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1973 The Yom Kipper War 71 Senators and 269 Representatives expedite a $2.2 billion emergency aid package to Israel, which President Nixon approves. This is the first time the United States provides an outright grant of arms to Israel. 1980 Aid To Israel Recognizing the risks Israel took for peace at Camp David and the persistence of the Arab military threat. Congress approves a $4.9 billion aid and loan package. From 1985 on, Congress annually provides Israel $3 billion in all grant aid. This assistance evolves into one of the most important symbols of the strength of the U.S. Israel ties. 1982 Congress Resists Administration Aid Cut In the wake of the war in Lebanon, the Administration suspends the sale of F-16 planes to Israel and tries to cut aid. The Senate responds by increasing military aid grants by $225 million sending a strong message of its support for Israel. Congress defeats every successive attempt to the assistance to Israel to policy differences. 1985 Emergency Economic Aid 400% inflation and spiraling debt accrued over 5 wars brings Israel to economic crisis. Congress approves a $1.5 billion emergency aid package, restoring order to Israel. Within a decade, Israel develops into one of worlds strongest emerging economies.  1991 Emergency Military Assistance Israel endures 39 Iraqi missile attacks during the Gulf War without retaliating Congress approves $650 million in emergency assistance to Israel. 1992 Landmark Loan Guarantees Congress approves $10 billion in loan guarantees to lighten Israel's extraordinary financial strain of resettling 600,000 refugees from the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia. In the process. Congress fights Administration efforts to link this humanitarian effort to a halt in West Bank construction. 1996 Joining Israel In The Fight Against Terror Congress agrees to provide $100 million in anti-terrorism assistance to Israel. Members of Congress also signed letters urging the Palestinian Authority to take more serious steps against terrorism. 1999 Wye River Aid Congress passes the historic $1.8 Billion Wye Aid package to help Israel and her peace partners implement the 1998 U.S.-brokered Wye River Accord. ===== $69,255,000,000 worth of US Foreign Aid including the recently approved $2.88Billion for FY2001.  Results taken from The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (http://www.aipac.org) =====   The following except is from THE STRATEGIC FUNCTIONS OF U.S. AID TO ISRAEL Stephen Zunes Dr. Zunes is an assistant professor in the Department of Politics at the University of San Francisco Since 1992, the U.S. has offered Israel an additional $2 billion annually in loan guarantees. Congressional researchers have disclosed that between 1974 and 1989, $16.4 billion in U.S. military loans were converted to grants and that this was the understanding from the beginning. Indeed, all past U.S. loans to Israel have eventually been forgiven by Congress, which has undoubtedly helped Israel's often-touted claim that they have never defaulted on a U.S. government loan. U.S. policy since 1984 has been that economic assistance to Israel must equal or exceed Israel's annual debt repayment to the United States. Unlike other countries, which receive aid in quarterly installments, aid to Israel since 1982 has been given in a lump sum at the beginning of the fiscal year, leaving the U.S. government to borrow from future revenues. Israel even lends some of this money back through U.S. treasury bills and collects the additional interest. In addition, there is the more than $1.5 billion in private U.S. funds that go to Israel annually in the form of $1 billion in private tax-deductible donations and $500 million in Israeli bonds. The ability of Americans to make what amounts to tax-deductible contributions to a foreign government, made possible through a number of Jewish charities, does not exist with any other country. Nor do these figures include short- and long-term commercial loans from U.S. banks, which have been as high as $1 billion annually in recent years. Total U.S. aid to Israel is approximately one-third of the American foreign- aid budget, even though Israel comprises just .001 percent of the world's population and already has one of the world's higher per capita incomes. Indeed, Israel's GNP is higher than the combined GNP of Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza. With a per capita income of about $14,000, Israel ranks as the sixteenth wealthiest country in the world; Israelis enjoy a higher per capita income than oil-rich Saudi Arabia and are only slightly less well-off than most Western European countries. AID does not term economic aid to Israel as development assistance, but instead uses the term "economic support funding." Given Israel's relative prosperity, U.S. aid to Israel is becoming increasingly controversial. In 1994, Yossi Beilen, deputy foreign minister of Israel and a Knesset member, told the Women's International Zionist organization, "If our economic situation is better than in many of your countries, how can we go on asking for your charity?"