nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

holfresh wrote:

arkrud wrote:

Nalod wrote:

holfresh wrote:People sometimes don't understand the different experiences of many groups in this country...They feel it's one experience and should be one point of view..This is for you Nix...

Thank you for sharing!!!

Very interesting and very important to see the history as it is and not revised.
It is exactly the same as in Russian Empire where slavery was abolished in 1723 and serves were freed from landlords power in 1861 to fee 90% of Russian population.
All ruling class and majority of educated class including the brightest and greatest minds and cultural idols who made great contributions to world culture, sciences, and humanity were all slave owners.
Also the Jews segregation in Russia started in 1791 was ended by Russian revolution in 1917.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement
We cannot measure people leaving 200 years back by the moral values of our time.
And we should not be judged in 200 years by morals that will emerge.

So in a few years, my grand kids shouldn't judge Hitler's moral deeds??

1758 my forefather was brought here on the Slaveship Betsey from the slave castle on Bance Island, Sierra Leone Africa. I don't know his name or that of any other ancestor from this time... yet.

Thomas C. Born a slave 1819
William C. Born a Slave 1839
1865 the end of the Civil War.
William C. Jr. Born Free 1869
Richard C. Born 1913
Melvin C. Born 1946
I was born in 1965

So basically only 100 years passed from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until my birth in 1965. When I was born Jim Crow was at its end as the country passed the historic Civil Rights Laws. History does matter and what may seem like ancient history isn't that at all.

It is just 75 years since the brothers and sisters of my grandmother were killed in gas chambers together with their kids and family, together with 6 millions others...
My mother has their photo.. of all family... 45 people on one picture... black and white. 7 of them survived the Holocaust. My grand grand farther is also on the picture.
He was in hid 90th and died with all teeth still intact. He was a strong man.
I do not have any anger and any hate to those who killed them and to their descendants and their families.
Those who killed them and order to kill them are dead and God will jujge them. Those who are leaving now have nothing to do with all this.
My relatives on the picture are telling me that hate must be stopped otherwise their death has no meaning.
I am not the one to tell you that the history is not important and that we should not remember... We have to remember.
But we should remember not for the sake of hate but for the sake of forgiveness. Because there is no other way to leave together on this planet.

I can tell you that the Black experience in this country CONTINUED to be bad long after my Grandfather Richard who is listed above fought the Germans and received a Bronze Star and Purple Heart as a SEGREGATED soldier in WWII. He had to live with the indignity of racial discrimination until the day he died. Just as my father who went to Vietnam had to deal with Racism. I was the 1st one born in my family that did not experience Slavery or Jim Crow in this country.

Black people didn't HATE. They had HATE inflicted upon them. Did Black people in this country launch into massive raids of violent revenge upon the defeated former Slave Owners and Confederate Soldiers after the Civil War??? NO! They could have but they didn't. Nearly 4 Million abused, impoverished and illiterate people just asked to be treated fairly and with respect, but that's not what they got. They got lied to and cheated. They got Lynched, Burned alive, Imprisoned and re-enslaved under unjust laws designed to create a new slave workforce. Not until I was born did things ease up a little. Even then this system has not been even close to fair or just for Black People in this country. It's not about us hating White people or trying to take it out on the descendents of Slave Owners!!! You miss the point entirely when you keep saying these things.

Black people were here the whole time this country was being founded. Working, fighting and dying for this country. Then we have to watch European immigrants come to this country and progress and prosper while we were denied freedom to do the same. I don't wanna hear about FORGIVENESS!!! Man you have no idea how much crap Black People have FORGIVEN in their long journey to be treated equally and have what everyone else had the freedom to do. We started with LESS than NOTHING. We were enslaved which involved BREAKING the SPIRIT so that Slaves would be more compliant. We were stripped of our original language and culture and taught we were LESS THAN. No education for generations. No passed on knowledge and wealth. I don't think you fully understand what that does to a people when you spend HUNDREDS of years in a diminished state. Many of our problems are vestiges of Bad Habits from Slavery passed on from generation to generation. It's hard to overcome that at the same time society is holding you back. YOU DON'T KNOW THE HALF OF IT! You need to sit and talk with my Grandparents and parents to let them explain what a lifetime of living in this country back then was like. There were no GOOD OLE DAYS for Black People.

You come a long way and you own nothing to anyone.
You never get help and you will never get it.
This is how life is and this is how it will be.
Hundred of years or thousands of years you are the only masters of your destiny.
Freedom is not given, it is the state of mind, Spirit that cannot be taken away.
Your people are still roaming the desert but many already reached the Promised Land.
The eternal journey is hard and long. It takes many generations and hundred of years.
Just keep going...

OK so I should just tell my Sons and Daughter and Grand Children that they should wait for another Hundred years in order to be treated Equally??? There's a very real reason why Minorities and Women are so concerned with President Trump and the Republicans. He represents the way things USED to be. Oh they try to sugarcoat it with Populist talk and Nationalist lingo, but underneath all of that is a very dark core of hatred that we are especially sensitive to for the reasons I listed above!!! NO! Things are not just gonna be OK with the passage of time and NO I shouldn't take Hundreds of years for people to be treated fairly and just like European Immigrants were allowed to prosper in this country!!!

This country OWES a debt to African Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic Americans that they refuse to pay!!!

Tell them that that they are free and that they will get only what they will earn themselves.
Nobody will give them anything for granted. Never.
I can tell you this by the experience of 5 thousand years and 200 hundred countries.
All you can get it a slap to the hand and spit to the face.
And I do not have any problem with this because I do not have any expectations and it makes me strong, unbreakable.
Tutankhamen, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Obama, Trump, whatever... dust in the wind.

What you're saying is not actually accurate. The Jews did have help over the millennia. It wasn't just them sitting and hoping things would change for the better. They took action and they complained and protested and made appeals to higher powers. They didn't do it all on their own. All i'm saying is that when the Jewish People looked to America when they needed backing for their new State of Israel...

Creation of Israel, 1948

On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day.

Although the United States supported the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which favored the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had assured the Arabs in 1945 that the United States would not intervene without consulting both the Jews and the Arabs in that region. The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region. Great Britain wanted to preserve good relations with the Arabs to protect its vital political and economic interests in Palestine.

Soon after President Truman took office, he appointed several experts to study the Palestinian issue. In the summer of 1946, Truman established a special cabinet committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Henry F. Grady, an Assistant Secretary of State, who entered into negotiations with a parallel British committee to discuss the future of Palestine. In May 1946, Truman announced his approval of a recommendation to admit 100,000 displaced persons into Palestine and in October publicly declared his support for the creation of a Jewish state.

Throughout 1947, the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine examined the Palestinian question and recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. On November 29, 1947 the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May 1948 when the British mandate was scheduled to end. Under the resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would remain a corpus separatum under international control administered by the United Nations.

Although the United States backed Resolution 181, the U.S. Department of State recommended the creation of a United Nations trusteeship with limits on Jewish immigration and a division of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab provinces but not states. The State Department, concerned about the possibility of an increasing Soviet role in the Arab world and the potential for restriction by Arab oil producing nations of oil supplies to the United States, advised against U.S. intervention on behalf of the Jews. Later, as the date for British departure from Palestine drew near, the Department of State grew concerned about the possibility of an all-out war in Palestine as Arab states threatened to attack almost as soon as the UN passed the partition resolution.

Despite growing conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews and despite the Department of State’s endorsement of a trusteeship, Truman ultimately decided to recognize the state Israel.

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel

“It is my responsibility to see that our policy in Israel fits in with our policy throughout the world; second, it is my desire to help build in Palestine a strong, prosperous, free and independent democratic state. It must be large enough, free enough, and strong enough to make its people self-supporting and secure,” President Truman said in a speech October 28, 1948.

Truman's commitment was quickly tested after Israel's victory in its War of Independence when she applied to the U.S. for economic aid to help absorb immigrants. President Truman responded by approving a $135 million Export-Import Bank loan and the sale of surplus commodities to Israel. In those early years of Israel's statehood (also today), U.S. aid was seen as a means of promoting peace.

In 1951, Congress voted to help Israel cope with the economic burdens imposed by the influx of Jewish refugees from the displaced persons camps in Europe and from the ghettos of the Arab countries. Arabs then complained the U.S. was neglecting them, though they had no interest in or use for American aid then. In 1951, Syria rejected offers of U.S. aid. Oil-rich Iraq and Saudi Arabia did not need U.S. economic assistance, and Jordan was, until the late 1950s, the ward of Great Britain. After 1957, when the United States assumed responsibility for supporting Jordan and resumed economic aid to Egypt, assistance to the Arab states soared. Also, the United States was by far the biggest contributor of aid to the Palestinians through UNRWA, a status that continues to the present.

U.S. economic grants to Israel ended in 1959. U.S. aid to Israel from then until 1985 consisted largely of loans, which Israel repaid, and surplus commodities, which Israel bought. Israel began buying arms from the United States in 1962, but did not receive any grant military assistance until after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. As a result, Israel had to go deeply into debt to finance its economic development and arms procurement. The decision to convert military aid to grants that year was based on the prevailing view in Congress that without a strong Israel, war in the Middle East was more likely, and that the U.S. would face higher direct expenditures in such an eventuality.

Israel has received more direct aid from the United States since World War II than any other country, but the amounts for the first half of this period were relatively small. Between 1949 and 1973, the U.S. provided Israel with an average of about $122 million a year, a total of $3.1 billion (and actually more than $1 billion of that was loans for military equipment in 1971-73) . Prior to 1971, Israel received a total of only $277 million in military aid, all in the form of loans as credit sales. The bulk of the economic aid was also lent to Israel. By comparison, the Arab states received nearly three times as much aid before 1971, $4.4 billion, or $170 million per year. Moreover, unlike Israel, which receives nearly all its aid from the United States, Arab nations have gotten assistance from Asia, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and the European Community. Congress first designated a specific amount of aid for Israel (an "earmark") in 1971.

Meeting Israel's Special Needs

Since 1974, Israel has received nearly $100 billion in assistance, including three special aid packages. The first followed the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty and Israel's withdrawal from the Sinai. The redeployment of Israeli forces and rebuilding of air bases in the Negev cost $5 billion. To partially compensate for this sacrifice, Israel received $3 billion ($2.2 billion of which was in the form of high-interest loans) in U.S. aid in 1979.

The second special package was approved in 1985, following a severe economic crisis in Israel, which sent inflation rates soaring as high as 445 percent. The $1.5 billion in emergency assistance-disbursed in two installments, in 1985 and 1986-was provided as part of Israel's economic stabilization program, which was implemented under the guidance of the U.S.-Israel Joint Economic Development Group (JEDG).

An extraordinary package was approved in 1996 to help Israel fight terrorism. Israel is to receive a total of $100 million, divided equally between fiscal years 1996 and 1997.

Regular Economic and Military Assistance

Israel's economic aid changed from the Commodity Import Program (CIP), which provides funds to foreign nations for the purchase of U.S. commodities, to a direct cash transfer in 1979. In return, Israel provided the Agency for International Development with assurances that the dollar level of Israel's non-defense imports from the U.S. would exceed the level of economic assistance granted Israel in any given year. Thus, Israel guaranteed that U.S. suppliers would not be disadvantaged by the termination of Israel's CIP Program.

Starting with fiscal year 1987, Israel annually received $1.2 billion in all grant economic aid and $1.8 billion in all grant military assistance. In 1998, Israel offered to voluntarily reduce its dependence on U.S. economic aid. According to an agreement reached with the Clinton Administration and Congress, the $1.2 billion economic aid package will be reduced by $120 million each year so that it will be phased out in ten years. Half of the annual savings in economic assistance each year ($60 million) will be added to Israel's military aid package in recognition of its increased security needs. In 2005, Israel received $360 million in economic aid and $2.22 billion in military aid. In 2006, economic aid is scheduled to be reduced to $240 million and military aid will increase to $2.28 billion.

For several years, most of Israel's economic aid went to pay off old debts. In 1984, foreign aid legislation included the Cranston Amendment (named after its Senate sponsor), which said the U.S. would provide Israel with economic assistance "not less than" the amount Israel owes the United States in annual debt service payments. The Cranston Amendment was left out of the FY1999 and subsequent appropriations bills. At that time Israel received $1.2 billion in ESF and owed only $328 million in debt service so the amendment was no longer needed.

In 1998, Israel was designated as a “major non-NATO ally,” which allows it to receive outdated military equipment the U.S. military wishes to sell or give away.

Roughly 26 percent of what Israel receives in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) can be spent in Israel for military procurement. From FY1988 to FY 1990, Israel was allowed to use $400 million in Israel. From FY1991 to FY1998, the amount was increased to $475 million. As U.S. military aid to Israel increased, according to the agreement to cut economic aid, the amout set aside for defense purchases in Israel has increased (but the percentage has remained roughly the same). In 2009, the figure was $671 million. The remaining 74 percent of FMF was spent in the United States to generate profits and jobs. More than 1,000 companies in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have signed contracts worth billions of dollars through this program.

At the end of 1998, Israel requested an additional $1.2 billion in aid to fund moving troops and military installations out of the occupied territories as called for in the October 23, 1998, Wye agreement. Israel received $600 million of this in military aid in FY1999 and $300 million in each fiscal year 2000 and 2001 (see Wye funding table).

In February 2003, for the first time, Congress voted to cut aid to Israel against the wishes of the pro-Israel lobby and the government of Israel. The 0.65 percent deduction was not aimed at Israel; however, it was an across the board cut of all foreign aid programs for fiscal year 2003. The lobby and government also suffered a defeat when Congress deleted an administration request for an extra $200 million to help Israel fight terrorism. Even while cutting aid to Israel (which still was budgeted at $2.1 billion for military aid and $600 million for economic assistance), Congress included a number of provisions in the aid bill viewed as favorable to Israel, including a provision that bars federal assistance to a future Palestinian state until the current Palestinian leadership is replaced, and that state demonstrates a commitment to peaceful coexistence with Israel, and takes measures to combat terrorism.

The setbacks were also temporary as the Administration approved a supplementary aid request in 2003 that included $1 billion in FMF and $9 billion in loan guarantees to aid Israel's economic recovery and compensate for the cost of military preparations associated with the war in Iraq. One quarter of the FMF is a cash grant and three quarters will be spent in the United States. The loan guarantees are spread over three years and must be spent within Israel's pre-June 1967 borders. Each year, an amount equal to the funds Israel spends on settlements in the territories will be deducted from the loan amount, along with all fees and subsidies.

Altogether, since 1949, Israel has received more than $106 billion in assistance. This includes the four special allocations, the $10 billion in loan guarantees (spread over five years) approved in 1992, the $9 billion in guarantees offered in 2003, and a variety of other smaller assistance-related accounts, such as refugee resettlement (nearly $1.6 billion overall since 1973), the American Schools and Hospitals Abroad Program (ASHA), which supports schools, libraries and medical centers that demonstrate American ideas and practices (($144 million), and cooperative development programs (a total of $186 million since 1981).

The total does not include funds for joint military projects like the Arrow missile (for which Israel has received more than $1 billion in grants since 1986), which are provided through the Defense budget. President Bush requested $60 million for the Arrow for FY2003 and $136 million in FY2004. The United States also has provided $53 million for the Boost Phase Intercept program and $139 million for the Tactical High Energy Laser program under development in Israel to complement the Arrow.

Though the totals are impressive, the value of assistance to Israel has been eroded by inflation. While aid levels remained constant in total dollars from 1987 until 1999, the real value steadily declined. On the other side of the coin, Israel does receive aid on more favorable terms than other nations. For example, all economic aid is given directly to the Israeli government rather than allocated under a specific program. Also, starting in 1982, Israel began to receive all its economic aid in a lump sum early in the fiscal year instead of in quarterly installments as is done for other countries. Israel also receives offsets on FMS purchases (U.S. contractors agree to offset some of the cost of military equipment by buying components or materials from Israel).

A 10-Year Military Aid Agreement

In August 2007, the Bush Administration agreed to increase U.S. military assistance to Israel by $6 billion over the following decade. Israel is to receive incremental annual increases of $150 mllion, starting at $2.55 billion in FY2009 and reaching $3.15 billion per year for FY2013-2018.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-u-s-foreign-aid-to-israel

African Americans are still waiting for their 40 Acres and a Mule!!!

Having a national state is great as nation has some place to run for their live when next wave of elimination occupier in some country.
It already saved lives of hundreds of thousands Jews since Israel was established. Now the probability of new Holocaust is smaller as we do not need to rely on other countries to open the door. When 6 millions died not many countries did. To many people want us dead rather that alive.
Never heard about anybody want to eliminate African Americans in US or elsewhere. May be I am not educated in this too.
If AA want to have national state so make yourself a nation and demand for it. I would support it.
Every nation should have a chance of self-determination. But first the nation should exist.

You totally missed my point!!! The U.S. Government did a lot to help the Jews and the amount of money spent to help support Israel over all these years is massive and yet over that same period of time this country failed to help its African American citizens right here in this country. They owe substantially more of a debt to African Americans and I ask where is that help???

