(03-09-2019, 01:30 PM)MalabarJag Wrote:

(03-09-2019, 11:51 AM)mikesez Wrote: The goalposts did not move. I had mentioned Israel's small population from the beginning. Afghanistan is the only country that gets more aid in total dollars. and Afghanistan has only been getting that kind of aid for 20 years. Israel has received it for 70 years.
the rest of your argument seems to be along the lines that Israel deserves this aid and that they do good things with the money. I wouldn't dispute that point actually. I'm just saying that you can't give them credit for their own prosperity when so much of their economy depends on aid from us, and always has. you wouldn't praise a 70 year old man who still gets an allowance from his father as being self-made.

First off, I'd guess that the Marshall Islands gets more aid per capita.

Secondly, in your analogy the father gives his son money to be spent only on guns, which have to be bought from the father's business.

You might be right about the Marshall islands.
Some sources consider the Marshall islands to be US territory so those sources may not include the money we give to the Marshall islands as "foreign aid."

In the last decade, a lot of the aid that the US has given Israel has indeed been funneled right back into US based defense contractors. The arrangement was not always this way. we also should not neglect the role played by generous donations from individual Jews who live here.
The point is that Israel's prosperity is largely a product of them receiving a steady stream of donations for a longer period of time than most of us have been alive.

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