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 or Revolution?
An Open Letter To The People Of The United
States
By Robert J Burrowes
Jonathan Cook is a Nazareth- based
journalist and winner of the Martha
Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism -
See more at: http://www.jonathan-cook.net/2016-09-19/palestinians-lose-in-us-military-aid-deal-with-israel/#sthash.H1NbQCac.dpuf
September 20, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- As citizens of the USA with a presidential
election approaching you have a wonderful
opportunity to ponder whether to participate
in this election or to participate in the
ongoing American Revolution.
Your first revolution might
have overthrown the authority of the British
monarchy and aristocracy but the one in
progress must remove the US elite which has
executed a political coup against your
government. And you cannot remove elite
coupmakers in a fraudulently conducted
election in which the ‘choice’ is
essentially between two violently insane
individuals, each of whom represents the
violently insane US elite. See ‘The Global
Elite is Insane’
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2014/02/the-global-elite-is-insane/
and ‘Why Violence?’
http://tinyurl.com/whyviolence
The
real value of this second revolution, which
moves along steadily with routine outbreaks
over a multitude of peace, environmental and
social justice issues and occasional
‘uprisings’, such as the Occupy Movement in
2011 which spawned a range of new and
visionary initiatives, is that it could give
citizens of your country the chance to
finally reclaim the Republic for those
people who genuinely care about ‘life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness’. And,
just as importantly, have sufficient vision
to regard these aspirations as something to
be shared with the entire US population,
starting with Native Americans, and even
those of us in the rest of the world
including those countries that are currently
victims of US elite violence, whether it be
wars, drone strikes, coups, economic
exploitation or ecological destruction.
Such a revolution might rewrite your
constitution and replace the second
amendment ‘right of the people to keep and
bear arms’ with the right to live free of
the fear of gun violence. It might result in
a form of social organization that
distributes wealth equitably (perhaps by
actually taxing the wealthy and outlawing
the use of offshore tax havens) while
reallocating the annual military (killing)
budget to life-enhancing projects such as
poverty alleviation, affordable housing,
free education, free healthcare, clean
water, renewable energy technologies, and a
substantial budget for compensation to those
countries that the US elite has
systematically exploited or simply destroyed
during the past 200 years. This would allow
the 50 million US citizens who live in
poverty, and another billion people around
the world who also live in poverty, the
chance to live a decent life.
Now, you might ask, ‘How are we, the
ordinary citizens of the United States, even
with our handguns, rifles and assault
weapons, going to take on the US military
and police to remove elite control of our
government?’ Well, the answer is that you do
not need even one weapon for this ongoing
revolution and, in fact, you are vastly
better off without them. Weapons have only
one use – to kill people – and any
revolution worth the name has a more
profoundly ambitious aim than this.
What you need is intelligence, commitment,
courage and a sound nonviolent strategy. The
US elite controls your government and has
crippled your republic because, over
successive generations, you have let them.
Every time you cooperate with the elite,
because you are scared, by paying your taxes
(more than 50% of which finances US wars and
other military violence), putting your money
into their corporate banks, shopping at
their corporate shopping malls, buying and
consuming the ‘news’ presented by their
corporate media, rationalizing their
policies as reasonable, participating in
their unjust and violent legal system,
fighting (as an enlisted person or as a
mercenary) in their military forces, working
in their prison system, accepting exploited
employment of any kind, eating their
poisoned and genetically mutilated foods (GMOs),
going along with their endless attempts to
divide you along racial, class, religious
and other lines, you simply consent to their
control. Why?
You
have a simple alternative. Consciously and
systematically participate in the ongoing
nonviolent revolution that is already taking
place and give it added life by your
presence. Remake the US republic as you want
it by withdrawing your cooperation with
elite structures and processes while
creating alternatives that meet your needs
and the needs of those around you.
Join those US visionaries who are creating
cooperatives where people are both managers
and valued workers, take your money out of
elite banks and put it into financial
organizations that exist or which you create
to serve the interests of their members (or,
if you prefer, use LETSystems), refuse to
participate in or pay for (with your taxes)
US imperialism (and win friends all over the
world), grow or buy healthy locally-grown
organic/biodynamic (and, if you are
concerned about the climate catastrophe as
well, vegetarian) food, read progressive
news outlets so that you know what is really
going on in the USA and the world, read
literature that deepens your understanding
and concern for humanity and doesn’t just
offer you a distraction from the horror in
which you live, and support or even become
one of those many fine nonviolent activists
in your country who take personal risks in
the struggle to create a better world.
If
you want more of what you have, then you
should vote and/or buy a gun. They have an
equivalent outcome: they both legitimize
elite violence and exploitation directed at
you and those you love.