We don't need a separate nation!!! We helped BUILD this nation into what it is and yet at the same time the U.S. was reaching out to help the Jews establish Israel, they were kicking African Americans in the teeth!!! Do you not yet understand where we are coming from? My Grandfather took a bullet in WWII helping to liberate the Jews and he died never knowing freedom and fair treatment from his own country!!!

We help Israel in attempts to balance power and world peace. It's a big deal with big consequences and ramifications for the entire world. Big league stuff

gunsnewing wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

holfresh wrote:

arkrud wrote:

Nalod wrote:

holfresh wrote:People sometimes don't understand the different experiences of many groups in this country...They feel it's one experience and should be one point of view..This is for you Nix...

Thank you for sharing!!!

Very interesting and very important to see the history as it is and not revised.
It is exactly the same as in Russian Empire where slavery was abolished in 1723 and serves were freed from landlords power in 1861 to fee 90% of Russian population.
All ruling class and majority of educated class including the brightest and greatest minds and cultural idols who made great contributions to world culture, sciences, and humanity were all slave owners.
Also the Jews segregation in Russia started in 1791 was ended by Russian revolution in 1917.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement
We cannot measure people leaving 200 years back by the moral values of our time.
And we should not be judged in 200 years by morals that will emerge.

So in a few years, my grand kids shouldn't judge Hitler's moral deeds??

1758 my forefather was brought here on the Slaveship Betsey from the slave castle on Bance Island, Sierra Leone Africa. I don't know his name or that of any other ancestor from this time... yet.

Thomas C. Born a slave 1819
William C. Born a Slave 1839
1865 the end of the Civil War.
William C. Jr. Born Free 1869
Richard C. Born 1913
Melvin C. Born 1946
I was born in 1965

So basically only 100 years passed from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until my birth in 1965. When I was born Jim Crow was at its end as the country passed the historic Civil Rights Laws. History does matter and what may seem like ancient history isn't that at all.

It is just 75 years since the brothers and sisters of my grandmother were killed in gas chambers together with their kids and family, together with 6 millions others...
My mother has their photo.. of all family... 45 people on one picture... black and white. 7 of them survived the Holocaust. My grand grand farther is also on the picture.
He was in hid 90th and died with all teeth still intact. He was a strong man.
I do not have any anger and any hate to those who killed them and to their descendants and their families.
Those who killed them and order to kill them are dead and God will jujge them. Those who are leaving now have nothing to do with all this.
My relatives on the picture are telling me that hate must be stopped otherwise their death has no meaning.
I am not the one to tell you that the history is not important and that we should not remember... We have to remember.
But we should remember not for the sake of hate but for the sake of forgiveness. Because there is no other way to leave together on this planet.

I can tell you that the Black experience in this country CONTINUED to be bad long after my Grandfather Richard who is listed above fought the Germans and received a Bronze Star and Purple Heart as a SEGREGATED soldier in WWII. He had to live with the indignity of racial discrimination until the day he died. Just as my father who went to Vietnam had to deal with Racism. I was the 1st one born in my family that did not experience Slavery or Jim Crow in this country.

Black people didn't HATE. They had HATE inflicted upon them. Did Black people in this country launch into massive raids of violent revenge upon the defeated former Slave Owners and Confederate Soldiers after the Civil War??? NO! They could have but they didn't. Nearly 4 Million abused, impoverished and illiterate people just asked to be treated fairly and with respect, but that's not what they got. They got lied to and cheated. They got Lynched, Burned alive, Imprisoned and re-enslaved under unjust laws designed to create a new slave workforce. Not until I was born did things ease up a little. Even then this system has not been even close to fair or just for Black People in this country. It's not about us hating White people or trying to take it out on the descendents of Slave Owners!!! You miss the point entirely when you keep saying these things.

Black people were here the whole time this country was being founded. Working, fighting and dying for this country. Then we have to watch European immigrants come to this country and progress and prosper while we were denied freedom to do the same. I don't wanna hear about FORGIVENESS!!! Man you have no idea how much crap Black People have FORGIVEN in their long journey to be treated equally and have what everyone else had the freedom to do. We started with LESS than NOTHING. We were enslaved which involved BREAKING the SPIRIT so that Slaves would be more compliant. We were stripped of our original language and culture and taught we were LESS THAN. No education for generations. No passed on knowledge and wealth. I don't think you fully understand what that does to a people when you spend HUNDREDS of years in a diminished state. Many of our problems are vestiges of Bad Habits from Slavery passed on from generation to generation. It's hard to overcome that at the same time society is holding you back. YOU DON'T KNOW THE HALF OF IT! You need to sit and talk with my Grandparents and parents to let them explain what a lifetime of living in this country back then was like. There were no GOOD OLE DAYS for Black People.

You come a long way and you own nothing to anyone.
You never get help and you will never get it.
This is how life is and this is how it will be.
Hundred of years or thousands of years you are the only masters of your destiny.
Freedom is not given, it is the state of mind, Spirit that cannot be taken away.
Your people are still roaming the desert but many already reached the Promised Land.
The eternal journey is hard and long. It takes many generations and hundred of years.
Just keep going...

OK so I should just tell my Sons and Daughter and Grand Children that they should wait for another Hundred years in order to be treated Equally??? There's a very real reason why Minorities and Women are so concerned with President Trump and the Republicans. He represents the way things USED to be. Oh they try to sugarcoat it with Populist talk and Nationalist lingo, but underneath all of that is a very dark core of hatred that we are especially sensitive to for the reasons I listed above!!! NO! Things are not just gonna be OK with the passage of time and NO I shouldn't take Hundreds of years for people to be treated fairly and just like European Immigrants were allowed to prosper in this country!!!

This country OWES a debt to African Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic Americans that they refuse to pay!!!

Tell them that that they are free and that they will get only what they will earn themselves.
Nobody will give them anything for granted. Never.
I can tell you this by the experience of 5 thousand years and 200 hundred countries.
All you can get it a slap to the hand and spit to the face.
And I do not have any problem with this because I do not have any expectations and it makes me strong, unbreakable.
Tutankhamen, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Obama, Trump, whatever... dust in the wind.

What you're saying is not actually accurate. The Jews did have help over the millennia. It wasn't just them sitting and hoping things would change for the better. They took action and they complained and protested and made appeals to higher powers. They didn't do it all on their own. All i'm saying is that when the Jewish People looked to America when they needed backing for their new State of Israel...

Creation of Israel, 1948

On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day.

Although the United States supported the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which favored the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had assured the Arabs in 1945 that the United States would not intervene without consulting both the Jews and the Arabs in that region. The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region. Great Britain wanted to preserve good relations with the Arabs to protect its vital political and economic interests in Palestine.

Soon after President Truman took office, he appointed several experts to study the Palestinian issue. In the summer of 1946, Truman established a special cabinet committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Henry F. Grady, an Assistant Secretary of State, who entered into negotiations with a parallel British committee to discuss the future of Palestine. In May 1946, Truman announced his approval of a recommendation to admit 100,000 displaced persons into Palestine and in October publicly declared his support for the creation of a Jewish state.

Throughout 1947, the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine examined the Palestinian question and recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. On November 29, 1947 the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May 1948 when the British mandate was scheduled to end. Under the resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would remain a corpus separatum under international control administered by the United Nations.

Although the United States backed Resolution 181, the U.S. Department of State recommended the creation of a United Nations trusteeship with limits on Jewish immigration and a division of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab provinces but not states. The State Department, concerned about the possibility of an increasing Soviet role in the Arab world and the potential for restriction by Arab oil producing nations of oil supplies to the United States, advised against U.S. intervention on behalf of the Jews. Later, as the date for British departure from Palestine drew near, the Department of State grew concerned about the possibility of an all-out war in Palestine as Arab states threatened to attack almost as soon as the UN passed the partition resolution.

Despite growing conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews and despite the Department of State’s endorsement of a trusteeship, Truman ultimately decided to recognize the state Israel.

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel

“It is my responsibility to see that our policy in Israel fits in with our policy throughout the world; second, it is my desire to help build in Palestine a strong, prosperous, free and independent democratic state. It must be large enough, free enough, and strong enough to make its people self-supporting and secure,” President Truman said in a speech October 28, 1948.

Truman's commitment was quickly tested after Israel's victory in its War of Independence when she applied to the U.S. for economic aid to help absorb immigrants. President Truman responded by approving a $135 million Export-Import Bank loan and the sale of surplus commodities to Israel. In those early years of Israel's statehood (also today), U.S. aid was seen as a means of promoting peace.

In 1951, Congress voted to help Israel cope with the economic burdens imposed by the influx of Jewish refugees from the displaced persons camps in Europe and from the ghettos of the Arab countries. Arabs then complained the U.S. was neglecting them, though they had no interest in or use for American aid then. In 1951, Syria rejected offers of U.S. aid. Oil-rich Iraq and Saudi Arabia did not need U.S. economic assistance, and Jordan was, until the late 1950s, the ward of Great Britain. After 1957, when the United States assumed responsibility for supporting Jordan and resumed economic aid to Egypt, assistance to the Arab states soared. Also, the United States was by far the biggest contributor of aid to the Palestinians through UNRWA, a status that continues to the present.

U.S. economic grants to Israel ended in 1959. U.S. aid to Israel from then until 1985 consisted largely of loans, which Israel repaid, and surplus commodities, which Israel bought. Israel began buying arms from the United States in 1962, but did not receive any grant military assistance until after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. As a result, Israel had to go deeply into debt to finance its economic development and arms procurement. The decision to convert military aid to grants that year was based on the prevailing view in Congress that without a strong Israel, war in the Middle East was more likely, and that the U.S. would face higher direct expenditures in such an eventuality.

Israel has received more direct aid from the United States since World War II than any other country, but the amounts for the first half of this period were relatively small. Between 1949 and 1973, the U.S. provided Israel with an average of about $122 million a year, a total of $3.1 billion (and actually more than $1 billion of that was loans for military equipment in 1971-73) . Prior to 1971, Israel received a total of only $277 million in military aid, all in the form of loans as credit sales. The bulk of the economic aid was also lent to Israel. By comparison, the Arab states received nearly three times as much aid before 1971, $4.4 billion, or $170 million per year. Moreover, unlike Israel, which receives nearly all its aid from the United States, Arab nations have gotten assistance from Asia, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and the European Community. Congress first designated a specific amount of aid for Israel (an "earmark") in 1971.

Meeting Israel's Special Needs

Since 1974, Israel has received nearly $100 billion in assistance, including three special aid packages. The first followed the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty and Israel's withdrawal from the Sinai. The redeployment of Israeli forces and rebuilding of air bases in the Negev cost $5 billion. To partially compensate for this sacrifice, Israel received $3 billion ($2.2 billion of which was in the form of high-interest loans) in U.S. aid in 1979.

The second special package was approved in 1985, following a severe economic crisis in Israel, which sent inflation rates soaring as high as 445 percent. The $1.5 billion in emergency assistance-disbursed in two installments, in 1985 and 1986-was provided as part of Israel's economic stabilization program, which was implemented under the guidance of the U.S.-Israel Joint Economic Development Group (JEDG).

An extraordinary package was approved in 1996 to help Israel fight terrorism. Israel is to receive a total of $100 million, divided equally between fiscal years 1996 and 1997.

Regular Economic and Military Assistance

Israel's economic aid changed from the Commodity Import Program (CIP), which provides funds to foreign nations for the purchase of U.S. commodities, to a direct cash transfer in 1979. In return, Israel provided the Agency for International Development with assurances that the dollar level of Israel's non-defense imports from the U.S. would exceed the level of economic assistance granted Israel in any given year. Thus, Israel guaranteed that U.S. suppliers would not be disadvantaged by the termination of Israel's CIP Program.

Starting with fiscal year 1987, Israel annually received $1.2 billion in all grant economic aid and $1.8 billion in all grant military assistance. In 1998, Israel offered to voluntarily reduce its dependence on U.S. economic aid. According to an agreement reached with the Clinton Administration and Congress, the $1.2 billion economic aid package will be reduced by $120 million each year so that it will be phased out in ten years. Half of the annual savings in economic assistance each year ($60 million) will be added to Israel's military aid package in recognition of its increased security needs. In 2005, Israel received $360 million in economic aid and $2.22 billion in military aid. In 2006, economic aid is scheduled to be reduced to $240 million and military aid will increase to $2.28 billion.

For several years, most of Israel's economic aid went to pay off old debts. In 1984, foreign aid legislation included the Cranston Amendment (named after its Senate sponsor), which said the U.S. would provide Israel with economic assistance "not less than" the amount Israel owes the United States in annual debt service payments. The Cranston Amendment was left out of the FY1999 and subsequent appropriations bills. At that time Israel received $1.2 billion in ESF and owed only $328 million in debt service so the amendment was no longer needed.

In 1998, Israel was designated as a “major non-NATO ally,” which allows it to receive outdated military equipment the U.S. military wishes to sell or give away.

Roughly 26 percent of what Israel receives in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) can be spent in Israel for military procurement. From FY1988 to FY 1990, Israel was allowed to use $400 million in Israel. From FY1991 to FY1998, the amount was increased to $475 million. As U.S. military aid to Israel increased, according to the agreement to cut economic aid, the amout set aside for defense purchases in Israel has increased (but the percentage has remained roughly the same). In 2009, the figure was $671 million. The remaining 74 percent of FMF was spent in the United States to generate profits and jobs. More than 1,000 companies in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have signed contracts worth billions of dollars through this program.

At the end of 1998, Israel requested an additional $1.2 billion in aid to fund moving troops and military installations out of the occupied territories as called for in the October 23, 1998, Wye agreement. Israel received $600 million of this in military aid in FY1999 and $300 million in each fiscal year 2000 and 2001 (see Wye funding table).

In February 2003, for the first time, Congress voted to cut aid to Israel against the wishes of the pro-Israel lobby and the government of Israel. The 0.65 percent deduction was not aimed at Israel; however, it was an across the board cut of all foreign aid programs for fiscal year 2003. The lobby and government also suffered a defeat when Congress deleted an administration request for an extra $200 million to help Israel fight terrorism. Even while cutting aid to Israel (which still was budgeted at $2.1 billion for military aid and $600 million for economic assistance), Congress included a number of provisions in the aid bill viewed as favorable to Israel, including a provision that bars federal assistance to a future Palestinian state until the current Palestinian leadership is replaced, and that state demonstrates a commitment to peaceful coexistence with Israel, and takes measures to combat terrorism.

The setbacks were also temporary as the Administration approved a supplementary aid request in 2003 that included $1 billion in FMF and $9 billion in loan guarantees to aid Israel's economic recovery and compensate for the cost of military preparations associated with the war in Iraq. One quarter of the FMF is a cash grant and three quarters will be spent in the United States. The loan guarantees are spread over three years and must be spent within Israel's pre-June 1967 borders. Each year, an amount equal to the funds Israel spends on settlements in the territories will be deducted from the loan amount, along with all fees and subsidies.

Altogether, since 1949, Israel has received more than $106 billion in assistance. This includes the four special allocations, the $10 billion in loan guarantees (spread over five years) approved in 1992, the $9 billion in guarantees offered in 2003, and a variety of other smaller assistance-related accounts, such as refugee resettlement (nearly $1.6 billion overall since 1973), the American Schools and Hospitals Abroad Program (ASHA), which supports schools, libraries and medical centers that demonstrate American ideas and practices (($144 million), and cooperative development programs (a total of $186 million since 1981).

The total does not include funds for joint military projects like the Arrow missile (for which Israel has received more than $1 billion in grants since 1986), which are provided through the Defense budget. President Bush requested $60 million for the Arrow for FY2003 and $136 million in FY2004. The United States also has provided $53 million for the Boost Phase Intercept program and $139 million for the Tactical High Energy Laser program under development in Israel to complement the Arrow.

Though the totals are impressive, the value of assistance to Israel has been eroded by inflation. While aid levels remained constant in total dollars from 1987 until 1999, the real value steadily declined. On the other side of the coin, Israel does receive aid on more favorable terms than other nations. For example, all economic aid is given directly to the Israeli government rather than allocated under a specific program. Also, starting in 1982, Israel began to receive all its economic aid in a lump sum early in the fiscal year instead of in quarterly installments as is done for other countries. Israel also receives offsets on FMS purchases (U.S. contractors agree to offset some of the cost of military equipment by buying components or materials from Israel).

A 10-Year Military Aid Agreement

In August 2007, the Bush Administration agreed to increase U.S. military assistance to Israel by $6 billion over the following decade. Israel is to receive incremental annual increases of $150 mllion, starting at $2.55 billion in FY2009 and reaching $3.15 billion per year for FY2013-2018.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-u-s-foreign-aid-to-israel

African Americans are still waiting for their 40 Acres and a Mule!!!

Having a national state is great as nation has some place to run for their live when next wave of elimination occupier in some country.
It already saved lives of hundreds of thousands Jews since Israel was established. Now the probability of new Holocaust is smaller as we do not need to rely on other countries to open the door. When 6 millions died not many countries did. To many people want us dead rather that alive.
Never heard about anybody want to eliminate African Americans in US or elsewhere. May be I am not educated in this too.
If AA want to have national state so make yourself a nation and demand for it. I would support it.
Every nation should have a chance of self-determination. But first the nation should exist.

