Come Watch Me Bleed: Israel's Manipulation of America's tax System
By Rasha El-Haggan, English Major at University of Maryland Baltimore County (Copyrighted 1999)
Engraved in stone on the top of the main entrance of the Internal Revenue Service headquarters are the words, "Taxes are what we pay for civilized society."
As American citizens, we pay out of every paycheck a certain percentage in tax that the government uses to provide us with the society we live in. Our clean streets, well maintained highways, numerous schools, public colleges, beautiful parks are all maintained with our tax money.
Taxes also give us the right to dictate what our government does, especially with our money. We like to see our government alleviate the problems of homelessness, increase financial aid to college students, and better maintain our public school programs. We would also hope to see America lead the world by helping more and more of its poor countries.
America has been active in the past in alleviating world famine in countries like Sudan and India. Our government has sponsored groups like the Red Cross and Save the Children which help needy countries. In short America has not only led the world as one of the greatest nations but it has also led the world in the cause of humanity.
America currently and under the halo of the past 10 administrations since President Truman?s time (1945-1953) has taken under its motherly wings the new state of Israel. The United States has led the world in both financial and military aid to Israel. We have helped them build homes, schools, and communities. We have also helped them build their first atomic and hydrogen bombs.
In fact our aid to Israel, a country the size of Hong Kong has amounted to $84.9 billion dollars since 1967, that is 15 million dollars a day, 628 thousand dollars an hour. Therefore, it is imperative to examine U.S. Foreign aid to the State of Israel, looking closely at the implication for the average U.S. taxpayer while briefly mentioning the American pro-Israeli lobby. Furthermore, this essay will examine how the Israeli government treats the Palestinian people, using the money we give it. Finally, we will conclude with whether the U.S. should continue its Israeli funding.
First of all, let us take a broad look at US foreign aid to Israel. According to the Population Reference Bureau of Washington D.C. in mid 1995 the Sub-Saharan countries with a population of 568 million received in foreign aid the amount of over 24 billion. This figure amounted to $43 per sub-Saharan African. Similarly, with a combined population of 486 million, all of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean together had received $38,254,400,000. This amounted to $79 per person.
In comparison, our foreign aid to Israel's 5.8 million people during the same period was close to 11 thousand dollars. This meant that for every dollar we spent on African, we spent $250.65 on an Israeli, and for every ollar we spent on someone from the Western Hemisphere outside the United States, we spent $214 on an Israeli.
Furthermore, Mr. Richard Curtiss, a retired foreign service officer and executive editor of the Washington report on Middle Eastern Affairs, used reports compiled by Clyde Mark of the Congressional Research Service and other sources to tally all of the extra items for Israel buried in the budgets of the Pentagon in fiscal year 1993.
Washington Report news editor Shawn Twing did the same thing for fiscal years 1996 and 1997. He discovered that as of Oct. 31, 1997 Israel will have received $3.05 billion in U.S. foreign aid for fiscal year 1997 and $3.08 billion in foreign aid for fiscal year 1998. Adding the 1997 and 1998 totals to those of previous years since 1949 yields a total above $74 billion dollars in foreign aid grants and loans. Adding to this figure the 12.2 percent of the amount that Israel receives from other U.S budgets, the grand total becomes close to 83 billion dollars.
But that's not quite all. Unlike other aid recipients who receive their aid in monthly installments, Congress has voted in the special privilege for Israel to receive its annual aid during the first month of the fiscal year. This enables Israel to invest the money in U.S. Treasury notes. That means that the U.S., which has to borrow the money it gives to Israel, pays interest on the money it has granted to Israel in advance, while at the same time Israel collects interest on the money. That interest to Israel, which totals $1.650 billion, increases our grand total very close to 85 billion dollars. Thus we spend over $14 thousand dollars for each Israeli man, woman and child.
The next question to ask would be, "Does our U.S. Treasury receive anything in return?" It is a fact that some of the aid we send to Israel goes in the form of government loans. It is also true that Israel never defaulted on repayment of a U.S government loan. It would be equally accurate to say Israel has never been required to repay a U.S government loan.
