{"id":21569,"date":"2012-08-15T10:21:22","date_gmt":"2012-08-15T06:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=21569"},"modified":"2012-08-15T10:21:31","modified_gmt":"2012-08-15T06:21:31","slug":"israels-insatiable-military-billions-demanded-for-arab-spring-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/showcase\/israels-insatiable-military-billions-demanded-for-arab-spring-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel’s Insatiable Military: Billions Demanded for ‘Arab Spring Threat’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tomorrow, the Israeli cabinet will discuss the\u00a0Defense Ministry\u2019s 2013 budget request<\/a>\u00a0(Hebrew).<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a major dispute with the Treasury about how to calculate what the allocation should be, with a difference between the two ministries of $3-billion.\u00a0 The meeting will determine who wins the argument.\u00a0 For its part, the army will point to the Iranian threat and other developments related to the\u00a0Arab Spring<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some might describe this as a precursor to an attack on Iran, for which the military will surely need an augmented budget.\u00a0 As for the threats posed by the Arab Spring, this means the thousands of \u201cinfiltrators\u201d the IDF has to scare off or kill so that they can\u2019t overwhelm the Jewish State when they mass along its borders seeking a Return to their former homes.\u00a0 This, at least, is the image the scaremongers seek to portray for the average Israeli or cabinet minister.<\/p>\n

The dispute involves this: Treasury is proposing\u00a0 about $12-billion, while Defense is proposing $15-billion.\u00a0 According to Haaretz<\/em>, Netanyahu is expected to accept the position of the Defense Ministry, which will in turn diminish the amount available for funding initiatives demanded by the J14 social justice movement.\u00a0 In other words, as always in Israel, national security trumps human needs.<\/p>\n

The greed of the Defense Ministry is enormous.\u00a0 They were given a special one time allocation in 2012 of $1.5-billion.\u00a0 They wish to fold this into their regularly recurring annual budget in order to determine what next year\u2019s budget should be.\u00a0 The Treasury Ministry is fighting this money grab.<\/p>\n

As part of its dog and pony show to the cabinet, the various military branches will paint a vivid picture of the Arab Bogeymen threatening Israel from all sides.\u00a0 They\u2019ll also serve up the tantalizing new cyber-warfare capability of\u00a0Unit 8200<\/a>\u00a0and its demands for ever more funding to sabotage Iran\u2019s alleged nuclear threat.\u00a0 At the end, the ministers will have to decide whether they want all those military bells and whistles or a scaled down version.\u00a0 You and I both know in the choice between bright and shiny and shabby and worn, what these ministers will choose.\u00a0 Can you imagine one standing up to a general and saying: \u201cBut general, you don\u2019t need that weapon.\u201d\u00a0 Nah, never happen.<\/p>\n

For their part, the Treasury officials at the meeting will warn ministers that every shekel they add to defense must be taken away from another ministry.\u00a0 No minister likes to see his budget shrink.\u00a0 It will be interesting to see how this goes.\u00a0 But my bet is on defense to win.<\/p>\n

Returning to the budgetary implications of war against Iran, a\u00a0leading finance expert on the budget noted<\/a>\u00a0that the 2006 war on Lebanon cost over $4-billion and was much more limited in scope than a war against Iran would be.\u00a0 If the economy shrunk by half over the course of a month that cost would be more than $10-billion.<\/p>\n

A few other items to consider in the event of war:<\/p>\n

\u201cEconomists called the decade after the Yom Kippur War \u2018the lost decade.\u2019 There was a decline in the standard of living. Enormous amounts were diverted into restoring the military establishment, at the expense of civilian budgets,\u201d Ariav said, adding that a war would hurt Israel\u2019s credit rating, tourism and foreign trade.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It should be mentioned also that the $12-15 billion figure mentioned above doesn\u2019t cover any of the intelligence agencies (Mossad, Shin Bet) whose budgets are carefully guarded secrets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RICHARD SILVERSTEIN: The treasury is proposing $12-billion, while Defense $15-billion. According to Haaretz, Netanyahu is expected to go with the Defense Ministry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":468,"featured_media":21570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,83,82,171],"tags":[766,982,2622,1572,18306,18311,9141,18309,3276,122,2608],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21569"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/468"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}