Keith, I often wonder if your opinions about Israel are so misguided because you have so many basic facts wrong, or if it’s the opposite.

In any case, Yuyutsu did a good job dispelling some of your misinformation (for example that occupation is illegal). Here are more facts to consider:

Although Israel is very grateful for US aid, it does not rely on it, and would not be bankrupt without it. Israel is not “the beneficary of 66% of the total annual US overseas aid budget and that doesn't include military aid.” (Where do you get this stuff?) In 2006, economic aid to Israel amounted to about 1% of total US foreign aid. Economic and military aid to Israel together was less than 10% of total US foreign aid. (See http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/politics/us-foreign-aid.htm ) And note this: “In 2006, direct economic aid from the US amounted to $240 million, or about 0.15% of Israel's GDP.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Israel

Keith: “Since the announcements in Mecca the Palestinian Government has stated clearly it will recognise the Israeli state and ensure it's security.”

Sure.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2007-02-10T120923Z_01_L10757415_RTRUKOC_0_US-PALESTINIANS-HAMAS.xml&WTmodLoc=NewsHome-C1-topNews-10

Keith, that you have specifically chosen one side over the other, and that you have chosen to emotionally represent that side highlights my point that the many thumbs on the mid-east scale want attention or influence and are unlikely to be the “first” to retreat. If as you say, both are equally dependant on aid then one must look to see what each have manage with that aid. Israel has development, it's visual, it's tangable and it can be used to barter with. Palestine has no visable or tangable assets for which to barter with. One can not barter emotional intangables nor are they of equal commercial value. Countries do business with Israel. As an example aprox. 900 Israeli companies do business with in Russia and export roughly 450 million dollars of product from Israel and import about 262 million dollars worth of product into Israel for sale. The total trade on the other hand between the E.U. and the Palestinian Authority is 42 million eros. 36 million of which is E.U export and just 6 million it imports from Palestian Territories. In that same year 2006, the E.U in a one off package handed over 64 million eros in direct aid to Palestine. Not including more than a billion eros in loans and grants. E.U.aid reached 330 million to Palestine in 2006 in total. As for trade between the E.U. and Israel. In 2004 the total volume of bilateral trade (excluding diamonds) came to over €15 billion.
In fact both are not equally dependent on aid and Israel hopes to be free of all aid by 2008.
Palestinians are the only ones to have their own relief agency with in the U.N. (UNRWA) And are totally and completely dependant on foreign aid for their very existence. What started out as temporary relief agency (UNRWA) has now bloosemed into an industry with a 27,000 man support staff. Guess who pays their wages.

Yuyutsu, Sganot

I erred it's only 33%.

http://www.adc.org/IB85066.pdf Read the whole report.

But haven’t you read the article about which you are posting?

I'm tiring of your personal attacks…how well do you know Young Kevvy Rudd?

The more than $3 Billion the US gave to Israel in 2005 doesn't include traditionally forgiven loans, nor loan guarantees, nor the interest gained on unspent aid, nor interest payments on loans to finance aid, nor an estimate of the tax deductions on donations by private citizens to Israel, nor amounts for joint development projects (All developments rejected and not used by the US).

But significantly you conceal a piece of vital information. Israel is the only US beneficiary to receive it’s aid in cash and early.

You didn’t include military aid. Why not? The US has been decreasing it’s foreign aid but increasing it’s military aid. The US no longer requires all the military aid be spent in the US, only that applied to anti-terrorism projects. That military aid also does not include money spent on joint projects, it is spent in Israel on Israeli military equipment failures. You know them, one was a white elephant tank and it failed spectacularly in Lebanon and the US refuses to touch any of them with a barge pole.

But regardless Egypt and Jordan receive aid in total less than half the amount Israel receives. Peace reigns between Israel and those two countries. The US aid to the Palestinians is not recorded, it is negilible.

I reckon that is an indicator the US has got it seriously wrong.

The slant you blokes put on is a more and more unconvincing attempt to keep your myths alive…and that hinders the work for peace. Yet still there is an increasingly acceptance of the need for a more balanced approach to the conflict. I don’t understand why you are so against peace in the region. You always argue against peace by promoting the things that continue the conflict and criticise me for promoting the things that will result in peace. Why do you do that?

