Here's
How Much America REALLY Spends On Israel's Defense
21
September, 2012
Last
week the Jerusalem Post reported that former Israeli Defense Force
(IDF) Commander-in-Chief Gabi Ashkenazi told a conference that U.S.
taxpayers have contributed more to the Israeli defense budget than
Israeli taxpayers in the past three years.
This
comment has been passed around everywhere.
Alison
Weir of Veterans News
Now pointed
out it was the first instance of an Israeli leader saying that
U.S. taxpayers contribute more money to Israel's defense budget than
Israeli taxpayers.
But
the claim seemed fishy to us.
Given
that U.S.
military aid to Israel was $2.775 billion in 2010, $3 billion in
2011, $3.07 billion in 2012 (and $3.15 billion per year from
2013-2018) while Israel's defense budget is around $15 billion, it
made us wonder how much Israeli taxpayers contribute and where the
other $12 billion non-U.S. aid comes from.
We
emailed Shmuel Even, an expert of Israel's defense at the Institute
for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, who told us that Israel's
up-to-date defense budget for 2012 is $15 billion, with 70 percent
contributed by Israeli taxpayers, 21 percent coming from U.S. aid and
9 percent coming from Defense Ministry income.
That
would put the Israeli taxpayer contribution at $10.5 billion,
compared to $3.15 billion from the U.S. (Even added that the U.S. aid
in 2011 was $3.1 billion and that most of the aid comes in weapons as
opposed to cash.)
So
was Lt. Gen. Ashkenazi—who served as the IDF supreme commander from
2007 to 2011—simply mistaken? Or is he alluding to something that
one of Israel's top researchers doesn't know?
Shmuel
Even watched the video of Ashkenazi's speech and said the former IDF
chief "said it, but I don't know why."
Even
added that Ashkenazi "also said that the U.S. military aid is
$3B. So he knows the numbers."
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