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
'Obama
DOJ Drops Charges Against Alleged Arms
Broker Who Was Threatening To Expose Clinton
Arms
dealer had threatened to expose Hillary
Clinton’s talks about arming anti-Qadhafi
rebels.
By Kenneth P. Vogel and Josh Gerstein
October 05, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- "Politico"
- The
Obama administration is moving to dismiss
charges against an arms dealer it had
accused of selling weapons that were
destined for Libyan rebels.
Lawyers for the Justice Department on Monday
filed a motion in federal court in
Phoenix to drop the case against the arms
dealer, an American named Marc Turi, whose
lawyers also signed the motion.
The
deal averts a trial that threatened to cast
additional scrutiny on Hillary Clinton’s
private emails as Secretary of State, and to
expose reported Central Intelligence Agency
attempts to arm rebels fighting Libyan
leader Moammar Qadhafi.
Government lawyers were facing a Wednesday
deadline to produce documents to Turi’s
legal team, and the trial was officially set
to begin on Election Day, although it likely
would have been delayed by protracted
disputes about classified information in the
case.
A
Turi associate asserted that the government
dropped the case because the proceedings
could have embarrassed Clinton and President
Barack Obama by calling attention to the
reported role of their administration in
supplying weapons that fell into the
hands of Islamic extremist militants.
“They don’t want this stuff to come out
because it will look really bad for Obama
and Clinton just before the election,” said
the associate.
In
the dismissal motion, prosecutors say
“discovery rulings” from U.S. District Court
Judge David Campbell contributed to the
decision to drop the case. The joint motion
asks the judge to accept a confidential
agreement to resolve the case through a
civil settlement between the State
Department and the arms broker.
“Our position from the outset has been that
this case never should have been brought and
we’re glad it’s over,” said Jean-Jacques
Cabou, a Perkins Coie partner serving as
court-appointed defense counsel in the case.
“Mr Turi didn’t break the law….We’re very
glad the charges are being dismissed.”
Under the deal, Turi admits no guilt in the
transactions he participated in, but he
agreed to refrain from U.S.-regulated arms
dealing for four years. A $200,000 civil
penalty will be waived if Turi abides by the
agreement.
A
State Department official confirmed the
outlines of the agreement.
“Mr. Turi cooperated with the Department’s
Directorate of Defense Trade Controls in its
review and proposed administrative
settlement of the alleged violations,” said
the official, who asked not be named. “Based
on a compliance review, DDTC alleged that
Mr. Turi…engaged in brokering activities for
the proposed transfer of defense articles to
Libya, a proscribed destination under [arms
trade regulations,] despite the Department’s
denial of…requests for the required prior
approval of such activities.”
Turi adviser Robert Stryk of the government
relations and consulting firm SPG accused
the government of trying to scapegoat Turi
to cover up Clinton’s mishandling of Libya.
“The U.S. government spent millions of
dollars, went all over the world to bankrupt
him, and destroyed his life — all to protect
Hillary Clinton’s crimes,” he said, alluding
to the deadly Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist
attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi,
Libya.
Republicans hold Clinton responsible for
mishandling the circumstances around that
attack. And Stryk said that Turi was now
weighing book and movie deals to tell his
story, and to weigh in on the Benghazi
attack.
Representatives of the Justice Department,
the White House and Clinton’s presidential
campaign either declined to comment or did
not respond to requests for comment on the
case or the settlement.
Turi was indicted in 2014 on four felony
counts: two of arms dealing in violation of
the Arms Export Control Act and two of lying
to the State Department in official
applications. The charges accused Turi of
claiming that the weapons involved were
destined for Qatar and the United Arab
Emirates, when the arms were actually
intended to reach Libya.
Turi’s lawyers argued that the shipments
were part of a U.S. government-authorized
effort to arm Libyan rebels.
It’s unclear if any of the weapons made it
to Libya, and there’s no evidence linking
weapons provided by the U.S. government to
the Benghazi attacks.
“The proposal did not result in an actual
transfer of defense articles to Libya,” the
State Department official told POLITICO on
Tuesday.
But
questions about U.S. efforts to arm Libyan
rebels have been mounting, since weapons
have reportedly made their way from Libya to
Syria, where a civil war is raging between
the Syrian Government and ISIL-aligned
fighters.
During 2013 Senate hearings on the 2012
Benghazi attack, Clinton, under
questioning from Sen. Rand Paul
(R-Kentucky), said she had no knowledge of
weapons moving from Libya into Turkey.
Wikileaks head Julian Assange in July
suggested that he had emails proving
that Clinton “pushed” the “flows” of weapons
“going over to Syria.”
Additionally, Turi’s case had delved into
emails sent to and from the controversial
private account that Clinton used as
Secretary of State, which the defense
planned to harness at any trial.
At
a court hearing in 2015, Cabou said emails
between Clinton and her top aides indicated
that efforts to arm the rebels were — at a
minimum — under discussion at the highest
levels of the government.
“We're entitled to tell the jury, ladies and
gentlemen of the jury, the Secretary of
State and her highest staff members were
actively contemplating providing exactly the
type of military assistance that Mr. Turi is
here to answer for,” the defense attorney
said, according to a transcript.
Turi’s defense was pressing for more
documents about the alleged rebel-arming
effort and for testimony from officials who
worked on the issue the State Department and
the CIA. The defense said it planned to
argue that Turi believed he had official
permission to work on arms transfers to
Libya
“If
we armed the rebels, as publicly reported in
many, many sources and as we strongly
believe happened and as we believe at least
one witness told the grand jury, then
documents about that process relate to that
effort,” Cabou told Campbell at the same
hearing last year.
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