United States Promises Zionists $3 Billion a Year
The United States offered Israel on Thursday an unprecedented $30-billion military aid package, bolstering its closest Mideast ally.
The aid deal signed in a ceremony in Jerusalem represents a 25 percent rise in US military aid to Israel, from a current $2.4 billion each year to $3 billion a year over 10 years.
Nicholas Burns, the US Undersecretary of state for political affairs, and Israeli Foreign Minister Director-General Aharon Abramovitz signed the memorandum of understanding on the assistance at a ceremony in Jerusalem.
The package was meant in part to offset US plans to offer Saudi Arabia advanced weapons and air systems that would greatly improve the Arab countrys air force.
Israel has said it has no opposition to the US Aid to Saudi Arabia, which comes as the United States strengthens moderate Arabs in facing the growing influence of Iran.
The US Administration sees the regional threats to Israel - namely Iran, and the Hizbullah and Hamas militant groups - as threats to the United States as well, Burns said.
We look at this region and we see that a secure and strong Israel is in the interest of the United States, Burns said.
The chief of Israels central bank, Stanley Fischer, said the US aid is of critical importance to Israel, whose defense budget constitutes about 10 percent of its Gross Domestic Product.
The aid package to Israel was finalized in June in Washington between US President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert has said the increase in military aid to Israel would guarantee its strategic superiority, despite upgrades to Arab countries in the region.
The US Has long-standing commitments to Israel and to Egypt, which in 1979 became the first Arab state to make peace with Israel. Egypt currently gets $1.3 billion a year in military assistance.
The Bush administration must still receive Congressional approval for the aid deals, but Burns said he believed there would be little opposition in the Senate and House to the Israeli package.
Rabbi Eliezer Plochinsky relates that in 1948, the Rabbi Yitzchok Zev Soloveitchik told him regarding the State, It will not last." Thinking that the rabbi meant that it would not last from a spiritual point of view due to its anti-Torah establishment, he said, Maybe they will repent. I didnt mean spiritually, said the rabbi, I meant economically. This is not a business venture that can support itself. Ten years later, Rabbi Plochinsky said to Rabbi Soloveitchik, Nu, the business is lasting. The rabbi replied, Who could have known that the Germans would contribute billions to the states budget! But it is still true that the business is not self-supporting. (Uvdos Vehanhagos Leveis Brisk v. 4 p. 189.) Today it is the Americans who are giving billions, and without those billions the state would not last.