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Israel's Ambassador to the U.S.: Groups that Criticize Only Israel Are Anti-Semitic, Military Aid Provides Tools to Better Defend Ourselves

(Jerusalem Post) Ron Dermer interviewed by Herb Keinon - "When I hear that church groups or academic associations have decided to boycott or divest from Israel, my first question is whether Israel is the 51st, 71st or 121st country on their list of boycotted nations. If Israel is one of many countries they are boycotting, then at least I know these groups may have some principle by which they are judging Israel." "But if these groups single out Israel, the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, and are silent on all the egregious human rights violations that exist throughout the world - North Korea, Syria, Iran and dozens of other countries that I will not mention because I am a diplomat - then they are anti-Semites." "We live at a time when ancient Christian communities in the Middle East are being decimated, when Christians are being decapitated en masse, when Christians are literally fleeing for their lives in the region - and a group of Christians actually call to divest from Israel, the one country in the region where Christians are free and safe, with a Christian population five times larger than it was in 1948?" Why does Israel still needs military assistance? "It is true that Israel has a relatively high GDP per capita - about $37,000. The problem is that Israel doesn't have enough 'capita.' That is, we have a very small population - 8.5 million people....Because of Israel's enormous defense needs and very small population, Israel has always been forced to dedicate a much larger percentage of its GDP to defense than other countries." "European countries spend about 1% of their GDP on defense and almost never more than 2%. The United States traditionally spends about 4% of its GDP on defense. In recent years, Israel has spent roughly 6% of our GDP [on defense]." "The prime minister recently pointed out that in the last 10 to 15 years, the U.S. has spent over $1.5 trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's the equivalent of about 500 years of U.S. assistance to Israel. And Israel has never asked American soldiers to risk their lives to defend us - only to provide us with the tools we need to better defend ourselves."
2016-05-16 00:00:00
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