You totally missed my point!!! The U.S. Government did a lot to help the Jews and the amount of money spent to help support Israel over all these years is massive and yet over that same period of time this country failed to help its African American citizens right here in this country. They owe substantially more of a debt to African Americans and I ask where is that help???

We don't need a separate nation!!! We helped BUILD this nation into what it is and yet at the same time the U.S. was reaching out to help the Jews establish Israel, they were kicking African Americans in the teeth!!! Do you not yet understand where we are coming from? My Grandfather took a bullet in WWII helping to liberate the Jews and he died never knowing freedom and fair treatment from his own country!!!

We help Israel in attempts to balance power and world peace. It's a big deal with big consequences and ramifications for the entire world. Big league stuff

I know ALL ABOUT the reason for support of Israel. Who would you say as a people has done more to help make this country great and at the same time gotten shafted for hundreds of years??? African Americans have slaved, worked, fought and died for this country since before it's independence!!! Why did Israel deserve more special aid and attention than my forefathers???

I have copies of the written promises made to AA's to help simply to give them a chance to work for their own survival and hoped prosperity. I also have copies of this country reneging on those promises and even worse making laws that disadvantaged AA's. The hypocrisy of this country towards AA's especially in regard to how much it supported Israel is SHAMEFUL!!!

I don't need a lecture about the reasons this country supports Israel. I want to make it known how unjust it is that so little has been done to make up for the hundreds of years of harm and abuse done to African Americans.

nixluva wrote:

gunsnewing wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

holfresh wrote:

arkrud wrote:

Nalod wrote:

holfresh wrote:People sometimes don't understand the different experiences of many groups in this country...They feel it's one experience and should be one point of view..This is for you Nix...

Thank you for sharing!!!

Very interesting and very important to see the history as it is and not revised.
It is exactly the same as in Russian Empire where slavery was abolished in 1723 and serves were freed from landlords power in 1861 to fee 90% of Russian population.
All ruling class and majority of educated class including the brightest and greatest minds and cultural idols who made great contributions to world culture, sciences, and humanity were all slave owners.
Also the Jews segregation in Russia started in 1791 was ended by Russian revolution in 1917.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement
We cannot measure people leaving 200 years back by the moral values of our time.
And we should not be judged in 200 years by morals that will emerge.

So in a few years, my grand kids shouldn't judge Hitler's moral deeds??

1758 my forefather was brought here on the Slaveship Betsey from the slave castle on Bance Island, Sierra Leone Africa. I don't know his name or that of any other ancestor from this time... yet.

Thomas C. Born a slave 1819
William C. Born a Slave 1839
1865 the end of the Civil War.
William C. Jr. Born Free 1869
Richard C. Born 1913
Melvin C. Born 1946
I was born in 1965

So basically only 100 years passed from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until my birth in 1965. When I was born Jim Crow was at its end as the country passed the historic Civil Rights Laws. History does matter and what may seem like ancient history isn't that at all.

It is just 75 years since the brothers and sisters of my grandmother were killed in gas chambers together with their kids and family, together with 6 millions others...
My mother has their photo.. of all family... 45 people on one picture... black and white. 7 of them survived the Holocaust. My grand grand farther is also on the picture.
He was in hid 90th and died with all teeth still intact. He was a strong man.
I do not have any anger and any hate to those who killed them and to their descendants and their families.
Those who killed them and order to kill them are dead and God will jujge them. Those who are leaving now have nothing to do with all this.
My relatives on the picture are telling me that hate must be stopped otherwise their death has no meaning.
I am not the one to tell you that the history is not important and that we should not remember... We have to remember.
But we should remember not for the sake of hate but for the sake of forgiveness. Because there is no other way to leave together on this planet.

I can tell you that the Black experience in this country CONTINUED to be bad long after my Grandfather Richard who is listed above fought the Germans and received a Bronze Star and Purple Heart as a SEGREGATED soldier in WWII. He had to live with the indignity of racial discrimination until the day he died. Just as my father who went to Vietnam had to deal with Racism. I was the 1st one born in my family that did not experience Slavery or Jim Crow in this country.

Black people didn't HATE. They had HATE inflicted upon them. Did Black people in this country launch into massive raids of violent revenge upon the defeated former Slave Owners and Confederate Soldiers after the Civil War??? NO! They could have but they didn't. Nearly 4 Million abused, impoverished and illiterate people just asked to be treated fairly and with respect, but that's not what they got. They got lied to and cheated. They got Lynched, Burned alive, Imprisoned and re-enslaved under unjust laws designed to create a new slave workforce. Not until I was born did things ease up a little. Even then this system has not been even close to fair or just for Black People in this country. It's not about us hating White people or trying to take it out on the descendents of Slave Owners!!! You miss the point entirely when you keep saying these things.

Black people were here the whole time this country was being founded. Working, fighting and dying for this country. Then we have to watch European immigrants come to this country and progress and prosper while we were denied freedom to do the same. I don't wanna hear about FORGIVENESS!!! Man you have no idea how much crap Black People have FORGIVEN in their long journey to be treated equally and have what everyone else had the freedom to do. We started with LESS than NOTHING. We were enslaved which involved BREAKING the SPIRIT so that Slaves would be more compliant. We were stripped of our original language and culture and taught we were LESS THAN. No education for generations. No passed on knowledge and wealth. I don't think you fully understand what that does to a people when you spend HUNDREDS of years in a diminished state. Many of our problems are vestiges of Bad Habits from Slavery passed on from generation to generation. It's hard to overcome that at the same time society is holding you back. YOU DON'T KNOW THE HALF OF IT! You need to sit and talk with my Grandparents and parents to let them explain what a lifetime of living in this country back then was like. There were no GOOD OLE DAYS for Black People.

You come a long way and you own nothing to anyone.
You never get help and you will never get it.
This is how life is and this is how it will be.
Hundred of years or thousands of years you are the only masters of your destiny.
Freedom is not given, it is the state of mind, Spirit that cannot be taken away.
Your people are still roaming the desert but many already reached the Promised Land.
The eternal journey is hard and long. It takes many generations and hundred of years.
Just keep going...

OK so I should just tell my Sons and Daughter and Grand Children that they should wait for another Hundred years in order to be treated Equally??? There's a very real reason why Minorities and Women are so concerned with President Trump and the Republicans. He represents the way things USED to be. Oh they try to sugarcoat it with Populist talk and Nationalist lingo, but underneath all of that is a very dark core of hatred that we are especially sensitive to for the reasons I listed above!!! NO! Things are not just gonna be OK with the passage of time and NO I shouldn't take Hundreds of years for people to be treated fairly and just like European Immigrants were allowed to prosper in this country!!!

This country OWES a debt to African Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic Americans that they refuse to pay!!!

Tell them that that they are free and that they will get only what they will earn themselves.
Nobody will give them anything for granted. Never.
I can tell you this by the experience of 5 thousand years and 200 hundred countries.
All you can get it a slap to the hand and spit to the face.
And I do not have any problem with this because I do not have any expectations and it makes me strong, unbreakable.
Tutankhamen, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Obama, Trump, whatever... dust in the wind.

What you're saying is not actually accurate. The Jews did have help over the millennia. It wasn't just them sitting and hoping things would change for the better. They took action and they complained and protested and made appeals to higher powers. They didn't do it all on their own. All i'm saying is that when the Jewish People looked to America when they needed backing for their new State of Israel...

Creation of Israel, 1948

On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day.

Although the United States supported the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which favored the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had assured the Arabs in 1945 that the United States would not intervene without consulting both the Jews and the Arabs in that region. The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region. Great Britain wanted to preserve good relations with the Arabs to protect its vital political and economic interests in Palestine.

Soon after President Truman took office, he appointed several experts to study the Palestinian issue. In the summer of 1946, Truman established a special cabinet committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Henry F. Grady, an Assistant Secretary of State, who entered into negotiations with a parallel British committee to discuss the future of Palestine. In May 1946, Truman announced his approval of a recommendation to admit 100,000 displaced persons into Palestine and in October publicly declared his support for the creation of a Jewish state.

Throughout 1947, the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine examined the Palestinian question and recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. On November 29, 1947 the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May 1948 when the British mandate was scheduled to end. Under the resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would remain a corpus separatum under international control administered by the United Nations.

Although the United States backed Resolution 181, the U.S. Department of State recommended the creation of a United Nations trusteeship with limits on Jewish immigration and a division of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab provinces but not states. The State Department, concerned about the possibility of an increasing Soviet role in the Arab world and the potential for restriction by Arab oil producing nations of oil supplies to the United States, advised against U.S. intervention on behalf of the Jews. Later, as the date for British departure from Palestine drew near, the Department of State grew concerned about the possibility of an all-out war in Palestine as Arab states threatened to attack almost as soon as the UN passed the partition resolution.

Despite growing conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews and despite the Department of State’s endorsement of a trusteeship, Truman ultimately decided to recognize the state Israel.

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel

“It is my responsibility to see that our policy in Israel fits in with our policy throughout the world; second, it is my desire to help build in Palestine a strong, prosperous, free and independent democratic state. It must be large enough, free enough, and strong enough to make its people self-supporting and secure,” President Truman said in a speech October 28, 1948.

Truman's commitment was quickly tested after Israel's victory in its War of Independence when she applied to the U.S. for economic aid to help absorb immigrants. President Truman responded by approving a $135 million Export-Import Bank loan and the sale of surplus commodities to Israel. In those early years of Israel's statehood (also today), U.S. aid was seen as a means of promoting peace.

In 1951, Congress voted to help Israel cope with the economic burdens imposed by the influx of Jewish refugees from the displaced persons camps in Europe and from the ghettos of the Arab countries. Arabs then complained the U.S. was neglecting them, though they had no interest in or use for American aid then. In 1951, Syria rejected offers of U.S. aid. Oil-rich Iraq and Saudi Arabia did not need U.S. economic assistance, and Jordan was, until the late 1950s, the ward of Great Britain. After 1957, when the United States assumed responsibility for supporting Jordan and resumed economic aid to Egypt, assistance to the Arab states soared. Also, the United States was by far the biggest contributor of aid to the Palestinians through UNRWA, a status that continues to the present.

U.S. economic grants to Israel ended in 1959. U.S. aid to Israel from then until 1985 consisted largely of loans, which Israel repaid, and surplus commodities, which Israel bought. Israel began buying arms from the United States in 1962, but did not receive any grant military assistance until after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. As a result, Israel had to go deeply into debt to finance its economic development and arms procurement. The decision to convert military aid to grants that year was based on the prevailing view in Congress that without a strong Israel, war in the Middle East was more likely, and that the U.S. would face higher direct expenditures in such an eventuality.

Israel has received more direct aid from the United States since World War II than any other country, but the amounts for the first half of this period were relatively small. Between 1949 and 1973, the U.S. provided Israel with an average of about $122 million a year, a total of $3.1 billion (and actually more than $1 billion of that was loans for military equipment in 1971-73) . Prior to 1971, Israel received a total of only $277 million in military aid, all in the form of loans as credit sales. The bulk of the economic aid was also lent to Israel. By comparison, the Arab states received nearly three times as much aid before 1971, $4.4 billion, or $170 million per year. Moreover, unlike Israel, which receives nearly all its aid from the United States, Arab nations have gotten assistance from Asia, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and the European Community. Congress first designated a specific amount of aid for Israel (an "earmark") in 1971.

Meeting Israel's Special Needs

Since 1974, Israel has received nearly $100 billion in assistance, including three special aid packages. The first followed the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty and Israel's withdrawal from the Sinai. The redeployment of Israeli forces and rebuilding of air bases in the Negev cost $5 billion. To partially compensate for this sacrifice, Israel received $3 billion ($2.2 billion of which was in the form of high-interest loans) in U.S. aid in 1979.

The second special package was approved in 1985, following a severe economic crisis in Israel, which sent inflation rates soaring as high as 445 percent. The $1.5 billion in emergency assistance-disbursed in two installments, in 1985 and 1986-was provided as part of Israel's economic stabilization program, which was implemented under the guidance of the U.S.-Israel Joint Economic Development Group (JEDG).

An extraordinary package was approved in 1996 to help Israel fight terrorism. Israel is to receive a total of $100 million, divided equally between fiscal years 1996 and 1997.

Regular Economic and Military Assistance

Israel's economic aid changed from the Commodity Import Program (CIP), which provides funds to foreign nations for the purchase of U.S. commodities, to a direct cash transfer in 1979. In return, Israel provided the Agency for International Development with assurances that the dollar level of Israel's non-defense imports from the U.S. would exceed the level of economic assistance granted Israel in any given year. Thus, Israel guaranteed that U.S. suppliers would not be disadvantaged by the termination of Israel's CIP Program.

Starting with fiscal year 1987, Israel annually received $1.2 billion in all grant economic aid and $1.8 billion in all grant military assistance. In 1998, Israel offered to voluntarily reduce its dependence on U.S. economic aid. According to an agreement reached with the Clinton Administration and Congress, the $1.2 billion economic aid package will be reduced by $120 million each year so that it will be phased out in ten years. Half of the annual savings in economic assistance each year ($60 million) will be added to Israel's military aid package in recognition of its increased security needs. In 2005, Israel received $360 million in economic aid and $2.22 billion in military aid. In 2006, economic aid is scheduled to be reduced to $240 million and military aid will increase to $2.28 billion.

For several years, most of Israel's economic aid went to pay off old debts. In 1984, foreign aid legislation included the Cranston Amendment (named after its Senate sponsor), which said the U.S. would provide Israel with economic assistance "not less than" the amount Israel owes the United States in annual debt service payments. The Cranston Amendment was left out of the FY1999 and subsequent appropriations bills. At that time Israel received $1.2 billion in ESF and owed only $328 million in debt service so the amendment was no longer needed.

In 1998, Israel was designated as a “major non-NATO ally,” which allows it to receive outdated military equipment the U.S. military wishes to sell or give away.

Roughly 26 percent of what Israel receives in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) can be spent in Israel for military procurement. From FY1988 to FY 1990, Israel was allowed to use $400 million in Israel. From FY1991 to FY1998, the amount was increased to $475 million. As U.S. military aid to Israel increased, according to the agreement to cut economic aid, the amout set aside for defense purchases in Israel has increased (but the percentage has remained roughly the same). In 2009, the figure was $671 million. The remaining 74 percent of FMF was spent in the United States to generate profits and jobs. More than 1,000 companies in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have signed contracts worth billions of dollars through this program.

At the end of 1998, Israel requested an additional $1.2 billion in aid to fund moving troops and military installations out of the occupied territories as called for in the October 23, 1998, Wye agreement. Israel received $600 million of this in military aid in FY1999 and $300 million in each fiscal year 2000 and 2001 (see Wye funding table).

In February 2003, for the first time, Congress voted to cut aid to Israel against the wishes of the pro-Israel lobby and the government of Israel. The 0.65 percent deduction was not aimed at Israel; however, it was an across the board cut of all foreign aid programs for fiscal year 2003. The lobby and government also suffered a defeat when Congress deleted an administration request for an extra $200 million to help Israel fight terrorism. Even while cutting aid to Israel (which still was budgeted at $2.1 billion for military aid and $600 million for economic assistance), Congress included a number of provisions in the aid bill viewed as favorable to Israel, including a provision that bars federal assistance to a future Palestinian state until the current Palestinian leadership is replaced, and that state demonstrates a commitment to peaceful coexistence with Israel, and takes measures to combat terrorism.

The setbacks were also temporary as the Administration approved a supplementary aid request in 2003 that included $1 billion in FMF and $9 billion in loan guarantees to aid Israel's economic recovery and compensate for the cost of military preparations associated with the war in Iraq. One quarter of the FMF is a cash grant and three quarters will be spent in the United States. The loan guarantees are spread over three years and must be spent within Israel's pre-June 1967 borders. Each year, an amount equal to the funds Israel spends on settlements in the territories will be deducted from the loan amount, along with all fees and subsidies.

Altogether, since 1949, Israel has received more than $106 billion in assistance. This includes the four special allocations, the $10 billion in loan guarantees (spread over five years) approved in 1992, the $9 billion in guarantees offered in 2003, and a variety of other smaller assistance-related accounts, such as refugee resettlement (nearly $1.6 billion overall since 1973), the American Schools and Hospitals Abroad Program (ASHA), which supports schools, libraries and medical centers that demonstrate American ideas and practices (($144 million), and cooperative development programs (a total of $186 million since 1981).

The total does not include funds for joint military projects like the Arrow missile (for which Israel has received more than $1 billion in grants since 1986), which are provided through the Defense budget. President Bush requested $60 million for the Arrow for FY2003 and $136 million in FY2004. The United States also has provided $53 million for the Boost Phase Intercept program and $139 million for the Tactical High Energy Laser program under development in Israel to complement the Arrow.

