Firstly, I am not for or against Israel. I am pro-common sense. Last week, TGI reported the U.S. has pledged $38 billion in military aid to Israel spread over the next 10 years as the largest batch of military assistance
Firstly, I am not for or against Israel. I am pro-common sense.
Last week, TGI reported the U.S. has pledged $38 billion in military aid to Israel spread over the next 10 years as the largest batch of military assistance the U.S. ever pledged to another country. Checking the history of U.S. aid provided to Israel since 1949 to present, Israel received $126 billion and $692 million out of which $89 billion and $635 million just for military aid.
Considering that there has been no peace in Israel since the payments for military purposes began in 1959, the question as to the benefits of this money spent on one country’s military becomes questionable. The more money Israel is requesting and getting, the result is more violence there and around it.
Why are we providing military aid to this country of 8.38 million people? In the rhetoric of the U.S. presidents and presidential candidates, Israel is our closest ally, and our best and inseparable friend. In this frequently repeated statement there is an eerie similarity with the rhetoric of the subservient heads and government officials of the Eastern European governments that they always used to please their powerful master, the Soviet Union, from 1945 to 1990.
If anyone ever stepped on the little toe of Israel, the U.S. military would be there instantly to help them, and the whole world is aware of this.
The U.S. has also proved its support of Israel with its more than 40 vetoes against the U.N. Security Council’s resolutions, criticizing Israel even when the rest of council members voted for the resolution. The alliance is unbreakable, so what’s the point of giving more money for military aid to Israel?
The U.S. aid still includes resettlement assistance for Israel in the amount of $10 million per year which pays for the transport and the resettlement of Ethiopian Jews in Israel. Earlier, this aid helped the transport and resettlement of Jews from the Soviet Union to Israel.
How did this become an American problem? Israel is a well-developed country. Can’t it afford to manage its religion-related internal resettlement issues from its own pocket?
Is it logical that money for the starving and the poor is not accepted, but aid money for bringing in more people to Israel is essential? We are paying for adding more people to Israel’s poverty line.
Israel will receive $38 billion during the next 10 years, which of course comes from the American taxpayers’ pockets. Most of it has to be spent on purchasing American military hardware.
The money goes back to the U.S. military hardware complex, which is in private hands. It is not a government business as it is in most countries. The American military hardware industry will get the biggest chunk from the U.S. military aid paid to Israel with the American taxpayers’ money.
Who will get the benefits? The owners, executives and shareholders of the American military hardware companies.
The deal, even if the American and the Israeli parties agreed to it, is still illegal, because according to U.S. laws no foreign country can provide military aid to a country that had not signed and ratified the Non-proliferation Treaty. Pakistan, India, Israel and South Sudan didn’t sign it.
There is a better way to spend that big money. It might be an irrational suggestion, but don’t send me to the lunatics asylum before finishing this article.
Spread over the next 10 years, let’s give this $38 billion to North Korea as a non-military economic aid. Why North Korea? To a country led by a crazy leader? Well, how do you know that he is crazy? The Western media distorts facts in order to demonize selected countries and selected leaders.
But the media conveniently forgets to mention that the North Korean leader never threatened to attack the U.S. or other countries. He only stated firmly that “if attacked, we will defend ourselves and fight back.” According to the U.N. Charter, every country has the right to defend itself and that includes North Korea.
Give this money to the country of the 25 million North Koreans who have suffered enough from the U.S. sanctions. The sanctions never made any sense and caused more harm than good. The American rationale was to squeeze the North Korean people with sanctions and they may turn against their leader and will be ready for a regime change.
It was a gross miscalculation, because the North Korean people’s rationale was, “How mean and cruel the American people might be if they allowed their government to exert so much suffering upon us.” And they are right, because in the U.S. the leaders do what the people in the country want.
With the aid, they will work hard to develop their country to build their society as they see it fit and it should not matter to us if it is Socialism, Communism or something else. Let them choose how they want to live.
But this would affect their rationale, too. They will think, “Finally the American people came to their senses and forced their government to go for peace rather than war and destruction. We start to like the Americans.” And why would they want to start a war to destroy their new infrastructure, buildings, and well-producing fields? Even if they are prepared to defend their country, they, too, prefer peace.
There might be, though, one more important step toward lasting peace, namely to sign a peace treaty with the North Koreans. This is what they have been asking for since 1977. This would result in euphoria on all sides, except of course the military hardware industry in the U.S.
Let’s do some final accounting: $38 billion over 10 years for peace and happiness of 25 million people and for the peace of mind of 320 million of Americans is not a bad deal, especially if we consider that the U.S. spent so far trillions of dollars on wars. Isn’t the life of 25 million North Koreans as valuable and as important as the life of 8.38 million Israelis?
For the U.S., this mediation plan has an inherent risk. What if the North Koreans’ democratic and socialist system turns out to be a big success? Well, we would definitely have a solid bunch of politicians in the U.S. who would be embittered because they can’t imagine a more perfect system than our current imperialistic one. But, I guess, the majority of the soberly thinking Americans would happily write off their bitterness as collateral damage.
Peace is a good trade off. Go for it!
•••
János Keoni Samu is a resident of Kalaheo
