Analysis: American taxpayers pay $3 billion for planes that will be given to Israel... and that's just the beginning

Joe Clifford - There has been considerable media coverage of a weapons deal with Israel involving the “sale” of latest generation F-35 fighter jets to Israel. Media outlets referred to it as a “sale”, a disingenuous description at best, because the Israelis did not buy the weapons, you did, and then your government gave them to Israel. You paid almost 3 billion dollars for the planes which will now be given to Israel.

There is a program called the Foreign Military Financing program in which the US government buys weapons from the U.S. defense contractors and then gives them to friendly foreign governments, and this 3 billion dollar “sale” of F-35s was in fact funded by the FMF program. Just so readers understand. We buy the F-35 at the exorbitant price or about $100 million per plane from the private sector, then turn around and give the F-35s to the government of Israel. Could it be that in this age of severe budget cuts and discussions of cutting social programs such as Social Security and Medicare, our government was giving away 3 billion dollars of weapons that had been purchased with the public’s money?? Letters have been sent to both Rhode Island Senators Reed and Whitehouse asking them if in fact the taxpayer had footed the entire bill of 3 billion for the purchase of F-35s which would then be given to Israel.

Senator Whitehouse’s office responded, and confirmed we did pay for the F-35s and will give them to Israel, and furthermore according to Whitehouse’s office, there is a stipulation that now the US government must, as part of the “sales” agreement, purchase 4 billion dollars worth of defense items from the government of Israel. So the total cost of the deal to the taxpayer is about 7 billion dollars.

All of this was part of a package of incentives offered to Israel in an attempt to get the Israelis to buy into a moratorium on building illegal settlements. The agreement provided for the “sale” of the 20 F-35s, and a promise by the US to veto any future UN Resolutions against Israel. Israel has not agreed to the moratorium and according to some Israeli sources, is now negotiating for even more F-35s.

The “sale” aroused my curiosity and found out that we also recently paid 205 million for the Iron Dome Missile System, and gave that to Israel, despite that fact that many leading scientists say it is entirely useless. The US House of Representatives by a vote of 401-4 voted that the US public should fund the entire cost of Iron Dome. But wait, there’s more!

Just last week the US deposited 400 million dollars of military equipment in Israel, supposedly to keep them in storage in the event we need them in one of our future wars in the Middle East. Sounds logical save for the clause that allows Israel to use any or all of these weapons whenever they need them. So in effect this is a gift of another 400 million, paid for by the US taxpayer.

Thanks readers for your extreme generosity. Now let’s get on with cutting your Social Security and Medicare because your government has no money. One has to ask: “Who does Congress represent”?

If Americans only knew!