Dear Morons: No, Israel is not rolling around in a trough of 'free money' courtesy of the beleaguered U.S. taxpayer....
In the words of former ambassador, Michael Oren, (I paraphrase) "It's a toss up who'd yell louder if the annual $3B to Israel was cut: Israelis or the U.S. arms industry."
The senate was arguing about foreign aid dollars to Israel last week and, predictably, the circus came back to town: There were the youngsters that sit in the gallery with red-dyed palms appraised symbolizing spilled Palestinian blood. And the pundits. Oh the pundits. Everybody had to have their say — whether they know anything, whether they’ve studied or not, because…you know…it’s Israel and all issues pertaining to Israel become Rorschach cards, in effect, for everyone’s primal reactions to Da Jews.
Now, this post is not about the rightness of foreign aid (which I think should be spent very cautiously), or forever wars (I’m agin’ ‘em), and it’s not about the wisdom (or not) of aid to Israel. There are eminent Israelis like former ambassador Michael Oren who have argued that “the costs” of aid might outweigh the benefits.
This post just makes a request: If you’re going to utter sage pronouncements about aid to Israel please have your goddam ducks in a row, play with a full deck…in other words, don’t be a moron.
I heard a moron sound off last Saturday on, of all places, Stephen Moore’s “Moore Money” podcast. Stephen Moore is my favorite economist. He usually knows his stuff, but he clapped like a seal while a guest, one Lee Rizzuto, former consul general to Bermuda (that makes him super qualified, see?) unveiled a daring and ingenious plan (it actually went kind of viral) to give money to other countries in the form of loans. No more “sending billions abroad” with the deficit what it is and when there are Americans who need food stamps. “I think we can all agree,” he pontificated, “that food for Americans who can’t afford it is a better use of taxpayer funds than foreign aid.” We should be getting somethin’ for all that dough, was what he seemed to be saying.
Uh huh…Go tell that to the 100,000 plus employees of U.S.-based Lockheed Martin, who make, on average, $75,771 a year, according to one analysis of the company as a workplace.
What’s the connection? Lockheed is just one of the U.S.-based companies that Israel enriches when it goes out to spend its annual allotment of foreign aid. Raytheon and Boeing are other favorites.
Just last July, for instance, Israel spent $3 billion at Lockheed (coincidentally that is just about what Israel is allocated annually in the U.S. defense budget) on twenty-five F-35 fighter jets.
It works like this: Remember the “company store” where coal miners, a captive audience so to speak, were forced to spend their meager earnings? Much of the U.S.’s foreign aid program operates like a disburser of chits to spend at the company store that is the U.S. arms industry.
Arms makers spend eye-watering amounts on R&D. But then (just like vaccine manufacturers) they gotta hope they can sell enough product to stay in business. Fortunately we produce really cool stuff.
And that’s where America’s Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program which “provides grants and loans to help countries purchase weapons and defense equipment produced in the United States” comes in.
Israel is just one of many nations that get annual grants with provisions attached that they spend most or all of the money on “equipment produced in the United States.”
You’d be hard pressed to understand this element of the deal, though. Reading through the many hand-wringing, guilt-slinging and downright hostile articles on aid to Israel I found no mention of the company store aspect, but many audacious statements like this, from the New York Times which asserted that last week’s debates were “a striking departure from longstanding practice on Capitol Hill, where for decades, lawmakers have approved huge amounts of military funding for Israel with few strings attached.”
Actually, the terms (the strings, if you will) of Israel’s annual grant are set forth are set forth in Memoranda of Understanding—there for all to see — for any reporter who isn’t terminally lazy — on government websites like state.gov and obamawhitehouse.gov. And the memoranda change from administration to administration, so you’d think they’d actually be worth writing about — except that to do so destroys the “Israel as leech” narrative.
When they do get around to talking about terms, the only thing one sees is the recitation of Israel’s special privileges. And it has been getting some special terms, but so what? Arms makers have to sell their arms and Israel represents one of the least sketchy people they find themselves making deals with. Your Lockheeds and such can be reasonably sure that they can arm Israel to the teeth and not have those F-35 flying over New York City one day.
One of the special conditions that conspiracy theorists like to proffer is that Israel was alone in being allowed to spend a portion of their grant at home, on their own products. (On the other hand, a lot of those Israel-developed weapons were eventually adopted for use by the United States military—but that’s a subject for another post.)
And that exception is designed to be phased out in a few years. As the New York Times put it:
The [newest MOU] has some important new features, including a plan to phase out a provision allowing 26 percent of the funding to be spent on research and development in Israel rather than on purchases of American weaponry. Other aid recipients must buy American-made products. The exception made sense when Israel was building its military industry, but it is now a leading arms exporter. The administration wants to funnel more money into America’s military industry, which has been hurt by budget cuts.
Wow, that may be the one and only time the New York Times drew a connection between a benefit for the U.S. and aid to Israel.
It’s so much more fun to work the Israel-as-bloodsucker narrative.