American Jewish Committee Very Pleased with Israeli-American Arms Agreement

In a statement released on Monday, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) praised the new agreement between the United States and Israel for the provision of weaponry and other military support from the former to the latter. The agreement spans the next 10 years.

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice confirmed today that among other things the 10-year contract will provide Israel with $30 billion from the United States to be used for military expenditures.

"This military aid commitment is a solid investment in the vital interests of the United States. The U.S.-Israel relationship is firmly founded on shared democratic values, common strategic interests, shared visions for peace in the Middle East," said AJC Executive Director David A. Harris.

However, Israel is not the only Middle Eastern nation to which the U.S. is going to provide or is considering providing military assistance to.

Egypt has already signed a deal to receive $13 billion worth of military assistance from the U.S. Egypt has long been helped by the United States with its military program, as long as that nation has maintained a peace treaty with Israel.

Additionally, the United States is seeking new military aid agreements with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf nations including the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman.

The U.S. has stated that its motivation for seeking to sign new military aid agreements with those nations is to help them to be able to contain hostile agents in the region including Al Qaeda, Syria, and Iran.

The U.S. is presently meeting again with Iran after almost 30 years of diplomatic silence. Iran has stated that while it eventually wants to see a U.S. pullout from Iraq, it does not want the Americans to suddenly leave that nation before it has made sure that Iraq's military is trained and up to sufficient strength and the nation's infrastructure is rebuilt. Iran claims that it is the only nation in the Middle East that has supported the formation of Iraq's new democratic government.

The U.S. claims that Iran has been covertly training and arming suicide bombers and Sunni gunmen and sending them into Iraq.

Iraq's new government is Shi'ite; the former government of Saddam Hussein was Sunni. Sunnis are in the minority in Iraq.

Although the rebuilding of Iraq's infrastructure has been proceeding steadily with U.S. funding, problems have arisen with regards to Iraq's government being able to take over the operations of the majority of the newly rebuilt facilities such as power plants.

Source:
American Jewish Committee (PR Newswire), "AJC Lauds U.S. Plan for Israel's Security"