Financial pressure on Israel?

Charles Jannuzi jannuzi at edu00.f-edu.fukui-u.ac.jp
Tue Apr 9 05:09:47 PDT 2002


Chris Burford
>>The US government clearly does not want to rein Sharon back too early, but
logically if it did, what would it have to do, perhaps together with the IMF, to engineer an immediate, drastic, and uncontrovertible liquidity crisis for Israel?<<

If I were president and could do it, I would:

1. Immediately cut the over 1 billion dollars in 'foreign aid' going annually to the country.

2. Since over 50% of Israel's external debt is owed to the US government, I would call in the debt and refuse to extend anymore credit. Hence the US would no longer back the Bank of Israel.

3. I would stop all aid or trade that could have military applications or benefits for Israel and would try to coax or coerce Israel's other trade partners to do so as well. (For example, when the IDF no longer gets replacement parts for the engines in the Merkava tanks, the tanks will stop moving.)

4. I would devalue the dollar against the Israel shekel so that it went from 4 shekels to 2 (in 1996 the shekel was about 3.2 to the dollar, today it is a much more export-friendly 4 or so). Or, you might go in exactly the opposite direction and make the shekel even cheaper than it is now, triggering inflation, which has often plagued the economy. Exchange rate instability is disastrous for Israel.

5. I would add Israel to the list of countries not in compliance with US wishes on illicit drug trade and exact the sort of punishments possible under US 'war on drugs' law.

6. Since the country has no constitution, I would place them in human rights reports and make their participation in international organizations contingent upon steady documented improvements in this area.

7. Come to think of it, since the country is clearly a rogue nuclear and missile state, I would apply an almost total economic embargo against the country.

Charles Jannuzi



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