Excuse me Onion eater, but I doubt about 2 things :
1)The money : The 2 Billions are only 2% of Egypt's whole income, so that wouldn't be that great deal.
2)The blockading : Aids are going to Palestine year long, Howcome we can do that ?
All my respect .
Ahmed Shaheen-
1) You are Egyptian, so you have first-hand knowledge of your government's policies. As an American, I only know what I read. However,
articles like this tend to support my statement (boldface added):
"United States support for Israel after the June 1967 War made Egypt ever more dependent on the Soviet Union for military aid and protection, but this dependence was, in part, balanced by increasing financial aid from the conservative Arab oil states. By the late 1970s, Sadat, in choosing to rely on American diplomacy to recover Egyptian land from Israel and in allowing his ties to the Soviet Union and the Arab world to wither, had led
Egypt into heavy economic and military dependency on the United States. This dependency, by precluding foreign-policy decisions displeasing to Israel and Washington, sharply limited Egypt's pursuit of a vigorous Arab and independent foreign policy. The basic dilemma of Egypt's foreign policy was that its dependence on foreign assistance conflicted with its aspiration for national independence and its concept of its role as an Arab-Islamic and traditionally nonaligned entity."
U.S. foreign aid is listed at
U.S. Foreign Aid Summary and is current through 2006. Wikipedia lists each countries nominal GDP for 2007, so the ratios are off slightly as they compare 2006 and 2007 figures. I summarize here:
__________________
GDP___________
Aid_________
ratio
Israel_____________$164B________$2.52B________1.5%
Egypt_____________128___________1.80_________1.4
West Bank/Gaza_____?____________0.15
Pakistan___________144___________0.7__________0.5
First, I want to point out that the ratio we are really interested in is that between foreign aid and the government's budget, not the whole economy's GDP. It is the government, after all, that decides what their foreign policy is going to be and it is to them that we give the money. We don't fly over Cairo and toss that $1.8B out the side door - we give it directly to Mubarak.
Second, I want to point out that nobody doubts that Pakistan's foreign policy under Musharraf during 2006 and 2007 was largely at our service, yet Pakistan only received a third as much aid relative to their GDP as either Egypt or Israel. The point is, a billion dollars is a lot of money to any of these governments and they all understand that it comes with strings attached.
As an Egyptian, I suspect that you are letting your national pride convince you that Egypt is independant of U.S. foreign policy. But, while I hope I do not offend you, I must point out that Mubarak knew that he would be viewed as our stooge when he was seen touching our money, but he took it anyway.
2) We are playing both sides. The U.S. government wants the border closed
and they want the Palestinians to feel grateful to the U.S. for aid.
As poor as the West Bank and, even more so, the Gaza Strip are, $0.15B goes a long ways. But it is a pittance compared to the $2.52B we give to Israel or the $1.8B we give to Egypt.
I believe that the U.S. government
mostly wants Gaza blockaded. Anyway, the aid we give to Gaza and the West Bank goes to the Palestinian Authority and, as corrupt as they are, it mostly winds up in Mahmoud Abbas' Swiss bank account. Hamas is certainly not getting any of that money.