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Friday February 16, 2007

President’s budget calls for billions to defend Israel

by ron kampeas & joe eskenazi

President Bush’s $3 trillion budget is a lot more palatable to the Jewish community with regards to Israel than domestically.

The president calls for $2.4 billion in defense spending for Israel, a $60 million augmentation from last year’s tally. Economic assistance to the Jewish state will drop by $120 million, in accordance with a decade-old aid-restructuring program; 2008 marks the conclusion of the program and Israel will receive no non-defense assistance other than $40 million earmarked for refugee resettlement. While those funds were originally allocated with Soviet émigrés in mind, the money is now largely utilized on Ethiopian Jews.

A chunk of the defense money heading to Israel is not merely aid but U.S. investment in collaborative development of weapons projects. Bush requested $84 million for the Arrow anti-missile system, including $7 million for a short-range system specifically designed to take on rockets of the sort fired by Hezbollah in last summer’s war and many days since.

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