U.S. Defense Jobs for Israel

Israel and its American backers often like to tell the American people that $3billion in annual military aid to Israel is worth it because it supports American jobs. Like a slick oil sales man they go on about how it is really in America's benefit to appropriate aid, Israel is just a nice consequence of what America should be doing for its own gain anyhow. You see, it is really for us and not for them that the biggest spoils go.

us aid to israel kMLtJ 19672

The argument is made because Israel has to send 75% of its military aid on American armaments (usually the United States will mandate 100% for other nations, but Israel gets to use a quarter to subsidize its own defense industry, it's a "special relationship" ya know?). So when Israel buys arms it is supporting American jobs, it is argues. Even though the U.S. taxpayer is buying jobs - instead of them being created through voluntary trade in the private sector - the Israeli side still argues that these jobs would not exist were it not to aid to Israel since the U.S. government would not be appropriating the money otherwise. This argument was recently made by one of the most vociferous Zionists writing in the American press today Jeffrey Goldberg:

One small note, or not so small -- Tom tends to frame the recent (and generally-speaking unwise) American offer of $3 billion in F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in exchange for a 90-day extension of the settlement freeze as a gift America could not afford to give. But he doesn't mention that military aid to Israel, even heavily subsidized military aid (and to other countries, of course) is a form of stimulus spending, since that $3 billion was going to be used to buy American-made products. You would not look at $3 billion in jet fighters as a costly giveaway if you happened to be one of the thousands of people building those planes.

They, the Israelis and Zionists, fail to draw any distinction between jobs which are a net gain for the economy and jobs which are a net loss. All they see is jobs, and that is supposed to be a good in-and-of-itself. But this is a facsimile understanding and a fallacious point, demolished by the late renowned economics writer Henry Hazlitt:

Yet among the arguments put forward in favor of huge foreign lending one fallacy is always sure to occupy a prominent place. It runs like this. Even if half (or all) the loans we make to foreign countries turn sour and are not repaid, this nation will still be better off for having made them, because they will give an enormous impetus to our exports.It should be immediately obvious that if the loans we make to foreign countries to enable them to buy our goods are not repaid, then we are giving the goods away. A nation cannot grow rich by giving goods away. It can only make itself poorer.No one doubts this proposition when it is applied privately. If an automobile company lends a man $1,000 to buy a car priced at that amount, and the loan is not repaid,the automobile company is not better off because it has "sold" the car. It has simply lost the amount that it cost to make the car. If the car cost $900 to make, and only half the loan is repaid, then the company has lost $900 minus $500, or a net amount of $400. It has not made up in trade what it lost in bad loans.If this proposition is so simple when applied to a private company, why do apparently intelligent people get confused about it when applied to a nation? The reason is that the transaction must then be traced mentally through a few more stages. One group may indeed make gains—while the rest of us take the losses.

And in the case of Israel is it not even a loan to be paid back at least in some sum, but an entirely a freebie. So, yes, some Americans benefit but foreign aid is a net loss for the nation.

So it is utter bogus nonsense to say that aid to Israel supports jobs which are a gain to the economy. If this is logic why not conclude that when unemployment is near 10% in America and $3billion supports, say, 11,000 jobs why not increase aid to Israel to $30billion to support 110,000 jobs?

See what I mean? Stupid, Zionist propaganda. But Zionists persists in their ignorance and lies.

But often even these type of jobs are no longer even bothering with the present of aiding Americans:

Dear Mr. John Daggett, Oshkosh Corporation spokesman. The following item is from Defense Professional News:

"Oshkosh Corp., Oshkosh, Wis., is being awarded $16,820,812 for firm-fixed-price delivery order #0122, under a previously awarded indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract (M67854-04-D-5016) for the purchase of 137 Medium Tactical Vehicle Replacement (MTVR) reducible height armor kits and four MTVR reducible height wrecker armor kits for the Navy Seabees.

Work will be performed in Israel (85 percent) and Oshkosh, Wis. (15 percent), and work is expected to be completed by June 30, 2011. Contract funds will not expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Marine Corps System Command, Quantico, Va., is the contracting activity."

Why, when the US is need of jobs, will 85% of the work on this contract for Oshkosh be done in Israel? Thanks, in advance, for providing this information.

Jeff Blankfort

Host, Takes on the World KZYX & Z, 90.7, 91.5, Mendocino Co. Public Radio, www.kzyx.org

So an American firm is going have 85% of its work done in Israel, no doubt due to lobbying by the Israel lobby to get Congress to mandate such an agreement as part of the contract in order to aid the Israeli economy, which is currently in better shape than America's, at the expense of the American people.

There is no more freeloader and pull-peddler than Israel.