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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
Election Potpourri

The Presstitutes Have Set Up The Election To Be Stolen

By Paul Craig Roberts

October 25, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - Over the course of its history, the New York Times has reported on many American elections that have been rigged or stolen or are suspected of having been being rigged or stolen. For example, as a supporter of the black civil rights movement, the NY Times has many stories in its archives of elections rigged by disenfranchisement of black voters.

But this was when the NY Times was an independent voice before it became a whore for the Oligarchs who rule America. When the NY Times reported that black Americans could have no confidence in the integrity of American elections, the NY Times did not denounce itself for delegitimizing American democracy.

The NY Times forgot all of this when it published Max Fisher’s article yesterday. Fisher fished up “scholars” among the Hillary advocates, and they obligingly told him that Trump’s questioning of the integrity of American elections were the tactics of a would-be dictator who is at work delegitimizing democracy so that he can take over.

What Fisher and his “scholars” overlook is that the US government is already delegitimized in the eyes of the American population, as well as foreign populations. If the US government was not already delegitimized, Donald Trump would not have been successful in what, despite Trump’s damnation by the presstitutes, was an easy sweep-aside of the Establishment’s candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.

The US government is delegitimized, not only in the eyes of Americans, but also in the eyes of most of the world. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, their careers, their hopes, because corrupt bought-and-paid-for-Washington enabled Globalism to send the futures of the American people to China and India. Millions of Americans lost their homes, because the corrupt Federal Reserve came down on the side of five “banks too big to fail” at the expense of the American people. Millions of Americans along with much of the world know that the US government has been slaughtering millions of peoples in seven countries based on lies, wasting not only countries and the lives of millions of peoples, but trillions of American dollars that Americans needed for their welfare. Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction. Assad did not use chemical weapons. Gaddafi was innocent of all the absurd charges that Washington used to destroy Libya, a country that had the most progressive social system on earth. Russia did not invade Ukraine. The Taliban had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. Yet countries are in ruins because of Washington’s war crimes justified by transparent lies.

If the NY Times does not know this, the organization is too stupid to justify its existence. Of course the Times knows it. But the NY Times is no longer a newspaper. It is a cog in the Ministry of Propaganda that works to create a Matrix in which brainwashed Americans accept the dictates of the Oligarchs.

The purpose of the Times’ article is to discredit in advance criticism of an election that the ruling Oligarchs intend to steal. If the Times believed that Hillary would have a clear election victory, there would be no point to Fisher’s article.

We see voluminous signs of the intended theft of the election. For example, Hillary’s lead in the polls is based on the pollsters skewing the affiliation of those polled to Democrats. The percentage of Democrats in the samples is far higher than their percentage of registered voters. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-23/how-wapos-latest-poll-give-hillary-12-point-advantage-over-trump

It the past it was difficult to steal elections unless they were very close. Exit polls were a check on vote count, and the disenfranchisement of blacks could be risky if it attracted the attention of the US Department of Justice. The new method, which is unfolding before our eyes, steals the election in advance with the Oligarchs’ candidate far ahead in the polls (now by 12 points according to the latest fiction) and by making anyone who questions the faked results into a fascist dictator.

Obviously, if Hillary was really ahead by 12 points — a landslide — there would be no need for Fisher’s article or for the constant drumbeat against Trump. Judging from the hysteria, as reflected in Fisher’s NY Times article, for example, the Oligarchs are aware that objections to their rule has elevated Trump. In order to hold on to power, the American Oligarchs must smash Trump and put their bought-and-paid-for-candidate, Hillary — whom the Oligarchs have provided along with Bill a personal fortune of $120 million and endowed the Clinton Foundation with $1,600 million — into the Oval Office.

Pollsters by nature of their business are unreliable. If truthful results offend the establishment political organizations, the pollsters are out of work. Polls have to serve the Oligarchs or the polling firms go down. Trump is an outsider toward whom the ruling Oligarchy is totally opposed, which is why Americans support him. Therefore, polling firms are adverse to betting their future on poll results favorable to Trump, especially when the whores who constitute the American print and TV media, such as the NY Times, are all out to put Hillary in the White House.

As Hillary’s public statements have made clear, Hillary is antagonistic toward Russia and the Russian government, calling the president of Russia “the new Hitler.” She promises conflict with Russia, which would certainly be nuclear and end life on earth.

Trump says in the face of contrary ruling neoconservative opinion that he sees no point in conflict with Russia and no point in NATO’s continued existence a quarter century after the purpose of NATO collapsed with the Soviet Union. Trump might not be successful in appointing a government that serves his instincts, but at least he gives us hope of avoiding military conflict with Russia and China. With Hillary there is no hope whatsoever. My opinion is that the world would not survive Hillary’s first term. I have known the neoconservatives since the 1970s. They are crazed fanatics, and they hate Russia. Hillary is their agent.

