The book lists many instances of the unique character of Washington’s assistance to Israel, which is hardly a needy country in the usual sense. Two examples show this extra-special status: no other country receives American economic aid without having to account for how it is spent. The sums are enormous; indeed, this comparatively prosperous state is America’s biggest aid recipient, each year receiving sums that dwarf US support for impoverished states such as Bangladesh, Bolivia and Liberia. Only Israel receives ‘a lump-sum cash transfer’. This means Washington has no idea how Israel uses American money. Not only that: Egypt and Jordan, which rank just after Israel as recipients of US foreign aid, get this money, the authors claim, ‘as a reward for good behaviour — specifically their willingness to sign peace treaties with Israel’. But while the reward for Egypt amounts to $20 per person, direct US foreign assistance equals $500 for each Israeli.

As for military assistance, Washington ignores Israel’s possession of WMD programmes, including over 200 nuclear weapons. Washington normally presses other countries to sign the 1968 Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty. In the case of Israel, Washington occasionally suggests compliance, but never insists. Nor has Israel been pressed to disclose the extent of its chemical and biological weapons programme, although the US has imposed sanctions on other countries which refused to ratify the Chemical or Biological Weapons Conventions. There was a brief period in 1982 when the US halted supplies of cluster bombs to Israel, but the shipments resumed in 1988; they were used to deadly effect in the most recent war with Lebanon.

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