Kill an 8-year old and DEMAND $14 billion

national | miscellaneous | news report Tuesday November 26, 2002 10:19 by Irony is dead

Kill an 8-year old and DEMAND $14 billion in new aid -- all in day's work for Israel PMWATCH -- November 26, 2002 -- According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the United States is about to approve a request from Israel for 14 billion dollars in aid over the next few years above and beyond the annual 3 billion dollars automatically given to Israel every year.

At a time when the US budget is sinking rapidly into its old deficits, and when social programs are being cut left and right, the news that the United States is gingerly doling out $14 billion to a foreign country should be a front-page story.

Chances,however, are that the story will not only NOT be front paged, but will be ignored altogether as non-news.

Meanwhile, we are being worked into a frenzy by the frenzy-loving US media, because apparently a few years ago a Saudi princess may have given some charity money to a sick woman in Jordan, whose husband may or may not have given some of that money to a charity in Saudi Arabia that may or may not have diverted some of that money to someone who may or may not be connected to the 9/11 hijackers. This dizzy tale is of course being front-paged, spotlighted, and beaten up into a hysterical lather by the US media as we speak!

Meanwhile, as Bush eagerly signs on the $14 Billion dollar giveway to Israel, here are some facts to keep in mind:

*An American child is born into poverty every 43 seconds.

*90 percent of the nine million uninsured American children live in working families.

*Seven million American children are often home alone without adult supervision after school when they are at greatest risk of getting into trouble

*In January 2002, with great fanfare, the President signed his "No Child Left Behind" (H.R. 1) education reform bill and "vowed to make educating every child his number one domestic priority." The administration's 2003 budget proposed the smallest education increase in the past seven years.

*The administration says it is important for families to work and its welfare proposals require more hours of work from poor parents. But its budget will result in 114,000 fewer children in working families getting federal child care assistance despite long child care waiting lists in many states.

*Israel's per capita GDP is $20,000 (see: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2004.html -- higher than that of Spain ($18,900) and Portugal ($17,300), twice that of oil rich Saudi Arabia ($10,600), more than twice that of Russia ($8,300), ten times more than that of Pakistan ($2,100) and India ($2,500). And remember Afghanistan and how the US was going to make sure that "never again" will we allow it to collapse back into chaos? Israel's per capita GPD is more than twenty times that of Afghanistan ($800).

For more on US aid to Israel, see: http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/israel050602.html

Here is what they say about the aid proposal for next year: "For 2003, the Bush administration is proposing that Israel receive $2.76 billion in foreign aid, with $2.1 billion in FMF and $600 million in ESF." And for your classic trick for diverting funds to programs close to your heart: "An additional $28 million will go to Israel for the purchase U.S. manufactured counter terrorism equipment."

Please insist that the media let the American people know where their president's priorities rest. Insist that they carry a story about this obscene DEMAND from Israel at a time when the average US household is struggling in these insecure economic times, and when US commitments to their obligation to Afghanistan are being quietly dropped.