Middle East Friends

Israel is in the news this week following the US abstention of a Security Council vote.  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has got his undies in a knot.

For the record let the facts reflect the following:

Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. Israel has been the largest annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War ll. 

Total direct U.S. aid to Israel has amounted to over $140 billion in 2003 dollars. Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is roughly one-fifth of America's entire foreign aid budget. In per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year. This largess is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain*

And in September of this year the Obama Administration finalized a $38 billion package of military aid for Israel over the next 10 years - the largest of its kind ever.

Reflect upon this.

The US is going to borrow the funds to extend to our Israeli friends this munificence.  These are resources that will not be spent upon infrastructure, schools, universities, science, healthcare, research or anything here in the good old US of A.

Bibi.  Dude.  You and Israel need to lighten-up.  

Edit to add:   In other news, Israel's attorney general has just opened a criminal investigation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for bribery and fraud.
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*Source: The Congressional Research Service's report "U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel," written by Jeremy M. Sharp, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs, dated June 10, 2015.