Who's Arming Israel?

Frida Berrigan and William D. Hartung, Foreign Policy In Focus

Much has been made in the U.S. media of the Syrian- and Iranian-origin weaponry used by Hezbollah in the escalating violence in Israel and Lebanon. There has been no parallel discussion of the origin of Israel's weaponry, the vast bulk of which is from the United States. The United States is the primary source of Israel's far superior arsenal. For more than 30 years, Israel had been the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance and since 1985 Jerusalem has received about $3 billion in military and economic aid each year from Washington. U.S. aid accounts for more than 20% of Israel's total defense budget. Over the past decade, the United States has transferred more than $17 billion in military aid to this country of just under 7 million people...

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Lebanese resistance bares limits of U.S.-Israeli power

Sara Flounders, International Action Center

Reports on July 22 that the Pentagon is rushing the delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel for use in its criminal offensive in Lebanon confirm the real relationship in this U.S./Israeli war. The utter dependency of the Zionist state on the military equipment, massive funding, political and diplomatic support of the United States has never been clearer. But news of the shipment also exposes the limits of U.S. and Israeli power. With these same weapons, U.S. troops have been unable to prevail in Iraq. How can the Israeli war criminals, even with an endless supply of U.S. high-tech weapons, expect to prevail in Lebanon? Israel is headed into the same quagmire. Like the U.S. in Iraq, Israel is quickly finding that it faces a highly motivated, ever more organized people’s resistance in Lebanon....

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