Skip to main content

USA and Israeli flags together...in Pennsylvania?

 Joined at the hip is a thought which immediately comes to mind.....

"It's odd to see an Israeli flag flying in rural Pennsylvania.

Still, until very recently, the Israeli flag flew right alongside the American flag against the bucolic landscape of Jamestown, Pennsylvania. The nondescript warehouse-like buildings surrounding the two flags are not the factories of a local Pennsylvania Jewish-owned business, as one might guess. Rather, they are the headquarters of Combined Systems, Inc.—one of the largest manufacturers and international suppliers of teargas, stun grenades and other "non-lethal" crowd control devices in the world.

Israel, or more accurately, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), is their most frequent client. And Combined Systems' relationship with the IDF is an emblem of a global system that binds together US weapons companies, repressive governments and taxpayer money."


****

"At the individual level, US military aid to Israel alone costs each American taxpayer $21.59—funding $300 worth of weapons for every Israeli man, woman and child. Of course, this money is not spent by individual Israeli citizens, but the numbers illustrate the US taxpayer’s role in making the IDF one of the more formidable armies in the world.

"Everything that the Israeli military does—every time a Palestinian civilian is killed, every time a Palestinian is prevented from going to work or farming his or her land or has their land stolen to build illegal Israeli settlements—all of these actions are executed with US weapons that are paid for by us, the taxpayers," Ruebner emphasized.

The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation has also broken down US aid to Israel at the state level, and published how many affordable housing vouchers, green jobs training programs or early reading education programs could be funded if this money were redirected to domestic programs. In California, over 42,000 low-income people could have affordable housing vouchers and more than 57,000 unemployed workers could be trained for the green jobs economy if US aid to Israel were redirected domestically.

Israel receives massive amounts of US aid despite the fact that it is not a poor country. According to the International Monetary Fund, Israel is the 28th wealthiest country in the world, ranking higher than New Zealand, South Korea and Saudi Arabia. If Israel wished to sustain the military occupation of Palestine on its own time, it would be more than financially able to purchase weapons, internationally or domestically, on the open market."


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t

The NPT (Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) goes on hold.....because of one non-Treaty member (Israel)

Isn't there something radically wrong here?    Israel, a non-signatory to the NPT has, evidently, been the cause for those countries that are Treaty members, notably Canada, the US and the UK, after 4 weeks of negotiation, effectively blocking off any meaningful progress in ensuring the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.    IPS reports ..... "After nearly four weeks of negotiations, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference ended in a predictable outcome: a text overwhelmingly reflecting the views and interests of the nuclear-armed states and some of their nuclear-dependent allies. “The process to develop the draft Review Conference outcome document was anti-democratic and nontransparent,” Ray Acheson, director, Reaching Critical Will, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), told IPS. “This Review Conference has demonstrated beyond any doubt that continuing to rely on the nuclear-armed states or their nuclear-dependent allies for l

#1 Prize for a bizarre story.....and lying!

No comment called for in this piece from CommonDreams: Another young black man: The strange sad case of 21-year-old Chavis Carter. Police in Jonesboro, Arkansas  stopped  him and two friends, found some marijuana, searched put Carter, then put him handcuffed  behind his back  into their patrol car, where they say he  shot himself  in the head with a gun they failed to find. The FBI is investigating. Police Chief Michael Yates, who stands behind his officers' story,  says in an interview  that the death is "definitely bizarre and defies logic at first glance." You think?