My research abilities have always left a lot to be desired, but never mind, that can only make things easier for my opponents to ride a coach and horses through my arguments. I agree and concede that I might not have known the true facts when I posted my last message, and I confess I am not a lot wiser now, but I have looked a little further into the matter. The following quotes are selective, and might be quite unreliable - I do not know. There may be more information that contradicts the inferences I draw from it, but I put them forward in good faith, knowing you will correct me if I am wrong.

According to USAID http://www.usaid.gov/policy/budget/money/, the US provided some US$16.6bn to various countries in 2009. Israel was not listed as one of them. I imagine, as USAID only accounted for less than $17bn of the aid given in 2009, that it did not include military aid. I note a number of Middle Eastern countries did benefit, although one would not normally rate them very high on the list of the world's most needy nations - for example, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan, as well as Georgia and South Africa which are a little further afield. Why should they get so much?

According to the Congress Research Service's paper, US Foreign Aid to Israel (4/12/2009) http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf, Israel has benefited considerably from US largesse:

Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. From 1976-2004, Israel was the largest annual recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, having been supplanted by Iraq. Since 1985, the United States has provided nearly $3 billion in grants annually to Israel.

Almost all U.S. bilateral aid to Israel is in the form of military assistance. In the past, Israel also had received significant economic assistance. Strong congressional support for Israel has resulted in Israel’s receiving benefits not available to other countries.

In August 2007, the Bush Administration announced that it would increase U.S. military assistance to Israel by $6 billion over the next decade.
...

For FY2010, the Obama Administration requested $2.775 billion in FMF to Israel.
...

On July 9, 2009, Congressman Christopher Smith introduced H.R. 3160, the Israel Foreign Assistance Appropriations Act, 2010. Among other items, the bill would require “that none of the funds made available ... shall be available to finance the procurement of ... services that are not sold by the United States Government ...

The following comments appear on the website of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2676. It's dated 2005, but I reckon it's just as true today as it was then:

The World’s Most Generous Misers
Tsunami reporting misrepresented U.S. giving

By Ben Somberg

In March 1997, [a poll] asked Americans which area of federal expenditure they thought was the largest ... Sixty-four percent of respondents said it was foreign aid—when in reality foreign aid made up only about 1 percent of total outlays (Washington Post, 3/29/97).

Today, Americans think about 20 percent of the federal budget goes toward foreign aid. When told the actual figure for U.S. foreign aid giving (about 1.6 percent of the discretionary budget), most respondents said they did not believe the number was the full amount (Program on International Policy Attitudes, 3/7/05).

It’s no wonder that most Americans think they live in an extremely generous nation: Media reports often quote government officials pointing out that their country is the largest overall aid donor, and the biggest donor of humanitarian aid. But what reporters too often fail to explain is how big the U.S. economy is—more than twice the size of Japan’s, the second largest, and about as big as economies number 3–10 combined. Considered as a portion of the nation’s economy, or of its federal expenditures, the U.S. is actually among the smallest donors of international aid among the world’s developed countries.

The Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ... statistics on how much ... assistance the world’s 22 wealthiest countries give each year ... show that as a portion of Gross National Income, the U.S. now ranks second-to-last in giving, at 0.16 percent. (In 2004, Italy dropped into last place below the U.S.)

The U.S. also gives much less than what the industrialized countries pledged to give at the 1992 Rio Conference, which was 0.7 percent of their GDP. U.S. development aid, at 0.16 percent of GDP, represents less than one-quarter of this promise.
...

[Press] coverage of foreign aid is as notable for what it doesn't say as for what is does. Areas the media usually don't examine include:


* Debt Payments. Many aid recipients in the developing world are burdened by debt payments to the wealthy nations and institutions, often for loans taken out decades earlier by dictatorial regimes that squandered the money. While the developing world receives about $80 billion in aid each year, it pays the developed world about $200 billion(emphasis supplied); it is still uncertain how much of that will be relieved.

* Pledges are just pledges. George W. Bush's Millennium Challenge Account—announced in March 2002 with great fanfare—hasn't disbursed a dollar yet. After the 2003 Iran earthquake, many nations only delivered a fraction of the aid they had initially pledged. The media should treat pledges as what they are: promises that may or may not be kept.

* Adjusting for inflation. When the New York Times and Washington Post reported on George W. Bush's announcement of the Millennium Challenge Account (3/15/02), the articles said the pledge represented a 14 percent increase in U.S. aid flows, but with inflation factored in, it was only a 7 percent increase (Economic Reporting Review, 3/18/02).



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As you point out that America eventually joined in the two World Wars on the winning side, you could say it was the USA that won World War I and World War II - and Hollywood always does. But you could say it sat on the sidelines, making money out of both sides, until Japan dragged them in.

Where was America when Hitler invaded Poland? Canada was there. So was Australia. But no Yanks. How many millions of lives would have been saved if your brave boys had stepped in and stopped it before it started? How many Jews, communists, gypsies and homosexuals would have still been alive. Don't take credit for winning a war you stood aside from until the participants had fought themselves to a virtual standstill, and your fresh, well-armed warriors only had to take on battle-weary opposition.

I prefer to think that Germany was beaten by the Russian winters and the heroic efforts of the Red Army, rather than by the Western Allies, still less by USA alone.

As for the Pacific, where were America's forces when Japan invaded Burma, Singapore and Malaya. Doing their own thing, that's where they were, not helping us, their allies.

So well done, USA, for defeating the forces of evil single-handedly once again!