With the U.S. economy in the tank and governments at all levels
facing massive budget shortfalls, politicians left and right are seeking
ways to curb spending. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants to eliminate
collective bargaining rights and the decent pay that goes with them.
President Barack Obama’s budget includes halving the home-heating oil
subsidy poor households depend on.
As Republicans and Democrats propose cuts in programs that actually
benefit their increasingly impoverished constituents, though, they agree
there's one area of the budget that's not to be touched: the annual $3
billion subsidy U.S. taxpayers provide to the Israeli military.
One of the biggest defenders of the handout is House Foreign Affairs
Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. “There will be no cuts to
security assistance to the Jewish State of Israel,” her chief of staff
declared in a recent letter to House Republicans. The rest of the U.S.
foreign aid budget, including assistance for Iraqi refugees and food aid
to the world’s poorest people, is fair game. But Florida congresswoman
insists we must help Israel maintain its “Qualitative Military Edge.”
And congressional Democrats have her back.
Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, for instance – a leading member of
the Congressional Progressive Caucus – has drafted a letter, cosigned by
California Democrat Anna Eshoo, warning that the revolutions in Egypt
and Tunisia “have the potential to add to the very real security
challenges faced by Israel.” Reducing or “otherwise endangering aid to
our ally” would be “unproductive,” she adds, encouraging her colleagues
to tell Obama they “strongly support … providing $3.075 billion in
assistance to Israel.” (For those shivering at home, that's more
assistance than Obama is proposing to offer Americans trying to keep
their houses warm.)
This liberal appeal for Israeli military aid, meanwhile, is being
sent out under the auspices of J Street, a group that positions itself
as a left-leaning answer to AIPAC. But J Street staff we spoke with at
their recent conference were hard-pressed to explain why U.S. taxpayers
should fund a right-wing Israeli government that continues to build
settlements and maintains an inhumane siege of Gaza.
So it's left to folks like libertarian Congressman Ron Paul and his
son, Kentucky Senator and Tea Party favorite Rand Paul, to call for
ending aid to Israel. In a February 4 interview with ABC News, Rand Paul
said of Israel, “I think that their per capita income is greater than
probably three-fourths of the rest of the world. Should we be giving
free money or welfare to a wealthy nation? I don't think so."
Indeed, Israel has the 24th largest economy in the world, and ranks
15th among 169 nations on the UN Human Development Index, which makes it
a “very highly developed” nation.
Yet what thanks did Senator Paul get for his call to save the U.S.
taxpayers billions of dollars? A torrent of criticism, even from J
Street, which called on Republicans – and their donors – “to repudiate
his comments and ensure American leadership around the world is not
threatened by this irresponsible proposal.”
Paul's fellow Tea Partiers aren't any better. Of the 87 freshmen
House Republicans elected on platforms of cut-baby-cut, at least
three-fourths have now signed a letter declaring that, “As Israel faces
threats from escalating instability in Egypt” – where have we heard that
line of argument before? – “security assistance to Israel … has never
been more important.” Subsidies are for militaries, you see, not poor
people.
But even without U.S. funding, Israel would still spend $11
billion-plus on its military, more than all but 20 other nations in the
world spend on their armed forced – and hundreds of millions of dollars
more than the Islamic Republic of Iran, despite having just 1/10th the
population. Throw in a couple – as in, couple hundred – little things
called nuclear weapons, and, for better or worse, the Jewish state's
“Qualitative Military Advantage” isn't going anywhere.
But you wouldn't know that listening to the folks at J Street or to
liberals like Jan Schakowsky, who hysterically cite the specter of Arab
democracy to advocate billions in subsidies for a government that openly
flouts international law. So much for their concern about human rights.
And so much for being progressive. Indeed, with liberals like these,
the Netanyahu government and its allies at AIPAC are likely asking
themselves: who needs the Tea Party?
CommonDreams.org