Don Brown, Bangalow
Years ago I suggested that the US mounting debt crisis could be eased if the government pulled its financial aid to Israel and Egypt. It remains the case today, and the aid, largely military, has not advanced the stated cause of expanding democracy and peace in the Middle East.
Instead with a debt level estimated as 107 per cent of GDP the Obama administration has seen only the growing alienation of the surrounding nations, the overthrow of their friendly dictator in Egypt and his replacement by a reinvigorated Muslim Brotherhood and the sidelining of the genuine democratic and social reform movement in several Middle Eastern countries.
Israel has a much lower level of national debt, has been of no assistance in the Iraq war, and has alienated the majority of the United Nations, leaving the US in a tiny minority in its failure to recognise the injustice of the Palestinian situation.
In its ongoing program occupying Palestinian land the Netanyahu government is thumbing its nose at the frustrated Obama administration, whose first term project to seek peace and justice in the Middle East is even further from solution than it was at the beginning of his term.
In negotiation of budget cuts necessary to reverse the expanding deficit, attention to the failed foreign policies could refocus attention on what aid actually wins friends rather than alienates other nations.
