Settlements cost NIS 2.5B. a year in non-military outlays

[bemildred]

In recent years, Israel has spent at least an
extra
NIS 2.5 billion annually in non-military outlays
to maintain its hold on the settlements in the
West Bank and Gaza, and has expended at
least NIS
45 billion on the settlements since 1967,
according to a Haaretz report that will appear in
the Rosh Hashana supplement on Friday. Such
civilian spending translates into annual surplus
costs of more than NIS 10,000 per settler.

The report was compiled by a
team of 15 reporters during the
past three months who met with
dozens of top treasury
officials, economic experts and
politicians, collected numerous
documents, and drew
information
from the few studies conducted
until now regarding details of
settlement funding.

The main budget items for this extra spending
during the past years include transfers to the
local authorities (about NIS 700 million), the
Housing Ministry (NIS 440 million, with a 2003
estimate of NIS 500 million), and roads (about
NIS 400 million). The cost of income tax
benefits provided to settlers was about NIS 130
million, although these benefits were canceled
this summer.

Haaretz

[Gimel]

1. The dollar value

Today's exchange rate $1 = 4.45 NIS. It equals about $.56 billion a year, which is far less than has been rumored on this board.

Consider also that the same pop;ulation inside Israel would require services which should be deducted from that total amount, which may be as much as half that, the extra expenditure would be at most .3 or .4 billion dollars.

[IndianaGreen]

2. Let the Israeli taxpayer bear the full cost of the occupation

and let us Americans keep more of our money by cutting off the money supply to Israel.

On another note, Israel's subsidized economy should swim or sink on its own (one of the few issues I agree with Bibi).

[Gimel]

5. Possible relocation

Although costly, the removal of these settlements and relocation on the northern border is being considered.

[dfong63]

3. and what's the population of the settlements?

Consider also that the same pop;ulation inside Israel would require services which should be deducted from that total amount, which may be as much as half that, the extra expenditure would be at most .3 or .4 billion dollars.

even accepting your figures, that's $3-400 million per year, divided by a population of only about 250,000. so every man, woman, and child of those colonists gets an extra subsidy of about $1-2000 per year. sounds significant to me.

[Gimel]

4. What extra

This is not an extra subsidy. This population is not included in that of Israel. This is the total budget for the territories.