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
Brazil: The Billion Dollar Coup
By James Petras
October 13, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was
removed from office through a
well-organized, carefully planned operation
among the corrupt Brazilian political elite,
closely linked to the stock-market,
financial institutions and foreign energy
companies. This ‘legislative coup d’état
’eliminated the democratically-elected
‘political intermediaries’ and installed a
regime directly controlled by the CEOs of
leading multi-nationals. The corporate
composition of the post-coup regime insured
there would be a radical restructuring of
the Brazilian economy, with a massive shift
from wage support, social spending and
public ownership toward profits, a foreign
capital take-over of strategic sectors and
foreign-domestic elite dominance over the
entire economy.
This paper will describe the socio-economic
dynamics of the coup and its aftermath, as
well as the strategy and program that
Brazil’s new rulers will pursue. In the
second half of the paper, we will discuss
the Workers Party regimes’ policies (under
Lulu and Rousseff) that prepared the
political and economic ground-work for the
right-wing seizure of power.
Socio-Economic Dynamics of the Coup
The
overthrow of President Rousseff was
organized and implemented by Brazil’s
capitalist class for its benefit, even
though it had the superficial appearance of
a power grab by corrupt politicians.
Rousseff’s Vice-President, Michel Temer,
acted as the front-man on behalf of the
major investment banks: They set the agenda;
he played his part.
Moreover, the principal beneficiaries of the
economic giveaways under ‘President’ Temer,
most notably the privatization of the energy
sector, are clearly foreign capitalists.
Once the coup makers lined up the votes
among Brazil’s notoriously corrupt
Congressmen to oust Rousseff, the
multinational corporations emerged from the
shadow of the stock market to take control
over the levers of power.
In
the run-up to the coup, when the so-called
‘impeachment’ was gaining momentum, the
shares of the largely state-owned oil
company sky-rocketed by 70%. In anticipation
of the privatization and sell-off of assets,
leading speculators and overseas investment
houses seized the moment.
The
‘coup’ was no ‘secretive conspiracy’ – it
was an overt, direct capitalist seizure of
power. Once installed, it proceeded to
dismantle the public sector economy and
transfer the jewels of Brazil’s economy to
foreign multi-nationals.
Master
of Pillage
To
ensure that the coup would not deviate from
the course set by the capitalist
coup-masters, Pedro Parente, ‘one of their
own’ and the former head (CEO) of the giant
agricultural trader, Bunge, was put in
charge of the economy. With dizzying speed,
Parente imposed the New Order onto the
puppet Temer coup regime. He used a set of
phony ‘technocratic’ euphemisms to explain
the ongoing plunder of Petrobras, the state
oil company.
Parente lowered Petrobras’ public investment
sector by 25%, which he called ‘debt
reduction’. The brutal programed sell-off of
Petrobras’ most valuable assets was
described as a ‘deleverage timetable’.
The
unelected ‘Privatization Czar Parente’, in
effect, ended the state’s role in the
Brazilian economy by placing it under the
exclusive dictates of private capitalist.
The primary beneficiaries will prove to be
foreign over national capital.
Parente has undermined the competitiveness
of the national manufacturing sector and
transport system with a hefty increase in
domestic fuel prices. On the surface, he
claimed the price increase would ‘raise
profits for Petrobras’, obscuring the fact
that the oil giant’s public assets had been
given over to private capitalists.
Meanwhile, Parente privatized the gas
stations, ethanol production and
distribution, as well as the billion-dollar
fertilizer and petro chemical industry. Over
$15 billion worth of Brazilian prime public
assets were sold off to private, mostly
foreign capital, in 2015-2016.
Parente’s onslaught deepened. The ‘grand
prize’ was access to its rich off-shore oil
fields. By the middle of 2016, a large-scale
offshore oil license was sold to the
Norwegian multi-national, Statoil, for a
mere $2.5 billion.
