The inflationary process in the United States apparently will result in $155.8 million less for Israel than it had anticipated it would receive from the $2.2 billion in emergency aid Congress approved last Dec. at the request of President Nixon. This emerged today after the Senate Armed Services Committee informed the Defense Department that $115.8 million of the $458.5 million in procurement authorization that the Pentagon was provided should be financed by the transfer of the $115.8 million from the emergency aid earmarked for Israel.
The $155.8 million, a committee source told the JTA. represents the difference in cost between what was originally spent to buy the material sent to Israel and the amount it will now cost for the Pentagon to replace them in its stock. The committee decided that this difference should be paid out of the emergency aid $2.2 billion fund. Israel actually was never given the $2.2 billion because the Congress directed that the U.S. share of the cost of maintaining the United Nations Emergency Force in the Middle East for one year should come out of that fund. This amounts to slightly less than $18 million.
Informed U.S. and Israeli sources both have indicated to the JTA that Israel will receive as a gift a total of $1.5 billion of the emergency fund and that this already has been virtually used up by the cost of the arms and their shipment to Israel. The remainder of the aid fund would be allowed as a credit to Israel. The formalities, however, on this division of the $2.2 billion fund have not yet been determined.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.