Though the totals are impressive, the value of assistance to Israel has been eroded by inflation. While aid levels remained constant in total dollars from 1987 until 1999, the real value steadily declined. On the other side of the coin, Israel does receive aid on more favorable terms than other nations. For example, all economic aid is given directly to the Israeli government rather than allocated under a specific program. Also, starting in 1982, Israel began to receive all its economic aid in a lump sum early in the fiscal year instead of in quarterly installments as is done for other countries. Israel also receives offsets on FMS purchases (U.S. contractors agree to offset some of the cost of military equipment by buying components or materials from Israel).

A 10-Year Military Aid Agreement

In August 2007, the Bush Administration agreed to increase U.S. military assistance to Israel by $6 billion over the following decade. Israel is to receive incremental annual increases of $150 mllion, starting at $2.55 billion in FY2009 and reaching $3.15 billion per year for FY2013-2018.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-u-s-foreign-aid-to-israel

African Americans are still waiting for their 40 Acres and a Mule!!!

Having a national state is great as nation has some place to run for their live when next wave of elimination occupier in some country.
It already saved lives of hundreds of thousands Jews since Israel was established. Now the probability of new Holocaust is smaller as we do not need to rely on other countries to open the door. When 6 millions died not many countries did. To many people want us dead rather that alive.
Never heard about anybody want to eliminate African Americans in US or elsewhere. May be I am not educated in this too.
If AA want to have national state so make yourself a nation and demand for it. I would support it.
Every nation should have a chance of self-determination. But first the nation should exist.

You totally missed my point!!! The U.S. Government did a lot to help the Jews and the amount of money spent to help support Israel over all these years is massive and yet over that same period of time this country failed to help its African American citizens right here in this country. They owe substantially more of a debt to African Americans and I ask where is that help???

We don't need a separate nation!!! We helped BUILD this nation into what it is and yet at the same time the U.S. was reaching out to help the Jews establish Israel, they were kicking African Americans in the teeth!!! Do you not yet understand where we are coming from? My Grandfather took a bullet in WWII helping to liberate the Jews and he died never knowing freedom and fair treatment from his own country!!!

We help Israel in attempts to balance power and world peace. It's a big deal with big consequences and ramifications for the entire world. Big league stuff

I know ALL ABOUT the reason for support of Israel. Who would you say as a people has done more to help make this country great and at the same time gotten shafted for hundreds of years??? African Americans have slaved, worked, fought and died for this country since before it's independence!!! Why did Israel deserve more special aid and attention than my forefathers???

I have copies of the written promises made to AA's to help simply to give them a chance to work for their own survival and hoped prosperity. I also have copies of this country reneging on those promises and even worse making laws that disadvantaged AA's. The hypocrisy of this country towards AA's especially in regard to how much it supported Israel is SHAMEFUL!!!

I don't need a lecture about the reasons this country supports Israel. I want to make it known how unjust it is that so little has been done to make up for the hundreds of years of harm and abuse done to African Americans.

I agree that it is important to know the history of slavery and segregation.
I am not clear on what you think should be practically done "to make up for the hundreds of years of harm and abuse" and is not getting done?
Like some specific law, or program, or project?

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

gunsnewing wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

holfresh wrote:

arkrud wrote:

Nalod wrote:

holfresh wrote:People sometimes don't understand the different experiences of many groups in this country...They feel it's one experience and should be one point of view..This is for you Nix...

Thank you for sharing!!!

Very interesting and very important to see the history as it is and not revised.
It is exactly the same as in Russian Empire where slavery was abolished in 1723 and serves were freed from landlords power in 1861 to fee 90% of Russian population.
All ruling class and majority of educated class including the brightest and greatest minds and cultural idols who made great contributions to world culture, sciences, and humanity were all slave owners.
Also the Jews segregation in Russia started in 1791 was ended by Russian revolution in 1917.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement
We cannot measure people leaving 200 years back by the moral values of our time.
And we should not be judged in 200 years by morals that will emerge.

So in a few years, my grand kids shouldn't judge Hitler's moral deeds??

1758 my forefather was brought here on the Slaveship Betsey from the slave castle on Bance Island, Sierra Leone Africa. I don't know his name or that of any other ancestor from this time... yet.

Thomas C. Born a slave 1819
William C. Born a Slave 1839
1865 the end of the Civil War.
William C. Jr. Born Free 1869
Richard C. Born 1913
Melvin C. Born 1946
I was born in 1965

So basically only 100 years passed from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until my birth in 1965. When I was born Jim Crow was at its end as the country passed the historic Civil Rights Laws. History does matter and what may seem like ancient history isn't that at all.

It is just 75 years since the brothers and sisters of my grandmother were killed in gas chambers together with their kids and family, together with 6 millions others...
My mother has their photo.. of all family... 45 people on one picture... black and white. 7 of them survived the Holocaust. My grand grand farther is also on the picture.
He was in hid 90th and died with all teeth still intact. He was a strong man.
I do not have any anger and any hate to those who killed them and to their descendants and their families.
Those who killed them and order to kill them are dead and God will jujge them. Those who are leaving now have nothing to do with all this.
My relatives on the picture are telling me that hate must be stopped otherwise their death has no meaning.
I am not the one to tell you that the history is not important and that we should not remember... We have to remember.
But we should remember not for the sake of hate but for the sake of forgiveness. Because there is no other way to leave together on this planet.

I can tell you that the Black experience in this country CONTINUED to be bad long after my Grandfather Richard who is listed above fought the Germans and received a Bronze Star and Purple Heart as a SEGREGATED soldier in WWII. He had to live with the indignity of racial discrimination until the day he died. Just as my father who went to Vietnam had to deal with Racism. I was the 1st one born in my family that did not experience Slavery or Jim Crow in this country.

Black people didn't HATE. They had HATE inflicted upon them. Did Black people in this country launch into massive raids of violent revenge upon the defeated former Slave Owners and Confederate Soldiers after the Civil War??? NO! They could have but they didn't. Nearly 4 Million abused, impoverished and illiterate people just asked to be treated fairly and with respect, but that's not what they got. They got lied to and cheated. They got Lynched, Burned alive, Imprisoned and re-enslaved under unjust laws designed to create a new slave workforce. Not until I was born did things ease up a little. Even then this system has not been even close to fair or just for Black People in this country. It's not about us hating White people or trying to take it out on the descendents of Slave Owners!!! You miss the point entirely when you keep saying these things.

Black people were here the whole time this country was being founded. Working, fighting and dying for this country. Then we have to watch European immigrants come to this country and progress and prosper while we were denied freedom to do the same. I don't wanna hear about FORGIVENESS!!! Man you have no idea how much crap Black People have FORGIVEN in their long journey to be treated equally and have what everyone else had the freedom to do. We started with LESS than NOTHING. We were enslaved which involved BREAKING the SPIRIT so that Slaves would be more compliant. We were stripped of our original language and culture and taught we were LESS THAN. No education for generations. No passed on knowledge and wealth. I don't think you fully understand what that does to a people when you spend HUNDREDS of years in a diminished state. Many of our problems are vestiges of Bad Habits from Slavery passed on from generation to generation. It's hard to overcome that at the same time society is holding you back. YOU DON'T KNOW THE HALF OF IT! You need to sit and talk with my Grandparents and parents to let them explain what a lifetime of living in this country back then was like. There were no GOOD OLE DAYS for Black People.

You come a long way and you own nothing to anyone.
You never get help and you will never get it.
This is how life is and this is how it will be.
Hundred of years or thousands of years you are the only masters of your destiny.
Freedom is not given, it is the state of mind, Spirit that cannot be taken away.
Your people are still roaming the desert but many already reached the Promised Land.
The eternal journey is hard and long. It takes many generations and hundred of years.
Just keep going...

OK so I should just tell my Sons and Daughter and Grand Children that they should wait for another Hundred years in order to be treated Equally??? There's a very real reason why Minorities and Women are so concerned with President Trump and the Republicans. He represents the way things USED to be. Oh they try to sugarcoat it with Populist talk and Nationalist lingo, but underneath all of that is a very dark core of hatred that we are especially sensitive to for the reasons I listed above!!! NO! Things are not just gonna be OK with the passage of time and NO I shouldn't take Hundreds of years for people to be treated fairly and just like European Immigrants were allowed to prosper in this country!!!

This country OWES a debt to African Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic Americans that they refuse to pay!!!

Tell them that that they are free and that they will get only what they will earn themselves.
Nobody will give them anything for granted. Never.
I can tell you this by the experience of 5 thousand years and 200 hundred countries.
All you can get it a slap to the hand and spit to the face.
And I do not have any problem with this because I do not have any expectations and it makes me strong, unbreakable.
Tutankhamen, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Obama, Trump, whatever... dust in the wind.

What you're saying is not actually accurate. The Jews did have help over the millennia. It wasn't just them sitting and hoping things would change for the better. They took action and they complained and protested and made appeals to higher powers. They didn't do it all on their own. All i'm saying is that when the Jewish People looked to America when they needed backing for their new State of Israel...

Creation of Israel, 1948

On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day.

Although the United States supported the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which favored the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had assured the Arabs in 1945 that the United States would not intervene without consulting both the Jews and the Arabs in that region. The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region. Great Britain wanted to preserve good relations with the Arabs to protect its vital political and economic interests in Palestine.

Soon after President Truman took office, he appointed several experts to study the Palestinian issue. In the summer of 1946, Truman established a special cabinet committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Henry F. Grady, an Assistant Secretary of State, who entered into negotiations with a parallel British committee to discuss the future of Palestine. In May 1946, Truman announced his approval of a recommendation to admit 100,000 displaced persons into Palestine and in October publicly declared his support for the creation of a Jewish state.

Throughout 1947, the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine examined the Palestinian question and recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. On November 29, 1947 the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May 1948 when the British mandate was scheduled to end. Under the resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would remain a corpus separatum under international control administered by the United Nations.

Although the United States backed Resolution 181, the U.S. Department of State recommended the creation of a United Nations trusteeship with limits on Jewish immigration and a division of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab provinces but not states. The State Department, concerned about the possibility of an increasing Soviet role in the Arab world and the potential for restriction by Arab oil producing nations of oil supplies to the United States, advised against U.S. intervention on behalf of the Jews. Later, as the date for British departure from Palestine drew near, the Department of State grew concerned about the possibility of an all-out war in Palestine as Arab states threatened to attack almost as soon as the UN passed the partition resolution.

Despite growing conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews and despite the Department of State’s endorsement of a trusteeship, Truman ultimately decided to recognize the state Israel.

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel

“It is my responsibility to see that our policy in Israel fits in with our policy throughout the world; second, it is my desire to help build in Palestine a strong, prosperous, free and independent democratic state. It must be large enough, free enough, and strong enough to make its people self-supporting and secure,” President Truman said in a speech October 28, 1948.

Truman's commitment was quickly tested after Israel's victory in its War of Independence when she applied to the U.S. for economic aid to help absorb immigrants. President Truman responded by approving a $135 million Export-Import Bank loan and the sale of surplus commodities to Israel. In those early years of Israel's statehood (also today), U.S. aid was seen as a means of promoting peace.

In 1951, Congress voted to help Israel cope with the economic burdens imposed by the influx of Jewish refugees from the displaced persons camps in Europe and from the ghettos of the Arab countries. Arabs then complained the U.S. was neglecting them, though they had no interest in or use for American aid then. In 1951, Syria rejected offers of U.S. aid. Oil-rich Iraq and Saudi Arabia did not need U.S. economic assistance, and Jordan was, until the late 1950s, the ward of Great Britain. After 1957, when the United States assumed responsibility for supporting Jordan and resumed economic aid to Egypt, assistance to the Arab states soared. Also, the United States was by far the biggest contributor of aid to the Palestinians through UNRWA, a status that continues to the present.

U.S. economic grants to Israel ended in 1959. U.S. aid to Israel from then until 1985 consisted largely of loans, which Israel repaid, and surplus commodities, which Israel bought. Israel began buying arms from the United States in 1962, but did not receive any grant military assistance until after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. As a result, Israel had to go deeply into debt to finance its economic development and arms procurement. The decision to convert military aid to grants that year was based on the prevailing view in Congress that without a strong Israel, war in the Middle East was more likely, and that the U.S. would face higher direct expenditures in such an eventuality.

Israel has received more direct aid from the United States since World War II than any other country, but the amounts for the first half of this period were relatively small. Between 1949 and 1973, the U.S. provided Israel with an average of about $122 million a year, a total of $3.1 billion (and actually more than $1 billion of that was loans for military equipment in 1971-73) . Prior to 1971, Israel received a total of only $277 million in military aid, all in the form of loans as credit sales. The bulk of the economic aid was also lent to Israel. By comparison, the Arab states received nearly three times as much aid before 1971, $4.4 billion, or $170 million per year. Moreover, unlike Israel, which receives nearly all its aid from the United States, Arab nations have gotten assistance from Asia, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and the European Community. Congress first designated a specific amount of aid for Israel (an "earmark") in 1971.

Meeting Israel's Special Needs

Since 1974, Israel has received nearly $100 billion in assistance, including three special aid packages. The first followed the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty and Israel's withdrawal from the Sinai. The redeployment of Israeli forces and rebuilding of air bases in the Negev cost $5 billion. To partially compensate for this sacrifice, Israel received $3 billion ($2.2 billion of which was in the form of high-interest loans) in U.S. aid in 1979.

The second special package was approved in 1985, following a severe economic crisis in Israel, which sent inflation rates soaring as high as 445 percent. The $1.5 billion in emergency assistance-disbursed in two installments, in 1985 and 1986-was provided as part of Israel's economic stabilization program, which was implemented under the guidance of the U.S.-Israel Joint Economic Development Group (JEDG).

An extraordinary package was approved in 1996 to help Israel fight terrorism. Israel is to receive a total of $100 million, divided equally between fiscal years 1996 and 1997.

Regular Economic and Military Assistance

Israel's economic aid changed from the Commodity Import Program (CIP), which provides funds to foreign nations for the purchase of U.S. commodities, to a direct cash transfer in 1979. In return, Israel provided the Agency for International Development with assurances that the dollar level of Israel's non-defense imports from the U.S. would exceed the level of economic assistance granted Israel in any given year. Thus, Israel guaranteed that U.S. suppliers would not be disadvantaged by the termination of Israel's CIP Program.

Starting with fiscal year 1987, Israel annually received $1.2 billion in all grant economic aid and $1.8 billion in all grant military assistance. In 1998, Israel offered to voluntarily reduce its dependence on U.S. economic aid. According to an agreement reached with the Clinton Administration and Congress, the $1.2 billion economic aid package will be reduced by $120 million each year so that it will be phased out in ten years. Half of the annual savings in economic assistance each year ($60 million) will be added to Israel's military aid package in recognition of its increased security needs. In 2005, Israel received $360 million in economic aid and $2.22 billion in military aid. In 2006, economic aid is scheduled to be reduced to $240 million and military aid will increase to $2.28 billion.

For several years, most of Israel's economic aid went to pay off old debts. In 1984, foreign aid legislation included the Cranston Amendment (named after its Senate sponsor), which said the U.S. would provide Israel with economic assistance "not less than" the amount Israel owes the United States in annual debt service payments. The Cranston Amendment was left out of the FY1999 and subsequent appropriations bills. At that time Israel received $1.2 billion in ESF and owed only $328 million in debt service so the amendment was no longer needed.

In 1998, Israel was designated as a “major non-NATO ally,” which allows it to receive outdated military equipment the U.S. military wishes to sell or give away.

Roughly 26 percent of what Israel receives in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) can be spent in Israel for military procurement. From FY1988 to FY 1990, Israel was allowed to use $400 million in Israel. From FY1991 to FY1998, the amount was increased to $475 million. As U.S. military aid to Israel increased, according to the agreement to cut economic aid, the amout set aside for defense purchases in Israel has increased (but the percentage has remained roughly the same). In 2009, the figure was $671 million. The remaining 74 percent of FMF was spent in the United States to generate profits and jobs. More than 1,000 companies in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have signed contracts worth billions of dollars through this program.

At the end of 1998, Israel requested an additional $1.2 billion in aid to fund moving troops and military installations out of the occupied territories as called for in the October 23, 1998, Wye agreement. Israel received $600 million of this in military aid in FY1999 and $300 million in each fiscal year 2000 and 2001 (see Wye funding table).

In February 2003, for the first time, Congress voted to cut aid to Israel against the wishes of the pro-Israel lobby and the government of Israel. The 0.65 percent deduction was not aimed at Israel; however, it was an across the board cut of all foreign aid programs for fiscal year 2003. The lobby and government also suffered a defeat when Congress deleted an administration request for an extra $200 million to help Israel fight terrorism. Even while cutting aid to Israel (which still was budgeted at $2.1 billion for military aid and $600 million for economic assistance), Congress included a number of provisions in the aid bill viewed as favorable to Israel, including a provision that bars federal assistance to a future Palestinian state until the current Palestinian leadership is replaced, and that state demonstrates a commitment to peaceful coexistence with Israel, and takes measures to combat terrorism.