It is unclear that the Russian government understands, or takes seriously, the neoconservative ideology of US world hegemony. Putin’s hesitant, indecisive behavior in Syria has done more to set himself and Russia up for demonization than to defeat ISIS. http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/10/24/by-cooperating-with-washington-on-syria-russia-walked-into-a-trap-paul-craig-roberts/

The Western world is corrupt and evil. The list of its victims is almost endless. What disconnect makes some Russians desire association with the Western world?

How the Media and Democrats Rig the Perception of Trump

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/oct/18/undercover-video-shows-democrats-saying-they-hire-/

The Orchestrated Trump-Putin Connection

Leaked emails prove that the Trump-Putin connection was orhestrated as campaign talk
to deflect attention from damaging content of Clinton’s released emails.

https://www.rt.com/usa/363779-clinton-trump-putin-isis/

Integrity Of US Elections Among Lowest Of All Countries

According to Shyla Nelson, the co-founder of Election Justice USA, US elections are manipulated in many ways, including «voter suppression, unauthorized registration purges, district gerrymandering, gross exit poll variances, the privatization of voting machinery, and the lack of transparency in ballot processing – our elections will continue to rank among the lowest in the world in integrity.

US elections are so corrupt that the US has threatened Russian diplomats with arrest if they attempt to monitor the US November presidential election.

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/10/23/us-gives-another-reason-believe-democracy-deeply-flawed.html

Bill Clinton’s Rape Victims (the ones we know about)

http://www.albertpeia.com/oxfordassault.htm

But we must not tolerate Trump’s lewd comments.

Bill and Hillary are lawless because they have never been held accountable. As the justice system has given Hillary a pass, will voters hold her accountable in November, or will the American public also give her a pass?

Hillary Has Never Been Held Accountable For Anything

What is worse, Hillary laughing about her success in getting a child rapist off or Trump’s lewd comments about women? Why is it that the TV women can’t come up with the right answer? How can democracy function when a propaganda ministry takes the place of the media?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2658801/I-never-trusted-polygraph-Hillary-Clinton-LAUGHS-recalls-helped-suspected-child-rapist-walk-free-prosecution-lost-crucial-evidence.html

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/20/exclusive-hillary-clinton-took-me-through-hell-rape-victim-says.html

A Comparison of Trump’s and Hillary’s Crowds

Trump’s crowds are hundreds of times larger than Hillary’s, so how is it that she is
in the lead? We are being told lies in order to cover up the coming election theft.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4K56KaJ7Ds&app=desktop

Poll of Likely Voters Finds 53% Want Hillary Indicted

If 53% of voters want Hillary indicted, how can she be leading in the presidential race?

Which of the polls is wrong?

https://www.rt.com/usa/363759-hillary-emails-indicted-poll/

Rigged Elections Are An American Tradition

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/10/21/rigged-elections-are-an-american-tradition-paul-craig-roberts/

Stephen Lendman pleads: don’t let them steal the election, reject the presstitutes’ propaganda:

November 8 isn’t election day. It’s orchestrated grand theft theater to anoint Hillary Obama’s successor. Americans are deluded to believe their vote matters.

This year’s outcome was decided well in advance, likely last year before aspirants announced their candidacy for the nation’s highest office.

Power brokers running America bear full responsibility for concocting a sham system, fantasy democracy, not the real thing.

Disgracefully one-sided pro-Hillary media scoundrels and corporate pollsters share blame for creating the impression of her unbeatability.

Press agent journalism proliferates. Biased corporate polls are easily manipulated to show what sponsors want. On Sunday, The New York Times virtually declared Hillary November’s winner and next president, saying she “has a 93% chance to win.”

The dirty game aims to discourage Trump supporters, convince them he has no chance to win, hoping many will stay home, while encouraging rank and file for Hillary to show up en masse.

Any number of dirty tricks can be used to assure she’s anointed president-elect. Stolen elections are a longstanding US tradition from the early days of the republic.

Now it’s done by methods explained above, electronic ease, voter roll stripping and other dirty tricks.

Paul Craig Roberts explains turnout for Trump stump speeches overwhelming exceeds what Hillary attracts.

So how come most polls show her leading, he asks? “We are being told lies in order to cover up the coming election theft,” he justifiably explains.

Want more evidence? Here it is. Citing an October 18 – 19, Rasmussen poll, RT International reported 65% of voters surveyed saying Hillary acted extrajudicially by storing classified State Department emails on her private server.

A 53% majority believe she should be indicted. When asked if Hillary’s email scandal was important in influencing their vote, 70% replied affirmatively – 49% calling it very important.

If Hillary wins as expected, around 70% of Republican voters believe it’s by election-rigging, according to a separate Reuters/Ipsos poll RT cited.

If most voters want her indicted, polls showing her leading Trump lack credibility.

She’s the establishment candidate, Wall Street’s choice, Trump an outlier, relentlessly denigrated, things rigged to assure he loses.

Democracy in America serves its privileged few alone — indifferent to the needs, rights and welfare of most others, especially the nation’s poor and vulnerable.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts editor of was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are Dissolution of The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.

 

 

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