Jordan does not like Palestinians.
Black September
Black September also known as the Jordanian Civil War, was an armed conflict between Jordan, led by King Hussein, and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), led by chairman Yasser Arafat. The main phase of the fighting took place between 16 and 27 September 1970, though certain aspects of the conflict continued until 17 July 1971.
The Captain
We old phartz remember the long standing talking points that Israel (all of Judea and Sumeria) is intended to be the Jewish part of Palestine, and Jordan is the Pal part of Palestine, so the Pals need to pack their trash and move to Jordan.
Of course, the US has the cudgel of withholding foreign aid from Jordan, to force compliance.
Steve
Jordan is the Palestinians but yes different tribes. The transJordan includes Israel and the Palestinian mandate.
Itâs a modest cudgel. Sure, itâs about 2% of Jordanâs GDP - which isnât nothing. But even though Jordanâs deep in hock to China, I would guess that the Chinese would step up to help with some of that shortfall, if we cut off all assistance.
I suspect theyâd be more worried if we threatened to tear up the Jordan-US free trade agreement and hit them with someoneâs favorite other cudgel, super-high tariffs.
We give a little over 3 billion in aid to Israel each year. I am trying to figure out why we need to give them that aid. They are a thriving country with a growing tech industry it seems they should be able to stand on their own feet.
Might have something to do with the bulk of the aid going for defenseâŠ
AIUI, almost none of the aid is economic aid. Itâs almost all military aid, under the Foreign Military Financing program. Israel has to use most of that money to buy weapons from the U.S.
We do it because Israel is a critical strategic ally, and that both allows us to more effectively project direct power in the region and provides us with a proxy to indirectly counter other players in the area. That area is vitally important to international trade and movement of military vessels through the Suez Canal, as well as the global oil trade and a geopolitical check on Russia and its proxies in Iran and (formerly) Syria.
The Military aid is 10 or 20 times more than $3 Billion (Pentagon hasnât survived an audit â who knows). The â$3 Billion in foreign aidâ is an artifact of the Camp David agreement of 1978 during the Jimmy Carter years â basically the same kind of aid were giving to poor African nations. Itâs nuts.
intercst
Right but my thinking is they have an economy that is developed enough to do it themselves. I do not think they need the aid. It is more a back door to fund the military complex in the United States. Like giving them a coupon if they buy from us. It made more sense when they were struggling but they are not struggling anymore.
Itâs about .5 percent of their GDP. Seems like a token amount and does not indicate a real need.
The money goes to US contractors who have the âneedâ. It makes arming ourselves less expensive because there are foreign buyers defraying costs of production. Including parts of Israelâs $27.5 billion military budget.
Perhaps not. But it keeps them locked into us. If we pick up 15% of their military budget (pre 10/7 obviously) and require them to spend most of it on our equipment and weapons and the like, it makes it far less likely that they might consider stepping back from our alliance. Weâre militarily intertwined.
The military aid we give is a token amount compared to our GDP (or even our military budget) also, and as you point out the money comes back to the U.S. when it gets spent with our defense contractors.
And all the stuff that they buy gets used (mostly) on pursuing geopolitical goals that align with our own. Like pushing back on Russiaâs proxies in the region in Iran and Syria. If Israel wasnât there (or wasnât on our side), weâd possibly have to spend that $3-4 billion more on weapons to have in the region anyway. This way, itâs still our weapons (or at least we made them), and Israel pays the cost in blood and treasure for the people to wield them instead of us. We basically get the benefit of fielding a sizable military force in the region, but we get someone to pay for all the personnel and other costs for us so that we donât have to have soldiers there.
So far Israel has received over $300 B in aid from US. This number is severely under reported. Mostly the military AID is what is counted. US citizens and various non-military, non-state department agencies AID that doesnât require congress notification goes un-reported.
That same argument could be used to fund say Singapore, Taiwan, Finland, etc. We give Taiwan 2 billion. It would seem that our interest there should be at least five fold of our interest in Israel.
Israel exists because of West, and especially US. US veto is the single shield that is protecting Israel from international sanctions, and US has used at least 50 times that veto to protect Israel.
If Israel is not aligned with US, instantly US international relations will dramatically improve.
That is really hard to quantify but I get your point.
It isnât a matter of how much of Jordanâs GDP it is. The question is where does that money go? Does it all go for the benefit of the Jordanian people, or does most of it land in Abdullahâs pocket? That amount of money would have much more impact on decision making, if concentrated in one pocket.
Steve
EhâŠmaybe not. Israel offers a somewhat unique situation. Itâs the only western-aligned country in a region that - because of the proximity of the Suez Canal, massive oil fields, and Russiaâs aspirations towards year-round ice-free ports - is one of the most geopolitically important in the world. As a result, it was one of the key theaters for proxy conflicts during the Cold War, and one of the few that remain so today. Geographically, Israel is in one of the more important parts of the world (as it has been event to ancient times) in a way that Finland or Singapore is not.
True, and the fact that they are uniquely dependent and vulnerable on that support is what makes this rather unusual situation viable for us. Unlike Singapore or Finland, Israel has historically been surrounded by enemies (some of whom are now merely rivals with prickly bilateral relations) that we also had beef with when they were firmly in the Second World, and Israel has no plausible local allies.
So when we built them up into a regional power, the military might that they had was almost unavoidably going to be used to further our geopolitical objectives in the region. Because they are dependent on the West, itâs âsafeâ to give them an outsized military power - because their vulnerable position pushes them to be uniquely supportive of whichever outside power is currently supporting them. If we were to cut off the alliance, they would either find another external power to cozy up to (Chinaâs got a nice veto power that might be for sale in exchange for the same security relationship that we have with Israel) - or perhaps disappear. The former would be a catastrophe for us, and the latter would almost certainly be a massive net loss for us even if âUS international relations dramatically improve.â
Times change and the new Super power is China. Russia is scrambling now to keep their ports in the Middle East and the Oil Fields are not as important as they were with the U.S able to pump as much as they can. Especially if a law was enacted that oil and gas resources can not be exported like they used to be.