Updated Economic and Military Data for American Congressmen and Opinions Makers 

By Prof. Paul Eidelberg, President, Israel-America Renaissance Institute

Since the anti-Israel and pro-Muslim Obama Administration may not veto UN Security Council sanctions against Israel, it is of crucial importance to inform American Congressmen and opinion makers of Israel’s contribution to American security and economic well-being, which has been deliberately ignored by Mr. Obama and his advisers.

Although some of the data in this paper should be updated, on the whole it is current enough to be taken seriously by American officials and the media.

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Dr. Joseph Sisco, a former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs, once told erstwhile adviser PM Menachem Begin: “I want to assure you, Mr. Katz, that if we were not getting full value for our money, you would not get a cent from us.”  American congressmen and industrialists are pragmatists, not moralists.  Let’s compare in simply terms what America gives Israel and what Israel gives America. 

• In November 2014, Israel Aerospace Industry (IAI) inaugurated a production line to provide wings for Lockheed Martin-produced F-35 joint strike fighters. Under a $2.5 billion industrial cooperation deal, the new facility at IAI will produce up to 811 wing sets through 2030 at a rate of four per month. But let’s get a historical overview.
• For FY2006, U.S. military grants to Israel was $2.28 billion (2.8 B). For FY2014 it’s about $3B. U.S. economic aid was $240 million.  Today it’s zero.
• For FY2006, U.S. military grants to Israel was $2.28 billion (= $2.28B).  U.S. economic aid was $240 million.  (Note: economic aid does not go into building up Israel’s economy; most of it is used to repay pre-1974 loans for military hardware, loans that were given to Israel at a high rate of interest.)
• Since Israel’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2006 was $170.3B, total U.S. aid to Israel was less than 1.5% of its GDP! Since Israel’s current GDP is $291B, U.S. aid is less than one percent!
• Between 1991 and 2006, total U.S. military grants and economic assistance to Israel was approximately $47.5B.

What did the U.S. received from Israel in return?

•   Israel must spend about 74% of U.S. military aid in the United States, where it provides jobs for an estimated 50,000 American workingmen.
• Total exports from the 50 states of the American Union to Israel between 1991and 2006 was $102.4B—more than twice the $47.5B Israel received in U.S. aid during this period.The annual average of U.S. exports to Israel was $6.4B per year, more than twice the average American aid package.  In fact, total exports to Israel from the 50 states in 2006 was almost $11B—more than four times the U.S. military-economic aid package!

• Unknown to many observers, U.S. military aid to Israel creates a demand for, and the purchase of, tens of billions of dollars worth of U.S. weaponry by Saudi Arabia and other Arab states.  U.S. grants to Israel—far from imposing a burden on the American tax payer—actually enriches the American economy.   (American arms manufacturers know this.  So do Senators and Representatives who represent states in which corporations such as Boeing, Lockheed, and General Dynamics are located.  These elected officials, along with these corporations, have vested interests in opposing any sanctions against Israel if its government were to take a more independent and vigorous stand against the Palestinian Authority.)
• According to Gen. George Keegan, a former chief of U.S. Air Force Intelligence, between 1974 and 1990, Israeli aid to America was worth between $50-80B in intelligence, research and development savings, Soviet weapons systems captured and transferred to the Pentagon, and testing Soviet military doctrines up to 1990 when the USSR collapsed.  Senator Daniel Inouye put it this way:  “The contribution made by Israeli intelligence to America is greater than that provided by all NATO countries combined.”
• Recall that in 1970, at Washington’s request, Israel prevented a Syrian invasion of Jordan.  By protecting Jordan from that client of the Soviet Union, Israel thwarted Moscow’s ambitions in the Middle East.  It would be naive to think that Russia has abandoned its historic objectives in this region.)

Now for a paraphrased report of Yoram Ettinger, former Israeli liaison to the U.S. Congress:[1]

• Israel constantly relayed to the U.S. lessons of battle and counter-terrorism. This reduced American losses in Iraq and Afghanistan and prevented attacks on American. Israel’s innovative technologies upgrade American weapons, contribute to the U.S. economy, and boost U.S. industries.

• The vice-president of the company that produces the F16 fighter jets told Ettinger that Israel is responsible for 600 improvements in the plane’s systems, modifications estimated to be worth billions of dollars, which spared dozens of research and development years.

• Without Israel, the U.S. would have to deploy tens of thousands of American troops in the eastern Mediterranean Basin, at a cost of billions of dollars a year.

• In 1981, Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor, thus providing the U.S. with the option of engaging in conventional wars with Iraq in 1991 and 2003, thereby preventing a possible nuclear war and its horrendous consequences.

• In 2005, Israel provided America with the world’s most extensive experience in homeland defense and warfare against suicide bombers and car bombs. American soldiers train in IDF facilities and Israeli-made drones fly above the Sunni Triangle in Iraq, as well as in Afghanistan, providing U.S. Marines with vital intelligence that saved many American lives.
• Viewed over a longer time period—say between 1991 and 2006—total U.S. military grants and economic assistance to Israel was approximately $47.5B.

