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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 US Is About To Face The Worst Crisis in Their History

By The Saker

October 24, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - "The Saker"- Watching the last Presidential debate was a rather depressing experience.  I thought that Trump did pretty well, but that really is not the point here.  The point is this: no matter who wins, an acute crisis is inevitable.

Option one: Hillary wins.  That’s Obama on steroids, only worse.  Remember that Obama himself was Dubya, only worse.  Of course, Dubya was just Clinton, only worse.  Now the circle is closed.  Back to Clinton.  Except this time around, we have a women who is deeply insecure, who failed at every single thing that she every tried to do, and who now has a 3 decades long record of disasters and failures.  Even when she had no authority to start a war, she started one (told Bill to bomb the Serbs).  Now she has that authority.  And now she had to stand there, in front of millions of people, and hear Trump tell her “Putin outsmarted you at every step of the way” (did you see her frozen face when he said that?).  Trump is right, Putin did outsmart her and Obama at every step.  The problem is that now, after having a President with an inferiority complex towards Putin (Obama) we will have a President with the very same inferiority complex and a morbid determination to impose a no-fly zone over Russian forces in Syria.  Looking at Hillary, with her ugly short hair and ridiculous pants, I thought to myself “this is a woman who is trying hard to prove that she is every bit as tough and any man” – except of course that she ain’t.  Her record also shows her as being weak, cowardly and with a sense of total impunity.  And now, that evil messianic lunatic with a deep-seated inferiority complex is going to become Commander in Chief?!  God help us all!

Option two: Trump wins.  Problem: he will be completely alone.  The Neocons have a total, repeat total, control of the Congress, the media, banking and finance, and the courts.  From Clinton to Clinton they have deeply infiltrated the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom, and the three letter agencies.  The Fed is their stronghold.  How in the world will Trump deal with these rabid “crazies in the basement“?  Consider the vicious hate campaign which all these “personalities” (from actors, to politicians to reporters) have unleashed against Trump – they have burned their bridges, they know that they will lose it all if Trump wins (and, if he proves to be an easy pushover his election will make no difference anyway).  The Neocons have nothing to lose and they will fight to the very last one.  What could Trump possibly do to get anything done if he is surrounded by Neocons and their agents of influence?  Bring in an entirely different team?  How is he going to vet them?  His first choice was to take Pence as a VP – a disaster (he is already sabotaging Trump on Syria and the elections outcome).  I *dread* the hear whom Trump will appoint as a White House Chief of Staff as I am afraid that just to appease the Neocons he will appoint some new version of the infamous Rahm Emanuel…  And should Trump prove that he has both principles and courage, the Neocons can always “Dallas” him and replace him with Pence.  Et voilà!

I see only one way out:

The (imperfect) Putin model

When Putin came to power he inherited a Kremlin every bit as corrupt and traitor-infested as the White House nowadays.  As for Russia, she was in pretty much the same sorry shape as the Independent Nazi-run Ukraine.  Russia was also run by bankers and AngloZionist puppets and most Russians led miserable lives.  The big difference is that, unlike what is happening with Trump, the Russian version of the US Neocons never saw the danger coming from Putin.  He was selected by the ruling elites as the representative of the security services to serve along a representative of the big corporate money, Medvedev.  This was a compromise solution between the only two parts of the Russian society which were still functioning, the security services and oil/gas money.  Putin looked like a petty bureaucrat in an ill fitting suit, a shy and somewhat awkward little guy who would present no threat to the powerful oligarchs of the semibankirshchina (the Seven Bankers) running Russia.  Except that he turned out to be one of the most formidable rulers in Russia history.  Here is what Putin did as soon as he came to power:

First, he re-established the credibility of the Kremlin with the armed forces and security services by rapidly and effectively crushing the Wahabi insurgency in Chechnia.  This established his personal credibility with the people he would have to rely on to deal with the oligarchs.

Second, he used the fact that everybody, every single businessman and corporation in Russia, did more or less break the law during the 1990s, if only because there really was no law.  Instead of cracking down on the likes of Berezovski or Khodorkovski for their political activities, he crushed them with (absolutely true) charges of corruption.  Crucially, he did that very publicly, sending a clear message to the other arch-enemy: the media.

Third, contrary to the hallucinations of the western human rights agencies and Russian liberals, Putin never directly suppressed any dissent, or cracked down on the media or, even less so, ordered the murder of anybody.  He did something much smarter.  Remember that modern journalists are first and foremost presstitutes, right?  By mercilessly cracking down on the oligarchs Putin deprived the presstitutes of their source of income and political support.  Some emigrated to the Ukraine, others simply resigned, and a few were left like on a reservation or a zoo on a few very clearly identifiable media outlets such as Dozhd TV, Ekho Moskvy Radio or the newspaper Kommersant.  Those who emigrated became irrelevant, as for those who stayed in the “liberal zoo” – they were harmless has they had no credibility left.  Crucially, everybody else “got the message”.  After that, all it took is the appointment a few real patriots (such as Dmitri Kiselev, Margarita Simonian and others) in key positions and everybody quickly understood that the winds of fortune had now turned.

Fourth, once the main media outlets were returned back to sanity it did not take too long for the “liberal” (in the Russian sense, meaning pro-USA) parties to enter into a death-spiral from which they have never recovered.  That, in turn, resulted in the ejection of all “liberals” form the Duma which now has only 4 parties, all of them more or less “patriotic”.

That’s the part that worked.

So far, Putin failed to eject the 5th columnists, whom I call the “Atlantic Integrationists” (for details, including their names, see here) from the government itself..  Even the notorious Alexei Kudrin was not fired by Putin, but by Medvedev.  The security services succeeded in finally getting rid of Anatolii Serdyukov but they did not have power needed to put him in jail.  I still think that a purge will happen while Alexander Mercouris disagrees.  Whatever may be the case, what is certain is that Putin has not tackled the 5th columnists in the banking/finance sector and that the latter have being very careful not to give him a pretext to take action against them.

