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
Donald Trump’s Campaign Takes a Fascistic
Turn
By Patrick Martin
October 15, 2016 "Information
Clearing House"
-
"WSWS"-
In a
speech delivered by Donald Trump to an
audience of thousands in West Palm Beach,
Florida, the Republican candidate turned his
campaign in a more distinctly fascistic
direction. Presenting himself as both the
savior of America and the victim of a
ruthless political and economic
establishment, Trump sought to connect
deep-seated social anger among masses of
people with an “America First” program of
anti-immigrant xenophobia, militarism,
economic nationalism and authoritarianism.
Responding to the latest allegations of
sexual abuse, Trump proclaimed that he is
being targeted by international bankers, the
corporate-controlled media and the political
establishment who fear that his election
will undermine their interests.
He offered as an alternative his own
persona—the strong-man leader who is willing
to bear the burden and make the sacrifices
necessary for a pitiless struggle against
such powerful adversaries. Trump warned that
the November 8 election would be the last
opportunity for the American people to
defeat the powerful vested interests that
are supporting Hillary Clinton.
The clear implication of the speech is that
if Trump loses the election, the struggle
against the political establishment will
have to be carried forward by other means:
in other words, by force and violence.
Unlike other Trump speeches, which have
largely consisted of rambling and
disconnected improvisations, the West Palm
Beach address, followed several hours later
by no less explosive remarks at a mass rally
in Cincinnati, was carefully prepared. Trump
read from a teleprompter, and the argument
was delivered coherently.
There is little doubt that the speech was
scripted for Trump by his campaign chairman,
Stephen Bannon, on leave as CEO of the
Breitbart.com web site, a gathering place
for the so-called alt-right, an amalgam of
ultra-right, white nationalist and neo-Nazi
tendencies.
The fascistic character of the speech lies
in its combination of an appeal to real
social grievances—Trump referred explicitly
to “the disenfranchisement of working
people”—with racist, chauvinist and
dictatorial solutions. This includes not
only the demand for jailing Hillary Clinton,
now a refrain of every speech, but his calls
for his supporters to prevent a “rigged”
election by blocking access to the polls for
voters in “certain communities.”
Trump denounced the “global power structure
that is responsible for the economic
decisions that have robbed our working
class, stripped our country of its wealth
and put that money into the pockets of a
handful of large corporations and political
entities.”
He continued: “Just look at what this
corrupt establishment has done to our cities
like Detroit and Flint, Michigan—and rural
towns in Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina
and across our country. They have stripped
these towns bare, and raided the wealth for
themselves and taken away their jobs.”
He went on to cite internal Clinton campaign
emails published by WikiLeaks this week,
documenting how, as Trump put it, “Hillary
Clinton meets in secret with international
banks to plot the destruction of US
sovereignty in order to enrich these global
financial powers.”
After the top congressional Republican,
House Speaker Paul Ryan, publicly broke with
Trump Monday, declaring that he would
neither campaign for him nor defend him,
Trump responded with the declaration, “It is
so nice that the shackles have been taken
off me and I can now fight for America the
way I want to.”
The West Palm Beach speech demonstrates what
Trump has in mind.
The Democratic Party and the Clinton
campaign have played a critical role in
enabling Trump to advance his fascistic
campaign. Throughout the primary campaign,
Bernie Sanders drew larger and more
enthusiastic crowds than Trump for his
denunciations of Wall Street and the power
and privilege of the “millionaires and
billionaires.”
Once Sanders quit the race and threw his
support to Clinton, the epitome of the
political establishment, the Democrats
created the conditions in which Trump can
present himself as the sole opponent of the
status quo. He is seeking to draw on the
social anger that previously animated
support for Sanders. Indeed, he has
repeatedly denounced Clinton for the
corrupt, backroom maneuvers aimed at
undermining Sanders, which Sanders himself
has worked to cover up as he campaigns for
Clinton.
Trump’s claim to oppose the establishment on
behalf of the working people is pure
demagogy. He owes his own career as a
billionaire real estate and casino mogul,
media celebrity and presidential candidate
to the very forces—the financial elite, the
corporate media and the political
establishment—that he now falsely claims to
oppose.
But the Clinton campaign does not even
attempt to respond to Trump’s social
demagogy, because it is tied by a thousand
threads to the corporate and Wall Street
oligarchy. Clinton is running as the
designated successor of Barack Obama,
responsible for the largest transfer of
wealth from working people to the financial
elite in history.
Unable and unwilling to offer the slightest
hint of genuine social reforms, the
Democratic Party seeks to fight Trump on the
most banal and bankrupt level. While his
sallies against Clinton strike home because
her corruption and role in the establishment
are so self-evident, her campaign is unable
to generate any genuine enthusiasm or
support, particularly among young people.
Instead of a genuine exposure of Trump, the
Democrats have substituted political
provocations of a reactionary character.
The Clinton campaign, warned of the
impending release of masses of politically
incriminating documents by WikiLeaks, sought
to preempt this exposure by denouncing the
leaks as a conspiracy engineered by Russia
and its president, Vladimir Putin. Clinton
is appealing for support from sections of
the Republican Party, above all the
neo-conservatives of the George W. Bush
administration, responsible for the war in
Iraq, the widespread use of torture and
other crimes.
The anti-Russian campaign has been combined
with an effort to demonize Trump for a
series of purported sexual offenses, with a
barrage of video and audio recordings,
together with the testimony of alleged
victims.
The Democratic campaign and its media allies
are using methods similar to those the
ultra-right employed in its efforts to oust
Bill Clinton from the White House in the
1990s. They are seeking to stampede public
opinion with increasingly sensationalized
material. These methods degrade political
discussion and distract popular
consciousness from the real issues in the
election.
It would be wrong to conclude that masses of
people are attending Trump’s rallies and
supporting his campaign because they want a
fascist solution to their problems. He is
drawing support because, from the rotten
miasma of official politics, including the
self-absorbed identity politics of the
Democratic Party, layers of the middle class
and working class find nothing that appeals
to them. Trump’s appeal is that he is seen
as shaking a collective fist at the
political elites.
However, there is a real danger. If Clinton
wins the election, the policies that she
will pursue will only increase the anger and
social discontent among broad masses of the
population. Clinton would come to power as
one of the most despised candidates in
American history.
The election now just over three weeks away
will resolve nothing. The critical task is
to build a political leadership that can
give a genuine, progressive expression to
the interests of masses of working people.
This is the significance of the Socialist
Equality Party election campaign of Jerry
White for president and Niles Niemuth for
vice president.
In the aftermath of the elections, facing
ever expanding war and increasing economic
distress, masses of working people will look
for solutions outside of the existing
political structure. This solution must be
provided by a revolutionary socialist
movement.
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