Compare apple with apple , we are dicussing Palestine and Israel , can you provide figures of aid given by US to Palestine from 1949 to 2009 ?
Let us see the real face of US
cant find older figures. here is a article though from 2007 that explains recently given yearly aid.
Embargo didn't stop flow of Palestinian aid
By Steven Erlanger
Published: Wednesday, March 21, 2007
JERUSALEM — Despite the international embargo on aid to the Palestinian Authority since Hamas came to power a year ago, significantly more aid was delivered to the Palestinians in 2006 than in 2005, according to official figures from the United Nations, United States, European Union and International Monetary Fund.
Instead of going to the Palestinian Authority, much of the money was given directly to individuals or through independent agencies like the World Food Program.
The International Monetary Fund and the United Nations say the Palestinians received $1.2 billion in aid and budgetary support in 2006, about $300 per capita, compared with $1 billion in 2005.
While the United States and the European Union have led the boycott, they, too, provided more aid to the Palestinians in 2006 than 2005. Washington increased its aid to $468 million in 2006, from $400 million in 2005.
The European Union and its member states alone are subsidizing one million people in the West Bank and Gaza, a quarter of the population, as part of their effort to avoid creating a catastrophe from the embargo.
Asked if the European Union could spend any more money on the Palestinians if it recognized the new Palestinian government than it does now, a senior European diplomat laughed and said, "We'd probably spend less."
One side effect of the redirected aid, some officials said, is that while starvation has been avoided, institutions are withering and a culture of dependence is expanding.
In 2007, the United Nations began a humanitarian appeal for the Palestinians of more than $450 million, twice the 2006 appeal, the third largest United Nations request, after Sudan and Congo, ahead of 18 other disasters.
"These numbers are quite stunning," said Alexander Costy, head of coordination for Álvaro de Soto, the United Nations special Middle East envoy, "given the relatively small size of the population of the Palestinian territory."
He added: "What we do know for sure is that Palestinians, and their economy and society, are becoming increasingly dependent on humanitarian handouts, and this dependency is growing fast. For a state in the making, I think this was a step backwards in 2006 and a cause for alarm."
The International Monetary Fund and the United Nations estimate that direct budgetary support to the Palestinian Authority in 2006 was about $740 million, more than double the $350 million in 2004 and 2005.
But Salam Fayyad, the finance minister in the new Palestinian unity government, thinks the Palestinians received at least 250 percent more than that in direct support when cash from Iran and Arab nations is counted, as well as the amount smuggled in by Hamas officials after trips abroad.
"I say the minimum for direct budgetary support was $880 million in 2006 compared to about $350 million the year before," Fayyad said. He estimates total aid in 2006 was closer to $1.35 billion.
The United States, Europe and Israel imposed their boycott because Hamas supports terrorism and refuses to recognize Israel, renounce violence or honor existing Palestinian-Israeli agreements. The unstated aim has been to build enough disaffection among Palestinians that they would drive Hamas from power and replace it with Fatah.
Fayyad, who is from Fatah, says the international embargo should be lifted for the new unity government that includes non-Hamas ministers like him, because much of the money coming in cannot be traced and some is surely being stolen or misappropriated.
Fayyad, a former official with the International Monetary Fund, is considered to be credible by the United States and the European Union. He met Tuesday with the American consul here, Jacob Walles.
The larger amounts of aid Western countries poured into the Palestinian territories in recent months were aimed at making up for the inability of the Palestinian Authority to pay salaries. To a large degree, beginning in the summer of 2006, the European Union and Arab countries paid the salaries instead.
By the last quarter of 2006, full salaries were again being paid to Palestinian Authority employees, who, over the year, received about 55 percent of their salaries. Those salaries were paid despite Israel's decision — beginning in March 2006, when Hamas took office — to withhold from the Palestinian Authority some $50 million a month it collects for the Palestinians in duties and taxes, after it deducts the cost of electricity and water that it supplies to the West Bank and Gaza.
While Israel recently handed over $100 million of the sum as a humanitarian gesture to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, Israeli officials say that as of today, they are holding back $475 million in money belonging to the Palestinians, a big hole in the normal Palestinian budget.
European and American officials also cited the difficulties in Gaza caused by Israeli security restrictions on Palestinian imports and exports as another reason for the increased aid. Their contributions were to United Nations agencies that deal with the Palestinians, like the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the World Food Program and various health agencies, to nongovernmental agencies and, in the case of the European Union, large cash payments directly to employees of the Palestinian Authority.
The United States provides more money to the United Nations refugee agency than any other country. Congress authorized $400 million in aid to the Palestinians in fiscal year 2005, including its aid to United Nations agencies, said Micaela Schweitzer-Bluhm, a spokeswoman for the American Consulate in Jerusalem which deals with the Palestinians. In fiscal year 2006, she said, $468 million was authorized.
