Sally,
et al,
First, FAS (Federation of American Scientist) is not a government cite. But the CRS (Congressional Research Service - publisher of the document) is and FAS is an outlet. It is a very legitimate open-source cite to reference. CRS is public policy research arm of the United States Congress.
Is everything CRS says, the gospel? Not necessarily, but it is a good source of specific data and facts.
Is this an official government site, Mr. Geroge? I don't think so. I think I will take the word of a former poster, a retired Naval Intelligence Officer, who said that if Americans knew just how much the Israelis were helping us, Americans wouldn't begrudge them one penny. I find it verry pathetic, Mr. George, that while innocent people are being murdered all over the Middle East, you only concentrate on Israel and the Jews. Perhaps these people who have died were not human beings in your mind.
(COMMENT)
When one looks at the advise and assistance that the Israelis have provided the US, you often (most often) get a summary of useful tactical and strategic intelligence provided through the relationship. In fact, it is the most common argument used as to why the US needs to maintain the relationship. A current summary of such usefulness is list on the
ISRAEL ACT NOW web site; and it is all true. It is outsourced intelligence, the same as you get from any fully funded intelligence contractor. But one has to remember, that Israeli Intelligence, as an apparatus, works in the best interest of the GOI (Government of Israel). It will not tell the US anything it don't want the US to know or expend energy to get itself, and it is careful as to how the intelligence is slanted. But it is a Return on our Investment (ROI). That is not to say that it is absolutely essential or of a quality and character that the US could not get otherwise. I suppose that if the US took the sum total of the money it sends to Israel, and diverted it to Middle East Intelligence and Research programs (HUMINT/SIGINT/IMINT), in five years
(ten at the outside), the US could have a regional apparatus that would rival that of the Aman, Mossad, and Shin Bet. Although the Shin Bet and IDF Counterintelligence would be working against use at every step. In a way, the US use and dependence of Israeli Intelligence is much like a drug dependency; and would require a period of detoxification. The fact that it is consistently used as a reason or justification for continued support is a symptom of our dependency; not our close relationship.
Having said that, Israel is important to the US in many other tangible
(and some less tangible) ways; scientifically, economically, and culturally. And these are the more important aspects in the long run.
Arieh Warshel, received the 2013 Nobel "for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems." He made the contribution while at University of Southern California, but come to us from the British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel). Oddly enough, he share the triumph of his work with Michael Levitt of Stanford University School of Medicine and from Pretoria, South Africa and Martin Karplus while at the University of Strasbourg and Harvard University, from Vienna, Austria.
I could go on about the Laureates James E. Rothman (Yale), Randy W. Schekman (UC Berkley), Thomas C. Südhof (Stanford), "for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells;" but the point is, America is enriched by the relationship --- directly and indirectly by the culture and the diversity that such relationships bring; not just from the Jewish community - but from nearly all people.
Yes, most people bring up the products we get in terms of Intelligence and the impact on national defense and security; but, that is not nearly as important as what we get from other nations (including Israel) that are less tangible, yet more dynamically important.
Most Respectfully,
R