Russia and the USA are very different countries, and no recipe can be simply copied from one to another.  Still, there are valuable lessons from the “Putin model” for Trump, not the least of which that his most formidable enemies probably are sitting in the Fed.  One Russian analyst – Rostislav Ishchenko – has suggested that Trump could somehow force the Fed to increase interest rates, which would result in a bankruptcy domino effect for US banks which might be the only way to finally crush the Fed and re-take control of US banking.  Maybe.  I honestly am not qualified to have an opinion about that.

What is sure is that for the time being the USA will continue to look like that:

American Patriotic Homeless Beggar

A homeless man, possibly a veteran, has built a “corridor of flags” to get people to give him money. Florida, October 2016.

Rich on cheapo patriotism and otherwise poor.

Hillary thinks that this is a stunning success.  Trump thinks that this is a disgrace.  I submit that the choice between these two is really very simple.

To those who are saying that there cannot be a schism in the AngloZionist elites, I will reply that the example of the conspiracy to prevent Dominique Strauss-Kahn from becoming the next French President shows that, just like hyenas, AngloZionist leaders do sometimes turn on each other.  That happens in all regimes, regardless of their political ideology (think SS against SA in Nazi Germany or Trotskists against Stalinists in Boshevik USSR).

Of brooms and body parts

Leon Trotsky used to say the Soviet Russia needed to be cleansed from anarchists and noblemen with an “iron broom”.  He even wrote an article in the Pravda entitled “We need an iron broom”.  Another genocidal manic, Felix Derzhinskii, founder of the notorious ChK secret police, used to say that a secret police officer must have a “burning heart, a cool head and clean hands”.  One would seek weakness, or even compassion, in vain from folks like these.  These are ideology-driven “true believers”, sociopaths with no sense of empathy, profoundly evil people with a genocidal hatred of anybody standing in their way.

Hillary Clinton and her gang of Neocons are the spiritual (and sometimes even physical) successors of the Soviet Bolsheviks and they, just like their Bolshevik forefathers, will not hesitate for a second to crush their enemies.  Donald Trump – assuming he is for real and actually means what he says – has to understand that and do what Putin did: strike first and strike hard.  Stalin, by the way, also did exactly that, and for a while the Trotskists were crushed, but in the years following Stalin’s death they gradually bounced back only to seize power again in 1991.  I think that the jury is still out on whether Putin will succeed in finally removing the 5th columnist from power.  What is sure is that Russia is at least semi-free from the control of these people and that the US is their last bastion right now.  Their maniacal hatred of Trump can in part be explained by the sense of danger these folks feel, being threatened for the first time in what they see as their homeland (I don’t mean that in a patriotic sense – but rather like a parasite care for “his” host).  And maybe they have some good reason to fear.  I sure hope that they do.

I am rather encouraged by the way Trump handled the latest attempt to make him cower in fear.  Yesterday Trump dared to declare that since the election might be rigged or stolen he does not pledge to recognize their outcome.  And even though every semi-literate person knows that elections in the USA have been rigged and stolen in the past, including Presidential ones, by saying that Trump committed a major case of crimethink.  The Ziomedia pounced on him with self-righteous outrage and put immense pressure on him to retract his statement (which, by the way, contradicted Pence’s stance).  Instead of rolling over and recanting his “crime”, Trump replied with this:

Beautiful no?  Let’s hope he continues to show the same courage.

Trump is doing now what Jean-Marie Le Pen did in France: he is showing the Neocons that be that he dares to openly defy them, that he refuses to play by their rules, that their outrage has no effect on his and that they don’t get to censor or, even less so, silence him.  That is also what he did when, yet again, he refused to accuse the Russians of cyber-attacks and, instead, repeated that it would be a good thing for Russia and the USA to be friends.  Again, I am not sure that how long he will be able to hold that line, but for the time being there is no denying that he is openly defying the AngloZionist deep state and Empire.

Conclusion:

The United States are about to enter what might possibly be the deepest and most dangerous crisis of their history.  If Trump is elected, he will have to immediately launch a well-planned attack against his opponents without giving them any pretext to accuse him of politically motivated repressions.  In Russia, Putin could count on the support of the military and the security services.  I don’t know whom Trump can count on, but I am fairly confident that there are still true patriots in the US armed forces.  If Trump gets the right person to head the FBI, he might also use that agency to clean house and deliver a steady streams of indictments for corruption, conspiracy to [fill the blank], abuse of authority, obstruction of justice and dereliction of duty, etc.  Since such crimes are widespread in the current circles of power, they are also easy to prove and cracking down on corruption would get Trump a standing ovation from the American people. Next, just as Putin in Russia, Trump will have to deal with the media.  How exactly, I don’t know. But he will have to face this beast and defeat it.  At every step in this process he will have to get the proactive support of the people, just like Putin does.  Can he do it?

I don’t know.  Honestly, I doubt it.  First, I still don’t trust him.  But, more relevantly, I would argue that to overthrow the deep state and restore true people power is even harder in the USA than it was in Russia.  I have always believed that the AngloZionist Empire will have to be brought down from the outside, most probably by a combination of military and economic defeats. I still believe that. However, I might be wrong – in fact, I hope that I am – and maybe Trump will be the guy to bring down the Empire in order to save the United States. If there is such a possibility, however slim, I think that we have to believe in it and act on it as all the alternatives are far worse.

This article was written for the Unz Review: http://www.unz.com/tsaker/the-us-is-about-to-face-the-worst-crisis-of-its-history-and-how-putins-example-might-inspire-trump/

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