Every year, Israel receives billions of dollars in U.S. aid, despite the fact that its citizens enjoy a standard of living well above that of neighboring countries. And while the Middle East struggles through a historic refugee crisis, Israel is using U.S. taxpayer money to fuel its war crimes against Palestine and oppression of refugees.
The average income of Israel’s citizens is $34,990, based on 2014 data provided by the World Bank. For neighboring countries, that figure is far lower: Residents of Lebanon earn an average of $9,800 annually, followed by other Israeli neighbors including Jordan ($5,160), Egypt ($3,050), and Syria, where the average resident survived on just $1,860 in 2014, according to the World Bank’s data. For occupied Palestine, the World Bank offers a data sheet on the West Bank and Gaza, which estimates that the average resident makes $3,060 annually.
Against this backdrop of relative financial comfort for its residents, Israel received over $3.1 billion in foreign aid from the United States in 2015, the same amount received in 2014. The money goes directly to its military budget, where it fuels Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinian population, as well as its defense of its illegal occupation of the Golan Heights.