What did the U.S. receive from Israel in return?  Here let us paraphrase a report of Yoram Ettinger, former Israeli liaison to the U.S. Congress:[2]

• Israel constantly relayed to the U.S. lessons of battle and counter-terrorism, which reduced American losses in Iraq and Afghanistan, prevented attacks on American soil, upgraded American weapons, and contributed to the U.S. economy. Innovative Israeli technologies boost U.S. industries.

• The vice-president of the company that produces the F16 fighter jets told Ettinger that Israel is responsible for 600 improvements in the plane’s systems, modifications estimated to be worth billions of dollars, which spared dozens of research and development years.

• Without Israel, the U.S. would have to deploy tens of thousands of American troops in the eastern Mediterranean Basin, at a cost of billions of dollars a year.

• In 1981, Israel bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor, thus providing the U.S. with the option of engaging in conventional wars with Iraq in 1991 and 2003, thereby preventing a possible nuclear war and its horrendous consequences.

• In 2005, Israel provided America with the world’s most extensive experience in homeland defense and warfare against suicide bombers and car bombs. American soldiers train in IDF facilities and Israeli-made drones fly above the Sunni Triangle in Iraq, as well as in Afghanistan, providing U.S. Marines with vital intelligence that saved many American lives.

Everyone knows that Israel is a world leader in hi-tech. But ponder this stunning as well as amusing information:

• The Middle East has been growing date palms for centuries. The average tree is about 18-20 feet tall and yields about 38 pounds of dates a year. Israeli date trees are now each yielding 400 pounds/year and are short enough to be harvested from the ground or a short ladder!

• Israel, the 100th smallest country, with less than 1/1000th of the world’s population, can lay claim to the following: The cell phone was developed in Israel by working in the Israeli branch of Motorola, which has its largest development center in Israel.
• Most of the Windows NT and XP operating systems were developed by Microsoft-Israel. The Pentium MMX Chip technology was designed in Israel. Both the Pentium-4 microprocessor and the Centrino processor were entirely designed, developed and produced in Israel. The Pentium microprocessor in your computer was most likely made in Israel.

• Voice mail technology was developed in Israel. Both Microsoft and Cisco built their only R&D facilities outside the US in Israel. The technology for the AOL Instant Messenger ICQ was developed in 1996 by four young Israelis. (Israel has the highest percentage in the world of home computers per capita. In fact, Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees to the population in the world.)

• According to industry officials, Israel designed the airline industry’s most impenetrable flight security. US officials now look to Israel for advice on how to handle airborne security threats. Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation by a large margin – 109 per 10,000 people – as well as one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.

• In absolute terms, Israel has the largest number of startup companies than any other country in the world, except the U.S.! (3,500 companies mostly in hi-tech). With 3,500 high-tech companies and startups, Israel has the highest concentration of hi-tech companies in the world, apart from the Silicon Valley, U.S.

• The per capita income in Israel in 2014 stands at $36,926 exceeding that of the UK.

• Twenty-four per cent of Israel’s workforce holds university degrees, ranking third in the industrialized world, after the United States and Holland, and 12 per cent hold advanced degrees.

Israel is the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.

Now consider this:

• In 1984 and 1991, Israel airlifted a total of 22,000 Ethiopian Jews (Operation Solomon and Moses) at Risk in Ethiopia, to safety in Israel.

• When Golda Meir was elected Prime Minister of Israel in 1969, she became the world’s second elected female leader in modern times.

• When the U. S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya was bombed in 1998, Israeli rescue teams were on the scene within a day – and saved three victims from the rubble.

• Relative to its population, Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth. Immigrants come in search of democracy, religious freedom, and economic opportunity. (Hundreds of thousands from the former Soviet Union)

• Israel has the world’s second highest per capita of new books.

• Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees – this in a country considered mainly desert!
• Israel has more museums per capita than any other country.

• Medicine: Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized, no-radiation, diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer.

• An Israeli company developed a computerized system for ensuring proper administration of medications, thus removing human error from medical treatment. Every year in U. S. hospitals 7,000 patients die from treatment mistakes.

• Israel’s “Given Imaging” developed the first ingestible video camera, so small it fits inside a pill. Used to view the small intestine from the inside, cancer and digestive disorders.

• Researchers in Israel developed a new device that directly helps the heart pump blood, an innovation with the potential to save lives among those with heart failure. The new device is synchronized with the camera helps doctors diagnose heart’s mechanical operations through a sophisticated system of sensors.

• Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce, with 145 per 10,000, as opposed to 85 in the U. S., over 70 in Japan, and less than 60 in Germany. With over 25% of its work force employed in technical professions. Israel places first in this category as well.

• A new acne treatment developed in Israel, the Clear Light device, produces a high-intensity, ultraviolet-light-free, narrow-band blue light that causes acne bacteria to self-destruct — all without damaging surrounding skin or tissue.

• An Israeli company was the first to develop and install a large-scale solar-powered and fully functional electricity generating plant, in southern California’s Mojave desert.

All the above while engaged in regular wars with an implacable enemy that seeks her destruction, and an economy continuously under strain by having to spend more per capita on its own protection than any other county on earth.

. . . .  AND THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR IN ENGLAND HAD THE AUDACITY TO SAY: “ISRAEL IS NOTHING BUT A SHITTY LITTLE COUNTRY”

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