Posted on 06/21/2007 2:38:33 PM PDT by SJackson
US Senate to vote on freezing $200m annual aid in attempt to pressure Egypt to crack down on weapons smuggling to Gaza
WASHINGTON - The United States Senate asked US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Thursday to pressure Egypt into taking harsher actions against weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip.
Thirty-two senators presented the secretary of state with a letter calling to push the Egyptians into taking harsher measures against those smuggling weapons to Hamas, and saying Egypt must insist Hamas stops firing Qassam rockets at Israel.
"As violence escalates and more and more people take up arms in Gaza, this is a critical moment for us to stop weapons from being smuggled into the area and rockets being fired at Israel.
"Doing nothing would only help increase the violence and killing," the letter said.
The letter includes data – supplied by Israel – suggesting that there are currently 20,000 guns, 38 long-rage rockets, 12 anti-aircraft missiles and 410 anti-tank rockets with 95 corresponding launchers in Gaza.
The Senate is to vote on a $1.3 billion US financial aid package to Egypt for 2008 and is considering freezing $200 million of those funds pending Rice's report on any progress made in the Egyptian legal system, especially in regards to weapons smuggling and human right issues.
Why does Egypt need our help?
Is there a country on this planet to which we don’t send money?
Is there a country on this planet to which we don’t send money?
I'm afraid the answer is no.
High Volume. Articles on Israel can also be found by clicking on the Topic or Keyword Israel. or WOT [War on Terror]
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As with the Jerusalem Embassy move and the ban on aid to the palestinians, this action can be thwarted by administration "certification", Egypt will get their money.
Just think what we could do in OUR country if all that money wasn’t poured into these welfare blackholes. It makes me sick. I’m tired of all this foreign aid. Take care of our own people. ))):^(
Congress to condition Egypt’s aid
By HILARY LEILA KRIEGER
WASHINGTON
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1181813088167&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The House of Representatives is expected Thursday to approve the 2008 foreign aid bill, allocating the $2.4 billion needed to fully fund the last year of an expiring 10-year plan for Israel military assistance but for the first time restricting some Egyptian military funds.
The vote comes on the heels of a White House endorsement of a new 10-year package which will increase funds to Israel starting in 2009.
The 2008 House legislation requires the US Secretary of State to certify that Egypt is addressing arms smuggling into Gaza, as well as some human rights abuses, before $200 million of a total of $1.3 billion in military aid is given to Egypt. The rest of the aid package to the Arab power has no such restrictions, but the move is seen as a sign of growing American dissatisfaction with Egypt and loosening in the relationship between the two countries.
The restriction was proposed before the Hamas takeover of Gaza, which has led to finger-pointing at Egypt for not doing enough to limit the flow of arms into the coastal strip, but the development has lent the measure more urgency. The bill needs to go through the Senate and then be signed by the president, but the increasing clamor over the tunnel issue means the funding restriction is more likely to stand throughout the legislating process.
The bill also fully funds the administration’s $2.4 billion request for Israel as part of the last year of a 10-year deal agreed on by both sides. Following the visit of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, the White House also announced agreement in principle on a new 10-year plan to start in 2009. The details are due to be finalized in July when the American negotiating team, headed by US Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, visits Israel.
“I am strongly committed to Israel’s security and viability as a Jewish state, and to the maintenance of its qualitative military edge,” US President George W. Bush said in a statement released Tuesday evening. “I am committed to reaching a new ten-year agreement that will give Israel the increased assistance it requires to meet the new threats and challenges it faces.”
The US has indicated it understands that Israel, coming off of the war with Hizbullah last summer and confronting a Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, faces increasingly expensive strategic challenges.
While Israel has welcomed the White House statement on its aid package, the Egyptians have been less enthusiastic about the restrictions Congress has slapped on its own funding.
“I don’t think it’s a helpful step,” one Egyptian diplomat told The Jerusalem Post, criticizing “the assumption that the assistance package is somehow a gift to Egypt without realizing that it benefits both countries.” Congress is trying to portray it as friendly advice to a key ally, albeit one that hasn’t behaved exactly as the US would like.
“While Egypt is a friend and important ally in the war on terror there are concerns about the independence of the judiciary in Egypt, police abuses, and the growing smuggling operation of arms and weapons from Egypt into Gaza,” said Rep. Nita Lowey (D-New York), chairwoman of the foreign appropriations subcommittee. “This language is a reminder to a good friend that there are some very real and grave concerns in Congress.” But critics of Egypt say that the country is no longer a good friend, with the lack of sufficient action on the tunnels as only the latest example. Other warn that denying funds could further fray relations with a key ally in the Arab world.
