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
Media Ask Which Candidate Can Better Exploit
Our Irrational Fear of Terrorism
By Adam Johnson
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 22, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- "FAIR"
- The media’s tendency to focus on
horserace issues—who’s up and who’s down,
what the cosmetics are of an event rather
than the substance—is routinely derided by
media critics, and mocking it has become
something of an election year tradition. But
one 2016 topic in particular, terrorism, has
become the hot horserace topic of the year
in a way that goes beyond the silly to the
potentially damaging:
-
Clinton, Trump Jockey
Over Who Would Best Fight Terrorists
(WNBC,
9/20/16)
-
Who Has the Upper Hand on
Terrorism, Clinton or Trump?
(Politico,
9/20/16)
-
Terror Threat Clash:
Trump, Clinton Accuse Each Other of
Boosting Enemy
(Fox News,
9/19/16)
-
Clinton, Trump Spar Over
Terrorism in Wake of Latest Attacks
(USA Today,
9/20/16)
Something missing from these reports is any
discussion of the relative danger of
terrorism. The reporters begin with the
premise that voters are afraid of it, never
challenging the underlying rationality of
those fears.
The
reality is that terrorism remains,
objectively, a very minor threat. (One is 82
times more likely to be killed
falling out of bed than by a terrorist.)
But by framing the issue as an urgent
danger, with two candidates “dueling” over
opposing ways of addressing this menace, the
media further inflate terrorism’s
importance. Can one even imagine Trump and
Clinton “jockeying” for position on climate
change, or violence against women and LGBT
communities, or lowering heart disease—all
of which, statistically, are far, far more
dangerous than terrorism?
This isn’t a new problem, of course. In nine
Democratic primary debates, for example, the
moderators asked a total of 30 questions
about terrorism or ISIS, and not one
question about poverty (FAIR.org,
5/27/16). (A 2011
study by Columbia’s school of public
health estimated that 4.5 percent of all
deaths in the United States are attributable
to poverty.)
Polls
show people are indeed increasingly worried
about terrorism—and about “Islamic
fundamentalism,” with which it is often
conflated in media discussions.
(Republicans’ fear of “Islamic
fundamentalism” is now
higher than immediately after 9/11.)
But
such worries are fueled, at least in part,
on the media’s outsized coverage. Since
2006, according to the
tabulations of USA Today, there
have been 320 incidents of mass murder in
the United States—incidents in which four or
more people were killed, not including
perpetrators. During that time, there have
been five such attacks carried out by people
apparently motivated by Islamicist ideology:
the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, the 2013 Boston
Marathon bombing, the 2015 Chattanooga
shooting, the 2015 San Bernardino attack and
the 2016 Orlando nightclub massacre. Two
other mass murder incidents—the 2012
Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting and the 2015
Charleston church massacre—were carried out
by right-wing extremists. These seven
potentially terrorist attacks represent
about 2 percent of the mass murder events in
the United States over a little more than
the last decade.
But
media don’t just cover terrorism, they
engage in meta-terrorism—the terror that
comes from the gratuitous or excessive
coverage of stories that don’t actually
involve terrorism, but rather potential or
staged terrorism, or ISIS propaganda
repackaged as news. Note that in none of the
following “terror” stories did any terrorism
actually occur:
-
Online Posts Show ISIS
Eyeing Mexican Border, Says Law
Enforcement Bulletin
(Fox News,
8/24/14)
-
FBI Director
Comey: Several ISIS-Inspired July 4
Attacks Foiled
(NBC,
7/9/15)
-
Smugglers Busted
Trying to Sell Nuclear Material to ISIS
(AP,
10/7/15)
-
ISIS Threatens NYC in New
Propaganda Video
(New York Post,
11/18/15)
-
A Freeway Terror Attack
Is the ‘Nightmare We Worry About,’ Law
Enforcers Say
(LA Times,
12/21/15)
-
Feds: New York Man Was
Planning ISIS Attack on New Year’s Eve
(CNN,
1/2/16)
-
ISIS Planning ‘Enormous
and Spectacular Attacks,’ Anti-Terror
Chief Warns (Guardian,
3/7/16)
-
ISIL Plotting to Use
Drones for Nuclear Attack on West
(Telegraph,
4/1/16)
-
ISIS Nuclear Attack in
Europe Is a Real Threat, Say Experts
(Independent,
6/7/16)
The
list could go on and on—with stories
involving the FBI foiling terrorist “plots”
of their own making, “experts” coming up
with hypothetical terror attacks, or the
outright dissemination of ISIS propaganda.
The constant drum beat of meta-terror acts
as an accelerant, taking each spark of
actual terrorism and turning it into an
inferno of panic.
The
failure of those pieces on Trump and
Clinton’s “jockeying” for position on the
issue of ISIS terrorism to note that the
perception of fear does not equal the actual
threat–that we are still far more likely to
be harmed by
dozens of other threats than
terrorism—is in line with horserace
journalism’s prioritization of optics over
substance, a phenomenon that’s that much
more toxic when dealing with a subject whose
optics are skewed by racism and
irrationality.
To
the extent that there is any dampening of
fears, it comes from the Clinton camp, in
the context of countering Trump’s brand of
outright xenophobia. The
Overton window has narrowed to a choice
between overwrought ISIS panic and
overwrought ISIS panic that’s overtly
racist.
Reporting that reached beyond the two
campaigns’ anti-ISIS talking points, and
horserace analysis of their attempts to
“out-position” each other, would serve the
public by putting our fears of terrorism in
perspective.
Adam
Johnson is a contributing analyst for
FAIR.org.
You can follow him on
Twitter
at @AdamJohnsonNYC.
|
