The announcement last week by the United
States of the largest military aid
package in its history – to Israel – was
a win for both sides.
Israeli prime
minister Benjamin Netanyahu could boast
that his lobbying had boosted aid from
$3.1 billion a year to $3.8bn – a 22 per
cent increase – for a decade starting in
2019.
Mr Netanyahu has presented this as a
rebuff to those who accuse him of
jeopardising Israeli security interests
with his government’s repeated affronts
to the White House.
In the past weeks alone, defence
minister Avigdor Lieberman has compared
last year’s nuclear deal between
Washington and Iran with the 1938 Munich
pact, which bolstered Hitler; and Mr
Netanyahu has implied that US opposition
to settlement expansion is the same as
support for the “ethnic cleansing” of
Jews.
American president Barack Obama,
meanwhile, hopes to stifle his own
critics who insinuate that he is
anti-Israel. The deal should serve as a
fillip too for Hillary Clinton, the
Democratic party’s candidate to succeed
Mr Obama in November’s election.
In reality, however, the Obama
administration has quietly punished Mr
Netanyahu for his misbehaviour. Israeli
expectations of a $4.5bn-a-year deal
were whittled down after Mr Netanyahu
stalled negotiations last year as he
sought to recruit Congress to his battle
against the Iran deal.
In fact, Israel already receives
roughly $3.8bn – if Congress’s
assistance on developing missile defence
programmes is factored in. Notably,
Israel has been forced to promise not to
approach Congress for extra funds.
The deal takes into account neither
inflation nor the dollar’s depreciation
against the shekel.
A bigger blow still is the White
House’s demand to phase out a special
exemption that allowed Israel to spend
nearly 40 per cent of aid locally on
weapon and fuel purchases. Israel will
soon have to buy all its armaments from
the US, ending what amounted to a
subsidy to its own arms industry.
Nonetheless, Washington’s renewed
military largesse – in the face of
almost continual insults – inevitably
fuels claims that the Israeli tail is
wagging the US dog. Even The New York
Times has described the aid package as
“too big”.
Since the 1973 war, Israel has
received at least $100bn in military
aid, with more assistance hidden from
view. Back in the 1970s, Washington paid
half of Israel’s military budget. Today
it still foots a fifth of the bill,
despite Israel’s economic success.
But the US expects a return on its
massive investment. As the late Israeli
politician-general Ariel Sharon once
observed, Israel has been a US
“aircraft carrier” in the Middle East,
acting as the regional bully and
carrying out operations that benefit
Washington.
Almost no one blames the US for
Israeli attacks that wiped out Iraq’s
and Syria’s nuclear programmes. A
nuclear-armed Iraq or Syria would have
deterred later US-backed moves at regime
overthrow, as well as countering the
strategic advantage Israel derives from
its own nuclear arsenal.
In addition, Israel’s US-sponsored
military prowess is a triple boon to the
US weapons industry, the country’s most
powerful lobby. Public funds are
siphoned off to let Israel buy goodies
from American arms makers. That, in
turn, serves as a shop window for other
customers and spurs an endless and
lucrative game of catch-up in the rest
of the Middle East.
The first F-35 fighter jets to arrive
in Israel in December – their various
components produced in 46 US states –
will increase the clamour for the
cutting-edge warplane.
Israel is also a “front-line
laboratory”, as former Israeli army
negotiator Eival Gilady admitted at the
weekend, that develops and field-tests
new technology Washington can later use
itself.
The US is planning to buy back the
missile interception system Iron Dome –
which neutralises battlefield threats of
retaliation – it largely paid for.
Israel works closely too with the US in
developing cyberwarfare, such as the
Stuxnet worm that damaged Iran’s
civilian nuclear programme.
But the clearest message from
Israel’s new aid package is one
delivered to the Palestinians:
Washington sees no pressing strategic
interest in ending the occupation. It
stood up to Mr Netanyahu over the Iran
deal but will not risk a damaging clash
over Palestinian statehood.
Some believe that Mr Obama signed the
aid package to win the credibility
necessary to overcome his domestic
Israel lobby and pull a rabbit from the
hat: an initiative, unveiled shortly
before he leaves office, that corners Mr
Netanyahu into making peace.
Hopes have been raised by an expected
meeting at the United Nations in New
York on Wednesday. But their first talks
in 10 months are planned only to
demonstrate unity to confound critics of
the aid deal.
