral and bipartisan relationship with the United States.

The letter, which the senators have sent to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and the new alternate PM Benny Gantz, said that Israel’s annexation “would have a clear impact on both Israel’s future and our vital bilateral and bipartisan relationship.”

The letter also stated that the annexation “would betray our shared democratic values by denying Palestinians’ right to self-determination in a viable, sovereign, independent and contiguous state.”

Israeli annexation of occupied territory clearly violates international law.

An outcome in which Palestinians are denied equality, freedom, and self-determination is an affront to our values and interests. It should not be supported by the United States. https://t.co/J9P5JPOJuw

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) April 29, 2020

While speaking at an online event organized by JDCA, the Jewish Democratic Council of America, Speaker of the US House Nancy Pelosi has warned that the Israeli annexation would undermine U.S. national security and would harm bipartisan support for Israel.

U.S. Military Aid to Israel

Almost all the US aid to Israel is sent as military assistance. Over the past years, the U.S. has spent millions to provide Israel with a strong military arsenal.

Under the 10-year Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Israel, signed in 2016, the US will set funding for Israel at levels of $3.3 billion in foreign military financing and $500 million for cooperative programs for missile defense over each of the next ten years.

In October 2018, State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a press release, “The United States unconditionally affirms Israel’s right to self-defense, and this MOU is a concrete demonstration of our commitment to Israel’s capacity to defend itself with a qualitative military edge over all potential regional adversaries.”

From 1946 to 2017, the US had spent 94,790.100 in military aid to Israel and 5,705.609 in Israel’s missile defense. In 2018, Israel received 3,100.000 for the military and 705.800 for its missile defense.

For the year 2020, the Trump Administration requested $3.3 billion in foreign military financing for Israel and $500 million in missile defense aid to mark the second year of the MOU.

Also, the US has spent $1.559 billion for Israel’s Iron Dome batteries, interceptors and co-production costs. In 2014, the US and Israel signed a co-production agreement to enable the manufacture of components of the Iron Dome system in the US while providing the U.S. Missile Defense Agency with full access to what had been proprietary Iron Dome technology.

Neighboring developing countries at Israel’s gunpoint

Israel is a high-technology superpower, and it’s ranked 18 of 138 out of the countries considered for the annual GFP review for 2020. It has 259 fighters, 2760 tanks, and 10,257 armored vehicles. Its defense budget equals $20,000,000,000.

In 2000, the Israeli air force received its first operational Arrow missile battery, which is partially funded by the US to intercept long-range ballistic missiles, making Israel the first country in the world with an operational system that could shoot down incoming enemy missiles.

If we compare Israel’s military strength with the Palestinians’, it would appear that Israel has an airforce, navy, tanks, and even nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, as well as ballistic missiles, while Palestinians have none of this.

The Palestinians don’t have an army, however, they have resistance factions. Those factions, which serve as the backbone of the future Palestinian defense forces, are mostly listed on the US lists of terrorist organizations, which means that they are sanctioned and prevented from getting any military aid to defend the Palestinian people.

This leads us to the fact that most of the Palestinian factions depend on simple locally manufactured weapons. Hamas’ arsenal, which has been spearheading the Palestinian resistance, mostly consists of locally manufactured missiles and drones according to a recent report by the Associated Press. A very modest arsenal compared to the Israeli nuclear capabilities.

Regarding Lebanon, Lebanon has been ranked this year 118 out of 138 in the annual GFP review. Lebanon has 366 tanks and 2228 armored vehicles, and its defense budget equals $2,500,000,000, which is nothing comparing to Israel’s defense budget, i.e $20,000,000,000.

For Syria, which is ranked 55 out of 138 in the annual GFP review, it has 199 fighters 5370 and armored vehicles, and its defense budget equals $1,800,000,000.

All of this reiterates that the occupation state is posing a serious threat to its neighboring Arab countries, especially with the colonial nature of Zionism and Israel’s rejection to limit its borders.

