[WCUSP] JPost - "US to Israel: no financial aid for war"

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

_Click here: US to Israel: No financial aid for war | Jerusalem  Post_ 
(http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525919096&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Sh
owFull)  
 
 
 US to Israel: No financial aid for  war   
____________________________________
    Herb Keinon, THE JERUSALEM POST  Aug. 22,  2006  
____________________________________
 
Washington has let Jerusalem know that for now Israel should not expect any  
financial aid to help defray the cost of the war in Lebanon, The Jerusalem  
Post has learned.  
According to sources in Jerusalem, the government was considering requesting  
US aid - one report estimated a request of $2 billion - to help pay the cost 
of  the war. There was talk in Washington of a large-scale financial package 
to help  rebuild southern Lebanon, and in the process keep the Iranians out of 
the  process. Israel was apparently hoping to fold its aid request into this 
package.   
However, according to the sources, Washington has made it clear to Jerusalem  
that such aid for Israel is unlikely, even as US President George Bush on 
Monday  announced a $230 million aid package for southern Lebanon.  
"Things could change," the source said, "but right now this type of request  
would be like spitting into the wind."  
Suggestions that Israel was going to ask for $2b. come in the wake of reports 
 last summer that Israel was going to ask for a similar amount of aid from 
the  Bush administration to pay some of the cost of disengagement from Gaza and 
the  resettlement of the evacuees. That number was later trimmed down to $1b., 
and  then in July, just before the disengagement began, Finance Minister  
director-general Yossi Bachar went to Washington and put in a request for $500  
million.  
Israel, however, shelved the request indefinitely following Hurricane Katrina 
 last August that devastated New Orleans, amid the realization that the 
disaster  caused billions of dollars of damage and that it would not look good at 
that  time for Israel to be asking for hundreds of millions of dollars to help 
house  its displaced population, when the US had its own displaced population 
to worry  about.  
In a related development, Globes reported that Washington had extended the US 
 loan guarantees by three years until 2011. Israel has still not yet used 
$4.6  billion of the $9 billion program, which began in 2003, and - according to 
the  paper - extending the program will make it easier for Israel to raise 
financing  for the war in Lebanon on international markets. 
_http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525919096&pagename=JPost%2FJPA
rticle%2FShowFull_ 
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