Monday, July 26, 2010

Should Dubai laugh Israel out of Gaza and the West Bank?


Should Dubai laugh Israel out of Gaza and the West Bank?
Was it oil mad money that empowered a couple of hundred thousand native Dubains -- along with a million or so foreign workers -- to "build them" a global showcase? Not recently; these days Dubains realize about 2 billion dollars a year from oil, some more from natural gas. Their natural resource is their natural business sense (a resource unknown to Israelis?). [See Vali Nasr's 2009 book "Forces of Fortune."]

After downing 200 billion (2010) US direct aid dollars over 40 years Israel has little to show but a vastly overbuilt military which could literally repel an invasion by British, French and German ground forces at the height of their Cold War force levels -- 3,000 NATO quality tanks on defense equal 9,000 on offense; Central European armies 1980s tank count: only 6,000. (Throw in 3,000 more for, then, active duty US Army and we have a match after all. :-])

Israel smashed a 1973 all out surprise attack by Egypt, Syria and Jordan BEFORE collecting hundreds of billions to pay for high tech weaponry but after the Arabs were overloaded by Russia with the then novel Sagger anti-tank and still deadly SA-6 anti-aircraft missiles. [Read up on the 1973 war in US Army chief historian, Col. Trevor N. Dupuy's book "Elusive Victory."]

Great green gobs of US military aid may have enabled Israel to embrace an ultimately self-destructive -- muscle-flexing/sandy-land grabbing -- lifestyle: can be honestly likened to "welfare mentality." Do land grabbing "Tell Tale Hearts" add to very real Holocaust memories to provoke irrational invasion fears (2010 Middle East nations, including Iran, are preoccupied with their modern middle classes struggles to get the upper hand zero inclination for any knock-down-drag-outs)? Could two millennia of neighborhood building rather than nation building have confused Israelis about the difference between the two?

Doing a Dubai -- instead of a Zionist "1984" -- with even half those US aid dollars could have profited enough to procure all the land in the sand that Israel could ever covet.

DIRECT AID TO ISRAEL SINCE 1970 (millions of dollars)
Year------ Nominal------- Adjusted-------------------- Total

1970---------- 93.6--------- 530.00
1971--------- 643.3------- 3,489.70
1972--------- 430.9------- 2,264.00
1973--------- 492.8------- 2,438.47
1974------- 2,621.3----- 11,681.53
1975--------- 778.0------- 3,177.07
1976------- 2,337.7------- 9,026.23
1977------- 1,762.5------- 6,389.79
1978------- 1,822.6------- 6,141.49
1979------- 4,888.0------ 14,791.92-------------- 59,930.02
*****************************************
1980------- 2,121.0------- 5,655.14
1981------- 2,413.4------- 5,833.05
1982------- 2,250.5------- 5,123.66
1983------- 2,505.6------- 5,526.91
1984------- 2,631.6------- 5,564.61
1985------- 3,376.7 ------ 6,894.62
1986------- 3,663.5------- 7,343.71
1987------- 3040.2-------- 5,879.68
1988------- 3,043.4------- 5,885.87
1989------- 3,045.6------- 5,656.11-------------- 59,363.36
*****************************************
1990------- 3,034.9------- 5,377.16
1991------- 3,712.3------- 5,988.20
1992------- 3,100.0------- 4,854.38
1993------- 3,103.4------- 4,178.46
1994------- 3,097.2------- 4,591.46
1995------- 3,102.4------- 4,472.42
1996------- 3,144.0------- 4,402.40
1997------- 3,132.1------- 4,287.37
1998------- 3,080.0------- 4,050.36
1999------- 3,010.0------- 3,969.37-------------- 46,171.58
*****************************************
2000------ 4,131.85------- 5,144.00
2001------ 2,876.05------- 3,569.88
2002------ 2,850.65------- 3,481.31
2003------ 3,745.15------- 4,471.79
2004------ 2,867.25------- 3,334.75
2005------ 2,612.15------- 2,938.50
2006------ 2,534.5--------- 2,762.05
2007------ 2,500.2--------- 2,649.75
2008------ 2,423.9--------- 2,474.59
2009------ 2,550.0--------- 2,611.82-------------- 33,438.44
*****************************************
-------------------------------------------------198,903.40


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