We interrupt this summer …

Posted July 21, 2006

If scenes of makeshift Lebanese morgues lined with the charred bodies of fleeing civilians, pillars of smoke rising from the Beirut skyline, bloodied Gaza children, and Israelis cowering in bomb shelters seem a world away from Vermont, look again. They’re closer than you might think.

As we enjoy these long-awaited warm summer months in our bucolic state, puttering in the gardens and planning trips to the beach, the Middle East is spiraling into a region-wide conflagration that threatens to suck the western world into its dizzying vortex.

What’s the connection between Beirut and Barre, Gaza and Greensboro, Haifa and Halifax?

First, follow the money: Vermonters, along with all other U.S. taxpayers, have contributed to the Israeli firepower that is currently enabling Tel Aviv to carry out reprisal attacks in dizzying disproportion to the kidnappings that purportedly sparked this conflict.

More U.S. aid goes to Israel than any other country, even though Israel’s per capita income is as high as many European nations. Inter Press Service reports this week (see page 13) that out of a total of $8.4 billion worth of arms deliveries to Israel in the 1997-2004 period, $7.1 billion were from the United States, thanks in large part to the increase in U.S. Foreign Military Financing — outright U.S. grants to Israel — which now totals about $2.3 billion a year. And under U.S. law, 74 percent of FMF assistance to Israel must be spent on U.S. military products.

In the mid-1990s, per capita U.S. foreign aid to Israel’s 5.8 million people was $10,775. In other words, for every dollar the United States spent on an African, we spent $250 on an Israeli, and for every dollar we spent on someone from the Western Hemisphere outside the United States, we spent $214 on an Israeli.

This aid continues to increase in spite of growing awareness and opposition to such financing among U.S. residents. Sixty percent of U.S. residents polled by Time/CNN in 2002 supported cutting aid if Israel did not withdraw its troops from Palestinian areas.

Economists point out that as long as the United States runs an annual budget deficit, every dollar we give to Israel has must be raised through U.S. government borrowing. According to the website IfAmericansKnew.org, based on conservative estimates, the $84.8 billion in grants, loans, and commodities Israel has received from the United States since 1949 has cost this country an additional $49,936,880,000 in interest.

As astounding as those figures are, there is no measure on the value of a life, which brings us to the second point. Vermont has lost troops to war in Iraq and Afghanistan at a rate that outpaces the rest of the country. In 2005, Vermont had the second highest per-capita number of reservists called to active duty — and had proportionally lost more than any other state.

A broader war in the Middle East — which is becoming increasingly likely as Israel hammers Lebanon and Washington neocons foam at the bit to act on their plans to attack Iran and Syria — would put more Vermonters in harm’s way and expose more Vermont families to the devastating loss of a loved one. For what?

This brings us to the third and most important point — our moral imperative. The U.S.-Israeli financial symbiosis gives Washington a unique authority over the conduct of the Jewish state. For decades, our willingness to sit idly by while Israel violates the human rights of Palestinians — through land and resource confiscation, collective punishment (as we again see in the current Gaza campaign), economic strangulation, transfer and deportation, separation of families, religious persecution, imprisonment without charges, and state-sponsored slaughter — has fanned the flames of Arab outrage and played into the hands of groups like al-Qaeda and Hezbollah that are willing to capitalize on this festering injustice.

If Washington acted with moral authority instead of political expediency, it could have eradicated the fuel of this extremism years ago. Instead, the United States has fanned these flames and our leaders, including Vermont’s own Bernie Sanders, continue to cast votes in Congress that run counter to our nation’s best interests as they keep an ear cocked toward their vocal and well-financed Israel-first supporters.

What’s happening in Lebanon today is bad business. It’s bad for the Middle East, bad for the world, and bad for Vermont. If we fail to pay attention, fail to speak up, the storm over Lebanon and Gaza will thunder across our own skies.