WASHINGTON, 16 January — A Jewish-American group is asking the State Department to pressure Israel into reviewing its financial aid to Jewish settlements in the occupied territories before providing additional assistance to relieve Israel’s budget problem.
"We are asking them to take this issue into account when looking into additional aid," Lewis Roth, communications director at the Washington-based Americans for Peace Now told Arab News on Monday.
"For years, Peace Now has been calling attention to Israel’s budget allocations for the settlements," said Roth. "What is new is that there now are signs that the US administration is looking at Israel’s budget and weighing different factors to determine this new request for additional aid. If that is the case, the budgetary items they should be looking at is the aid to settlements."
Roth said Americans for Peace Now sent a letter to Alan Larson, US undersecretary of state for economic affairs, asking that the Bush administration tell the hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon deal with his government’s budget shortfall by cutting expenditures on settlements instead of programs for "needy segments" of the Israeli public.
"It is quite true that substantial funds are still going to the settlements rather than needy portions of Israeli society. We continue to call for a change in prioritization of Israeli budget allocations," said Roth. "In our view, these settlements undermine Israel’s security and serve as an impediment to progress in the peace process."
The State Department is currently reviewing Israel’s budget situation to determine whether additional US assistance is needed. Israel received over $3 billion a year in US aid. Israel is asking for an additional $154 million in aid for various infrastructure projects, industrial investment grants, agricultural programs and education subsidies for the settlements. This total does not include additional funding for bypass roads or the ongoing expenses of the Israeli Army and security services in maintaining control of the territories.
"In our view, the settlements are a security liability for Israel because they stretch Israel’s line of defense and they require Israel to expend limited resources in their defense. This has been one of our major arguments regarding the settlements for a long time," said Roth.
Roth said there was a Peace Now demonstration on Sunday in Israel in front of the Defense Ministry to protest the Palestinian home demolitions in Rafah over the weekend. Roth said the Israeli public was clearly taken aback by the nature, and the international backlash, of these demolitions. "We were pleased to see that the Foreign Minister Shimon Peres announced that these home demolitions will no longer be the policy of Israel government — even though the Israel Army demolished more homes in East Jerusalem earlier today."
