source: israelpalestinenews.org

Congress is currently considering legislation to give Israel a total of $38 billion over 10 years, the largest such aid package in U.S. history. Yet, U.S. media are not telling Americans about the legislation, which is before Congress right now…

Legislation to give Israel $38 billion over the next ten years is currently working its way through Congress. This is the largest military aid package in U.S. history.

Yet, while Israeli media are covering the legislation, virtually no U.S. news reports have informed American taxpayers about this proposed disbursement of their tax money.

The proposed military aid amounts to $23,000 per every Jewish Israeli family of four. (Aid to Israel has been on average about 7,000 times greater per capita than U.S. aid to others around the world.)

The proposed aid is divided between two bills. One has already passed, but the main bill is still before Congress.

1. The 2019 military spending bill contains a provision giving Israel 550 million dollars (i.e. $5.5 billion over 10 years). This has already passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law on August 16.

2. A second bill, “United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act of 2018,” is slated to give rest of the package, approximately $33 billion, to Israel. The number is H.R.5141.

This bill has already passed the Senate, and is now being considered in two House committees:  Armed Services and Science, Space, and Technology.^[1] (Click on each committee to see its members.)

The reason that the bill was referred to the committee on space is because the bill mandates that NASA work with the Israel Space Agency, despite accusations of Israeli espionage against the U.S.

In 2015 a Caltech scientist revealed that the Chair of Israel’s National Committee for Space Research had illegally acquired classified U.S. information. The alleged espionage and theft largely took place at Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a top NASA research and development center.

The $38 billion package was originally negotiated by the Obama administration in 2014,^[2] but must now be codified into law.

While U.S. media are inexplicably ignoring this massive aid legislation, Israeli media are covering it regularly, and Israel lobbying organizations are calling on their members to support it. (AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, reportedly pioneered the legislation.)

For example, while U.S. media covered the military spending bill, none of the reports seem to have mentioned the millions of dollars to Israel. This is exemplified by an in depth PBS examination of the bill, which discussed aid to Ukraine – which gets a fraction of the amount promised to Israel – but failed to mention the far larger money to Israel.

We could not find any news reports that tell about the current aid to Israel bill.

In other words, Israelis know about the proposed $38 billion legislation, Israeli partisans in the U.S. know about it and are pressuring Congress to pass it, but the large majority of American taxpayers have no idea the legislation is before Congress.

Indications are that U.S. media are not going to report on these bills unless Americans demand that they do so.

Any Americans who believe the media should report on how American tax money is spent, will need to contact the media, both national and local, and tell them that.

The House will be back in session on September 4th. It’s probable that the bill will move forward quickly at that point. It’s unlikely that the process will involve any public debate whatsoever, unless voters contact their Congressional representatives and demand this.^[3]

Read the rest of the story here israelpalestinenews.org