The setbacks were also temporary as the Administration approved a supplementary aid request in 2003 that included $1 billion in FMF and $9 billion in loan guarantees to aid Israel's economic recovery and compensate for the cost of military preparations associated with the war in Iraq. One quarter of the FMF is a cash grant and three quarters will be spent in the United States. The loan guarantees are spread over three years and must be spent within Israel's pre-June 1967 borders. Each year, an amount equal to the funds Israel spends on settlements in the territories will be deducted from the loan amount, along with all fees and subsidies.

Altogether, since 1949, Israel has received more than $106 billion in assistance. This includes the four special allocations, the $10 billion in loan guarantees (spread over five years) approved in 1992, the $9 billion in guarantees offered in 2003, and a variety of other smaller assistance-related accounts, such as refugee resettlement (nearly $1.6 billion overall since 1973), the American Schools and Hospitals Abroad Program (ASHA), which supports schools, libraries and medical centers that demonstrate American ideas and practices (($144 million), and cooperative development programs (a total of $186 million since 1981).

The total does not include funds for joint military projects like the Arrow missile (for which Israel has received more than $1 billion in grants since 1986), which are provided through the Defense budget. President Bush requested $60 million for the Arrow for FY2003 and $136 million in FY2004. The United States also has provided $53 million for the Boost Phase Intercept program and $139 million for the Tactical High Energy Laser program under development in Israel to complement the Arrow.

Though the totals are impressive, the value of assistance to Israel has been eroded by inflation. While aid levels remained constant in total dollars from 1987 until 1999, the real value steadily declined. On the other side of the coin, Israel does receive aid on more favorable terms than other nations. For example, all economic aid is given directly to the Israeli government rather than allocated under a specific program. Also, starting in 1982, Israel began to receive all its economic aid in a lump sum early in the fiscal year instead of in quarterly installments as is done for other countries. Israel also receives offsets on FMS purchases (U.S. contractors agree to offset some of the cost of military equipment by buying components or materials from Israel).

A 10-Year Military Aid Agreement

In August 2007, the Bush Administration agreed to increase U.S. military assistance to Israel by $6 billion over the following decade. Israel is to receive incremental annual increases of $150 mllion, starting at $2.55 billion in FY2009 and reaching $3.15 billion per year for FY2013-2018.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-u-s-foreign-aid-to-israel

African Americans are still waiting for their 40 Acres and a Mule!!!

Having a national state is great as nation has some place to run for their live when next wave of elimination occupier in some country.
It already saved lives of hundreds of thousands Jews since Israel was established. Now the probability of new Holocaust is smaller as we do not need to rely on other countries to open the door. When 6 millions died not many countries did. To many people want us dead rather that alive.
Never heard about anybody want to eliminate African Americans in US or elsewhere. May be I am not educated in this too.
If AA want to have national state so make yourself a nation and demand for it. I would support it.
Every nation should have a chance of self-determination. But first the nation should exist.

You totally missed my point!!! The U.S. Government did a lot to help the Jews and the amount of money spent to help support Israel over all these years is massive and yet over that same period of time this country failed to help its African American citizens right here in this country. They owe substantially more of a debt to African Americans and I ask where is that help???

We don't need a separate nation!!! We helped BUILD this nation into what it is and yet at the same time the U.S. was reaching out to help the Jews establish Israel, they were kicking African Americans in the teeth!!! Do you not yet understand where we are coming from? My Grandfather took a bullet in WWII helping to liberate the Jews and he died never knowing freedom and fair treatment from his own country!!!

We help Israel in attempts to balance power and world peace. It's a big deal with big consequences and ramifications for the entire world. Big league stuff

I know ALL ABOUT the reason for support of Israel. Who would you say as a people has done more to help make this country great and at the same time gotten shafted for hundreds of years??? African Americans have slaved, worked, fought and died for this country since before it's independence!!! Why did Israel deserve more special aid and attention than my forefathers???

I have copies of the written promises made to AA's to help simply to give them a chance to work for their own survival and hoped prosperity. I also have copies of this country reneging on those promises and even worse making laws that disadvantaged AA's. The hypocrisy of this country towards AA's especially in regard to how much it supported Israel is SHAMEFUL!!!

I don't need a lecture about the reasons this country supports Israel. I want to make it known how unjust it is that so little has been done to make up for the hundreds of years of harm and abuse done to African Americans.

I agree that it is important to know the history of slavery and segregation.
I am not clear on what you think should be practically done "to make up for the hundreds of years of harm and abuse" and is not getting done?
Like some specific law, or program, or project?

Did Obama/Hillary passionately talk about doing any of those things? If so what actions on their words did they take?

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

gunsnewing wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

holfresh wrote:

arkrud wrote:

Nalod wrote:

holfresh wrote:People sometimes don't understand the different experiences of many groups in this country...They feel it's one experience and should be one point of view..This is for you Nix...

Thank you for sharing!!!

Very interesting and very important to see the history as it is and not revised.
It is exactly the same as in Russian Empire where slavery was abolished in 1723 and serves were freed from landlords power in 1861 to fee 90% of Russian population.
All ruling class and majority of educated class including the brightest and greatest minds and cultural idols who made great contributions to world culture, sciences, and humanity were all slave owners.
Also the Jews segregation in Russia started in 1791 was ended by Russian revolution in 1917.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement
We cannot measure people leaving 200 years back by the moral values of our time.
And we should not be judged in 200 years by morals that will emerge.

So in a few years, my grand kids shouldn't judge Hitler's moral deeds??

1758 my forefather was brought here on the Slaveship Betsey from the slave castle on Bance Island, Sierra Leone Africa. I don't know his name or that of any other ancestor from this time... yet.

Thomas C. Born a slave 1819
William C. Born a Slave 1839
1865 the end of the Civil War.
William C. Jr. Born Free 1869
Richard C. Born 1913
Melvin C. Born 1946
I was born in 1965

So basically only 100 years passed from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until my birth in 1965. When I was born Jim Crow was at its end as the country passed the historic Civil Rights Laws. History does matter and what may seem like ancient history isn't that at all.

It is just 75 years since the brothers and sisters of my grandmother were killed in gas chambers together with their kids and family, together with 6 millions others...
My mother has their photo.. of all family... 45 people on one picture... black and white. 7 of them survived the Holocaust. My grand grand farther is also on the picture.
He was in hid 90th and died with all teeth still intact. He was a strong man.
I do not have any anger and any hate to those who killed them and to their descendants and their families.
Those who killed them and order to kill them are dead and God will jujge them. Those who are leaving now have nothing to do with all this.
My relatives on the picture are telling me that hate must be stopped otherwise their death has no meaning.
I am not the one to tell you that the history is not important and that we should not remember... We have to remember.
But we should remember not for the sake of hate but for the sake of forgiveness. Because there is no other way to leave together on this planet.

I can tell you that the Black experience in this country CONTINUED to be bad long after my Grandfather Richard who is listed above fought the Germans and received a Bronze Star and Purple Heart as a SEGREGATED soldier in WWII. He had to live with the indignity of racial discrimination until the day he died. Just as my father who went to Vietnam had to deal with Racism. I was the 1st one born in my family that did not experience Slavery or Jim Crow in this country.

Black people didn't HATE. They had HATE inflicted upon them. Did Black people in this country launch into massive raids of violent revenge upon the defeated former Slave Owners and Confederate Soldiers after the Civil War??? NO! They could have but they didn't. Nearly 4 Million abused, impoverished and illiterate people just asked to be treated fairly and with respect, but that's not what they got. They got lied to and cheated. They got Lynched, Burned alive, Imprisoned and re-enslaved under unjust laws designed to create a new slave workforce. Not until I was born did things ease up a little. Even then this system has not been even close to fair or just for Black People in this country. It's not about us hating White people or trying to take it out on the descendents of Slave Owners!!! You miss the point entirely when you keep saying these things.

Black people were here the whole time this country was being founded. Working, fighting and dying for this country. Then we have to watch European immigrants come to this country and progress and prosper while we were denied freedom to do the same. I don't wanna hear about FORGIVENESS!!! Man you have no idea how much crap Black People have FORGIVEN in their long journey to be treated equally and have what everyone else had the freedom to do. We started with LESS than NOTHING. We were enslaved which involved BREAKING the SPIRIT so that Slaves would be more compliant. We were stripped of our original language and culture and taught we were LESS THAN. No education for generations. No passed on knowledge and wealth. I don't think you fully understand what that does to a people when you spend HUNDREDS of years in a diminished state. Many of our problems are vestiges of Bad Habits from Slavery passed on from generation to generation. It's hard to overcome that at the same time society is holding you back. YOU DON'T KNOW THE HALF OF IT! You need to sit and talk with my Grandparents and parents to let them explain what a lifetime of living in this country back then was like. There were no GOOD OLE DAYS for Black People.

You come a long way and you own nothing to anyone.
You never get help and you will never get it.
This is how life is and this is how it will be.
Hundred of years or thousands of years you are the only masters of your destiny.
Freedom is not given, it is the state of mind, Spirit that cannot be taken away.
Your people are still roaming the desert but many already reached the Promised Land.
The eternal journey is hard and long. It takes many generations and hundred of years.
Just keep going...

OK so I should just tell my Sons and Daughter and Grand Children that they should wait for another Hundred years in order to be treated Equally??? There's a very real reason why Minorities and Women are so concerned with President Trump and the Republicans. He represents the way things USED to be. Oh they try to sugarcoat it with Populist talk and Nationalist lingo, but underneath all of that is a very dark core of hatred that we are especially sensitive to for the reasons I listed above!!! NO! Things are not just gonna be OK with the passage of time and NO I shouldn't take Hundreds of years for people to be treated fairly and just like European Immigrants were allowed to prosper in this country!!!

This country OWES a debt to African Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic Americans that they refuse to pay!!!

Tell them that that they are free and that they will get only what they will earn themselves.
Nobody will give them anything for granted. Never.
I can tell you this by the experience of 5 thousand years and 200 hundred countries.
All you can get it a slap to the hand and spit to the face.
And I do not have any problem with this because I do not have any expectations and it makes me strong, unbreakable.
Tutankhamen, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Obama, Trump, whatever... dust in the wind.

What you're saying is not actually accurate. The Jews did have help over the millennia. It wasn't just them sitting and hoping things would change for the better. They took action and they complained and protested and made appeals to higher powers. They didn't do it all on their own. All i'm saying is that when the Jewish People looked to America when they needed backing for their new State of Israel...

Creation of Israel, 1948

On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day.

Although the United States supported the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which favored the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had assured the Arabs in 1945 that the United States would not intervene without consulting both the Jews and the Arabs in that region. The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region. Great Britain wanted to preserve good relations with the Arabs to protect its vital political and economic interests in Palestine.

Soon after President Truman took office, he appointed several experts to study the Palestinian issue. In the summer of 1946, Truman established a special cabinet committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Henry F. Grady, an Assistant Secretary of State, who entered into negotiations with a parallel British committee to discuss the future of Palestine. In May 1946, Truman announced his approval of a recommendation to admit 100,000 displaced persons into Palestine and in October publicly declared his support for the creation of a Jewish state.

Throughout 1947, the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine examined the Palestinian question and recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. On November 29, 1947 the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May 1948 when the British mandate was scheduled to end. Under the resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would remain a corpus separatum under international control administered by the United Nations.

Although the United States backed Resolution 181, the U.S. Department of State recommended the creation of a United Nations trusteeship with limits on Jewish immigration and a division of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab provinces but not states. The State Department, concerned about the possibility of an increasing Soviet role in the Arab world and the potential for restriction by Arab oil producing nations of oil supplies to the United States, advised against U.S. intervention on behalf of the Jews. Later, as the date for British departure from Palestine drew near, the Department of State grew concerned about the possibility of an all-out war in Palestine as Arab states threatened to attack almost as soon as the UN passed the partition resolution.

Despite growing conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews and despite the Department of State’s endorsement of a trusteeship, Truman ultimately decided to recognize the state Israel.

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel

“It is my responsibility to see that our policy in Israel fits in with our policy throughout the world; second, it is my desire to help build in Palestine a strong, prosperous, free and independent democratic state. It must be large enough, free enough, and strong enough to make its people self-supporting and secure,” President Truman said in a speech October 28, 1948.

Truman's commitment was quickly tested after Israel's victory in its War of Independence when she applied to the U.S. for economic aid to help absorb immigrants. President Truman responded by approving a $135 million Export-Import Bank loan and the sale of surplus commodities to Israel. In those early years of Israel's statehood (also today), U.S. aid was seen as a means of promoting peace.

In 1951, Congress voted to help Israel cope with the economic burdens imposed by the influx of Jewish refugees from the displaced persons camps in Europe and from the ghettos of the Arab countries. Arabs then complained the U.S. was neglecting them, though they had no interest in or use for American aid then. In 1951, Syria rejected offers of U.S. aid. Oil-rich Iraq and Saudi Arabia did not need U.S. economic assistance, and Jordan was, until the late 1950s, the ward of Great Britain. After 1957, when the United States assumed responsibility for supporting Jordan and resumed economic aid to Egypt, assistance to the Arab states soared. Also, the United States was by far the biggest contributor of aid to the Palestinians through UNRWA, a status that continues to the present.

U.S. economic grants to Israel ended in 1959. U.S. aid to Israel from then until 1985 consisted largely of loans, which Israel repaid, and surplus commodities, which Israel bought. Israel began buying arms from the United States in 1962, but did not receive any grant military assistance until after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. As a result, Israel had to go deeply into debt to finance its economic development and arms procurement. The decision to convert military aid to grants that year was based on the prevailing view in Congress that without a strong Israel, war in the Middle East was more likely, and that the U.S. would face higher direct expenditures in such an eventuality.

Israel has received more direct aid from the United States since World War II than any other country, but the amounts for the first half of this period were relatively small. Between 1949 and 1973, the U.S. provided Israel with an average of about $122 million a year, a total of $3.1 billion (and actually more than $1 billion of that was loans for military equipment in 1971-73) . Prior to 1971, Israel received a total of only $277 million in military aid, all in the form of loans as credit sales. The bulk of the economic aid was also lent to Israel. By comparison, the Arab states received nearly three times as much aid before 1971, $4.4 billion, or $170 million per year. Moreover, unlike Israel, which receives nearly all its aid from the United States, Arab nations have gotten assistance from Asia, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and the European Community. Congress first designated a specific amount of aid for Israel (an "earmark") in 1971.

Meeting Israel's Special Needs

Since 1974, Israel has received nearly $100 billion in assistance, including three special aid packages. The first followed the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty and Israel's withdrawal from the Sinai. The redeployment of Israeli forces and rebuilding of air bases in the Negev cost $5 billion. To partially compensate for this sacrifice, Israel received $3 billion ($2.2 billion of which was in the form of high-interest loans) in U.S. aid in 1979.

The second special package was approved in 1985, following a severe economic crisis in Israel, which sent inflation rates soaring as high as 445 percent. The $1.5 billion in emergency assistance-disbursed in two installments, in 1985 and 1986-was provided as part of Israel's economic stabilization program, which was implemented under the guidance of the U.S.-Israel Joint Economic Development Group (JEDG).

An extraordinary package was approved in 1996 to help Israel fight terrorism. Israel is to receive a total of $100 million, divided equally between fiscal years 1996 and 1997.

Regular Economic and Military Assistance

Israel's economic aid changed from the Commodity Import Program (CIP), which provides funds to foreign nations for the purchase of U.S. commodities, to a direct cash transfer in 1979. In return, Israel provided the Agency for International Development with assurances that the dollar level of Israel's non-defense imports from the U.S. would exceed the level of economic assistance granted Israel in any given year. Thus, Israel guaranteed that U.S. suppliers would not be disadvantaged by the termination of Israel's CIP Program.

Starting with fiscal year 1987, Israel annually received $1.2 billion in all grant economic aid and $1.8 billion in all grant military assistance. In 1998, Israel offered to voluntarily reduce its dependence on U.S. economic aid. According to an agreement reached with the Clinton Administration and Congress, the $1.2 billion economic aid package will be reduced by $120 million each year so that it will be phased out in ten years. Half of the annual savings in economic assistance each year ($60 million) will be added to Israel's military aid package in recognition of its increased security needs. In 2005, Israel received $360 million in economic aid and $2.22 billion in military aid. In 2006, economic aid is scheduled to be reduced to $240 million and military aid will increase to $2.28 billion.

For several years, most of Israel's economic aid went to pay off old debts. In 1984, foreign aid legislation included the Cranston Amendment (named after its Senate sponsor), which said the U.S. would provide Israel with economic assistance "not less than" the amount Israel owes the United States in annual debt service payments. The Cranston Amendment was left out of the FY1999 and subsequent appropriations bills. At that time Israel received $1.2 billion in ESF and owed only $328 million in debt service so the amendment was no longer needed.

In 1998, Israel was designated as a “major non-NATO ally,” which allows it to receive outdated military equipment the U.S. military wishes to sell or give away.

