Memo To Anti-Israel Advocates: Israel Is Not the Biggest Arms Importer In the Middle East

By
Omri Ceren
– November 27, 2006Posted in: News

Of the many disagreements between MR and the left, one of the most fundamental involves the sources for global instability. We tend to say that Palestinians who endanger Palestinian civilians and murder Israeli civilians are responsible for the deaths of civilians, while the left prefers to blame Israel because they can’t be bothered to remember what happened yesterday (seriously, dealing with these people is like arguing with Memento).

Another difference is that the left always demonizes Israel as the greatest source of regional instability, arguing that Israel’s arms imports cause arms races across the Middle East. We, on the other hand, insist that Egypt is one disgruntled general away from being the most dangerous country on Earth. Now without peeking, whose side do you think is supported by the data in Richard F. Grimmett’s CRS Report for Congress, “Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1998-2005″:

Table 1H gives the values of arms transfer agreements with the Near East nations by suppliers or categories of suppliers for the periods 1998-2001 and 2002-2005. These values are expressed in current U.S. dollars. They are a subset of the data contained in Table 1 and Table 1C. Among the facts reflected by this table are the following:

For the most recent period, 2002-2005, the principal purchasers of U.S. arms in the Near East region, based on the value of agreements were: Egypt ($5.2 billion), Saudi Arabia ($4.2 billion), and Israel ($2.5 billion).

The only interesting thing about this is that the 1997-2004 report still had Israel slightly ahead of Saudi Arabia in arms purchases from the US. Good to see that two Middle Eastern countries with large populations that would like to see Israel destroyed are firmly ahead of the Jewish State in arms acquisitions. Now at least neither of those countries are about to go nuclear. Except of course, we’ve been literally screeching that Egypt and Saudi Arabia are going nuclear for the better part of a year:

* Saudi Arabia has concluded a deal with Pakistan to help them go nuclear and has worked it out so that the the IAEA isn’t even allowed to inspect their nuclear facilities.

* Egypt has been totally open about it.

What’s the difference between our conspiracy theories and the left’s conspiracy theories? Ours sometimes turn out to be true:

Six Arab states join rush to go nuclear – Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, UAE and Saudi Arabia seek atom technology… But at least the Democratic party is committed to restoring our image with those people. So that they’ll like us a little more when they sell their nuke technology, their enriched uranium, and their scientific knowledge to people who are literally – literally – the enemies of Western civilization.

It’s enough to actually kind of scare you.

But anyway, yeah – the liberal canard that the US disproportionately funds the Israeli military is as factually incorrect as it is suspiciously pervasive.

Previously: Israeli-Egyptian Peace Not Really Working Out “Peacefully”, Mid-East Nuclearization Watch, IAEA Plays Charlie Brown To Iran’s Lucy