To the World, Netanyahu is an Extremist and Rouhani Moderate

There is a “moderate” world leader who married his cousin when she was only 14, in a country where some in the media do not even know her name. This man’s wife doesn’t participate in open society. His country arrests and abuses people of different religions than the country’s majority. He describes a nearby democracy as “an occupier and usurper government” that “does injustice to the people of the region, and has brought instability to the region, with its warmongering policies.” Under the rule of this new “moderate” leader, his country continues to enrich uranium, and continues to pursue nuclear arms. This man is Hassan Rouhani.

There are approximately 57,100 Google results for a “Hassan Rouhani moderate” search.

Then there is an “extremist” leader whose wife is an educational and career psychologist by profession, and is regularly attacked by the local media for her fashion choices. This leader’s country is tolerant of gays, who hold an annual parade through one of the world’s holiest cities. This country’s parliament is an open body with diverse members who are freely elected. This leader heads the most liberal democracy in the Middle East. This man is Benjamin Netanyahu.

How low are our standards today that the world fawns over Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the idea that he is willing to meet with President Obama?

This is a very, very big deal. I can tell you at the White House and at the highest levels of the State Department, they were watching for this all day. They were looking for these signals in this interview. Because he made it very clear he wants a deal on the nuclear weapons. The president told José Díaz-Balart on Telemundo yesterday he wants to test his seriousness. That is what they are going to be looking for at the UN. There is no formal meeting scheduled, they are not planning one.

But unlike Ahmadinejad, his predecessor, you can very well understand that next week when both of them are at the UN, the same time, the same place, they are going to look for an opportunity to see each other, to perhaps have a real conversation. And they believe that Iran wants this because of the sanctions, because they are crippling the economy, that the time is right but there is a short window to see whether Iran is serious, whether this man with a clerical background can do the deal. I was told by a top State Department official they have been working on the back channel for two years and one of the significant players is the foreign minister Zarif who was the UN Ambassador, and is well known to everyone in this administration.

Rouhani is the head of a rogue state. Nothing has changed with this so-called moderate’s election, as Iran hasn’t halted uranium enrichment, removed enriched uranium from the country, dismantled the Fordo nuclear plant, or even allowed inspectors in. Prime Minister Netanyahu has rightfully described him as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Rouhani is certainly a savvy politician. He has acknowledged exploiting “the intense competition” between Western countries in nuclear negotiations, saying “we can use that competition to our advantage.” At one point, Rouhani described the disagreement between the U.S. and Britain over the issue as “beautiful to see.” In a speech in 2005, Rouhani detailed how Iran had evaded the UN Security Council, playing America’s hard-line position against others, including China and Russia, along with Germany.

Rouhani served as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator under former Iranian presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, at a time when Iran was concealing its clandestine nuclear weapons program from the world. He was known while head of Iran’s National Security Council (1989-2005), as the ‘diplomatic sheikh,’ for the way he handled the drawn-out nuclear negotiations with the E-3 (France, Germany, and Britain) from 2003-5.

When we expect hard line and extremist views from Iran’s leaders, we delude ourselves into seeing someone who is not as overt in his hatred for the West as a “moderate”.

Amazingly, whether it is a left-wing or right-wing government, Israel is always viewed by the media as the problem. Prime Minister Netanyahu is a Public Relations guru – a master of the spoken word – yet Israel is regularly condemned. When Iran’s leaders say something peaceful, the world is thrilled and hopeful. Meanwhile, Iran continues to move forward with its nuclear program.

Google “Netanyahu extremist” and you’ll find approximately 1,960,000 results. Google “Rouhani extremist,” a mere 383,000 results. World governments and the media are warped.

Surely, with the strength and clarity that the Obama Administration has shown in Syria, Israel should have nothing to fear from Iran, right?

DANCING WITH THE STARS Obama changing dance partners, a-g-a-i-n?

WHO TAKES HOME THE MIRRORED BALL? Obama gave then-Egyptian President Morsi $250 million in March in addition to 200 Abrams tanks and 12 F-16s, with 8 more to be delivered by the end of the year. Pretty strong support for the Muslim Brotherhood, of which the now-deposed Morsi is a member.

Judges gave Egypt a 10 for "being a good neighbor." So how do judges rate the competition?

SOURCE--CONGRESS WATCH The Washington Report on ME Affairs--Nov 2011.
Copyright 1983-2013 American Educational Trust
By Shirl McArthur, retired U.S. foreign service officer and Washington-based consultant.

The 2011 current estimate by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs of cumulative total U.S. direct aid to Israel is $123.202 billion (updating November 2008 report).

Because parts of US aid to Israel are (1) buried in the budgets of various US agencies or in a form not easily quantified—such as (2) the early disbursement of aid, (3) giving Israel a direct benefit of interest income, and, (4) the U.S. Treasury's corresponding loss—---it is virtually impossible to arrive at an exact dollar amount.

Our latest estimate is a conservative, defensible accounting of U.S. direct aid to Israel. It does not include (a) the indirect benefits to Israel resulting from U.S. aid, nor, (b) the substantial indirect or consequential cost to the US. as a result of its support for Israel.

Most significantly, perhaps, it does not include the costs resulting from the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq—hundreds of billions of dollars, thousands of U.S. and allied casualties, and untold tens of thousands of Iraqi killed and wounded—which is widely believed in the Arab world, and by many Americans as well, to have been undertaken for the benefit of Israel.

