Follow the bouncing betty
<http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Abouncing+betty>, I mean dollar
sign:
US would consider Israeli request for military aid
Yaakov Katz, THE JERUSALEM POST Aug. 31, 2006
If Israel asks, the US would "seriously consider" granting the Defense
Ministry additional financial assistance because of the huge expenses
incurred during the war in Lebanon, a high-ranking US diplomat revealed
Wednesday.
According to ministry estimates, Israel spent close to NIS 30 billion on
ammunition, fuel and other expenses during the war. The defense
establishment has already asked the Treasury to be compensated for that
amount. The US provides Israel with military assistance of more than
$2b. annually.
"A request has not yet come," the US official said. "But we would
consider it seriously."
According to diplomatic sources in Jerusalem, the government was
considering asking for additional aid - one report said a request might
be for $2b. There was also talk in Washington of a large-scale financial
package to help rebuild southern Lebanon, in part to keep the Iranians
out of the process. Israel was apparently hoping to fold its aid request
into this package.
He said the US viewed Israel as the victor in the war from a military
perspective, although not from a political standpoint. "Militarily,
Israel did more damage to Hizbullah," he said. "Hizbullah suffered
greater damage."
But the more Israel struck at Lebanese civilian infrastructure, the more
damage, he said, it actually caused itself. "The people in Lebanon did
not understand and that allowed Hizbullah to say Israel was punishing
them... and that damaged Israel politically," he said.
Israel, he said, should work to improve its political standing in
Lebanon, possibly by initiating peace talks with the Lebanese
government. "They should build off of [Security Council Resolution]
1701," he said, adding that one way was to "negotiate and talk with
Lebanon."
According to the official, Israel will most probably begin gradually
withdrawing its troops from southern Lebanon within two to three weeks,
as thousands of European troops begin to deploy as part of the
strengthened multinational force. Within two months, he said, he
envisioned a Lebanon without an Israeli presence.
The US, he said, was "encouraging" the European countries contributing
troops to the force to deploy them as soon as possible and to enforce
the arms embargo on Hizbullah.
The US had not been surprised by Israel's decision to go to war with
Hizbullah following the kidnapping of IDF reservists Ehud Goldwasser and
Eldad Regev, he said, stressing, "We were not given advance notice of
the war, but were not surprised."
The official also rejected a report in The New Yorker magazine at the
beginning of the month according to which Israel and the US had
coordinated and planned the war in advance as a test to see how the
military would function in the run-up to a possible strike against
Iran's nuclear facilities.
"If it were planned, Israel would have done better," he said. "We needed
this like a hole in the head."
He said the US had enough on its plate with the situation in the Gaza
Strip following the abduction of Cpl. Gilad Shalit and that there was no
interest in seeing Israel go to war with Hizbullah.
Backing up a similar claim by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, he said that
the decision on August 11 to begin sending troops to the Litani River,
hours before the UN approved the cease-fire, drastically improved the
resolution's language in Israel's favor.•
This article can also be read at
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525975369&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