Mr. Curtiss states in his article "True Lies About U.S. Aid to Israel" featured in the Washington Report: "Most U.S. loans to Israel are forgiven, and many were made with the explicit understanding that they would be forgiven before Israel was required to repay them." By disguising as loans what in fact were grants, cooperating members of Congress exempted Israel from the U.S. oversight that would have accompanied grants.
On other loans, Israel was expected to pay the interest and eventually to begin repaying the principal. But the Cranston Amendment, which has been attached by Congress to every foreign aid appropriation since 1983, provides that economic aid to Israel will never dip below the amount Israel is required to pay on its outstanding loans. For example, Israel is given $100 in 1994 and is asked to pay $120 back by 1995. In 1996 the loan becomes outstanding. The Cranston Amendment states that the aid we give to Israel in 1996 must include the $120 it has to pay us back. In short, whether U.S. aid is extended as grants or loans to Israel, it never returns to the Treasury.
Israel enjoys other privileges. While most countries receiving U.S. military aid funds are expected to use them to buy U.S. made arms, ammunition and training, Israel can spend part of these funds on weapons made by Israeli manufacturers. Also, when it spends its U.S. military aid money on U.S. products, Israel frequently requires the U.S. vendor to buy components or materials from Israeli manufacturers. Thus, though Israeli politicians say that their own manufacturers and exporters are making them progressively less dependent upon U.S. aid, in fact those Israeli manufacturers and exporters are heavily subsidized by U.S. aid.
Although it's beyond the parameters of this study, it's worth mentioning that Israel also receives foreign aid from some other countries. After the United States, the principal donor of both economic and military aid to Israel is Germany. By far the largest component of German aid has been in the form of restitution payments to victims of Nazi atrocities. However Germany has also provided extensive military assistance to Israel during and since the Gulf war and a variety of German educational and research grants go to Israeli institutions.
The total of German assistance in all of these categories to the Israeli government, Israeli individuals, and Israeli private institutions has exceeded some $31 billion or $5,345 per person, bringing the per person total of U.S. and German assistance combined to almost $20,000 per Israeli. Since the Israeli government spends very little public money on the more than 20 percent of Israeli citizens who are Muslim or Christian, the actual per person benefits received by Israel's Jewish citizens would be considerably higher.
As generous and as supportive as we would like to be, the $84.8 billion in grants, loans, and commodities that we gave to Israel since 1949 cost the U.S taxpayers an additional $49 million dollars in interest. Furthermore, we, the tax paying citizens, have incurred immense political and military costs for our consistent support of Israel during its half-century of disputes with the Palestinians and all of its Arab neighbors. In addition, there have been $20 billion in tax-exempt contributions made to Israel by American Jews in the nearly half-century since Israel was created. Even excluding all of these extra costs, America's $84.8 billion in aid to Israel from fiscal years 1949 through 1998, and the interest the U.S. paid to borrow this money, has cost U.S. taxpayers $134.8 billion, not adjusted for inflation. Or, put another way, the nearly $14,630 every one of 5.8 million Israelis received from the U.S. government by Oct. 31, 1997 has cost American taxpayers $23,240 per Israeli.
It is interesting to not the method in which Israel obtained $84.9 billion dollars worth of taxpayers money in foreign aid. Since the U.S government almost never gives away money, every interest group wanting funding from the U.S. government creates lobbying parties. Currently, the biggest lobbying group controlling U.S. Middle East policy making is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
AIPAC, with 150 employees and a $15 million budget (Curtiss, 18), is backed by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, an umbrella group comprising of 52 separate U.S. organizations whose primary concern is Israel. Some of those groups receive budgets much larger than AIPAC and several possess Washington Lobbyists of their own. Together they also formed some 126 political action committees which have played an active role in rewarding members of Congress who follow AIPAC?s wishes, and punishing those who do not.
