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**MannoFr** · 07-28-2009, 08:11 PM

Lastly, another claim that many of Israel's detractors like to make is that Israel would be a nebech (helpless country) without America. Without fail, they point out the foreign aid which Israel receives from America:

Source
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/usaid.html

However, Israel's GNP (Gross National Product) in 2008 was about 200 billion dollars:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...k/geos/is.html

This amounts to American aid coming out to about 1.5% of the Israeli GNP. Keep in mind that 1.8 billion of that 3 billion is spent on defense, which has to be purchased in America and no where else. So that leaves about 1.2 billion that goes towards non-defensive spending.

To be sure, I, as well as most Israelis, value the American/Israeli alliance, and believe we still need each other, but let's be honest about two things:

1) America does not have an alliance with Israel because of an "American Zionist Lobby"

2) Israel would not be a nebech without America and America needs Israel, no less than Israel needs America

They don't just point that Israel recieves $3bn, but that also Israel recieves more military aid than other countries (which is not quite exact because they usually just consider help in cash and don't consider, for example, US military bases in other countries, which are obviously payed by the American tax payer. AFAIK, when this is taken into account this then one reaches very different conlusions, though I don't know the exact numbers. For example South Korea, Japan and Germany would recieve much more aid than Israel does).

They will also point out that Israel has recieved more aid over time than other countries ($140bn) but then again I don't know if they consider American bases in other countries in the same time period.

At last I've also seen that some people consider that the 1973 oil crisis was Israel's fault and then the negative economic effects should be considered as aid for Israel (read: At least, lost output because of the recession that came afterwards), but that's very debatable given that Cold War politics had a major role in causing the Yom Kippur War and more importantly, if that's the case then people would have to be intellectually honest and consider, for example, the Vietnam War as aid for South Vietnam or the Gulf War as aid for Kuwait. And more broadly one could consider the Carter Doctrine as aid for Saudi Arabia and so on.

But besides this, curlyg is right, Israel has a lot to lose from losing America's support and in fact Israel would lose more than America if that was the case. Though I think that America would also lose a lot given that Israel probably has nukes, in fact America would lose a lot more than what most people imagine... But even when considering this, Israel has still much more to lose than Americans if the friendship ends.

07-28-2009, 08:11 PM	#6
MannoFr Join Date Mar 2007 Posts 4,451 Senior Member	Lastly, another claim that many of Israel's detractors like to make is that Israel would be a nebech (helpless country) without America. Without fail, they point out the foreign aid which Israel receives from America: Source http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/usaid.html However, Israel's GNP (Gross National Product) in 2008 was about 200 billion dollars: https://www.cia.gov/library/publicat...k/geos/is.html This amounts to American aid coming out to about 1.5% of the Israeli GNP. Keep in mind that 1.8 billion of that 3 billion is spent on defense, which has to be purchased in America and no where else. So that leaves about 1.2 billion that goes towards non-defensive spending. To be sure, I, as well as most Israelis, value the American/Israeli alliance, and believe we still need each other, but let's be honest about two things: 1) America does not have an alliance with Israel because of an "American Zionist Lobby" 2) Israel would not be a nebech without America and America needs Israel, no less than Israel needs America They don't just point that Israel recieves $3bn, but that also Israel recieves more military aid than other countries (which is not quite exact because they usually just consider help in cash and don't consider, for example, US military bases in other countries, which are obviously payed by the American tax payer. AFAIK, when this is taken into account this then one reaches very different conlusions, though I don't know the exact numbers. For example South Korea, Japan and Germany would recieve much more aid than Israel does). They will also point out that Israel has recieved more aid over time than other countries ($140bn) but then again I don't know if they consider American bases in other countries in the same time period. At last I've also seen that some people consider that the 1973 oil crisis was Israel's fault and then the negative economic effects should be considered as aid for Israel (read: At least, lost output because of the recession that came afterwards), but that's very debatable given that Cold War politics had a major role in causing the Yom Kippur War and more importantly, if that's the case then people would have to be intellectually honest and consider, for example, the Vietnam War as aid for South Vietnam or the Gulf War as aid for Kuwait. And more broadly one could consider the Carter Doctrine as aid for Saudi Arabia and so on. But besides this, curlyg is right, Israel has a lot to lose from losing America's support and in fact Israel would lose more than America if that was the case. Though I think that America would also lose a lot given that Israel probably has nukes, in fact America would lose a lot more than what most people imagine... But even when considering this, Israel has still much more to lose than Americans if the friendship ends.
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