Why is the US giving billions of dollars to a foreign nation while her own citizens are in dire need of those funds?

I guess the better questions is, how do the people allow this to happen?

The simple answer to your question is to ask yourself what is likely to happen if the aid were to end. Let's let history be our guide:

1. Israel may preemptively strike Iran believing "now or never". Has done so before in many other situations.

2. Israel will increase its growing ties with China and Russia. Hillary Clinton's email dump suggests there is concern about this at State.

3. Israel'a adversaries (eg. Iran, Hezbollah, etc.) will renew and increase attacks. There will be instability and loss of life. 1948, 1973, 1982, etc.

4. Increasing conflict and instability will cause great economic pain globally. We know this because almost every recession since 1948 has been proceeded by conflict in the middle east, most of the time Israel.

Any of these outcomes cost much more than $3b USD, and for the expense US taxpayers get these added benefits:

1. Jobs, jobs, jobs. US defense contractors are one of America's few remaining manufacturing hotspots.

2. Slightly less interest by Saudi Arabia, etc. in pursuing WMD to counter Iran. And under-the-table deals between some Arab states and Israel, which have Israel maintaining a tenuous balance of power in the Middle East, countering Iran.

3. Democracy. You elected your representatives, senators and president. Don't like their position on Israel? Organize, donate and vote. Sitting on HN and complaining unless you're doing the other three things feels good but accomplishes nothing.

4. Peace of mind. Organize, donate, vote and win -- and you can credit yourself among the winners who saved $3b, and plunged an entire region into further chaos, resulting in the deaths of likely millions. Major dark side points for you.

Want $3b back? The government can find $3b with ease and allocate it to the small business administration to create jobs at home. Betcha they won't, because people love to complain about things like foreign aid, but fail to complain about the lack of hard dollars to small businesses, entrepreneurs and small business employees.

EDIT: If you're going to cherry pick individual points to dispute you might point out that you're unable to dispute the general thesis.

This is an amazing comment - yet it really illustrates how fucked up the situation is.

It's become a catch-22, and there is no longer any way out....

We are now beholden to the situation forever. And to worsen the dynamic, Israel is an AMAZING producer of tech. And as we all know tech is the lifeblood of the future.

There is no way to extricate ourself from this situation, however that does not invalidate the frustration of it.

We need to recognize that Israel is an actual powerful economy, and we need to find a way to let them stand on their own, and not literally being the big brother ready to punch out any bully at school.

The fundamental fact is that Israel should have never become a nuke power. Ever.

That's the hand that has us by the balls.

US military aid to Israel is less than 10% of Israel's GDP, most of those 3 bln. can only be used to buy US made equipment so cutting 3 bln. $ would mean that those 3 bln. are gone from the US defense industry not the other way around.

>The fundamental fact is that Israel should have never become a nuke power. Ever. That's the hand that has us by the balls.

Israel hasn't even attempted to deploy nukes in 1973 where the situation was almost dire, It's quite unlikely that it will ever use them under any circumstance other than retaliation (and even then it's some what doubtful).

You make it sound like Israel is blackmailing the US it doesn't, the US knows that if it cuts the ties between the defense industries it will have both another competitor (Israeli arm deals have to be approved by the US congress since the Chinese Phalcon incident) and it will push Israel to both China and Russia and the last thing that the US wants is open and unrestricted technology sharing between those countries.

Israel isn't Pakistan it's not an open nuclear state which parades it's nukes and is a bad day away from becoming a nuclear armed Taliban.

While I agree that nukes in the middle east aren't the best idea with recent events vis a vis the Iranian nuclear deal there is no way now for Israel to officially join the NPT and be on a path for disarmament, and as far as nuclear arm races in the ME goes Israel is not now and never has been a factor.

Iraq wanted nukes to nuke Iran, Saudi Arabia now wants nukes to counter Iran, Iran wants nukes to be a regional super power.

>* cutting 3 bln. $ would mean that those 3 bln. are gone from the US defense industry not the other way around. *

I literally do not see a problem with this. How about we take the $3bn for defense and invest in infra, edu or argri-tech instead?

I really appreciate your input!

But I have to ask you; everyone defends the status quo wrt paying this money to Israel, give me an alternative as to how to not do this???

Well the money that is paid to Israel is due to the Camp David accords both Israel and Egypt get the same military aid package.

The US from time to time allocates additional funds to Israel to fund various R&D programs in most cases they either end up buying into the same equipment and when they aren't they get the technology.

