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
He Who Hesitates Is Lost And Russia
Hesitated
By Paul Craig Roberts
September 25, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- The Russian government deceived itself
with its fantasy belief that Russia and
Washington had a common cause in fighting
ISIS. The Russian government even went along
with the pretense that the various ISIS
groups operating under various pen names
were “moderate rebels” who could be
separated from the extremists, all the while
agreeing to cease fighting on successive
verges of victory so that Washington could
resupply ISIS and prepare to introduce US
and NATO forces into the conflict. The
Russian government apparently also thought
that as a result of the coup against Erdogan,
which was said to implicate Washington,
Turkey was going to cease supporting ISIS
and cooperate with Russia.
Alas, the Russians so fervently, or perhaps
I should say feverishly, desired an
agreement with Washington that they deceived
themselves.
If
Finian Cunningham’s report is correct,
Washington has taken advantage of Russia’s
urging that Washington and Turkey join in
the attack on ISIS by invading northern
Syria under the guise of “fighting ISIS.”
Syria has now been partitioned, and the
pretend or fake “moderate rebels” can be
built up inside the US/Turkish occupied
areas of Syria and the war against Syria
kept going for as long as Washington wants.
The western presstitutes will report that
the Turkish/American forces occupying areas
of Syria are not invaders but are attacking
ISIS.
With US, Turkish, and, little doubt, soon
other NATO troops operating inside Syria,
the neoconservatives will have many
opportunities to provoke a conflict with
Russia from which Russia will have to stand
down or reply with force. In the event of a
Trump presidential victory, the neocons want
to make certain Trump is embroiled in a war
that will prevent an accommodation with
Russia.
It
is unclear whether US Secretary of State
Kerry’s effort to arrange a Syrian ceasefire
was sincere and he was sandbagged by the
Pentagon and CIA. Regardless, if Kerry was
sincere, he is obviously unable to stand up
to the neocons, blessed as the State
Department is with Victoria Nuland and a
number of other warmongers.
Obama is equally weak, which is why he was
chosen by the oligarchy as president. A
person without experience and knowledge is
an excellent tool for the oligarchy.
American blacks and white liberals actually
believed that an inexperienced candidate
from nowhere without an organization of his
own could make a difference. Apparently, the
gullibility of a majority of Americans is
endless. This American hallmark of
gullibility is why a handful of
neoconservatives can so easily lead the
sheeple into endless wars.
The
idiot Americans have been at war for 15
years and the morons have no idea what has
been achieved. The fools are unaware that
the US in its decades long accumulation of
weakness now confronts two major nuclear
powers: Russia and China.
Americans have been taught by the
presstitutes serving the military/security
complex that nuclear war is not all that
different from ordinary war. Look at
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two targets of
American atomic bombs. Today, seven decades
later, the cities are flourishing, so what’s
the problem with nuclear weapons?
The
atomic bombs that Washington dropped on
these helpless civilian centers while the
Japanese government was trying to surrender,
were mere popguns compared to today’s
thermo-nuclear weapons. One Russian SS-18
wipes out three-fourths of New York state
for thousands of years. Five or six of these
“Satans” as they are known by the US
military, and the East Coast of the United
States disappears.
Russia had a victory for Syria and democracy
in its hands, but Putin lacked the
decisiveness of a Napoleon or a Stalin and
let his victory slip away as a result of
false hopes that Washington could be
trusted. Now a Russian/Syrian victory would
require driving the Turks and Americans out
of Syria.
If
Russia struck hard and fast, Russia could
succeed by using Washington’s lie and
claiming that Russia thought the US and
Turkish forces were ISIS, just as Washington
claimed when Washington intentionally struck
a known Syrian Army position.
If
Russia actually annihilated the Turkish and
US force, which Russia could easily do, NATO
would collapse, because no European country
wants to be destroyed in World War 3. But
Russia won’t collapse NATO by decisive
action. The Russians won’t fight until war
is absolutely and totally forced upon them.
Then they will pay a huge price for their
indecisiveness rooted in their foolish
belief that Russia has common grounds with
Washington. The only common grounds Russia
has with Washington requires Russia’s
surrender. If Russia will surrender, Russia
can achieve Western acceptance, and
Washington’s agents, the Russian Atlanticist
Integrationists, can rule Russia for
Washington.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for
Economic Policy and associate editor of 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
The
Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and
Economic Dissolution of the West,
How
America Was Lost,
and
The
Neoconservative Threat to World Order.
|