As a consequence of AIPAC?s hard work, the Israeli lobby currently controls many major roles in our U.S. government. For instance, President Clinton?s top two White House foreign policy advisers, National Security director Samuel Berger and his deputy, John Steinberg have pro-Israeli ideals, not to mention the current State Department spokesman, James Rubin. Also, the assistant Secretary of state-designate for Near East Affairs, Martin Indyke, sympathizes with pro-Israeli interest groups. Interestingly, he has not only just completed an assignment as U.S. ambassador to Israel, but all of his previous employment before joining the Clinton administration has been in support of Israel.
That?s not all, both the State Department official in charge of U.S. participation in the peace process, Dennis Ross, and his deputy, Aaron David Miller, are Jewish political appointees. In the past, they have had grants from pro-Israel Foundations and, like Indyk, also have lived and studied in Israel on their own.
Furthermore, 10 percent of the members of Congress are pro-Israel and there have been several pro-Israel Cabinet members in both the first and second Clinton administrations. Finally, of nine members of the Supreme Court, two, both of them Clinton appointees, are pro-Israel as well as of the Jewish faith. Is it ironic then that President Clinton according to U.S. Jewish community papers got about 85% of the Jewish vote in 1992 and 88% of the Jewish vote in 1996? (Curtiss, 18).
The question is "What does being Jewish have to do with the Israeli Lobby?" Britain created and annexed Israel for the sake of those Jews who wanted a Jewish homeland. In fact, the State of Israel defines itself as a Jewish State. Although there is nothing wrong with a religious government and there is nothing wrong with American Jews wanting involvement with the Middle East Process, the fact that our Presidents appoint our government officials to suit another country is undemocratic and unethical. It is plain to see that the Israeli lobby carries much weight with our political officials, enough weight to attain $84.9 billion dollars for the Israeli government.
What does the Israeli government do with all this money?More importantly, how does this very generous & supportive aid that we as the United States of America give Israel affect our image to the world? To carefully assess these questions, one must first briefly mention the history of the State of Israel.
According to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting?s (CPB) video "The People and the Land," Palestine was the historical name for the Holy Land located north of the Suez Canal. From the beginning of time, it has had rich cultural associations with three of the world?s great religions: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity. In the early part of this century, Britain adopted a policy favoring the "establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people?" (Balfour Declaration). Upon the establishment of this goal, the British government created the Balfour Declaration in November 12, 1917 which distinctively outlines it was "clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine."
At this point in history, Britain had as much right to promise Palestine to the Jews as America to promise Australia to the Russians. In fact, in 1917, Palestine was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Regardless, Britain waged war on the Ottoman Empire and in 1918 helped some 550,000 Jews, mostly from Europe, to illegally immigrate to Palestine.
By 1948, the United States government under Harry Truman & the British Parliament were politically in charge of Palestine?s fate. The British completely ignored Palestinian concerns that they would become second class citizens in their own land. Also, in 1947 the heads of U.S diplomatic missions in the Middle East convened in Washington, D.C. to advise President Harry Truman against the division of Palestine, saying it would result in a bloodbath in the short run and major problems for the U.S. in the Middle East in the long run. They were right,as history has proven. But President Truman?s reply at the time was, "I am sorry gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism. I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents"(Curtiss, 76).
In 1948, leaders of the Jewish minority in Palestine declared independence for a Jewish State. They renamed Palestine as Israel. As a result, more than half a million Palestinians were chased out of their homes for being the wrong kind of human. They managed to hold onto the mountains and the Gaza Strip. In 1967, the Israeli army occupied the rest of Palestine, i.e. the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Since 1967, Israel, the single largest recipient of U.S foreign aid, has indiscriminately pushed the Palestinians out of their homes.
The question still remains to be "Should the United States government use our tax paying money to send foreign aid to Israel?" A closer look at the Israeli government?s practices will help answer that question.
First, the Israeli government rules the non-Jewish Palestinians under a military government. This automatically means that Palestinians with their large majority have no public representation in city hall. As one Israeli mother said, "the only Arab in city hall is the one serving the tea" (Hayes, "People and the Land").
