United States President, Barack Obama, signed the Foreign Aid Budget Law of 2010 which includes granting $2.775 Billion in security aid to the state of Israel. This budget is the second in two years and is considered part of the US aid to Israel which will total $30 Billion in the coming ten years. Israeli Ynet News reported that the budget signed by Obama includes $500 Million to the Palestinian Authority. $100 Million will be used by US General Keith Dayton who is in charge of training the Palestinian security Forces in the West Bank.
The US government said this aid will only be transferred to a government that recognizes the conditions of the Quartet Committee (The United States, the United Nations, Russia and the European Union).
The Ynet added that the aid includes a clause that prohibits exporting and importing the US money for the use of banks that provides Iran with grantees, insurances or credit.
The United States started allocating the $3 Billion to Israel after the country signed the peace deal with Egypt in 1973. $2 Billion was allocated to “security” and $1 Billion allocated to “civilian aid”.
But after Benjamin Netanyahu took office, he increased the security aid to $2.4 Billion.
Former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bush administration in order to gradually increase the US security aid in the coming ten years.
This was ‘justified by Israel’ as part of the efforts to counter the so-called “Iranian threat” and the “Iranian support to terror groups”.
The $3 Billion, the annual US security aid to Israel, is accompanied by further aid to Israel’s Defense Industries, mainly to the field of “Missile Defense”.
