Speaking before students at Northern Virginia Community College on February 13, 2012 to unveil his FY 2013 budget, President Barack Obama was in his best cinch-the-belt, austerity mode. Obama said he had proposed "some difficult cuts that, frankly, I wouldn't normally make if they weren't absolutely necessary. But they are." He added that "the truth is that we're going to have to make some tough choices in order to put this country back on a more sustainable fiscal path."
Israel is to be spared from the austerity program, even though the International Monetary Fund rates Israel the 28th. wealthiest country in the world. President Obama proposes to increase military aid to Israel from the $3.075 billion in FY 2012 to $3.1 billion in FY 2013. From 2000 to 2009, the United States provided Israel with more than $24 billion of military aid. Israel has made use of these weapons to commit grave and systematic human rights abuses against Palestinians. The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem says that from 2000 to 2009, Israel killed 2,969 Palestinians "who did not participate in the hostilities and were killed by Israeli security forces (not including the objects of targeted killings)."
While exempting Israel from budgetary pain, President Obama proposes to make deep cuts in domestic spending, highlighted by the $360 billion cut in Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs over ten years, even though the World Health Organization rates the United States 37th. in health care performance.
It would seem that the wealthy country of Israel should have shared in the cuts that Obama wouldn't have "normally" made but has found it "absolutely necessary" to make.
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