 US Militarism and Sisyphian “Aid†to Israel/PalestineJennifer C. Olmsted Review of Radical Political Economics, 2025, vol. 57, issue 2, 266-281 Abstract: What can we learn about militarism by looking at aid patterns through the lens of Greek myth? The story of Sisyphus emphasizes him being fated to repeating the same monumental task for eternity as a punishment for his cruelty and arrogance. Using the case of Israel/Palestine, I examine the history of the provision of US military aid to Israel, a highly militarized, high-income country, as well as tracing official development assistance to the Palestinians, which, I illustrate, primarily and very ineffectively serves to “correct†Israel’s punitive actions. A focus on US aid exposes the complicity of the United States in terms of perpetuating a horrific cycle of violence, as well as providing details concerning who gains and who loses from these expenditures. Where data are available, I also identify some gendered impacts of both the aid expenditures and violence. I conclude by arguing that reparations are required to address the historic and ongoing damage inflicted on Palestinians through US/Israeli militarism and that such reparations need to focus on intersectional vulnerability. JEL Classification: F35, N45, H56, I3 Keywords: foreign aid; Israel; Palestine; militarism; reparations (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:reorpe:v:57:y:2025:i:2:p:266-281 DOI: 10.1177/04866134251334443 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Review of Radical Political Economics from Union for Radical Political Economics |
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