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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

Julian Assange Says Trump 'Won't be Allowed to Win'

By Darren Boyle

November 04, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - "Daily Mail" - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has claimed Donald Trump 'won't be allowed to win' next week's election during an interview to be broadcast on a pro-Kremlin TV station. 

The Australian computer hacker was speaking from inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he also accused Hillary Clinton of receiving donations from the same people funding ISIS.

Assange said he was basing his claims on emails released last month by WikiLeaks. 

 

Speaking to Australian journalist John Pilger for Dartmouth Films, Assange claimed one of the leaked documents between showed a message sent by the then Secretary of State to John Podesta, who was an adviser to President Barack Obama.

Assange said the email urged Obama to 'bring pressure' on the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, 'which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL [ISIS] and other radical Sunni groups'.

He described the email as the 'most important' in the entire collection.

He claimed: 'All serious analysts know, and even the US government has agreed, that some Saudi figures have been supporting ISIS and funding ISIS, but the dodge has always been that it is some “rogue” princes using their oil money to do whatever they like, but actually the government disapproves. But that email says that it is the government of Saudi Arabia, and the government of Qatar that have been funding ISIS.'

Clinton has also been criticized over claims that the Clinton Foundation receives funding from Saudi and Qatari sources.

Later in the 25-minute interview, which will be broadcast on Russia Today, Assange claims next Tuesday's presidential election has been fixed in favour of Hillary Clinton.

He added: 'My analysis is that Trump would not be permitted to win. Why do I say that? Because he has had every establishment off his side. Trump does not have one establishment, maybe with the exception of the Evangelicals, if you can call them an establishment. Banks, intelligence, arms companies, foreign money, etc. are all united behind Hillary Clinton. And the media as well. Media owners, and the journalists themselves.'

Donald Trump has repeatedly said Tuesday's presidential election may be rigged, while providing scant evidence, and has urged supporters to keep an eye out for signs of voting fraud in Philadelphia and other heavily Democratic areas.

Democrats worry that could encourage Trump supporters to harass minority voters in a state that could determine whether Trump or his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, wins the presidency. Voting-rights advocates said they are already receiving reports of harassment.

 

Democrats have launched a legal blitz of their own in an attempt to shut down Trump's poll-watching efforts in Pennsylvania and three other battleground states, arguing in lawsuits that Republican monitoring efforts amount to 'vigilante voter intimidation' that violates federal law. 

Assange earlier denied he was a stooge for the Russian intelligence services, claiming they were not behind the damaging leaks to the Clinton campaign. 

He has been wanted by Swedish authorities since 2010 over rape allegations. 

He has been hiding the the Ecuadorian embassy in London over fears he will be extradited to the United States. 

He said: 'The Clinton camp has been able to project a neo-McCarthyist hysteria that Russia is responsible for everything.

'Hillary Clinton has stated multiple times, falsely, that 17 US intelligence agencies had assessed that Russia was the source of our publications. That's false – we can say that the Russian government is not the source.'

The first tranche of emails published by WikiLeaks claimed the Democratic party leadership actively favored Clinton over her rival for the nomination Bernie Sanders.  

 

The Department of Homeland Security Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said last month they were 'confident' the Russian government was responsible for the leaks.

But Russia has denied this and presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said it was 'nonsense'.

In an interview with veteran John Pilger on RT, Assange said: 'We have independently authenticated the emails. WikiLeaks has a decade-long, perfect record in the accurate authentication of leaked documents.'

Assange: Clinton & ISIS funded by same money, Trump won’t be allowed to win (JOHN PILGER EXCLUSIVE)

 

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