Foreign Aid to Israel is Bonanza for the US
by Yoram Ettinger (Ambassador, ret)
The US does not give foreign aid to Israel - the US makes an annual investment in Israel, giving US taxpayers a return of several hundred percent. The US-Israel strategic relationship constitutes a classic case of a mutually-beneficial two-way-street.
While Israel is a grateful recipient of US military systems, it also serves as a battle-tested, cost-effective laboratory for the US defense and aerospace industries, which employ 3.5 million Americans.
In defense: The Israeli Air Force flies the US's Lockheed-Martin’s F-16 and F-35 combat aircraft, providing both Lockheed-Martin and the US Air Force with invaluable information on operations, maintenance and repairs, which is then used to manufacture a multitude of upgrades for next-generation aircraft. Just the F-16 itself has been improved by several hundred Israeli-driven upgrades, sparing Lockheed-Martin 10-20 years of research and developments, which amounts to billions of dollars.
The US is also trained by Israeli experts in neutralizing car bombs, suicide bombers and IEDs, and US combat pilots benefit greatly from joint maneuvers with their highly experienced Israeli counterparts.
In intelligence: the US would have to establish five CIAs to procure the intelligence provided by Israel (the CIA’s annual budget is around $15 billion). The scope of Israeli intelligence shared with the US exceeded that provided by all NATO countries combined.
Gen. Alexander Haig, who served as NATO’s Supreme Commander and US Secretary of State, and Adm. Elmo Zumwalt assessed that “Israel is the largest US aircraft carrier, which does not require American soldiers on board, cannot be sunk and is deployed in a most critical region - between Europe, Asia and Africa - sparing the US the need to manufacture, deploy and maintain a few more real aircraft carriers and additional ground divisions, which would cost The US taxpayer some $15 billion annually.”
In tech: More than 200 top American high-tech companies - such as Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Apple, Johnson & Johnson, Google and Facebook - have established R&D centers in Israel. They use Israel’s brainpower to increase production, exports and employment. They realize that Israel is a critical partner in sustaining their edge over China, Russia, Europe and Japan in the development and manufacture of tech.
The US-Israel strategic relationship constitutes a classic case of a mutually- beneficial two-way street. (How do the US taxpayers benefit from recipients of US aid by others, like Egypt, Jordan etc?)
Food for Thought. by Steven Shamrak
Most countries of the world are less than 300 years old. Many of them are occupying lands they have conquered from their neighbours. The majority of these countries feel that they have the right to dictate to Israel, one of the oldest nations in the world, what the land of Jewish people is, by supporting creation a state of fake people our land. Israel must stop paying attention to those anti-Semites, and do what is right for the future of the Jewish people!
US sends warplanes with bunker-busting bombs to Mideast in message to Iran. A dozen A-10 Warthogs were refitted to allow the attack aircraft to carry up to 16 of the precision-guided GBU-39/B bombs.
Protracted Legal Process or Political Persecution
Liat Ben Ari, the chief prosecutor in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s criminal trial, was absent this week from the meeting on a possible mediation with defense attorneys for Netanyahu and his co-defendant. The reason: she is on an extended vacation abroad. It’s not the first time that Ben Ari has been absent from meetings related to this case. She has frequently preferred to go on long vacations during work time rather than on her office’s vacation days. In October 2019, Ben Ari missed the first round of preliminary hearings in Netanyahu’s case because she and her family were on a safari in South Africa. (Netanyahu was accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust several years ago - still there is no progress and nothing has changed!)
Due to Ukraine aid, American emergency ammunition depots in Israel are beginning to run low, and it is unknown when they will be replenished. There has been an unofficial understanding between the two allies that the depots were placed in Israel to be used in the event that the Jewish state found itself in an emergency situation.
Enemy Rockets will be ‘Cooked’
Rafael’s engineers say Israel may never need to hear another warning siren. A new laser system, “Light Shield” (‘Magen Ohr’), will intercept airborne threats ranging from mortar bombs, rockets and drones to anti-tank missiles. It may be ready as soon as next year
Who was the First Jewish Terror Victim?