Among the real benefits to Israel that are not counted as a direct cost to the U.S. taxpayer is the provision allowing Israel to spend 26.3 percent of each year's military aid in Israel rather than from American companies (no other recipient of U.S. military aid gets this benefit), which has resulted in an increasingly sophisticated Israeli defense industry.

As a result, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), between 2001 and 2008 Israel was the seventh-largest arms exporter to the world, with total sales of $9.9 billion. Also in contrast with other countries receiving U.S. military aid, who must purchase through the Department of Defense (DOD), Israel deals directly with the U.S. companies, with no DOD review.

Loan Guarantees Another indirect benefit to Israel is the loan guarantees that Washington has extended to Israel since 1972. While these have not yet cost the U.S., they have enabled Israel to borrow from commercial sources at more favorable terms and lower interest rates, since the U.S. guarantees payment of the loans should Israel default.

Most recently, the FY '03 war supplemental appropriations act authorized $9 billion in loan guarantees to Israel over three years. In FY '05 these were extended until FY '07, and in '06 they were extended again through FY '11, with a "carryover" provision that Israel may draw on unused U.S. guarantees through FY '12.

CRS reported that Israel has not borrowed any funds against these guarantees since FY '05, speculating that it perhaps views the guarantees as a "last resort" option should their normal source of funds—unguaranteed local and international bond issuances—become too expensive.

Subsidies for Israel's Colonists And Colonies A real benefit to Israel that represents another indirect, but unquantifiable, cost to the US taxpayer is the private, tax-exempt money collected by charitable American Jewish groups and then sent to support Israel's colonists ("settlers") and colony-related causes in occupied Palestinian territories, including by groups designated by the U.S. as foreign terrorist organizations (see November 2007 Washington Report, p. 30).

In July 2010, The New York Times published a lengthy article on these "charities," reporting that hundreds of millions of dollars have flowed to settlers and settlement-related causes, including to support settler extremists in Hebron and East Jerusalem.

While most of the money appears to have gone to purposes that are legal under U.S. laws, the NY Times reported, it added that US funds have "also paid for more legally questionable commodities: housing as well as guard dogs, bulletproof vests, rifle scopes and vehicles to secure outposts deep in occupied areas."

Since every tax-exempt dollar that goes to the colonies represents a loss of, conservatively, 20 cents to the U.S. Treasury, that means that the U.S. taxpayer has indirectly subsidized Israel's illegal colonies to the tune of tens of millions of dollars, or more.

As with previous Washington Report estimates of U.S. aid to Israel, this report draws largely from CRS' latest report on "U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel," which uses available and verifiable numbers, primarily from the foreign operations appropriations bills. Table 1. at web site is based on the appendix to that report plus this magazine's reporting and research, especially for the columns showing DOD funds and interest income to Israel resulting from the early disbursement of aid.

Not counting the huge sums (in the trillions) being spent in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade, Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. aid since World War II. The $3 billion or so per year that Israel receives from the U.S. amounts to about $500 per Israeli.

The largest amounts have been military grants (Foreign Military Financing, or FMF) and economic grants (Economic Support Funds, or ESF). In August 2007 the US and Israel agreed on a new, 10-year aid plan, beginning in FY '09 and calling for no ESF and incremental annual increases in FMF, reaching $3 billion by FY '11 and remaining at that level through FY '18.

Another ongoing item is so-called "migration and refugee assistance." This originally was intended to help Israel absorb Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union, but was expanded in 1985 to include "refugees resettling in Israel." In fact, however, Israel doesn't differentiate between refugees and other immigrants, so this money subsidizes all immigrants to Israel.

Israel also receives regular grants from the "American Schools and Hospitals Abroad" (ASHA) program.

A significant amount of aid to Israel comes from the DOD budget for so-called "joint defense projects" —although to date the Pentagon has shown little interest in these projects for its own use. Previous Washington Report estimates identified about $7.694 billion to Israel from the DOD budget through FY '08.

To that has been added amounts for FYs '09, '10 and '11, as shown in Table 1. at web site Of the $415 million shown for FY '11, the most significant amount is the $205 million appropriated to support Israel's "Iron Dome" short-range missile defense system.

A significant part of U.S. support for Israel's defense program is the deployment to Israel in 2008 of the X-Band radar system to detect incoming missiles. Since this system is U.S.-owned and -operated (meaning the constant presence on Israeli soil of U.S. troops and defense contractors), its costs are not reflected in these numbers.

Table 1. at web site also shows a conservative estimate of Israel's interest income resulting from the early disbursement of U.S. aid. Assuming that Israel's aid money is drawn down over the course of each year, a 2 percent interest rate is applied to one-half of the aid for FY '09 and '10, and a 3 percent rate for FY '11.

The "All Other" column on Table 1. at web site reflects information from the CRS report, plus this magazine's reporting and research, giving amounts from other U.S. departments and agencies.

Our 2006 report uncovered $456.7 million in previously unreported grants and endowments, mostly to U.S.-Israeli scientific organizations. The two largest are the BIRD Foundation (research and development) and the BARD Fund (agricultural research).

The BARD Fund gets about $500,000 a year from the Agriculture Department. In addition, in each of FY '09 and '10, Congress appropriated $2 million from the Energy Department for the U.S.-Israeli Energy Cooperation Program, and in FY '10 the Energy Department announced that it would contribute $3.3 million to the BIRD Foundation for clean energy projects.

For those who wish to look up more details, Table 2. at web site gives citations for Israeli foreign aid and DOD appropriations bills for the past five years. ####

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