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
The Elite "Have No Idea" - Society Is Near
The Breaking Point
By
Chindit13
October 15, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
-
"Zero
Hedge"-
What I find most surprising
today is that the insiders and the elite
have no idea what is percolating
just beneath the surface. Okay,
maybe their arrogance actually produces its
own fog, so it should not come as a surprise
that they are blinded. They do not look at
the calendar, which, if one really looks,
says "1788" on it.
Something is close. Very
close. Society is near the breaking point.
My
own experience is that Hillary’s
so-called Deplorables are actually the most
reserved, most polite, and most honest
demographic in the country. They
are more informed, more self-reliant, and
among other things, better armed. Regarding
their arms, they are incredibly responsible,
and not the source of the violence for which
the implement, and not the person, is too
often blamed. The Deplorables have the
longest fuse. It is, however, a fuse.
Alt Left, on the other hand,
are the Neo Fascists and Neo Neocons.
It is Alt Left that thinks Free Speech means
THEIR speech only. It is Alt Left that
needs 'safe spaces' and wants to enforce
thought crime.
It is
Alt Left, and its media lapdog sites, that
is heavily into censorship of ideas that
diverge from their approved ideology. It is
Alt Left that champions regime change and
ratcheting up the rhetoric against Russia.
It is Alt Left that believes it has an
inherent right, even an obligation, to lie
and obfuscate if it serves their greater
purpose.
Perhaps most significant is
that it is Alt Left who so quickly resorts
to violence and vandalism when confronted
with people and ideas with which it takes
exception.
Never has that been as clear as in this
election cycle.
The Deplorables, however, are
not possessed of infinite patience.
Like a capacitor, there is a charge
building, and at some point it will be
released into the circuitry of society.
The
media and other insiders believe themselves
to be immune. That thought no doubt results
from being immersed inside a cocoon where
dissonant voices are not allowed. When the
levee breaks, or the capacitor releases its
charge, they are going to be gob smacked.
Precious few of them are anywhere near as
immune as they believe themselves to be.
Additionally, what they might think, or
hope, is their support, their security,
their safe space, doesn't really exist.
Most
of society's guardians, whether they are law
enforcement or military, are card-carrying
members of the Deplorables.
France was similarly
constructed in the late 1780s.
The elite were isolated only in thought, not
in reality. Their protection was of a
Potemkin Village nature: not actually there,
but merely a facade that gave them false
comfort.
They
paid dearly for their arrogance and
ignorance.
History may not repeat, but it does rhyme.
The calendar really does seem to say 1788,
so 1789---and 1792--are not as far off as
some would like to believe.
This
is not a call to arms, but it is a call to
reality. Ignore it at your own peril.
Some may see these words as a threat. They
are not. They are, however, a warning, and
a warning from someone who is a student of
history.
Every society eventually
reaches a breaking point. Ours is nearly
there. Some
of those who might feel threatened, the
so-called elite and insiders, think that
they can buy protection as easily as they
can buy a Gulfstream. How naïve! Who are
the private security contractors? Who are
the various SOGs? Like law enforcement and
the rest of the military, they are the
Deplorables. The Deplorables will take your
money, but you will not take their lives.
Better said, they won’t give up their lives
for you or your family. The security you
believe you have purchased is an illusion.
Make that delusion. Best to get that out
front here and now.
Some who feel threatened, or nervous, might
fall back on the tired adage of ‘We gave
them (the Deplorables) everything; what do
they think they will do without us?’ Well,
the use of ‘we’ is arrogant, because those
who have actually produced something of
value are few and far between.
Industrialists, for lack of a better term,
are those who produced for society things of
lasting value. There are few true
industrialists today, and many who still
remain have shipped their production
overseas, jacking up the compensation of
bonus-based execs, but contributing to the
hollowing out of America. The true
industrialists did produce the cars, trucks,
machine tools, generators, servers and even
computers. They produced lifesaving
medicines and treatments. They made steel
plants and built railroads.
They produced jobs. They even produced the
guns that the Deplorables have by the
hundreds of millions. The Deplorables
recognize that entire contribution.
Mark
Zuckerberg, however, is not Henry Ford.
