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
US Holds World Hostage to Political ‘Reality
Show’
By RT
September 29, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
- "RT" -
Washington’s foreign policy is driven by
hysteria and resembles a “reality show” in
which nobody cares about facts and resorts
to old cliches and attacks on Russia to gain
international and domestic political
capital, said Russia’s foreign ministry
spokeswoman.
The
political process driven by Moscow and
Washington aimed at establishing a
long-lasting peace in Syria is hanging by a
thread after a series of events this month
led to severe mistrust between the leading
nations involved in the peace process.
While
US-Russian relations steadily deteriorated
after the February 2014 coup in Ukraine,
both states found the political will to
cooperate on a number of important
international issues ranging from Iran’s
nuclear program to the Syrian armed
conflict.
Months-long diplomatic efforts on behalf of
Russia and the US almost produced results,
when US-led coalition jets bombed Syrian
government forces’ positions near the
eastern city of Deir ez-Zor, killing 62
troops and “paving the way”,
according to the Syrian Army General
Command, for Islamic State (IS, formerly
ISIS/ISIL) terrorists to storm the city
before Russia intervened on Saturday,
September 17.
Two
days later on Monday, an attack on a UN aid
convoy which killed more than 20 people near
Aleppo saw the US-Russian brokered
cease-fire crumble. The US held Syria and
Russia responsible for the strike on the
convoy delivering food relief to a
rebel-held area. However, Moscow denied the
accusations, and blamed Washington for not
honoring agreements on Syria.
As
the violence in Syria gathers new momentum,
all efforts to cease hostilities have
failed. At the UN Security Council, earlier
this month, US envoy Samantha Power slated
her Russian counterpart with regards to
Moscow’s objectives in Syria, while Russia
accused the US of not living up to its
promises.
On
Wednesday, top US and Russian diplomats
exchanged mutual accusations as they shared
their positions on peace prospects in the
war-torn country. Washington is preparing to
suspend the “bilateral engagement”
on Syria with Moscow, including the
establishment of the Joint Implementation
Center, unless Russia immediately halts the
attack on Aleppo and restores the ceasefire,
John Kerry told Russia’s Sergey Lavrov. The
Russian FM asked the US to live up to its
obligation to separate US-backed opposition
from terrorists.
When asked by a journalist from Russian
tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda what had
happened in Syria that had erased the
months-long diplomatic effort, Zakharova
said that the context of current Russian-US
relations should be examined through the
prism of domestic US politics that impacts
Washington’s behavior on the international
stage.
The
spokeswoman explained that US behavior in
terms of its approach to Syria and Russia in
general is influenced by two facts, the
first of which is the inability of the
outgoing US President Barack Obama to
produce tangible results in terms of his
stated foreign policy objectives which have
not materialized after eight years in
office.
“He [Obama]
had received a credit [of trust]
to perform a particular job as
the head of the country, which
declares itself an international
leader,”
Zakharova said.
“[Obama] now
needs to do everything possible
to somehow influence something,
and somehow inscribe himself in
the history of international
relations, as long as the
international community has
issued him with such a credit
[of trust]. He needs to report
but there is nothing to report.
Almost everything that he stated
on the foreign policy direction,
did not play out.”
Now in order to secure his
legacy in the international
arena, the office of the Noble
Peace Prize laureate is being
“hysterical” and
getting “impudent” in
its foreign policies.
The second domestic process that
impacts American diplomacy is
the US presidential election
race where both candidates,
Democrat Hilary Clinton and
Republican Donald Trump, are
manipulating foreign issues to
secure their victory, especially
when it comes to US relations
with Moscow.
“Unfortunately, this is the
trouble of the modern world,
where the largest and most
powerful empire uses
international relations and
international platforms for
addressing internal issues,
political
processes and
ambitions. It is our misfortune.
We are all hostages to it,”
Zakharova said.
Not diplomacy but
“shaping public opinion”
is what drives American behavior
on international platforms such
as the United Nations, Zakharova
said, calling such an approach
an “online reality show”
demonstrated to audiences to
influence their opinion of US
politicians. Zhakharova called
Power’s attack on Churkin
following the American strike on
Syrian army positions a
“part of the
show.”
The show is there
to “distract attention”
America’s inability to fulfill
its obligations, Zakharova said.
“You need to explain to the
world why the Syrian settlement
is not moving on, why the
year-long efforts are now
negated. Who’s to blame?
Russia.”
Claiming that no one is buying
this “wag the dog”
approach, Zhakharova stressed
that battling terrorism calls
for an “adequate action,”
namely combining efforts with
Russia on Syria.
“Now it has
come to this critical moment –
either they fulfill their
obligations, or the [peace]
process can really slow down
seriously,”
the diplomat stressed,
reiterating Lavrov’s comments to
Kerry earlier in the day.
The US and its allies are using
“cliches”, demanding that
Russia must explain its actions
Syria and prove the
“seriousness” of its
commitment to peace.
“But who are
they that we have to prove
something to them?”
the diplomat wondered.
“It is they
who have to prove [their
commitment], after destroying
Iraq, Libya, walking all over
the Middle East with their
boots, breaking all conceivable
laws of existence in the
region.”
“It is they
who have to prove the sincerity
of their intentions with regard
to Syria ...that they see this
state as a state, not some
colony or some kind of black
hole,”
she said.
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