With Parente in command, the ruling elite is
on track to sell-off an additional $20
billion worth of Petrobras assets to foreign
capital in 2017-18. The key goal has been to
replace the state sector as lead operator in
the deep water oil and gas fields.
The
ongoing pillage of the Brazil’s huge state
energy sector, is only the first course in
an orgy of privatization: Infrastructure,
transport, utilities and basic
state-protected industries are on the
chopping block. This private plunder of the
state economic jewels accompanies a brutal
slashing of public pensions, salaries and
wages guarantees as well as public sector
budgets for health and education and public
workers. In order to reduce corporate taxes,
increase profits and attract capital, the
coup regime has ordered the cuts by fiat.
Conclusion: Challenges to Capitalist Power
The
capitalist class seized state power through
the corrupt political and judicial
machinations of Brazil’s Vice President and
Congressional cronies. The take-over was
based on a series of alleged corruption
scandals by the Workers Party. The fact that
the entire Brazilian congress, most notably
the capitalist operatives behind the coup,
has been deeply immersed in the scandal over
an alleged $15 billion looted from
Petrobras, undermines their credibility. In
fact, the ousted President Rousseff was
cleared of all charges of corruption, while
her successor faces ongoing investigations.
This tragic comedy exposes that some members
of the Workers Party are tiny amateurs in
this orgy of capitalist plunder.
The
current President Michel Temer is charged
with receiving bribes from private
contractors. If these investigations
undermine his already dubious leadership,
the capitalist coup-masters will be forced
to call for early election. This will
introduce considerable uncertainty about the
viability of Privatization Czar Parente’s
capitalist power grab.
The
regime’s ‘slash and burn’ campaign against
wages and pensions has heightened class
conflicts within Brazil. The three major
labor confederations are preparing for major
strikes against a regime of questionable
legitimacy.
The
business coup has allowed the capitalist
class to seize state power and decree its
agenda. However it has yet to show it can
directly impose its draconian polices aimed
at reconcentrating wealth and income for the
top five percent while repressing scores of
millions of industrial workers, rural
landless laborers and the urban poor.
In
addition, while the rulers can offer the
jewels of Brazil’s economy to foreign
capital, the current low oil prices, ongoing
corruption trials at the highest level of
elite power and intensifying class conflicts
will undermine their ability to implement
their agenda. Indeed the prospect of
escalating state repression and criminal
gang violence may persuade foreign
capitalists to skim off the top of Brazil’s
most profitable assets and abandon the
ensuing chaos.
Epilogue
After 13 years of Workers Party control of
the Brazilian presidency, how did the
coup-masters rise so quickly and decisively?
The political leader of the coup was Vice
President Michel Tener, who had been
selected by the Workers Party (PT)
leadership as part of their ‘coalition
strategy’ of working with the most corrupt
elements of the Brazilian capitalist class.
The members of the Congressional majority,
which voted to impeach President Rousseff,
were in partnership with the PT, elected in
joint election platforms. The economic
decline and recession, which undermined
public support for the PT government, was a
result of its emphasis on the ‘boom and
bust’ commodity strategy. The strategic role
played by the private banking and business
sector in the ‘legislative coup’ resulted
from the PT’s decision to implement the
privatizations started by the previous
regime of President Cardoso, thus
strengthening this parasitic class.
Above all, it was the PT’s new reliance on
financing their political campaigns through
the donation of contractors and the business
elites, instead of combining electoral
politics with class warfare and mass
struggle that opened the Party to the
everyday corrupt practices of the capitalist
parties. It is a perverse justice that only
the PT newcomers to political corruption
would be caught and prosecuted!
In
other words’ the PT continued to win
elections by becoming a normal bourgeois
party with its social welfare agenda reliant
on an unstable capitalist growth cycle of
commodity exports. The PT were profoundly
mistaken when they saw their alliance with
the capitalist class as something permanent
rather than an ‘alliance of convenience’
where the business elite would tolerate them
until it was in a position to overthrow
them.
James Petras is a Bartle Professor
(Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton
University, New York. |