If Mr Obama really wanted to pressure
Mr Netanyahu, he would have used the aid
agreement as leverage. Now Mr Netanyahu
need not fear US financial retaliation,
even as he intensifies effective
annexation of the West Bank.
Mr Netanyahu has drawn the right
lesson from the aid deal – he can act
against the Palestinians with continuing
US impunity.
- See more at: http://www.jonathan-cook.net/2016-09-19/palestinians-lose-in-us-military-aid-deal-with-israel/#sthash.fL4Eq28N.dpuf
The Cease-Fire Destroyed By U.S.
Bombing
By Pierre Barbancey -
Translated By
Henry Crapo
September 23, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- "
L'Humanité"
- The air strikes against the
Syrian Army took place at Deir ez-Zor,
to the south-east of Raqqa, encircled by
Daesh. Washington admits to its error.
But Damascus and Moscow are growling.
The cease-fire put in place under the
direction of the United States and
Russia eight days ago, and which held,
despite great odds, is fundamentally
upset by the bombing by coalition
airplanes (under U.S. command) of a
Syrian army position, killing 90
persons. The act in itself is very
serious. And it is all the more serious
in that the attacks were not made just
anywhere. The Syrian military were on
the Djebel Thourda, near the Deir ez-Zor
airport, which they were protecting.
This city to the south-east of Raqqa
(the headquarters of Daesh in Syria) has
been encircled by the djihadists for
more than a year. This position
permitted the army to protect the
airport, which, otherwise, would have
been under fire from ISIS. It was
retaken by the Syrian army, yesterday [1].
The U.S. and Russia enter into a new
diplomatic struggle
According to the Washington Post,
it is simply “an error by the
intelligence services”. On its side, the
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) explained
that “Syria is a complex situation with
different military forces and different
militias operating at close range to one
another, but the coalition forces did
not deliberately attack a unit of the
Syrian military, identified as such”.
At
the request of Russia, the Security
Council of the United Nations met
urgently for one hour on Saturday
evening. The U.S. and Russia engaged in
a new diplomatic struggle at the end of
the meeting. Judging that Russia had
never displayed such indignation
concerning civilians killed by the
Syrian regime, the U.S. ambassador
Semantha Power qualified the Russian
attitude as one of "cynicism and
hypocrisy".
When asked to say whether the bombings
on Saturday marked the end of the
Russian-U.S. agreement on a cease-fire
in Syria, her Russian counterpart,
Vitali Tchourkine, replied, “There is a
very big question mark. It will be very
interesting to know what will be the
reaction in Washington. If the attitude
today of the ambassador Semantha Power
furnishes the slightest indication of
their possible reaction, we are facing
grave problems”, he added. In a
communique, the Russian Minister of
Foreign Affairs declared that these
military strikes were situated “on the
boundary between criminal negligence and
direct connivance with the terrorists of
the Islamic State”. Yesterday, Daesh
shot down a Syrian military airplane at
Deir ez-Zor.
Everyone is in agreement as to the fact
that the solution will not be military,
but diplomatic
Moscow, just as Damascus, affirms now
that Washington is supporting Daesh.
These are declarations to be put back in
the context of the on-going
arm-wrestling, but everyone is now in
agreement about the fact that the
solution will not be military, but will
be diplomatic. That’s where the going
gets tough. In view of upcoming
negotiations, one has to place one’s
pawns on the chess-board. On the side of
the Syrian powers and their allies
(Russia, Iran, the Lebanese Hezbollah,
and some Shiite militants), the road-map
is clear. Not so in the other camp,
supported by the West [2]
and the Wahabite nations of the Gulf
region. Under the appellation of
“rebels” hide a number of Islamic groups
and Salafists, still in alliance with
the former al-Nosra Front (al Qaida in
Syria), all of whom saying they were
part of the cease-fire! This is the
case, for example, of the powerful group
Ahrar al-Cham. Not to mention the
Turkish army, which is combating the
Kurds of the YPG.
In
the long run, it is precisely the
territorial integrity of tomorrow’s
Syria that is at stake. But isn’t that
exactly what various opposition powers
are meddling with, at the risk of
exploding the Middle East?
Links to two related articles, already
in English, by
Finnian Cunningham and
Paul Craig Roberts.
[2] U.S.,
U.K., France, Israel, ...