Roughly 26 percent of what Israel receives in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) can be spent in Israel for military procurement. From FY1988 to FY 1990, Israel was allowed to use $400 million in Israel. From FY1991 to FY1998, the amount was increased to $475 million. As U.S. military aid to Israel increased, according to the agreement to cut economic aid, the amout set aside for defense purchases in Israel has increased (but the percentage has remained roughly the same). In 2009, the figure was $671 million. The remaining 74 percent of FMF was spent in the United States to generate profits and jobs. More than 1,000 companies in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have signed contracts worth billions of dollars through this program.

At the end of 1998, Israel requested an additional $1.2 billion in aid to fund moving troops and military installations out of the occupied territories as called for in the October 23, 1998, Wye agreement. Israel received $600 million of this in military aid in FY1999 and $300 million in each fiscal year 2000 and 2001 (see Wye funding table).

In February 2003, for the first time, Congress voted to cut aid to Israel against the wishes of the pro-Israel lobby and the government of Israel. The 0.65 percent deduction was not aimed at Israel; however, it was an across the board cut of all foreign aid programs for fiscal year 2003. The lobby and government also suffered a defeat when Congress deleted an administration request for an extra $200 million to help Israel fight terrorism. Even while cutting aid to Israel (which still was budgeted at $2.1 billion for military aid and $600 million for economic assistance), Congress included a number of provisions in the aid bill viewed as favorable to Israel, including a provision that bars federal assistance to a future Palestinian state until the current Palestinian leadership is replaced, and that state demonstrates a commitment to peaceful coexistence with Israel, and takes measures to combat terrorism.

The setbacks were also temporary as the Administration approved a supplementary aid request in 2003 that included $1 billion in FMF and $9 billion in loan guarantees to aid Israel's economic recovery and compensate for the cost of military preparations associated with the war in Iraq. One quarter of the FMF is a cash grant and three quarters will be spent in the United States. The loan guarantees are spread over three years and must be spent within Israel's pre-June 1967 borders. Each year, an amount equal to the funds Israel spends on settlements in the territories will be deducted from the loan amount, along with all fees and subsidies.

Altogether, since 1949, Israel has received more than $106 billion in assistance. This includes the four special allocations, the $10 billion in loan guarantees (spread over five years) approved in 1992, the $9 billion in guarantees offered in 2003, and a variety of other smaller assistance-related accounts, such as refugee resettlement (nearly $1.6 billion overall since 1973), the American Schools and Hospitals Abroad Program (ASHA), which supports schools, libraries and medical centers that demonstrate American ideas and practices (($144 million), and cooperative development programs (a total of $186 million since 1981).

The total does not include funds for joint military projects like the Arrow missile (for which Israel has received more than $1 billion in grants since 1986), which are provided through the Defense budget. President Bush requested $60 million for the Arrow for FY2003 and $136 million in FY2004. The United States also has provided $53 million for the Boost Phase Intercept program and $139 million for the Tactical High Energy Laser program under development in Israel to complement the Arrow.

Though the totals are impressive, the value of assistance to Israel has been eroded by inflation. While aid levels remained constant in total dollars from 1987 until 1999, the real value steadily declined. On the other side of the coin, Israel does receive aid on more favorable terms than other nations. For example, all economic aid is given directly to the Israeli government rather than allocated under a specific program. Also, starting in 1982, Israel began to receive all its economic aid in a lump sum early in the fiscal year instead of in quarterly installments as is done for other countries. Israel also receives offsets on FMS purchases (U.S. contractors agree to offset some of the cost of military equipment by buying components or materials from Israel).

A 10-Year Military Aid Agreement

In August 2007, the Bush Administration agreed to increase U.S. military assistance to Israel by $6 billion over the following decade. Israel is to receive incremental annual increases of $150 mllion, starting at $2.55 billion in FY2009 and reaching $3.15 billion per year for FY2013-2018.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-u-s-foreign-aid-to-israel

African Americans are still waiting for their 40 Acres and a Mule!!!

Having a national state is great as nation has some place to run for their live when next wave of elimination occupier in some country.
It already saved lives of hundreds of thousands Jews since Israel was established. Now the probability of new Holocaust is smaller as we do not need to rely on other countries to open the door. When 6 millions died not many countries did. To many people want us dead rather that alive.
Never heard about anybody want to eliminate African Americans in US or elsewhere. May be I am not educated in this too.
If AA want to have national state so make yourself a nation and demand for it. I would support it.
Every nation should have a chance of self-determination. But first the nation should exist.

You totally missed my point!!! The U.S. Government did a lot to help the Jews and the amount of money spent to help support Israel over all these years is massive and yet over that same period of time this country failed to help its African American citizens right here in this country. They owe substantially more of a debt to African Americans and I ask where is that help???

We don't need a separate nation!!! We helped BUILD this nation into what it is and yet at the same time the U.S. was reaching out to help the Jews establish Israel, they were kicking African Americans in the teeth!!! Do you not yet understand where we are coming from? My Grandfather took a bullet in WWII helping to liberate the Jews and he died never knowing freedom and fair treatment from his own country!!!

We help Israel in attempts to balance power and world peace. It's a big deal with big consequences and ramifications for the entire world. Big league stuff

I know ALL ABOUT the reason for support of Israel. Who would you say as a people has done more to help make this country great and at the same time gotten shafted for hundreds of years??? African Americans have slaved, worked, fought and died for this country since before it's independence!!! Why did Israel deserve more special aid and attention than my forefathers???

I have copies of the written promises made to AA's to help simply to give them a chance to work for their own survival and hoped prosperity. I also have copies of this country reneging on those promises and even worse making laws that disadvantaged AA's. The hypocrisy of this country towards AA's especially in regard to how much it supported Israel is SHAMEFUL!!!

I don't need a lecture about the reasons this country supports Israel. I want to make it known how unjust it is that so little has been done to make up for the hundreds of years of harm and abuse done to African Americans.

I agree that it is important to know the history of slavery and segregation.
I am not clear on what you think should be practically done "to make up for the hundreds of years of harm and abuse" and is not getting done?
Like some specific law, or program, or project?

This is a photo of my Grandparents in 1944.

They were still Lynching Black people and blocking them from voting in the South at this time and it would be more than 20 years from this point before the Civil Rights Laws were passed. My Grandfather fought and took a bullet for the freedom of others and came home to a lack of freedom. He couldn't live wherever he wanted. He wasn't treated equally. This all the while this country bent over backwards during this same period to help the Jews establish Israel and make it strong. Yes this country owes a huge debt to AA's.

You ask what Specific Law or Program or Project I would want? Well how about first of all they stop making it harder for AA's to vote??? That's just a reasonable and basic start. They need to make a law that automatically registers everyone able to vote when they reach the age of 18.

How about dealing with unequal and underfunded schools? Education has never been equal for AA's in this country.

How about seriously dealing with the effects of decades of Redlining AA's into Ghettos that are then easily disinvested and isolated? This makes it easy to ignore and for drug gangs to ravage these neighborhoods. This is how Chicago got like it is. A lack of healthy food, jobs and other resources in Black Neighborhoods is a result of all of this historic Redlining.

How about changing the sentencing laws in this country for minor nonviolent crimes? Also the profiting off of vulnerable Minorities by local police forces. Over policing and then ticketing and charging court fees at a high rate to people who are already poor and unable to pay. Then putting those people in prison for not being able to pay.

I can go on and on, but the treatment of AA's has been horrendous. The government knows all of the ways that AA's are disadvantaged. They do the studies and have all the info. It's a lack of WILL to do something about it that is the problem. Remember that there are still those who don't want any of this to change in power in this country!!! This is why people are unhappy with Trump and the Republicans being in power. They are not people who have been a friend to the AA community. They've been an opponent of progress for AA's.

You have a lot valid point.
1. I agree with voter registration and law should guaranty that every US citizen can execute his voting rights. It also should guaranty that no non-citizen can vote and no double votes or votes on behalf of dead people occurred. In my opinion every voter should get US passport and have it properly extended, bring it to voting place and present it. So every citizen then will be able to vote and fraud will be more difficult.
2. School reform is long time overdue. The funding of school should be proportional to he number of pupils and should not be related to performance or how much local taxes allow to spend. Federal law should compensate any diff in funding locality cannot provide to reach established federal level.
3. The program to provide resettle opportunities for inner city troubled areas should be put in place.
This programs should provide job opportunities and housing. It will not be easy but entrepreneurs and non-profits should be involved. Especially those who are voicing to fight inequality. Will be a good opportunity to backup the talk with the walk.
Of course there are no simple solutions but I never saw any attempt by Democrats or Republicans to push for anything to be done. Obama administration included.
I just see a bunch of leftists and minority politicians using their electorate to gain political wight and push their personal caries and wealth up.

I guarantee that efforts have been made in many of the problem areas but there has been MAJOR resistance to those efforts.

What you may not be aware of is that most of the issues I pointed to didn't just happen by accident!!! These wrongs were done on purpose and to this very day people have been pushing legislation that explicitly harms AA's. This is not coming from the LEFT! This notion that Progressives haven't been trying to solve these problems is a Right Wing lie and talking point.

I've been working for years to help underserved communities. I'm obviously not alone in working in this fight.

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

gunsnewing wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

holfresh wrote:

arkrud wrote:

Nalod wrote:

holfresh wrote:People sometimes don't understand the different experiences of many groups in this country...They feel it's one experience and should be one point of view..This is for you Nix...

Thank you for sharing!!!

Very interesting and very important to see the history as it is and not revised.
It is exactly the same as in Russian Empire where slavery was abolished in 1723 and serves were freed from landlords power in 1861 to fee 90% of Russian population.
All ruling class and majority of educated class including the brightest and greatest minds and cultural idols who made great contributions to world culture, sciences, and humanity were all slave owners.
Also the Jews segregation in Russia started in 1791 was ended by Russian revolution in 1917.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement
We cannot measure people leaving 200 years back by the moral values of our time.
And we should not be judged in 200 years by morals that will emerge.

So in a few years, my grand kids shouldn't judge Hitler's moral deeds??

1758 my forefather was brought here on the Slaveship Betsey from the slave castle on Bance Island, Sierra Leone Africa. I don't know his name or that of any other ancestor from this time... yet.

Thomas C. Born a slave 1819
William C. Born a Slave 1839
1865 the end of the Civil War.
William C. Jr. Born Free 1869
Richard C. Born 1913
Melvin C. Born 1946
I was born in 1965

So basically only 100 years passed from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until my birth in 1965. When I was born Jim Crow was at its end as the country passed the historic Civil Rights Laws. History does matter and what may seem like ancient history isn't that at all.

It is just 75 years since the brothers and sisters of my grandmother were killed in gas chambers together with their kids and family, together with 6 millions others...
My mother has their photo.. of all family... 45 people on one picture... black and white. 7 of them survived the Holocaust. My grand grand farther is also on the picture.
He was in hid 90th and died with all teeth still intact. He was a strong man.
I do not have any anger and any hate to those who killed them and to their descendants and their families.
Those who killed them and order to kill them are dead and God will jujge them. Those who are leaving now have nothing to do with all this.
My relatives on the picture are telling me that hate must be stopped otherwise their death has no meaning.
I am not the one to tell you that the history is not important and that we should not remember... We have to remember.
But we should remember not for the sake of hate but for the sake of forgiveness. Because there is no other way to leave together on this planet.

I can tell you that the Black experience in this country CONTINUED to be bad long after my Grandfather Richard who is listed above fought the Germans and received a Bronze Star and Purple Heart as a SEGREGATED soldier in WWII. He had to live with the indignity of racial discrimination until the day he died. Just as my father who went to Vietnam had to deal with Racism. I was the 1st one born in my family that did not experience Slavery or Jim Crow in this country.

Black people didn't HATE. They had HATE inflicted upon them. Did Black people in this country launch into massive raids of violent revenge upon the defeated former Slave Owners and Confederate Soldiers after the Civil War??? NO! They could have but they didn't. Nearly 4 Million abused, impoverished and illiterate people just asked to be treated fairly and with respect, but that's not what they got. They got lied to and cheated. They got Lynched, Burned alive, Imprisoned and re-enslaved under unjust laws designed to create a new slave workforce. Not until I was born did things ease up a little. Even then this system has not been even close to fair or just for Black People in this country. It's not about us hating White people or trying to take it out on the descendents of Slave Owners!!! You miss the point entirely when you keep saying these things.

Black people were here the whole time this country was being founded. Working, fighting and dying for this country. Then we have to watch European immigrants come to this country and progress and prosper while we were denied freedom to do the same. I don't wanna hear about FORGIVENESS!!! Man you have no idea how much crap Black People have FORGIVEN in their long journey to be treated equally and have what everyone else had the freedom to do. We started with LESS than NOTHING. We were enslaved which involved BREAKING the SPIRIT so that Slaves would be more compliant. We were stripped of our original language and culture and taught we were LESS THAN. No education for generations. No passed on knowledge and wealth. I don't think you fully understand what that does to a people when you spend HUNDREDS of years in a diminished state. Many of our problems are vestiges of Bad Habits from Slavery passed on from generation to generation. It's hard to overcome that at the same time society is holding you back. YOU DON'T KNOW THE HALF OF IT! You need to sit and talk with my Grandparents and parents to let them explain what a lifetime of living in this country back then was like. There were no GOOD OLE DAYS for Black People.

You come a long way and you own nothing to anyone.
You never get help and you will never get it.
This is how life is and this is how it will be.
Hundred of years or thousands of years you are the only masters of your destiny.
Freedom is not given, it is the state of mind, Spirit that cannot be taken away.
Your people are still roaming the desert but many already reached the Promised Land.
The eternal journey is hard and long. It takes many generations and hundred of years.
Just keep going...

OK so I should just tell my Sons and Daughter and Grand Children that they should wait for another Hundred years in order to be treated Equally??? There's a very real reason why Minorities and Women are so concerned with President Trump and the Republicans. He represents the way things USED to be. Oh they try to sugarcoat it with Populist talk and Nationalist lingo, but underneath all of that is a very dark core of hatred that we are especially sensitive to for the reasons I listed above!!! NO! Things are not just gonna be OK with the passage of time and NO I shouldn't take Hundreds of years for people to be treated fairly and just like European Immigrants were allowed to prosper in this country!!!

This country OWES a debt to African Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic Americans that they refuse to pay!!!

Tell them that that they are free and that they will get only what they will earn themselves.
Nobody will give them anything for granted. Never.
I can tell you this by the experience of 5 thousand years and 200 hundred countries.
All you can get it a slap to the hand and spit to the face.
And I do not have any problem with this because I do not have any expectations and it makes me strong, unbreakable.
Tutankhamen, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Obama, Trump, whatever... dust in the wind.

What you're saying is not actually accurate. The Jews did have help over the millennia. It wasn't just them sitting and hoping things would change for the better. They took action and they complained and protested and made appeals to higher powers. They didn't do it all on their own. All i'm saying is that when the Jewish People looked to America when they needed backing for their new State of Israel...

Creation of Israel, 1948

On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day.

Although the United States supported the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which favored the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had assured the Arabs in 1945 that the United States would not intervene without consulting both the Jews and the Arabs in that region. The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region. Great Britain wanted to preserve good relations with the Arabs to protect its vital political and economic interests in Palestine.

Soon after President Truman took office, he appointed several experts to study the Palestinian issue. In the summer of 1946, Truman established a special cabinet committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Henry F. Grady, an Assistant Secretary of State, who entered into negotiations with a parallel British committee to discuss the future of Palestine. In May 1946, Truman announced his approval of a recommendation to admit 100,000 displaced persons into Palestine and in October publicly declared his support for the creation of a Jewish state.

Throughout 1947, the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine examined the Palestinian question and recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. On November 29, 1947 the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May 1948 when the British mandate was scheduled to end. Under the resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would remain a corpus separatum under international control administered by the United Nations.

Although the United States backed Resolution 181, the U.S. Department of State recommended the creation of a United Nations trusteeship with limits on Jewish immigration and a division of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab provinces but not states. The State Department, concerned about the possibility of an increasing Soviet role in the Arab world and the potential for restriction by Arab oil producing nations of oil supplies to the United States, advised against U.S. intervention on behalf of the Jews. Later, as the date for British departure from Palestine drew near, the Department of State grew concerned about the possibility of an all-out war in Palestine as Arab states threatened to attack almost as soon as the UN passed the partition resolution.

Despite growing conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews and despite the Department of State’s endorsement of a trusteeship, Truman ultimately decided to recognize the state Israel.

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel

“It is my responsibility to see that our policy in Israel fits in with our policy throughout the world; second, it is my desire to help build in Palestine a strong, prosperous, free and independent democratic state. It must be large enough, free enough, and strong enough to make its people self-supporting and secure,” President Truman said in a speech October 28, 1948.

Truman's commitment was quickly tested after Israel's victory in its War of Independence when she applied to the U.S. for economic aid to help absorb immigrants. President Truman responded by approving a $135 million Export-Import Bank loan and the sale of surplus commodities to Israel. In those early years of Israel's statehood (also today), U.S. aid was seen as a means of promoting peace.