Since the Israel governs Palestinians according to military standards, Palestinians are not allowed to vote for their leaders nor are they allowed to question the rules which govern them. This inevitably results in discriminatory actions. One way the Israeli military discriminates against Palestinians is through car license plates. Each time a car drives past military run check posts, government law requires Israeli soldiers to examine the car?s permit as well as the driver?s permit.
According to Brigadier General Fredi Zak of the Israeli Army, all cars, regardless of the owner?s religious background must be stopped. Unfortunately that is not the case. In fact, Palestinian drivers are Distinguished by special license plates that indicate the owner?s identity. For example, Jewish settlers receive yellow plates regardless of where they live. Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip receive white plates, while Palestinians living in the West Bank receive Blue plates. Color-coding helps Israeli soldiers determine who gets the Blue Plate Special. Cars with yellow plates never stop through the checkpoints.
In Tom Hayes video, "People and the Land," two American reporters drove a yellow plated car through a checkpoint. They continually drove non-stop through 5 checkpoints. They were finally stopped on their 6th checkpoint for approximately 45 seconds, enough for the Israeli soldier to verify their tourist permits. On their way back, they exchanged their yellow plates for blue ones. Not only did the soldiers stop them at every checkpoint (that?s 6 stops within an hour?s drive), but each soldier held them for an average of 5 minutes each, giving the total of 30 minutes.
Imagine if our U.S. government mandated that we be stopped for 30 minutes to every 1-hour drive because of the color of our skin, or because of the religion we practice. For us, this is intolerable. For Palestinians, this is an every day occurrence.
As one Palestinian mother said, "we do not mind the stops. We are used to them. We mind them stopping our ambulances who carry our injured children" (Hayes, "People and the Land"). When American reporters asked Brigadier General Fredi Zak of stopping ambulances at check points, he replied, "When we are talking about ambulances and emergency cases, they can go directly and the check posts are ordered that in emergency cases ambulances have free access." However, according to Human Rights Watch, in 1996 alone nine Palestinians died as a result of ambulances being detained at checkpoints.
One of these victims was pregnant Hanan Zayed. She was hemorrhaging heavily while inside a rushing ambulance. While soldiers detained the ambulance at a check post, Hanan gave birth to one of her baby twins. The baby died at the check post. An hour and a half later the soldiers allowed the ambulance carrying Hanan to pass through the check post. While stopping at the 2nd check post, Hanan gave birth to her 2nd child. The 2nd child, as a result of non-hospital care died immediately after reaching the hospital 2 hours later. Because of neglect and discrimination, Hanan lost 2 of her most precious treasures.
Being detained at checkpoints, with hemorrhaging mothers or dying sons is not the only way the Israeli government discriminates against Palestinians. There are far worse ways worth mentioning. According to Article 27 of the Geneva Accords (a peace process document), "persons (under control of an occupying power) shall at all times be humanely treated, and shall be protected against all acts of violence or threats there of?" Although the Geneva Accords was composed precisely for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel has violated its rules numerous times.
According to Lieutenant Colonel Fogel, an Israeli military spokesman, "We give strict instructions to our soldiers. We instruct them on how to behave, what situations to open fire. Their role is to use minimal force?Soldiers are not there to inflict judgements, they are there to bring a person to a court of law. We allow shooting in situations where soldier lives are being threatened. Children are special cases?"
If soldiers are only allowed to use force when their firearms if their lives are threatened, why are there 235 children ages 16 and under killed by security forces in 1996 alone? Why were there 240,000 Palestinians disabled due to bullet shots? Why are 58 percent of those disabled 18 years or younger? If soldiers are not to inflict punishment, why are there 46,000 kids under the age of 18 disabled by military soldiers? bullets?
An Israeli woman explains it best when she ays, "When 2 children are killed it?s an accident, when 200 are killed, it?s a policy." While LT Colonel Fogel says the military uses "minimal force," his superior, former prime minister of Israel Yitzak Rabin told the New York Times in 1988, that the Israeli army will "follow a policy of might, power, and beatings" (Hayes, "People and the Land").