Huge potential into the wrong hands

Israel uses its military power in its occupation of Palestine and in committing human rights violations against Palestinians, including but not limited to home demolitions and unlawful killings.

With armored bulldozers, Israel demolished and continues to demolish Palestinians’ homes. From 2006 until 30 April 2020, Israel demolished at least 1,552 Palestinian residential units in the West Bank, causing 6,780 people to lose their homes. In 2019 only, Israel demolished 265 structures in East Jerusalem and 256 structures in the West Bank.

Also, Israeli occupation forces conducted hundreds of raids throughout the West Bank to arrest Palestinians, usually at their homes at night, violating international humanitarian law, which prohibits the transfer of detainees into the territory of the Occupying Power. Nearly 4,638 Palestinians, including 458 administrative detainees, were held in Israeli prisons as of November 2019, according to the Israel Prison Service. At the end of April 2020, there were 4,331 Palestinian detainees and prisoners being held in Israeli prisons, including 274 from Gaza Strip.

Furthermore, Israeli crimes are not limited to the demolitions and raids. In 2014, Israel launched one of its deadliest military aggressions against Gaza. In this aggression which lasted for 51 days, Israeli airstrikes and shelling killed at least 2,251 Palestinians, including 578 children and 489 women. Also, between March and November 2019, Israeli forces killed 189 Palestinian demonstrators in the Great Return March, including 31 children and 3 medical workers, and wounded more than 5,800 with live fire. With the same bulldozers that it uses in the demolishing of Palestinians’ homes, Israel murdered a Palestinian young man in Gaza before sending the bulldozer to drag his body.

Israel also uses its military power against its neighboring countries, Syria and Lebanon, by launching missiles and attacking targets. Since 2011, when the Syrian conflict began, Israel has launched hundreds of attacks in Syria targeting the government troops and allied Iranian forces. It had also used Lebanon’s airspace to launch attacks on Syria. There have been almost routine attacks in the form of rocket fire as well as assassinations and air raids carried out exclusively by Israel. In 2006, Israel waged war on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon and the Lebanese capital Beirut, by land, air, and sea. This 34-day war killed 1,109 Lebanese, the majority of whom were civilians.

It will not be surprising to say that Israel is one of the world’s top weapons exporters with approximately $6.5 billion in annual arms sales. About 4.5 percent of its GDP, Gross domestic product, is spent on research and development, of that amount, about 30 percent goes to products of a military nature. By contrast, only 2 percent of German research and development and 17 percent of US research and development is for the military.

Taxes on Americans to pay for more war crimes

It would be interesting to know that the US gives 3.1 billion dollars of the US taxpayers money to Israel every year. American taxpayers have given more money to Israel than to any other nation, despite the fact that Israel commits daily human rights violations.

On May 21st, the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations passed a bill, footing by the US taxpayers, to give Israel a minimum of $38 billion over the next ten years, over $7,000 per minute, despite the ongoing devastation to the US economy.

There are no reasons for this except maintaining the military occupation and committing what the UN has called “war crimes”.

Last year, a UN report released found that Israeli occupation forces used live ammunition against unarmed protesters, killing at least 189 Palestinians during protests near the separation fence between Israel and Gaza in 2018, stating that those violations “may constitute war crimes.”

“The Israeli Security Forces committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Some of those violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, and must be immediately investigated by Israel,” said UN Commissioner Kaari Betty Murungi.

The UN is not the only one who has called Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians as war crimes, but also the ICC. In 2019, ICC’s prosecutor Fatou Bensouda decided to open an investigation in Israel’s war crimes in Palestine,

“I am satisfied that there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation into the situation in Palestine, pursuant to Article 53(1) of the Statute. In brief, I am satisfied that war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip,” stated the prosecutor.

What’s next? Will the US continue to fund and support Israel if the latter starts to implement its annexation plan, grabbing more land and displacing more Palestinians, as Palestinian lives apparently do not matter?!