In 1951, Congress voted to help Israel cope with the economic burdens imposed by the influx of Jewish refugees from the displaced persons camps in Europe and from the ghettos of the Arab countries. Arabs then complained the U.S. was neglecting them, though they had no interest in or use for American aid then. In 1951, Syria rejected offers of U.S. aid. Oil-rich Iraq and Saudi Arabia did not need U.S. economic assistance, and Jordan was, until the late 1950s, the ward of Great Britain. After 1957, when the United States assumed responsibility for supporting Jordan and resumed economic aid to Egypt, assistance to the Arab states soared. Also, the United States was by far the biggest contributor of aid to the Palestinians through UNRWA, a status that continues to the present.

U.S. economic grants to Israel ended in 1959. U.S. aid to Israel from then until 1985 consisted largely of loans, which Israel repaid, and surplus commodities, which Israel bought. Israel began buying arms from the United States in 1962, but did not receive any grant military assistance until after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. As a result, Israel had to go deeply into debt to finance its economic development and arms procurement. The decision to convert military aid to grants that year was based on the prevailing view in Congress that without a strong Israel, war in the Middle East was more likely, and that the U.S. would face higher direct expenditures in such an eventuality.

Israel has received more direct aid from the United States since World War II than any other country, but the amounts for the first half of this period were relatively small. Between 1949 and 1973, the U.S. provided Israel with an average of about $122 million a year, a total of $3.1 billion (and actually more than $1 billion of that was loans for military equipment in 1971-73) . Prior to 1971, Israel received a total of only $277 million in military aid, all in the form of loans as credit sales. The bulk of the economic aid was also lent to Israel. By comparison, the Arab states received nearly three times as much aid before 1971, $4.4 billion, or $170 million per year. Moreover, unlike Israel, which receives nearly all its aid from the United States, Arab nations have gotten assistance from Asia, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and the European Community. Congress first designated a specific amount of aid for Israel (an "earmark") in 1971.

Meeting Israel's Special Needs

Since 1974, Israel has received nearly $100 billion in assistance, including three special aid packages. The first followed the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty and Israel's withdrawal from the Sinai. The redeployment of Israeli forces and rebuilding of air bases in the Negev cost $5 billion. To partially compensate for this sacrifice, Israel received $3 billion ($2.2 billion of which was in the form of high-interest loans) in U.S. aid in 1979.

The second special package was approved in 1985, following a severe economic crisis in Israel, which sent inflation rates soaring as high as 445 percent. The $1.5 billion in emergency assistance-disbursed in two installments, in 1985 and 1986-was provided as part of Israel's economic stabilization program, which was implemented under the guidance of the U.S.-Israel Joint Economic Development Group (JEDG).

An extraordinary package was approved in 1996 to help Israel fight terrorism. Israel is to receive a total of $100 million, divided equally between fiscal years 1996 and 1997.

Regular Economic and Military Assistance

Israel's economic aid changed from the Commodity Import Program (CIP), which provides funds to foreign nations for the purchase of U.S. commodities, to a direct cash transfer in 1979. In return, Israel provided the Agency for International Development with assurances that the dollar level of Israel's non-defense imports from the U.S. would exceed the level of economic assistance granted Israel in any given year. Thus, Israel guaranteed that U.S. suppliers would not be disadvantaged by the termination of Israel's CIP Program.

Starting with fiscal year 1987, Israel annually received $1.2 billion in all grant economic aid and $1.8 billion in all grant military assistance. In 1998, Israel offered to voluntarily reduce its dependence on U.S. economic aid. According to an agreement reached with the Clinton Administration and Congress, the $1.2 billion economic aid package will be reduced by $120 million each year so that it will be phased out in ten years. Half of the annual savings in economic assistance each year ($60 million) will be added to Israel's military aid package in recognition of its increased security needs. In 2005, Israel received $360 million in economic aid and $2.22 billion in military aid. In 2006, economic aid is scheduled to be reduced to $240 million and military aid will increase to $2.28 billion.

For several years, most of Israel's economic aid went to pay off old debts. In 1984, foreign aid legislation included the Cranston Amendment (named after its Senate sponsor), which said the U.S. would provide Israel with economic assistance "not less than" the amount Israel owes the United States in annual debt service payments. The Cranston Amendment was left out of the FY1999 and subsequent appropriations bills. At that time Israel received $1.2 billion in ESF and owed only $328 million in debt service so the amendment was no longer needed.

In 1998, Israel was designated as a “major non-NATO ally,” which allows it to receive outdated military equipment the U.S. military wishes to sell or give away.

Roughly 26 percent of what Israel receives in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) can be spent in Israel for military procurement. From FY1988 to FY 1990, Israel was allowed to use $400 million in Israel. From FY1991 to FY1998, the amount was increased to $475 million. As U.S. military aid to Israel increased, according to the agreement to cut economic aid, the amout set aside for defense purchases in Israel has increased (but the percentage has remained roughly the same). In 2009, the figure was $671 million. The remaining 74 percent of FMF was spent in the United States to generate profits and jobs. More than 1,000 companies in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have signed contracts worth billions of dollars through this program.

At the end of 1998, Israel requested an additional $1.2 billion in aid to fund moving troops and military installations out of the occupied territories as called for in the October 23, 1998, Wye agreement. Israel received $600 million of this in military aid in FY1999 and $300 million in each fiscal year 2000 and 2001 (see Wye funding table).

In February 2003, for the first time, Congress voted to cut aid to Israel against the wishes of the pro-Israel lobby and the government of Israel. The 0.65 percent deduction was not aimed at Israel; however, it was an across the board cut of all foreign aid programs for fiscal year 2003. The lobby and government also suffered a defeat when Congress deleted an administration request for an extra $200 million to help Israel fight terrorism. Even while cutting aid to Israel (which still was budgeted at $2.1 billion for military aid and $600 million for economic assistance), Congress included a number of provisions in the aid bill viewed as favorable to Israel, including a provision that bars federal assistance to a future Palestinian state until the current Palestinian leadership is replaced, and that state demonstrates a commitment to peaceful coexistence with Israel, and takes measures to combat terrorism.

The setbacks were also temporary as the Administration approved a supplementary aid request in 2003 that included $1 billion in FMF and $9 billion in loan guarantees to aid Israel's economic recovery and compensate for the cost of military preparations associated with the war in Iraq. One quarter of the FMF is a cash grant and three quarters will be spent in the United States. The loan guarantees are spread over three years and must be spent within Israel's pre-June 1967 borders. Each year, an amount equal to the funds Israel spends on settlements in the territories will be deducted from the loan amount, along with all fees and subsidies.

Altogether, since 1949, Israel has received more than $106 billion in assistance. This includes the four special allocations, the $10 billion in loan guarantees (spread over five years) approved in 1992, the $9 billion in guarantees offered in 2003, and a variety of other smaller assistance-related accounts, such as refugee resettlement (nearly $1.6 billion overall since 1973), the American Schools and Hospitals Abroad Program (ASHA), which supports schools, libraries and medical centers that demonstrate American ideas and practices (($144 million), and cooperative development programs (a total of $186 million since 1981).

The total does not include funds for joint military projects like the Arrow missile (for which Israel has received more than $1 billion in grants since 1986), which are provided through the Defense budget. President Bush requested $60 million for the Arrow for FY2003 and $136 million in FY2004. The United States also has provided $53 million for the Boost Phase Intercept program and $139 million for the Tactical High Energy Laser program under development in Israel to complement the Arrow.

Though the totals are impressive, the value of assistance to Israel has been eroded by inflation. While aid levels remained constant in total dollars from 1987 until 1999, the real value steadily declined. On the other side of the coin, Israel does receive aid on more favorable terms than other nations. For example, all economic aid is given directly to the Israeli government rather than allocated under a specific program. Also, starting in 1982, Israel began to receive all its economic aid in a lump sum early in the fiscal year instead of in quarterly installments as is done for other countries. Israel also receives offsets on FMS purchases (U.S. contractors agree to offset some of the cost of military equipment by buying components or materials from Israel).

A 10-Year Military Aid Agreement

In August 2007, the Bush Administration agreed to increase U.S. military assistance to Israel by $6 billion over the following decade. Israel is to receive incremental annual increases of $150 mllion, starting at $2.55 billion in FY2009 and reaching $3.15 billion per year for FY2013-2018.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-u-s-foreign-aid-to-israel

African Americans are still waiting for their 40 Acres and a Mule!!!

Having a national state is great as nation has some place to run for their live when next wave of elimination occupier in some country.
It already saved lives of hundreds of thousands Jews since Israel was established. Now the probability of new Holocaust is smaller as we do not need to rely on other countries to open the door. When 6 millions died not many countries did. To many people want us dead rather that alive.
Never heard about anybody want to eliminate African Americans in US or elsewhere. May be I am not educated in this too.
If AA want to have national state so make yourself a nation and demand for it. I would support it.
Every nation should have a chance of self-determination. But first the nation should exist.

You totally missed my point!!! The U.S. Government did a lot to help the Jews and the amount of money spent to help support Israel over all these years is massive and yet over that same period of time this country failed to help its African American citizens right here in this country. They owe substantially more of a debt to African Americans and I ask where is that help???

We don't need a separate nation!!! We helped BUILD this nation into what it is and yet at the same time the U.S. was reaching out to help the Jews establish Israel, they were kicking African Americans in the teeth!!! Do you not yet understand where we are coming from? My Grandfather took a bullet in WWII helping to liberate the Jews and he died never knowing freedom and fair treatment from his own country!!!

We help Israel in attempts to balance power and world peace. It's a big deal with big consequences and ramifications for the entire world. Big league stuff

I know ALL ABOUT the reason for support of Israel. Who would you say as a people has done more to help make this country great and at the same time gotten shafted for hundreds of years??? African Americans have slaved, worked, fought and died for this country since before it's independence!!! Why did Israel deserve more special aid and attention than my forefathers???

I have copies of the written promises made to AA's to help simply to give them a chance to work for their own survival and hoped prosperity. I also have copies of this country reneging on those promises and even worse making laws that disadvantaged AA's. The hypocrisy of this country towards AA's especially in regard to how much it supported Israel is SHAMEFUL!!!

I don't need a lecture about the reasons this country supports Israel. I want to make it known how unjust it is that so little has been done to make up for the hundreds of years of harm and abuse done to African Americans.

I agree that it is important to know the history of slavery and segregation.
I am not clear on what you think should be practically done "to make up for the hundreds of years of harm and abuse" and is not getting done?
Like some specific law, or program, or project?

This is a photo of my Grandparents in 1944.

They were still Lynching Black people and blocking them from voting in the South at this time and it would be more than 20 years from this point before the Civil Rights Laws were passed. My Grandfather fought and took a bullet for the freedom of others and came home to a lack of freedom. He couldn't live wherever he wanted. He wasn't treated equally. This all the while this country bent over backwards during this same period to help the Jews establish Israel and make it strong. Yes this country owes a huge debt to AA's.

You ask what Specific Law or Program or Project I would want? Well how about first of all they stop making it harder for AA's to vote??? That's just a reasonable and basic start. They need to make a law that automatically registers everyone able to vote when they reach the age of 18.

How about dealing with unequal and underfunded schools? Education has never been equal for AA's in this country.

How about seriously dealing with the effects of decades of Redlining AA's into Ghettos that are then easily disinvested and isolated? This makes it easy to ignore and for drug gangs to ravage these neighborhoods. This is how Chicago got like it is. A lack of healthy food, jobs and other resources in Black Neighborhoods is a result of all of this historic Redlining.

How about changing the sentencing laws in this country for minor nonviolent crimes? Also the profiting off of vulnerable Minorities by local police forces. Over policing and then ticketing and charging court fees at a high rate to people who are already poor and unable to pay. Then putting those people in prison for not being able to pay.

I can go on and on, but the treatment of AA's has been horrendous. The government knows all of the ways that AA's are disadvantaged. They do the studies and have all the info. It's a lack of WILL to do something about it that is the problem. Remember that there are still those who don't want any of this to change in power in this country!!! This is why people are unhappy with Trump and the Republicans being in power. They are not people who have been a friend to the AA community. They've been an opponent of progress for AA's.

You have a lot valid point.
1. I agree with voter registration and law should guaranty that every US citizen can execute his voting rights. It also should guaranty that no non-citizen can vote and no double votes or votes on behalf of dead people occurred. In my opinion every voter should get US passport and have it properly extended, bring it to voting place and present it. So every citizen then will be able to vote and fraud will be more difficult.
2. School reform is long time overdue. The funding of school should be proportional to he number of pupils and should not be related to performance or how much local taxes allow to spend. Federal law should compensate any diff in funding locality cannot provide to reach established federal level.
3. The program to provide resettle opportunities for inner city troubled areas should be put in place.
This programs should provide job opportunities and housing. It will not be easy but entrepreneurs and non-profits should be involved. Especially those who are voicing to fight inequality. Will be a good opportunity to backup the talk with the walk.
Of course there are no simple solutions but I never saw any attempt by Democrats or Republicans to push for anything to be done. Obama administration included.
I just see a bunch of leftists and minority politicians using their electorate to gain political wight and push their personal caries and wealth up.

I guarantee that efforts have been made in many of the problem areas but there has been MAJOR resistance to those efforts.

What you may not be aware of is that most of the issues I pointed to didn't just happen by accident!!! These wrongs were done on purpose and to this very day people have been pushing legislation that explicitly harms AA's. This is not coming from the LEFT! This notion that Progressives haven't been trying to solve these problems is a Right Wing lie and talking point.

I've been working for years to help underserved communities. I'm obviously not alone in working in this fight.

Nothing happened by accident. And I am not denying that there are people who are personally responsible for sabotaging the progress in the society.
But for the most part we are dealing with objective historical reality.
It is natural that interest of some are not aliened with the progress of the society as a whole.
The purpose or law and progressive government is to make majority of the society personalty interested in positive change.
Blame game will not get us anywhere.
We as a society need solutions and practical actions not finger-pointing.

BLAME is very important to expose why things aren't progressing after all this time for AA's. There's a historical record of disenfranchisement and abuse in all facets of American Society towards AA's. That's how we got here and why things have not improved enough.

You can't ignore the sources of the problem and have any hope of defeating these problems. Doing that is a recipe for the Status Quo. That is what America was like for much of its history. We need to change that and identifying those who are working against progress is important.

gunsnewing wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

gunsnewing wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

arkrud wrote:

nixluva wrote:

holfresh wrote:

arkrud wrote:

Nalod wrote:

holfresh wrote:People sometimes don't understand the different experiences of many groups in this country...They feel it's one experience and should be one point of view..This is for you Nix...

Thank you for sharing!!!

Very interesting and very important to see the history as it is and not revised.
It is exactly the same as in Russian Empire where slavery was abolished in 1723 and serves were freed from landlords power in 1861 to fee 90% of Russian population.
All ruling class and majority of educated class including the brightest and greatest minds and cultural idols who made great contributions to world culture, sciences, and humanity were all slave owners.
Also the Jews segregation in Russia started in 1791 was ended by Russian revolution in 1917.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_of_Settlement
We cannot measure people leaving 200 years back by the moral values of our time.
And we should not be judged in 200 years by morals that will emerge.

So in a few years, my grand kids shouldn't judge Hitler's moral deeds??

1758 my forefather was brought here on the Slaveship Betsey from the slave castle on Bance Island, Sierra Leone Africa. I don't know his name or that of any other ancestor from this time... yet.

Thomas C. Born a slave 1819
William C. Born a Slave 1839
1865 the end of the Civil War.
William C. Jr. Born Free 1869
Richard C. Born 1913
Melvin C. Born 1946
I was born in 1965

So basically only 100 years passed from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until my birth in 1965. When I was born Jim Crow was at its end as the country passed the historic Civil Rights Laws. History does matter and what may seem like ancient history isn't that at all.

It is just 75 years since the brothers and sisters of my grandmother were killed in gas chambers together with their kids and family, together with 6 millions others...
My mother has their photo.. of all family... 45 people on one picture... black and white. 7 of them survived the Holocaust. My grand grand farther is also on the picture.
He was in hid 90th and died with all teeth still intact. He was a strong man.
I do not have any anger and any hate to those who killed them and to their descendants and their families.
Those who killed them and order to kill them are dead and God will jujge them. Those who are leaving now have nothing to do with all this.
My relatives on the picture are telling me that hate must be stopped otherwise their death has no meaning.
I am not the one to tell you that the history is not important and that we should not remember... We have to remember.
But we should remember not for the sake of hate but for the sake of forgiveness. Because there is no other way to leave together on this planet.

I can tell you that the Black experience in this country CONTINUED to be bad long after my Grandfather Richard who is listed above fought the Germans and received a Bronze Star and Purple Heart as a SEGREGATED soldier in WWII. He had to live with the indignity of racial discrimination until the day he died. Just as my father who went to Vietnam had to deal with Racism. I was the 1st one born in my family that did not experience Slavery or Jim Crow in this country.

Black people didn't HATE. They had HATE inflicted upon them. Did Black people in this country launch into massive raids of violent revenge upon the defeated former Slave Owners and Confederate Soldiers after the Civil War??? NO! They could have but they didn't. Nearly 4 Million abused, impoverished and illiterate people just asked to be treated fairly and with respect, but that's not what they got. They got lied to and cheated. They got Lynched, Burned alive, Imprisoned and re-enslaved under unjust laws designed to create a new slave workforce. Not until I was born did things ease up a little. Even then this system has not been even close to fair or just for Black People in this country. It's not about us hating White people or trying to take it out on the descendents of Slave Owners!!! You miss the point entirely when you keep saying these things.