If
you want to participate in this second and
ongoing American revolution, then spend your
time participating in the wholesome
activities that many grassroots
organizations already offer and in creating
its next manifestations in your own
neighborhood. It is the powerful
conscience-based choices that you make as an
individual that define your Self. And it is
these choices that will have most impact on
your family, neighborhood, community
organization, trade union, religious
organization and elsewhere and that will
help decide the future of the USA and its
role in the world.
Now
you might say, I do some or even all of the
sorts of things you mentioned above, so why
not vote too? My answer is simply this:
Voting is an act of disempowerment. It’s
essential message is ‘I appoint you to
govern for me’. I prefer to govern myself
(both meanings intended). And you?
So
what of those who present the ‘lesser evil’
argument: one candidate is so bad that it is
better to have the other. This ‘argument’ is
not worthy of scrutiny. If you are deceived
by this argument, you will vote forever in
the delusional hope that you will one day
get a choice to vote for someone genuinely
decent. In 2008, Barack Obama was supposed
to be the candidate of hope and change. Did
you get that hope and change? Are you going
to get it with Clinton or Trump? Of course
not. Elites simply ensure that change via
the electoral system cannot happen; its
function is to absorb and dissipate our
dissent.
If
you vote you are saying that you endorse
this system of electoral exploitation. The
tragedy is that even third-party candidates,
who may be people of genuine principle, have
no chance. Even worse, they add a veneer of
legitimacy to your corrupt electoral system.
In
essence, if you vote for the ‘lesser evil’
you are still voting for an ‘evil’ and, more
importantly, you have participated in and
endorsed an ‘evil’ system: one which denies
you a genuine ‘free and fair’ choice to vote
for a candidate who actually represents your
interests and views and has a reasonable
chance of winning. And, having won, is then
able to actually implement their policies
(rather than be stymied by a power structure
that has no intention of letting this
happen). Given your circumstances, ‘the only
winning move is not to play’ their corrupt
game and to put your energy into a genuinely
winning move: working for the regeneration
of American society.
Look at it this way. If there are two rotten
eggs, would you choose the one that is less
rotten and eat it? Presumably you would seek
another option and only after you have
identified and fixed what is causing the
problem in the first place. The point is
this: Unless you spend your time deeply
contemplating the nature of the society in
which you want to live and then devoting
your time and energy into creating that
society, you will never have it. And you
have betrayed yourself.
The
reality is that either Clinton or Trump is
going to be president of the USA for the
next four years and a lot of people (both in
the US but particularly in foreign
countries) are going to die because of it
(through US military violence and corporate
exploitation). What we can do is to invest
our political energy into creating a United
States in which, at some point in the
future, the likes of Clinton and Trump, and
those they represent, no longer drive
outcomes in our world.
To
reiterate: I am not saying ‘Don’t vote and
do nothing’ (as so many people do already).
I am suggesting that you ponder the
dysfunctionality of your society, do some
research into the secretive ‘deep state’ (or
military-industrial complex or power elite
or the 1% or however you wish to describe
it) that controls your ‘republic’ with its
electoral system designed to delude you into
believing that you have a say in governing
your nation, and then consider how you want
to engage politically and act in accord with
your conscience in doing so. It is only by
doing this that we will have any chance of
getting the society and the world that we
want, even if it is beyond our lifetimes
(and assuming we can avert extinction at our
own hand in the meantime).
In summary, profound change
only occurs from the ‘bottom up’ when enough
ordinary people take the initiative to
remake their own society. And if you are
really interested in doing this, one
important place to start is by reviewing the
way in which you nurture children. See ‘My
Promise to Children’.
https://nonviolentstrategy.wordpress.com/strategywheel/constructive-program/my-promise-to-children/
Other straightforward
options, in addition to those mentioned
above, include participation in ‘The Flame
Tree Project to Save Life on Earth’
http://tinyurl.com/flametree and signing
the online pledge of ‘The People’s Charter
to Create a Nonviolent World’.
http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com
But for those of you who are
serious strategic thinkers, I have outlined
a strategy for removing coupmakers on the
website Nonviolent Defense/Liberation
Strategy
https://nonviolentliberationstrategy.wordpress.com/
which is a straightforward presentation of
the more detailed explanation offered in the
book ‘The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A
Gandhian Approach’.
http://www.sunypress.edu/p-2176-the-strategy-of-nonviolent-defe.aspx
Is
our destiny in our own hands? Only if we
have enough people of courage to accept
responsibility for it. Are you one of them?
Robert J. Burrowes
has a lifetime commitment to understanding
and ending human violence. He has done
extensive research since 1966 in an effort
to understand why human beings are violent
and has been a nonviolent activist since
1981. He is the author of
‘Why Violence?’ His email address
is
flametree@riseup.net and his website is
at
http://robertjburrowes.wordpress.com
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