If you take out the military aid to Israel and Egypt the US will still continue to fund research out of pure self interests.

The director of the MDA once called Israel the US's most cost effective and efficient defense contractor he also said:

"The design of Arrow 3 promises to be an extremely capable system, more advanced than what we have ever attempted in the U.S. with our programs"[0]

The development of the Arrow 3 started in June 2009 at a total buy-in cost of about 300M, David's Sling was developed in under 5 years for the cost of 250M $, the costs of the SM-3 program so far are estimated at about 15 bln. $ it's land based version Aegis Ashore has already cost over 2 bln. without being fully operational.

If you look at it from a pure financial POV if you want to actually save money just delegate all of the US R&D at least as far as Missile Defense goes to Israel, they'll deliver on time and on a budget that most US defense contractors would claim is too small to develop a new shoe lace.

[0]http://defense-update.com/products/a/arrow3.html

Pointless exercise not just because that ship sailed long ago, but because a nuclear Isreal was (and is) a proxy for US power in the Middle East. Nuclear weapons most of the time prevent more conflict than they create. That may not be the case for much longer, though not by Israel's doing. The better question, one I tried to answer, is the 3b well spent? From my answer and the others the answer is yes on economic and global stability grounds.

So America should keep propping them up indefinitely, at any cost?

Better Israel than Saudi Arabia, don't you think?

Somehow supporting Israel is always critized but a government that's almost indistinguishable from ISIS apart from the fact that they happen to be allied wih the US is apparently fine with most people.

You may want to consider whether it's really the cost you're so worried about.

Because its part of the terms of the Camp David Accords.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_Accords#Framework_P...

"The agreement also resulted in the United States committing to several billion dollars worth of annual subsidies to the governments of both Israel and Egypt, subsidies which continue to this day, and are given as a mixture of grants and aid packages committed to purchasing U.S. materiel."

I imagine this is part of the answer:

"The Israeli missile defense system is being built in partnership with U.S. defense contractors, including Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed Martin."

Much of that money comes back to us, and we get the benefit of all that research too.

> us

Are we Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed Martin?

Alas, yes. Without these giants of American industry, such luxuries as those enjoyed in the valley wouldn't really be feasible. These are the fonts from which much, much is trickled down into American industry and economy.

The largest expense for these companies is salary, so yes, we are those companies in the form of their employees.

It's a triple win: Israel gets defense, US gets technology, High-tech employees get jobs.

I don't think it's fair to say that "we" are represented by a few hugely controversial companies.

It's not "High-tech employees get jobs," it's "high-tech employees willing to work for companies that participate in murder and empire get jobs."

Honestly, I never understand sentiments like these regarding aid flowing towards foreign nations for projects that are noteworthy. Here are the facts and figures -- https://www.nationalpriorities.org/blog/2014/08/12/penny-dol...

Looking at the top chart, can one honestly read from that the foreign aid has a significant impact on U.S well being or welfare.

If anything, the U.S. can spend even more on aid, I would personally support that.

Maintaining our position requires projecting power, one form of which is helping our allies deploy new military tech.

Of course, some people only complain when the recipient in question is Israel.

It is also debatable if it is a position that is desirable to be in.

Where else is it possible to really test an anti-rocket system? Israel's rocket problems are mentioned in the article and just today North Korea fired six missiles into the Sea of Japan.

Japan & US develop and test of new version of SM-3 missile together. The seeker for next version of the "Patriot" missile is from this Israeli system. US gets technology of both these systems at a slightly lower cost than if she did it herself.

Israel's continued existance is of national interest to many governments. They're an important political ally, critical to the stability in the region and the ability of the west to project power into the middle east.

Also keep in mind that much of that money flows back to the US.

Overall this is a small investment in ensuring that Israel is so incredibly well defended that nobody in the surrounding area could ever come close to believing they have a chance against them.

Much of those funds come with stipulations on how they must be spent; namely, on military hardware from US Defense manufacturers. So the aid ends up back in the US ultimately and effectively acts as a subsidy to the Defense industry.

This may be a dumb question, but how are subsidies compatible with trade agreements? It doesn't seem fair from a free market point of view. Or are foreign competitors allowed to subsidize their industries to similar levels as part of trade agreements?

>Why is the US giving billions of dollars to a foreign nation while her own citizens are in dire need of those funds? I guess the better questions is, how do the people allow this to happen?

Because the war mongers are a huge industry and there is no department of peace.

