Jewish lobby focused on US military assistance to Israel: Analyst
The influential Israel lobby in the United States strongly advocates for continuous American military aid to Israel which is funded directly from US taxpayers, says a political and military analyst in New York.
“The situation with US aid to Israel, direct payments of military aid, comes down to just one major force, the power of the Jewish lobby here in the US,” Michael Burns told Press TV on Wednesday.
The Israel lobby is “extremely strong” in every congressional district and has a “laser-like focus” on US military assistance to Israel, Burns said.
“We take that money from the taxpayers’ coffers and supply it to Israel,” he noted.
“In addition to that we have climbed over one another politically to demand that Israel be accepted as a legitimate state,” Burns said.
US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have reportedly agreed on an increase in American military aid to Israel, Israel’s Channel 2 reported.
Obama and Netanyahu met for the first time in over a year at the White House on Monday, and spent much of their time discussing ways to expand US military assistance to Israel.
However, senior White House officials said there was no commitment to bolstering American aid during the meeting.
Israel is seeking a new 10-year agreement worth $5 billion in annual aid, a significant increase from the approximately $3 billion it has received yearly since a 2007 agreement with the Bush administration that expires in 2017.
The aid package is separate from the annual US funding of nearly $500 million which is spent on Israel’s missile programs in recent years. It is also on top of US warfare equipment held in Israel, valued at $1.2 billion.
US military assistance to Israel has amounted to $124.3 billion since it began in 1962, according to a recent congressional report.
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