"Coin Of Empire" Too Costly For Israelis, Palestinians, and U.S. Taxpayers
By Conn Hallinan
"The coin of empire is always bought dear" was an expression that emerged from the great Irish Tithe War of the 1830s, when the British taxed the Catholic Irish to support the Church of England. After three years of opposition, bloodshed, and financial chaos, one colonial officer glumly pointed out that it was costing the Crown, "a shilling to collect tuppence."
That is a lesson the government of Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon might heed as it continues to occupy the West Bank and Gaza at a cost that threatens to destroy the Israeli economy, impoverishing both occupiers and occupied. The moral of the story also might encourage U.S. President George W. Bush's administration to influence Israel's economic policies.
For the second year in a row, Israel's GDP has contracted. Unemployment overall is 10.8%; it is more than double that rate in Israeli Arab towns. Over 300,000 Israelis are jobless. According to government reports, 1.2 million Israelis--one-fifth of the population--now live in poverty. The official poverty line income is $934 a month for families with two children. The number of poor families has risen 30% in the past 14 years and the number of children in poverty 50%. Some 27% of Israel's children are officially designated poor.
While poverty is growing among Israelis, it is definitive among the Palestinians. Over 50% of the West Bank and Gaza populations are jobless, and 75% of Gaza's residents live on less than $2 a day. The U.S. Agency for International Development found that 13.2% of Gaza's children and 4.3% in the West Bank suffer from what it called "body wasting" or inadequate nutrition. Almost one in five children has moderate anemia.
The settlements are a massive drain on the Israeli budget. Aside from the cost of deploying the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to guard the settlements, a vast network of special roads labeled for "settlers only" has been constructed, along with an enormous water and electrical power infrastructure. Tel Aviv also subsidizes the 220,000 settlers (plus the 200,000 in East Jerusalem). Mortgage rates in the occupied territories are one quarter of those in Israel, education is subsidized, and settlers receive a 10% break on their income taxes plus a 7% discount on their social security.
According to Peace Now, the occupation costs the Israeli government about $1.4 billion a year, a figure that will surely rise with the continued expansion of the settlements. According to the Associated Press, Sharon told his Cabinet ministers June 22 that despite the directives of the multilateral Road Map for Middle East Peace, construction would continue "quietly."
The cost of occupation is partly borne by U.S. loan guarantees and outright grants. U.S. aid to Israel--the bulk of it military--amounts to some $3 billion a year. Several months ago the Sharon government asked for more, figuring the White House owed it for Israel's staunch support of the Bush administration's war on Iraq. Washington agreed to pony up $9 billion in loan guarantees and $1 billion in military aid, but with a catch: Israel must cut taxes, welfare, and public service jobs. In short, it must adopt a U.S.-style economic system.
It was that demand that put 700,000 public sector workers into the streets in April and sparked a scathing editorial in the daily newspaper Ha'aretz accusing the Bush administration of trying to force "a neo-liberal order in Israel." The Sharon government's response has been to try to limit the trade unions' right to strike. Shortly after a bitter exchange between Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israel's labor organization, the Histadrut, Likud Party leader Ruhama Avraham introduced legislation restricting the right of public employees to strike.
The quid pro quo for U.S. aid has stirred up considerable debate in Israel, although the controversy has yet to show up in the mainstream of U.S. media.
[Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0307coin.html. Conn Hallinan
"..although the controversy has yet to show up in the mainstream of U.S. media."
Ahhh, what a familiar refrain.
That Bush failed to use any kind of diplomatic aplomb, such as to consider the reaction of the people of Israel to his dictates is not at all surprising. Again he is showing that he has a hidden agenda; a world-view in progress...not mere peace-keeping or tyrant-toppling as he would have the voters believe. That he he dictates to Isreal should make Isreali's aware that the US views Israel as it's own. That it is a shadow state in the middle-east.
Also, that he dictates policy to Israel should alert US citizens to the possibilty that GWB is fully engaged in implementing "The American Century" as an all encompassing foreign and domestic policy.