One would think after thousands of years of war to "bring about peace" one would try something new. I can't be the only one on the globe to know what the definition of insanity is.

It's corporate welfare for Raytheon, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

I have to imagine the system is completely useless for bombs strapped to drones.

>I have to imagine the system is completely useless for bombs strapped to drones.

don't think so. Israel is where laser defense systems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Beam) were also tested [successfully] defending against small rockets and mortars. Such laser systems are also work great against drones (in particular US Navy tested it that way too).

I'm literally amazed that we have not yet seen a bomb strapped to a quad-copter and flown into [US political building] yet by some FBI extremist group in order to push anti drone legislation yet.

It is because extremely few people actually want to do terror. There is a ton of very easy things you can do to harm people if you really want to, but luckily almost no one wants to.

Jesus Christ you guys miss the point of my comment:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terroris...

The FBI infiltrates and fosters extremism to ferret out terrorists.

HN is so uninformed at times.

The FBI has been doing it for over 40 years.

From the Black Panther Party to Elohim City, they have a long history of taking people who were angry but otherwise law abiding and trying to goad them into criminal violence.

Exactly. Which is why nothing in my main post is false.

HN readers I feel are too young to know and they don't understand that the FBI has been doing this shit for years.

So my point stands.

I suspect that the issue you're experiencing is due to your delivery.

You're coming across as condescending and abrasive.

Sometimes I make comments that are unpopular and sometimes I'm down voted for them but not usually. Presentation is as important as content.

Maybe because that's preposterous? Just an idea.

Israel is a US client state. Like Saudi Arabia. Obviously useful if you want control over the world's energy markets, a basis of all economies. (There's some other reasons too; like the US linked it into its high-tech industry.)

Regarding billions though, the US has all the wealth it could ever want. It simply wastes most of it. Everyone could easily have a 15 hour workweek or whatever. The phenomenon of unemployment could be considered a decadent joke (where idle hands can't find work though they're looking for it, and there's much to do).

A lot of oil comes from the middle east. Having a strong ally opens up options for interaction with countries there. I'd say most of the progress in the 20th century came from access to inexpensive energy. Now that we're in the information age we're more concerned with efficiency and effective use of scarce resources.

Cheap energy is a big boost though. Transportation costs are an obvious example. But oil is used in everything. Fertilizer and plastics are big consumers. Keeping those costs down, makes everything cheaper. Theoretically, that's better for everyone. Cheap energy was important enough for the us to go to war at least once, Desert Storm. Good arguments can be made for the second Iraq invasion, and the possibility of oil off the coast of Vietnam.

This of course glosses over all of the secondary effects, like CO2 emissions, health consequences of fast food and all the problems that go along with war. (And i'm sure a million other things!)

But, yeah, the reason is access to cheap energy.

What a sad world

What exactly do you find to be sad?

I find it sad that so much effort is being made to kill, maim and endanger a massive civilization which ultimately has the technology to feed, foster and enlighten everyone .. yet simply chooses not to do so. Makes a simple choice, to continue the bloodshed with investment into utterly useless devices, which only tangible product is destruction.

Imagine if those missiles were being used as a medicine-/food-/book- delivery system, and instead of sitting around in billion-dollar warehouses waiting to be deployed, was being used to find every poor soul on the planet too thirsty, too tired, and too beat to want to learn anyone elses' songs, let alone fight for the survival of their own ..

Not sure this is a good thing. Israel is one of the most militarily adventuresome states in the Middle East. There is a risk that this new relative immunity to rocket bombardment is going to encourage further invasions of Lebanon and Gaza.

When was the last time Israel invaded Lebanon or Gaza without prior provocation or attack?

Further one might want to keep in mind that Gaza is currently being ruled by an organization, that has the destruction of Israel as one of it's core goals.

Arguably Israel is surprisingly calm given that they could eliminate this problem easily should they wish to.

All countries will generate some sort of justification for their military actions. So the fact that Israel does this as well isn't very interesting.

This news will make all the antisemites mad.

Make no mistake: The US does this for her own benefit. They gain back more in technology than they spend.

The security help to Israel is secondary, although important because the US benefits from a stable middle east and a strong Israel helps with that.

US aid to Egypt is all about stability though, no technological gains there. Which is why the US sends less money there.

>This news will make all the antisemites mad.

Ah yes, disagreeing with Israeli government practices is anti-Semitic now.

You make solid points other than that.

Yes, having a problem with Israel having a strong defense is antisemetic.

Under what conditions could there be a legitimate criticism of the government of Israel.