Economist tallies swelling cost of Israel to US

Since 1973, Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion. If divided by today's population, that is more than $5,700 per person.

This is an estimate by Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington. For decades, his analyses of the Middle East scene have made him a frequent thorn in the side of the Israel lobby.

For the first time in many years, Mr. Stauffer has tallied the total cost to the US of its backing of Israel in its drawn-out, violent dispute with the Palestinians. So far, he figures, the bill adds up to more than twice the cost of the Vietnam War.
[more]

Israel's Demographic Obsession
Understanding the Existential Threat

When pundits and commentators declare that Israel's war against the Palestinians is existential, they are correct but not in the way they mean. The Israeli obsession with demography demonstrates that Israel ideologically conceives of the Palestinians existentially as threats--Palestinians are threats to the Zionist vision just by being alive. Such numerical concern exhibits a deep-seated fear of all Palestinians regardless of age, political persuasion, and so on.

This obsession is binary and inverse: they want more Jews and less Palestinians.
[more]