Israel mourned its first terror victim. A Haredi man, Aharon Hershler, was shot 12 times by Arabs 150 years ago, and was buried on the Mt. Olives. Aaron Hershler was born in 1850 in Hungary. His father, a scholar, and a well-known rabbi, made Aliyah and became a Rosh Kolel at the Kollel Shomrei HaChomos, a.k.a. the Hungarian Kollel. The family lived outside the walls of the Old City.
Israel Commemorated Fallen Soldiers and Terror Victims
Last week, Israel commemorated 24,213 fallen soldiers and 4,255 terror victims. From Memorial Day 2022 until today, 59 soldiers have been added to the list of fallen, and an additional 86 disabled veterans who passed away this year were recognized as fallen soldiers. In addition, 31 civilians have been killed in terrorist attacks. (Israel can and must end this bloody terror business.
Quotes of the Week:
“The Arabs tried to slay the Jewish State in its infancy (they still do). Those are the most historic Jewish lands there are going back thousands and thousands of years. There’s never been a Palestinian Arab entity. The US must defend Israel against disfavoured treatment by the UN and agenda-driven international bodies, and we must reject those who reject Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State. We must also in America respect Israel’s right to make its own decisions about its own governance." - Ron DeSantis, Florida Governor.
The Judicial Reform is Restoration Democracy
by Dr. Aviel Sheyin-Stevens
The lawlessness of the left-wing rioters and the cowardice of the IDF and the police in the face of the Left’s rejecting the voters’ will in the last elections are pushing Israel into crisis.
Israel is ruled by a judicial despotism that is not accountable to the people. Due to their loss of power in elections, the political Left transformed Israel’s legal system to a rule of mafia law; controlling government policies and Knesset legislation.
Despite the Left’s control over power sources in Israel, the significant majority of Israelis are right-of-center. In the November 2022 elections, right-of-center parties won 64 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.
In 1995, Aharon Barak, President of the Supreme Court of Israel (1995-2006), decreed that “everything is justiciable”- judges must decide everything; enabling the Supreme Court to carry out a judicial coup d’état. Government lawyers terminate government decisions and legislative initiatives before commencing, by proclaiming them “unreasonable” or “legally problematic” (as opposed to illegal). Government ministers must resign if the Attorney General indicts them.
In democracies, the power of parliament to remove Supreme Court justices is the norm. In Israel, Supreme Court justices cannot be removed from office except by the Court of Discipline, consisting of judges appointed by the President of the Supreme Court, or by the Judicial Selection Committee with the agreement of seven of its nine members.
The Netanyahu government’s judicial reform plan, if passed in full, will realign Israel’s currently unchecked judiciary with the checked judiciaries of advanced democracies. Its main components include: placing judicial appointments under political control; requiring justices to base their judgments on the law, rather than the vague “reasonableness”; banning the Supreme Court from amending or overriding Israel’s Basic laws, while providing the Knesset with a mechanism for overriding the Court’s decisions; and preventing the attorney general’s opinions from binding the government, which he ostensibly serves.
Yesh Atid (Yair Lapid) Sabotages the Talks
Likud Party officials said that progress in negotiations won’t be possible as long as the Yesh Atid Party, by Yair Lapid, attempting to torpedo the talks. Chances of success would improve if discussions were held only with the National Unity Party led by Benny Gantz. Likud officials cite the demand of Yesh Atid to include the issue of IDF recruitment of haredim in the talks as one example of how the latter party is working to prevent a meeting of the minds. They also claimed there are gaps in the positions between National Unity and Yesh Atid.
We Demand Judicial Reform
Approximately, 600,000 supporters of Israel's judicial overhaul rallied outside the Knesset in Jerusalem. “To all my friends who are sitting here, see how much power we have,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told the crowd. “They have the media and they have tycoons who will fund the protests, but we have the nation.” The plan would give the government of Israel the final say in appointing the nation’s judges. It would also give the Knesset authority to overturn Supreme Court decisions and limit the court’s ability to review laws.
“Over 2 million Israelis voted six months ago in the real referendum: the election. They voted in favour of legal reform. We are here on this stage with 64 mandates to right an injustice. No more inequality, no one-sided judicial system, no court whose judges are above the Knesset and above the government. We are told that if the reform passes there will be a dictatorship. There is no bigger lie than that. Show me a single democracy in which the legal advisers decide [government policy] instead of the government,” said Justice Minister Yariv Levin (Likud).