Israel has asked the Bush administration for $2 billion to finance the government’s plan to dismantle more than 25 Jewish communities, compensate the residents and transfer them to other communities in Israel. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has promoted development in the Galilee, where Arabs are half the population, and the Negev, where Bedouin are more than half the population outside the city of Be'er Sheva.
The Jewish National Fund has also stepped in, and is negotiating a land swap with the government wherein it would relinquish valuable coastal land to the government in return for land in the Galilee. The JNF claims that as a non-government agency, it can develop the area for Jews without being subject to legal suits accusing it of discrimination.
But the American government now wants Israel to use the money for Jews and Arabs alike. "America is not the Jewish Agency nor is it the Jewish National Fund, and considers it important that the aid serve all sectors of the Israeli population," one American official said.
He said the U.S. wants most of the money spent on public projects, such as extending Highway 6 from the center of the country to the Negev.
Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres, whose office is coordinating the Negev plan, wants to use the money on better education for the burgeoning Bedouin population.
President George Bush is to ask Congress to approve the aid by December. Officially, the administration supports the package, but Israel may be punished financially for last week’s leak to reporters of details from a National Security Agency meeting. They said that the talks were positive and "constructive."
The New York Times reported that Israel has received $100 billion in American aid since 1948, and the CNN conducted a poll that revealed American voters almost unanimously opposed financing the expulsion.
The pro-Israel lobby AIPAC is trying to drum up support in Congress for the aid package, but the Victims of Arab Terror International organization has launched a campaign against it. It plans to purchase newspapers ads encouraging Americans not to allow their tax dollars to be used as ‘blood money’ for the expulsion plan "which rewards Arab terrorists for their continuous murderous atrocities.”
The Jewish National Fund has also stepped in, and is negotiating a land swap with the government wherein it would relinquish valuable coastal land to the government in return for land in the Galilee. The JNF claims that as a non-government agency, it can develop the area for Jews without being subject to legal suits accusing it of discrimination.
But the American government now wants Israel to use the money for Jews and Arabs alike. "America is not the Jewish Agency nor is it the Jewish National Fund, and considers it important that the aid serve all sectors of the Israeli population," one American official said.
He said the U.S. wants most of the money spent on public projects, such as extending Highway 6 from the center of the country to the Negev.
Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres, whose office is coordinating the Negev plan, wants to use the money on better education for the burgeoning Bedouin population.
President George Bush is to ask Congress to approve the aid by December. Officially, the administration supports the package, but Israel may be punished financially for last week’s leak to reporters of details from a National Security Agency meeting. They said that the talks were positive and "constructive."
The New York Times reported that Israel has received $100 billion in American aid since 1948, and the CNN conducted a poll that revealed American voters almost unanimously opposed financing the expulsion.
The pro-Israel lobby AIPAC is trying to drum up support in Congress for the aid package, but the Victims of Arab Terror International organization has launched a campaign against it. It plans to purchase newspapers ads encouraging Americans not to allow their tax dollars to be used as ‘blood money’ for the expulsion plan "which rewards Arab terrorists for their continuous murderous atrocities.”