Reports: Israel to ask US for $2.2 Billion

According to the Middle East Times:

An Israeli delegation was on Monday to request $2.2 billion from Washington to help bankroll Israel's pullout from the Gaza Strip, over four times the amount initially discussed.

Israel had been on track to extract $500 million from the United States to help finance the pullout, but in preliminary talks, the Americans said that they were prepared to grant Israel "generous aid", public radio said.

The money will cover the cost of relocating military bases to Israel and improve security on the Egyptian-Israeli border after the pullout. The rest will be used to develop the Galilee and Negev regions, where many of the settlers from Gaza are likely to be rehoused.

[. . .]

US Congress needs to approve the special aid package, which is expected to be made up of grant-in-aid money and loan guarantees, the radio said.

So the federal government of the United States is again seeking to send taxpayers' money - non-repayable - to the state of Israel, so that its "best friend" can do something that it can not only do by itself, but should have done a long time ago - get out of the Gaza Strip.

Such large sums of blank-check aid has a history in the US-Israeli relationship. In toto, a conservative estimate of US direct aid to Israel since 1948, according to Shril McArthur of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, is approximately $105 Billion - money much better spent supporting America.

For instance, let us examine the actual implications of the "disengagement", if it happens. Evacuation of the Gaza Strip implies a "deoccupation". Not so. Israel will retain the right to invade and will control the air and sea, reducing autonomy and hampering the Gazan economy. Secondly, and more importantly considering long-term implications, the Gaza settlers may relocate to the West Bank, and thus perpetuate the conflict. According to the Guardian:

Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank will be able to use the compensation they receive from Israel to build homes in other West Bank settlements, the director of the agency responsible for evacuating settlers said yesterday.

Yonathan Bassi said the settlers would be able to spend their compensation wherever they wanted.

"They are free people - they can go where they want. They can go to Canada, Jerusalem or any of the settlements in the West Bank," he said.

Settlers who went to the West Bank would receive as much money as those who chose Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. Those who moved to the Negev or the Galilee, where there are big Arab populations, would receive a $30,000 (£16,000) bonus.

The news angered Palestinians, with the possibility of up to 9,000 settlers moving directly from Gaza to the West Bank.

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said the transfer of settlers from Gaza and the northern West Bank to other settlements would "create more obstacles to peace". He said: "One of the main things that we have stressed about making the disengagement plan work is that they must be transferred to Israel. Moving them to the West Bank will kill the whole project and destroy the idea of evolving the peace process."

With Israel consolidating its hold on the West Bank by means of the expansion of settlements (despite objection from its chief benefactor), and also by means of the separation barrier, a two-state solution will no longer be possible, for even the weakest Palestinian standards would not permit such a situation. Therefore, before the US government foots the bill for anything Israeli, it must examine the actual situation; that this money shall do more harm than good in the long term while the current Israeli government, and its conniving ways, seeks to expand the conflict under the pretense of peace.