TABLE 1: Direct U.S. Aid to Israel (millions of dollars)
Year
Total
Military Grant
Economic Grant
Immigrant
ASHA
All Other
1949-1996
68,030.9
29,014.9
23,122.4
868.9
121.4
14,903.3
1997
3,132.1
1,800.0
1,200.0
80.0
2.1
50.0
1998
3,080.0
1,800.0
1,200.0
80.0
?
?
1999
3,010.0
1,860.0
1,080.0
70.0
?
?
2000
4,131.85
3,120.0
949.1
60.0
2.75
?
2001
2,876.05
1,975.6
838.2
60.0
2.25
?
2002
2,850.65
2,040.0
720.0
60.0
2.65
28.0
2003
3,745.15
3,086.4
596.1
59.6
3.05
?
2004
2,687.25
2,147.3
477.2
49.7
3.15
9.9
2005
2,612.15
2,202.2
357.0
50.0
2.95
?
2006
2,534.53
2,257.0
237.0
40.0
?
.53
2007
2,500.24
2,340.0
120.0
40.0
?
.24
2008
2,423.8
2,380.6
0.0
39.7
3.0
.5
Total
103,614.67
56,024.0
30,897.0
1,557.9
143.3
14,992.47
Notes: FY 2000 military grants include $1.2 billion for the Wye agreement and $1.92 billion in annual military aid. FY 2003 military aid included $1 billion from the supplemental appropriations bill. The economic grant was earmarked for $960 million for FY 2000 but was reduced to meet the 0.38% rescission. Final amounts for FY 2003 are reduced by 0.65% mandated rescission, the amounts for FY 2004 are reduced by 0.59%, and the amounts for FY 2008 are reduced by .81%.
“It is my responsibility to see that our policy in Israel fits in with our policy throughout the world; second, it is my desire to help build in Palestine a strong, prosperous, free and independent democratic state. It must be large enough, free enough, and strong enough to make its people self-supporting and secure,” President Truman said in a speech October 28, 1948.
Truman’s commitment was quickly tested after Israel’s victory in its War of Independence when she applied to the U.S. for economic aid to help absorb immigrants. President Truman responded by approving a $135 million Export-Import Bank loan and the sale of surplus commodities to Israel. In those early years of Israel’s statehood (also today), U.S. aid was seen as a means of promoting peace.
In 1951, Congress voted to help Israel cope with the economic burdens imposed by the influx of Jewish refugees from the displaced persons camps in Europe and from the ghettos of the Arab countries. Arabs then complained the U.S. was neglecting them, though they had no interest in or use for American aid then. In 1951, Syria rejected offers of U.S. aid. Oil-rich Iraq and Saudi Arabia did not need U.S. economic assistance, and Jordan was, until the late 1950s, the ward of Great Britain. After 1957, when the United States assumed responsibility for supporting Jordan and resumed economic aid to Egypt, assistance to the Arab states soared. Also, the United States was by far the biggest contributor of aid to the Palestinians through UNRWA, a status that continues to the present.
U.S. economic grants to Israel ended in 1959. U.S. aid to Israel from then until 1985 consisted largely of loans, which Israel repaid, and surplus commodities, which Israel bought. Israel began buying arms from the United States in 1962, but did not receive any grant military assistance until after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. As a result, Israel had to go deeply into debt to finance its economic development and arms procurement. The decision to convert military aid to grants that year was based on the prevailing view in Congress that without a strong Israel, war in the Middle East was more likely, and that the U.S. would face higher direct expenditures in such an eventuality.
Israel has received more direct aid from the United States since World War II than any other country, but the amounts for the first half of this period were relatively small. Between 1949 and 1973, the U.S. provided Israel with an average of about $122 million a year, a total of $3.1 billion (and actually more than $1 billion of that was loans for military equipment in 1971-73) . Prior to 1971, Israel received a total of only $277 million in military aid, all in the form of loans as credit sales. The bulk of the economic aid was also lent to Israel.
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