This policy of "might, power, and beatings" set the stage for many years to come. Up to this day, the Israeli government has pushed some 5 million Palestinian people out of their homes and resettled in their place new Israeli citizens. Villages such as Nazareth, Al-Ramla, Safad, Tiberias, and Tulkaram have been demolished and their Palestinian occupants have been sent to live in the mountains.
Most of these villages stand today uninhabited. However, according to Israeli settlement planning, Israeli Jewish citizens will move in by the beginning of the new millennium. Israel barred the displaced Palestinians from returning to their homes, then declared their roperty abandoned and claimed it all. Many of the Palestinians wound up in refugee camps like the one at Fera?a and Tulkarem. Many of these camps are surrounded by graffiti filled walls with statements such as "It?s cheaper to kill them".
One of the most famous incidents of Israeli displacement of Palestinians is the Massacre of Deir Yassin. Early in the morning of Friday, April 9, 1948, commandos of the Irgun, an Israeli militia army, headed by Menachem Begin, Israeli Prime Minister, attacked Deir Yassin, a village with about 750 Palestinian residents. It was several weeks before the end of the British Mandate. The village lay outside of the area that the United Nations recommended be included in a future Jewish State. Deir Yassin had a peaceful reputation and was even said by a Jewish newspaper to have driven out some Arab militants. Unfortunately it was strategically located on high ground in the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
According to an Israeli settlement plan kept secret for years after the Massacre, the city was to be destroyed and the residents evacuated, making way for a small airfield that would supply the beleaguered Jewish residents of Jerusalem.
By noon of that Friday, over 100 people, half of them women and children, had been systematically murdered. Twenty-five male villagers were loaded into trucks, paraded through the Zakhron Yosef quarter in Jerusalem, and then taken to a stone quarry along the road between Givat Shaul and Deir Yassin and shot to death. The remaining residents were driven to Arab East Jerusalem.
That evening the Irgunists escorted a party of foreign correspondents to a house at Givat Shaul, a nearby Jewish settlement founded in 1906. Over tea and cookies rhey amplified the details of the operation and justified it, saying Deir Yassin had become a concentration point for Arabs, including Syrians and Iraqis, planning to attack the western suburbs of Jerusalem. Interestingly, they could not supply any proof to back up their claim.
The New York Times reported a final body count of 254 Palestinians on April 13, a day after they were finally buried. The Irgunist leaders admitted that the massacre "disgraced the cause of Jewish fighters and dishonored Jewish arms and the Jewish flag." They played down the fact that their militia had reinforced the terrorists' attack. They also played down the fact that, in Begin's words, "Deir Yassin was captured with the knowledge of the Haganah, another of Israel?s more powerful militia groups, and with the approval of its commander" as a part of its "plan for establishing an airfield."
Of about 144 houses, 100 were dynamited. The village?s cemetery was later bulldozed and, like hundreds of other Palestinian villages to follow, Deir Yassin was wiped off the map. By September, Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Poland, Rumania, and Slovakia were settled there over the objections of Martin Buber, Cecil Roth, and other Jewish leaders, who believed that the site of the massacre should be left uninhabited. The center of the village was renamed Givat Shaul Bet. As Jerusalem expanded, the land of Deir Yassin became part of the city and is now known simply as the area between Givat Shaul and the settlement of Har Nof on the western slopes of the mountain.
The massacre of Palestinians at Deir Yassin is one of the most significant events in 20th-century Palestinian and Israeli history. That same year, of 1948, saw the expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinian inhabitants, making room for survivors of the Holocaust and other Jews from the rest of the world. Since then, over 400 Arab villages and cities were wiped off the map, replaced by Israeli settlements. Interestingly and even ironically, President Harry Truman recognized the State of Israel 11 minutes after it declared its autonomy, which was exactly 1 month after the Massacre of Deir Yassin.
