Army General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged recent reports criticising civilian deaths during the 50-day Gaza war this year but told an audience in New York on Thursday he thought the Israel Defence Forces did what they could to avoid civilian casualties. Israel was criticised for civilian deaths during the conflict, including by the White House. More than 2,100 Palestinians were killed during the fighting, most of them civilians and many of them children, according to UN and Palestinian figures. For many years the American media said that “Israel receives $1.8 billion in military aid” or that “Israel receives $1.2 billion in economic aid.” Both statements were true, but since they were never combined to give us the complete total of annual U.S. aid to Israel, they also were lies—true lies. Recently Americans have begun to read and hear that “Israel receives $3 billion in annual U.S. foreign aid.” Thats true. But its still a lie. The problem is that in fiscal 1997 alone, Israel received from a variety of other U.S. federal budgets at least $525.8 million above and beyond its $3 billion from the foreign aid budget, and yet another $2 billion in federal loan guarantees. So the complete total of U.S. grants and loan guarantees to Israel for fiscal 1997 was $5,525,800,000.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 15:26:55 +0000
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