Black people were here the whole time this country was being founded. Working, fighting and dying for this country. Then we have to watch European immigrants come to this country and progress and prosper while we were denied freedom to do the same. I don't wanna hear about FORGIVENESS!!! Man you have no idea how much crap Black People have FORGIVEN in their long journey to be treated equally and have what everyone else had the freedom to do. We started with LESS than NOTHING. We were enslaved which involved BREAKING the SPIRIT so that Slaves would be more compliant. We were stripped of our original language and culture and taught we were LESS THAN. No education for generations. No passed on knowledge and wealth. I don't think you fully understand what that does to a people when you spend HUNDREDS of years in a diminished state. Many of our problems are vestiges of Bad Habits from Slavery passed on from generation to generation. It's hard to overcome that at the same time society is holding you back. YOU DON'T KNOW THE HALF OF IT! You need to sit and talk with my Grandparents and parents to let them explain what a lifetime of living in this country back then was like. There were no GOOD OLE DAYS for Black People.

You come a long way and you own nothing to anyone.
You never get help and you will never get it.
This is how life is and this is how it will be.
Hundred of years or thousands of years you are the only masters of your destiny.
Freedom is not given, it is the state of mind, Spirit that cannot be taken away.
Your people are still roaming the desert but many already reached the Promised Land.
The eternal journey is hard and long. It takes many generations and hundred of years.
Just keep going...

OK so I should just tell my Sons and Daughter and Grand Children that they should wait for another Hundred years in order to be treated Equally??? There's a very real reason why Minorities and Women are so concerned with President Trump and the Republicans. He represents the way things USED to be. Oh they try to sugarcoat it with Populist talk and Nationalist lingo, but underneath all of that is a very dark core of hatred that we are especially sensitive to for the reasons I listed above!!! NO! Things are not just gonna be OK with the passage of time and NO I shouldn't take Hundreds of years for people to be treated fairly and just like European Immigrants were allowed to prosper in this country!!!

This country OWES a debt to African Americans, Native Americans and Hispanic Americans that they refuse to pay!!!

Tell them that that they are free and that they will get only what they will earn themselves.
Nobody will give them anything for granted. Never.
I can tell you this by the experience of 5 thousand years and 200 hundred countries.
All you can get it a slap to the hand and spit to the face.
And I do not have any problem with this because I do not have any expectations and it makes me strong, unbreakable.
Tutankhamen, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Obama, Trump, whatever... dust in the wind.

What you're saying is not actually accurate. The Jews did have help over the millennia. It wasn't just them sitting and hoping things would change for the better. They took action and they complained and protested and made appeals to higher powers. They didn't do it all on their own. All i'm saying is that when the Jewish People looked to America when they needed backing for their new State of Israel...

Creation of Israel, 1948

On May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel. U.S. President Harry S. Truman recognized the new nation on the same day.

Although the United States supported the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which favored the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had assured the Arabs in 1945 that the United States would not intervene without consulting both the Jews and the Arabs in that region. The British, who held a colonial mandate for Palestine until May 1948, opposed both the creation of a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine as well as unlimited immigration of Jewish refugees to the region. Great Britain wanted to preserve good relations with the Arabs to protect its vital political and economic interests in Palestine.

Soon after President Truman took office, he appointed several experts to study the Palestinian issue. In the summer of 1946, Truman established a special cabinet committee under the chairmanship of Dr. Henry F. Grady, an Assistant Secretary of State, who entered into negotiations with a parallel British committee to discuss the future of Palestine. In May 1946, Truman announced his approval of a recommendation to admit 100,000 displaced persons into Palestine and in October publicly declared his support for the creation of a Jewish state.

Throughout 1947, the United Nations Special Commission on Palestine examined the Palestinian question and recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. On November 29, 1947 the United Nations adopted Resolution 181 (also known as the Partition Resolution) that would divide Great Britain’s former Palestinian mandate into Jewish and Arab states in May 1948 when the British mandate was scheduled to end. Under the resolution, the area of religious significance surrounding Jerusalem would remain a corpus separatum under international control administered by the United Nations.

Although the United States backed Resolution 181, the U.S. Department of State recommended the creation of a United Nations trusteeship with limits on Jewish immigration and a division of Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab provinces but not states. The State Department, concerned about the possibility of an increasing Soviet role in the Arab world and the potential for restriction by Arab oil producing nations of oil supplies to the United States, advised against U.S. intervention on behalf of the Jews. Later, as the date for British departure from Palestine drew near, the Department of State grew concerned about the possibility of an all-out war in Palestine as Arab states threatened to attack almost as soon as the UN passed the partition resolution.

Despite growing conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Palestinian Jews and despite the Department of State’s endorsement of a trusteeship, Truman ultimately decided to recognize the state Israel.

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/creation-israel

“It is my responsibility to see that our policy in Israel fits in with our policy throughout the world; second, it is my desire to help build in Palestine a strong, prosperous, free and independent democratic state. It must be large enough, free enough, and strong enough to make its people self-supporting and secure,” President Truman said in a speech October 28, 1948.

Truman's commitment was quickly tested after Israel's victory in its War of Independence when she applied to the U.S. for economic aid to help absorb immigrants. President Truman responded by approving a $135 million Export-Import Bank loan and the sale of surplus commodities to Israel. In those early years of Israel's statehood (also today), U.S. aid was seen as a means of promoting peace.

In 1951, Congress voted to help Israel cope with the economic burdens imposed by the influx of Jewish refugees from the displaced persons camps in Europe and from the ghettos of the Arab countries. Arabs then complained the U.S. was neglecting them, though they had no interest in or use for American aid then. In 1951, Syria rejected offers of U.S. aid. Oil-rich Iraq and Saudi Arabia did not need U.S. economic assistance, and Jordan was, until the late 1950s, the ward of Great Britain. After 1957, when the United States assumed responsibility for supporting Jordan and resumed economic aid to Egypt, assistance to the Arab states soared. Also, the United States was by far the biggest contributor of aid to the Palestinians through UNRWA, a status that continues to the present.

U.S. economic grants to Israel ended in 1959. U.S. aid to Israel from then until 1985 consisted largely of loans, which Israel repaid, and surplus commodities, which Israel bought. Israel began buying arms from the United States in 1962, but did not receive any grant military assistance until after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. As a result, Israel had to go deeply into debt to finance its economic development and arms procurement. The decision to convert military aid to grants that year was based on the prevailing view in Congress that without a strong Israel, war in the Middle East was more likely, and that the U.S. would face higher direct expenditures in such an eventuality.

Israel has received more direct aid from the United States since World War II than any other country, but the amounts for the first half of this period were relatively small. Between 1949 and 1973, the U.S. provided Israel with an average of about $122 million a year, a total of $3.1 billion (and actually more than $1 billion of that was loans for military equipment in 1971-73) . Prior to 1971, Israel received a total of only $277 million in military aid, all in the form of loans as credit sales. The bulk of the economic aid was also lent to Israel. By comparison, the Arab states received nearly three times as much aid before 1971, $4.4 billion, or $170 million per year. Moreover, unlike Israel, which receives nearly all its aid from the United States, Arab nations have gotten assistance from Asia, Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and the European Community. Congress first designated a specific amount of aid for Israel (an "earmark") in 1971.

Meeting Israel's Special Needs

Since 1974, Israel has received nearly $100 billion in assistance, including three special aid packages. The first followed the signing of the Israel-Egypt peace treaty and Israel's withdrawal from the Sinai. The redeployment of Israeli forces and rebuilding of air bases in the Negev cost $5 billion. To partially compensate for this sacrifice, Israel received $3 billion ($2.2 billion of which was in the form of high-interest loans) in U.S. aid in 1979.

The second special package was approved in 1985, following a severe economic crisis in Israel, which sent inflation rates soaring as high as 445 percent. The $1.5 billion in emergency assistance-disbursed in two installments, in 1985 and 1986-was provided as part of Israel's economic stabilization program, which was implemented under the guidance of the U.S.-Israel Joint Economic Development Group (JEDG).

An extraordinary package was approved in 1996 to help Israel fight terrorism. Israel is to receive a total of $100 million, divided equally between fiscal years 1996 and 1997.

Regular Economic and Military Assistance

Israel's economic aid changed from the Commodity Import Program (CIP), which provides funds to foreign nations for the purchase of U.S. commodities, to a direct cash transfer in 1979. In return, Israel provided the Agency for International Development with assurances that the dollar level of Israel's non-defense imports from the U.S. would exceed the level of economic assistance granted Israel in any given year. Thus, Israel guaranteed that U.S. suppliers would not be disadvantaged by the termination of Israel's CIP Program.

Starting with fiscal year 1987, Israel annually received $1.2 billion in all grant economic aid and $1.8 billion in all grant military assistance. In 1998, Israel offered to voluntarily reduce its dependence on U.S. economic aid. According to an agreement reached with the Clinton Administration and Congress, the $1.2 billion economic aid package will be reduced by $120 million each year so that it will be phased out in ten years. Half of the annual savings in economic assistance each year ($60 million) will be added to Israel's military aid package in recognition of its increased security needs. In 2005, Israel received $360 million in economic aid and $2.22 billion in military aid. In 2006, economic aid is scheduled to be reduced to $240 million and military aid will increase to $2.28 billion.

For several years, most of Israel's economic aid went to pay off old debts. In 1984, foreign aid legislation included the Cranston Amendment (named after its Senate sponsor), which said the U.S. would provide Israel with economic assistance "not less than" the amount Israel owes the United States in annual debt service payments. The Cranston Amendment was left out of the FY1999 and subsequent appropriations bills. At that time Israel received $1.2 billion in ESF and owed only $328 million in debt service so the amendment was no longer needed.

In 1998, Israel was designated as a “major non-NATO ally,” which allows it to receive outdated military equipment the U.S. military wishes to sell or give away.

Roughly 26 percent of what Israel receives in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) can be spent in Israel for military procurement. From FY1988 to FY 1990, Israel was allowed to use $400 million in Israel. From FY1991 to FY1998, the amount was increased to $475 million. As U.S. military aid to Israel increased, according to the agreement to cut economic aid, the amout set aside for defense purchases in Israel has increased (but the percentage has remained roughly the same). In 2009, the figure was $671 million. The remaining 74 percent of FMF was spent in the United States to generate profits and jobs. More than 1,000 companies in 47 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have signed contracts worth billions of dollars through this program.

At the end of 1998, Israel requested an additional $1.2 billion in aid to fund moving troops and military installations out of the occupied territories as called for in the October 23, 1998, Wye agreement. Israel received $600 million of this in military aid in FY1999 and $300 million in each fiscal year 2000 and 2001 (see Wye funding table).

In February 2003, for the first time, Congress voted to cut aid to Israel against the wishes of the pro-Israel lobby and the government of Israel. The 0.65 percent deduction was not aimed at Israel; however, it was an across the board cut of all foreign aid programs for fiscal year 2003. The lobby and government also suffered a defeat when Congress deleted an administration request for an extra $200 million to help Israel fight terrorism. Even while cutting aid to Israel (which still was budgeted at $2.1 billion for military aid and $600 million for economic assistance), Congress included a number of provisions in the aid bill viewed as favorable to Israel, including a provision that bars federal assistance to a future Palestinian state until the current Palestinian leadership is replaced, and that state demonstrates a commitment to peaceful coexistence with Israel, and takes measures to combat terrorism.

The setbacks were also temporary as the Administration approved a supplementary aid request in 2003 that included $1 billion in FMF and $9 billion in loan guarantees to aid Israel's economic recovery and compensate for the cost of military preparations associated with the war in Iraq. One quarter of the FMF is a cash grant and three quarters will be spent in the United States. The loan guarantees are spread over three years and must be spent within Israel's pre-June 1967 borders. Each year, an amount equal to the funds Israel spends on settlements in the territories will be deducted from the loan amount, along with all fees and subsidies.

Altogether, since 1949, Israel has received more than $106 billion in assistance. This includes the four special allocations, the $10 billion in loan guarantees (spread over five years) approved in 1992, the $9 billion in guarantees offered in 2003, and a variety of other smaller assistance-related accounts, such as refugee resettlement (nearly $1.6 billion overall since 1973), the American Schools and Hospitals Abroad Program (ASHA), which supports schools, libraries and medical centers that demonstrate American ideas and practices (($144 million), and cooperative development programs (a total of $186 million since 1981).

The total does not include funds for joint military projects like the Arrow missile (for which Israel has received more than $1 billion in grants since 1986), which are provided through the Defense budget. President Bush requested $60 million for the Arrow for FY2003 and $136 million in FY2004. The United States also has provided $53 million for the Boost Phase Intercept program and $139 million for the Tactical High Energy Laser program under development in Israel to complement the Arrow.

Though the totals are impressive, the value of assistance to Israel has been eroded by inflation. While aid levels remained constant in total dollars from 1987 until 1999, the real value steadily declined. On the other side of the coin, Israel does receive aid on more favorable terms than other nations. For example, all economic aid is given directly to the Israeli government rather than allocated under a specific program. Also, starting in 1982, Israel began to receive all its economic aid in a lump sum early in the fiscal year instead of in quarterly installments as is done for other countries. Israel also receives offsets on FMS purchases (U.S. contractors agree to offset some of the cost of military equipment by buying components or materials from Israel).

A 10-Year Military Aid Agreement

In August 2007, the Bush Administration agreed to increase U.S. military assistance to Israel by $6 billion over the following decade. Israel is to receive incremental annual increases of $150 mllion, starting at $2.55 billion in FY2009 and reaching $3.15 billion per year for FY2013-2018.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/history-and-overview-of-u-s-foreign-aid-to-israel

African Americans are still waiting for their 40 Acres and a Mule!!!

Having a national state is great as nation has some place to run for their live when next wave of elimination occupier in some country.
It already saved lives of hundreds of thousands Jews since Israel was established. Now the probability of new Holocaust is smaller as we do not need to rely on other countries to open the door. When 6 millions died not many countries did. To many people want us dead rather that alive.
Never heard about anybody want to eliminate African Americans in US or elsewhere. May be I am not educated in this too.
If AA want to have national state so make yourself a nation and demand for it. I would support it.
Every nation should have a chance of self-determination. But first the nation should exist.

You totally missed my point!!! The U.S. Government did a lot to help the Jews and the amount of money spent to help support Israel over all these years is massive and yet over that same period of time this country failed to help its African American citizens right here in this country. They owe substantially more of a debt to African Americans and I ask where is that help???

We don't need a separate nation!!! We helped BUILD this nation into what it is and yet at the same time the U.S. was reaching out to help the Jews establish Israel, they were kicking African Americans in the teeth!!! Do you not yet understand where we are coming from? My Grandfather took a bullet in WWII helping to liberate the Jews and he died never knowing freedom and fair treatment from his own country!!!

We help Israel in attempts to balance power and world peace. It's a big deal with big consequences and ramifications for the entire world. Big league stuff

I know ALL ABOUT the reason for support of Israel. Who would you say as a people has done more to help make this country great and at the same time gotten shafted for hundreds of years??? African Americans have slaved, worked, fought and died for this country since before it's independence!!! Why did Israel deserve more special aid and attention than my forefathers???

I have copies of the written promises made to AA's to help simply to give them a chance to work for their own survival and hoped prosperity. I also have copies of this country reneging on those promises and even worse making laws that disadvantaged AA's. The hypocrisy of this country towards AA's especially in regard to how much it supported Israel is SHAMEFUL!!!

I don't need a lecture about the reasons this country supports Israel. I want to make it known how unjust it is that so little has been done to make up for the hundreds of years of harm and abuse done to African Americans.

I agree that it is important to know the history of slavery and segregation.
I am not clear on what you think should be practically done "to make up for the hundreds of years of harm and abuse" and is not getting done?
Like some specific law, or program, or project?

Did Obama/Hillary passionately talk about doing any of those things? If so what actions on their words did they take?

Nice deflection.

Federal laws are in place but State and local are the ones that seem to find ways to discriminate.
In North Carolina, the federal courts keep slapping their crap down, but they find ways to put new ones in place. There was not time to make changes before the elections.
Thus, the illegal laws do have effect.
Conservative movement is most effective working its way from the local level. In NC, we have representation from rural areas that don't have many people and most are quite the same shade of pale. They are not necessarily bad, but they don't have exposures to the new south and hold stereotypes as truths. A dumbass poor white man will need feed his self esteem by stepping on someone just below his poverty line or social status. Thus, he feel superior to a black man because thats how its always been. He votes and sends his representative to Raleigh and if he don't vote the way he wants, they will just vote in another pansy in his place. In a big election they will bring forth a bill to divide and they know republicans will vote when angry more than a democrat.

Hillary was secretary of state. A state seneter form ny. Guns, bringing it up as you did is the same as when Donald did during the debate. nice try, it lacks substance.
Kudo's to republican party as they play this game very well.