Keith, the instructions while shooting is to shut one eye - not both.

It is the second time on this thread that you attribute to me things that I have not said: first you called me "occupationist" (and you have not bothered to apologise), now you claim that I also, like Sganot, have mentioned any percentage of the aid to Israel as a portion of the total American aid. Also, if you ever asked me, I know almost nothing about Kevvy Rudd - have I said anything about him? if so, where? if not, why was this comment addressed to me?

One sign of intelligence is the ability to distinguish between two individuals. If you are unable to distinguish for example between me and Sganot, it casts a doubt whether you can actually distinguish between any two Arabs or any two Jews, and therefore whether you can have any clear understanding of the situation in the middle-east.

To the subject-matter:

I wrote: "American aid is just a small fraction of Israel's GDP.", nothing about what percentage it could be out of the total American aid budget. In fact, I keep saying that no matter how much it was, even if was 100%, any country in this world (including us), despite the temptation, is better off staying away from any American aid whatsoever. It is best for everyone to have nothing, good or bad, to do with them.

As for the occupation, I pray every day that it is gone - but only as soon as it is safe enough for Israel to finally be out of those cursed territories.

You wrote: "You always argue against peace by promoting the things that continue the conflict "

1. Another false accusation - have I argued against peace? "always"? you are gaining a reputation of someone who does not bother to read what others write before answering them.

2. If by "the things that continue the conflict" you mean the existence of the Jewish state, why don't you say so clearly?

keith, You have also forgotten to calculate the monies Palestinians from around the world send home to support their state, while holding American Jews accountable for their largess to their home State. You lump it all as American aid. You also seem to be saying that a friendly State should be no better treated than a hostile State. America has been a friend to Israel since 1948. That friendship would exist even if Israel and Palestine had developed equally and Israel would still receive preferential treatment.
For 60 years the Palestinians have chosen to be the tool that the surrounding Islamic States have used to batter away at a Jewish State. For sixty years the world has paid for that in hard currency. If they really want the situation to turn all they would have to do is stop the money that supports Palestinian aggression. They obviously have more money than they need or they wouldn't be pissing it away on a war that can never be won.

Keith, you start by admitting a 100% exaggeration. Actually you exaggerated by much more. Aid to Israel isn’t close to 33% of the US aid budget.

Keith: “...Kevvy Rudd?”

Some public figure in Australia?

Keith: “...more than $3 Billion the US gave to Israel in 2005 doesn't include...”

Using your source (Clyde Mark, "Israel: U.S. Foreign Assistance," CRS – see http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/U.S._Assistance_to_Israel1.html), the 2005 number without the loan guarantees, refugee resettlement grant, etc., is $2.56 billion. With the added goodies, ~$2.6 billion. The 2006 numbers are about the same, at most ~11% of US foreign aid. 33% remains an astronomical exaggeration!

(Note also: You’re comparing apples to oranges. US foreign aid stats generally only include direct military and economic aid, not the other goodies you added when considering aid to Israel.)

Tax deductions on private donations? Ridiculous. Donations to foreign governments are not tax deductible. US tax-deductible donations go to private charitable organizations, and are never considered part of the foreign aid budget, regardless of where the funds are spent. How many private donations end up in Australia or the PA or anywhere else? We don’t know, because these also are not counted as US foreign aid.

Keith: “You didn’t include military aid....?”

YOU didn’t include military aid. (Go back to your “66%” blunder.) I discussed both military and economic aid.

Keith: “The US has been... increasing it’s military aid.”

Wrong. See http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/U.S._Assistance_to_Israel1.html

Keith: “That military aid also does not include money spent on joint projects..”

Aid statistics don’t include joint projects for any country. Likewise, US foreign aid doesn’t include the trillions spent liberating Iraq and Afghanistan and assisting the militaries of their new regimes, and poured into NATO, SEATO, ANZUS, etc.

Keith: “Egypt and Jordan receive aid in total less than half the amount Israel receives...”

Actually about 90%.

Keith: “US aid to the Palestinians is not recorded, it is negilible”

In 2006, US economic aid to the PA was $150 million -- 63% of what Israel received.

Keith: “I don’t understand why you are so against peace in the region...”

Not worthy of a response.