Jack Dorsey is not Andrew Carnegie. Mark
Benioff is not John Rockefeller. Lloyd
Blankfein is not John Pierpont Morgan.
(Elon Musk might turn out to be someone of
significance, if he is allowed to fail and
is forgiven for it. Time will tell.) The
old Robber Barons, despite their faults, did
produce things of lasting value.
What
did these new ‘titans of industry’ give us?
Facebook? Snapchat?
Twitter? They gave us banality and
pabulum. Some embraced it, despite its
triteness, perhaps because all other meaning
had already been lost, like America’s
exported jobs. These new titans, Neo
Titans, did little more than help dumb down
society. They made America less productive,
less curious, more pedestrian. Maybe they
think they gave us the internet, but credit
for that goes to DARPA, which is to say the
military, which is to say the Deplorables.
The Neo Titans gave America nothing, at
least nothing positive. Social networking?
Gaming? Selfies?
The
Deplorables can live without the silly
oxymoron called social networking, which, as
anyone who looks at it objectively knows, is
anything but social. We don’t care what two
thousand of our fake friends had for
breakfast, or what Andrew Ross Sorkin thinks
of the latest Presidential debate. He
probably thinks we do. After all, he has
‘Twitter Followers’, whom he assumes live
and die by his every Tweet. We can live
without that. I wonder if his ego can? He,
and those of his ilk, are merely Kim
Kardashians without knowing it. They are
the talentless dishing out white bread to
the emotionally and spiritually starved.
Some
might think this is all Trump’s fault.
Again, that shows a degree of ignorance and
naïveté which characterizes the elite.
Trump is a symptom, not a cause. He might
even be a salve, as the changes he could
bring might defuse some of the current
anger.
On the other hand, Hillary is
a lit match in a room of dynamite.
She, like many of the self-important, thinks
her very existence is a favor to the rest of
us. She epitomizes the absolute worst of
what America has become. Above the law,
wealthy not through accomplishment, but
through influence peddling only, and a bull
in a china shop in terms of her effect on
both the country and the world---and I
apologize to bulls for that analogy. The
world is more unstable because of her.
America is less safe because
of her.
Russia and the US---the two largest nuclear
powers---are more at odds because of her.
With her in power, we will reach the
breaking point at home and internationally,
perhaps leading to ‘accidental’ nuclear war,
as the heightened rhetoric impacts clear
thinking. Society is more stratified
because of her. Race relations have
deteriorated because of her (and Obama).
There are few current ills in society and in
geopolitics that cannot be laid at her feet,
at least to some extent. The Great Deceiver
to many, who exhibits an astonishing
aversion to truth telling, is enough to make
even an agnostic wonder if the anti-Christ
hasn’t finally arrived for its three and a
half years of rule.
A recently hacked email of
John Podesta finds him saying “she (Hillary)
has begun to hate everyday Americans”.
No doubt the same feelings were voiced by
Nicolas Ceaucescu. It turned out the
feeling was mutual.
Elect Hillary, and continue with business as
usual, and it is likely this warning will
become an epitaph for the America we know.
Society may collapse regardless, because the
rot is already very great, but she will
hasten the day of reckoning.
The Deplorables have already
considered what is coming.
They are as prepared as they can be. Years
of decline have enabled many to build their
survival skills, to make due with less, to
build real communities where one man can
trust another, to discover what is truly
important and what can and should be
salvaged from this society.
Outside of that demographic, however, people
are stark naked. They are vulnerable in
ways they simply cannot imagine. They are
unprepared and unskilled for what will
matter most. They are cannon fodder living
on borrowed time.
History is full of examples of this sort of
collapse. We humans have always rolled
along a sine wave of progress and decline,
of civility and social unrest. We think we
have outgrown the sort of mayhem with which
the history books are full, but that thought
stems from recency bias. Most of
history---the vast majority---is not
peaceful.
Societies are not, on
average, stable and safe.
Thomas Hobbes knew that quite
well, as evidenced in his most famous
quote. Humanity is likely on the
verge of returning to the mean, and the mean
is exactly that: mean. In case
some have forgotten their Hobbes: solitary,
poor, nasty, brutish and short.
Have a
nice day.
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