One of Alison Weir’s goals was to convince us that by stopping U.S. aid to Israel there will be a greater chance for peace. There are three main reasons why I feel this will not have the desired effect.
Weir said that the Israelis receive close to $15 million a day from the U.S. This number is actually closer to $7 million, with $6.5 million specifically for military aid and $650,000 for other expenses. This makes up 4% of all Israeli government spending. Weir neglected to mention that the non-military part of the aid has been purposefully decreasing every year, and since its decrease, the GDP of Israel has actually grown. The plan under Benjamin Netanyahu, the former finance minister of Israel, was to slowly move all of this money from being economic aid to being military aid over the course of ten years, starting in 1999. A large percentage of the total aid is in the form of loans, and about 75% of the total amount must be spent in the U.S. The loss of this money will not have any great effect on the Israeli economy, only on military spending.
The general population in Israel has been moving to the right. As they see it, the Kadima party, which gained the highest percentage of the vote in the last election, ran on a campaign of compromise and complete disengagement from Gaza and the West Bank. This unilateral disengagement has caused an increase of attacks coming from Gaza, and has not brought the region any closer to peace. Most people have come to the conclusion that unilateral disengagement does not work, because it does not involve both sides in discussions. Because of this, they will only accept a compromise that involves the Palestinian government, which has not accepted Israel’s right to exist. Therefore, the average Israeli feels that the best option is to have a government that can protect them. They will not be willing to elect a government that runs on a disengagement platform until they see the Palestinian government as a partner for peace.
The third reason relates to the way in which people vote in Israel. Recently one of the parties that has been gaining seats in the parliament is Yisrael Beiteinu (“Israel is our home”), part of whose platform consists of trying to get all Arabs to leave Israel. In general, they are not popular because of this belief. Rather, they are popular because the Russian immigrants, who make up 1/7 of the country’s citizens, have decided to vote as a block for this party since it also supports a better socio-economic situation for immigrants. Many minority populations in the country vote this way in order to get their voice heard, no matter which party listens.
Losing U.S. funding will not cause these people to decide that they need to be worrying about the Palestinians’ situation more than they already do. Taking away this money will probably not affect the average Israeli directly, and therefore will not convince more of them to vote for a party that will try to reach a compromise. Instead, it will require the same government to do what it had been doing before with a smaller military budget. I believe that the Israeli military truly thinks that the purpose behind their operations is the protection of Israeli citizens. Therefore, the same operations will happen, but with a more conservative usage of advanced equipment. This will probably lead to increased civilian casualties on both sides, and will not bring the conflict any closer to resolution. (My sources for numbers are from usaid.gov, and the 2006 U.S. Government Budget Report).
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