There are many more violations in which Israel has taken an active role. Israel has violated 25 U.N regulations. It has dismissed 2 U.N resolutions. It practices collective punishment, which is illegal according to the UN. It has killed, tortured, and raped many children. It has violated hundreds of Human Rights laws and regulations.
Even the U.N Human Rights commission has "declared that Israel?s grave breeches of the Geneva convention relative to the protection of civilian persons?are war crimes and an affront against humanity"(Hayes, "People and the Land").
Why then are we still sending aid to Israel? There have been many examples through out history of countries that violate U.N resolutions and as a result the U.S. has ceased funding.
For example, when Iran was accused of terrorist actions, the U.S. stopped its funding. When Sudan was accused of discrimination, the U.S stopped its funding. Even recently, when Iraq was accused of building weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. not only stopped its earlier funding, but also imposed sanctions against the Iraqi people. Why then is the U.S. not taking action against Israel?s atrocious actions?
Do we, the taxpayers, want our money to fund such atrocities? I think not. To this date, there have been cuts in America?s food stamp programs totaling $1.2 billion dollars. Also, Israel receives 4 times as much money as America spends on research to cure AIDS, killer of more Americans than the Vietnam War. Even more surprising, what Israel receives in 8 months exceeds all of the funding for the National Endowment for the Arts since it was created in 1966. Even our Public Broadcasting Funding saw cuts of $10 million dollars, equal to 16 hours of aid to Israel.
Eighty-four point nine billion dollars seems to this writer to be a huge amount of money to waste. Our own country is in dire need of even a fraction of that money.
We could use it to better our school programs, to provide more computers and technology aid to our public school systems. We can use this money to virtually eliminate American poverty, thereby eliminating welfare. We can use this money to clean up our city streets, provide better orphanages, and decrease our drug problem. We can use 84.9 billion dollars to give homes to our homeless citizens, to give scholarship aid to those wanting to go to college but knowing they can?t afford it.
We can use this money to better our AIDS and Cancer research. Most importantly, 84.9 billion dollars can result in major tax reductions for the entire United States of America. Eighty four point nine billion dollars should be spent on U.S. citizens living in the U.S. instead of on a country that violates the essence of humanity.
As one Palestinian journalists says, "I?m mainly talking to Americans who are paying those taxes and those taxes are sent as bullets, as tear gas bombs to shoot, to kill our children. I ask them, what have we as Palestinians committed as a crime against you? For God?s sake, it?s time to start looking on both sides of the coin" (Hayes, "People and the Land). As Americans, we must take a stand. We can?t just sit at home and feel bad about what?s happening in the world. We have to act upon it. Martin Luther King JR said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to Justice everywhere." If we don?t act now, we might be next. We must hear, if not listen, to Palestinian voices who cry everyday for peace. "I only want to smell peace," says a Palestinian man. "I don?t care to touch it. I daren?t push my luck. I only wish to smell it" (Hayes, "People and the Land"). "Am I less than you are?" asks another Palestinian elderly man. "I have ears, you have ears. I have a head. You have a head. I have a tongue. You have a tongue. I have hands. You have hands. As God created you, He created Me. Why then are you oppressing me?" (Hayes, "People
and the Land").
One mother summarizes it best when she says, "Two fingers up do not stop a bullet and make everything right. Righteous indignation does you no good if you don?t see the light. You ask lots of questions, but Don?t hear our answers about what we need. The only thing left is for me to invite you to come watch me bleed."
Works Cited
Curtiss, Richard. "Netanyahu Visit Embarrasses Even Israel?s Most Ardent Supporters." Washington Report On Middle East Affairs. March 1998.
Curtiss, Richard. "True Lies About U.S. Aid to Israel." Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. December, 1997.
Curtiss, Richard. "U.S Muslims May Put Themselves on American Political Map in 1998." Washington Report On
Middle East Affairs. April 1998.
Deir Yassin Remembered: Information Center. 13 April, 1999. Dier Yassin Orginisation
Hayes, Tom. "People and the Land." Produced by Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 1997.
Israel-Palestine Liberation Organization Agreement: 993.
13 April, 1999.