Though economic aid to Egypt has long faced restrictions this is the first time that military aid - termed by analysts a “sacrosanct” part of the US-Egypt relationship since the Camp David Accords - has been touched.
“There’s been growing frustration with Egypt in Washington and growing frustration with Washington in Egypt. It seems inevitable that it would work its way into legislation,” said Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Both countries feel horribly taken advantage of the other.” The upshot, he said, is a reevaluation of the billions in aid America sends to Cairo each year.
There are those on Capitol Hill that might have been inclined to fight the $200 million restriction, but they will find it difficult to do so with the smuggling issue as a part of the legislation, according to one observer who tracks the issue.
“It’s outrageous that they’re not doing more,” said the observer, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. “It makes it really hard for anyone to oppose” the $200 million cutoff.
The Egyptian diplomat defended his country’s action on the tunnel issue, however. “We do more than we would like to advertise,” he said, pointing out that Israel wasn’t able to fully stop the tunnel smuggling even when it occupied Gaza. “Already Egypt is making its best effort and we’ll continue to do that.”
Israel offers a different assessment. Though the Shin Bet has seen some improvement in Egyptian efforts recently, Israel says there has been a huge increase in the flow of weapons and the like to Gaza since it pulled out. Israeli security officials point, for instance, to a jump from six tons of explosives smuggling into Gaza in 2005 to the 30 tons of explosives smuggled in 2006.
Olmert brought up the issue during his talks in Washington this week, with Israeli officials saying they would like to see the US do more to pressure Egypt on this point.
The State Department press office could offer no information on the House proposal Wednesday, but earlier State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack did say of the Egyptians that, “They understand that there’s more to do in that regard in stopping any smuggling that goes on between Egypt and the Gaza Strip.” Alterman said, I don’t think the State Department would certify the improvements necessary for aid as of now, unless there’s a change, then that money would not go to Egypt this year.
JUST WHAT THE HELL ARE WE DOING? WHY ARE WE GIVING AWAY BILLIONS TO TERRORISM-SUPPORTING NATIONS? THINK WHAT WE COULD DO WITH THAT MONEY... BUILD A 100 FT WALL ALL ALONG THE MEXICAN BORDER!!!
It really isn’t that much (compared to the 2 TRILLION our gub’mint spends) and the biggest chunks to Israel and Egypt.
Egypt gets money ‘caused they signed a real “recognize Israel’s right to exist” peace treaty with Israel - which made ‘em unpopular with all the other Arabs.
Cutting ‘em off might hand Egypt over to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Egypt breeds terrorists, supports terrorists, trains little school children to hate Jews and Americans, and kills Coptic Christians whenever they feel in the mood. And we have been paying them $2 billion a year to do it, courtesy of Jimmuh Carter.
I would expect Carter to do something like that, but I don’t know why on earth we are still doing it.
Aid to Egypt was part of the deal Carter brokered at Camp David in 1978 to get the Egyptians to recognize Israel and sign the peace accords. We have been giving this aid for almost 30 years with no end in sight.
Was the last batch of 100 count cotton sheets unsatisfactory?
Since 1949, the US has provided Israel with almost $100 billion in assistance.
Carter, of course.
That was my question. Is there any country on this planet we dont send aid to?? DAMN.
I think it was Lawrence of Arabia who said that you can’t buy an arab, only rent one.
I’m sure the aid we send to Egypt was a lot more than 2 million. I thought is was about 1-2 billion each to Egypt and Israel. Someone should have the numbers.....
Eventually that will happen anyway. The money we pay to Egypt and other Muslim countries are extortion payments. It doesn’t solve the problem, it just makes the Muslim citizenry hate us all the more, and delays the inevitable. Our children and grandchildren will curse us for being so cowardly.
$200 million!!! That’s almost enough to build a bridge in Alaska!
Didn’t Hamas capture enough FATAH weapons supplied by the USA?
According to this thread Hamas claims they seized over $400 million worth of U.S. weapons:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1854015/posts
Our government is out of control.
One party is more stupid than the next.
It's runs around $2 billion. Congress is talking about witholding 10% of that.
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