{"id":152132,"date":"2020-01-27T12:00:29","date_gmt":"2020-01-27T12:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=152132"},"modified":"2024-09-23T14:39:30","modified_gmt":"2024-09-23T13:39:30","slug":"in-the-name-of-israels-security-retreating-us-gives-israel-billions-more-in-military-aid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/01\/in-the-name-of-israels-security-retreating-us-gives-israel-billions-more-in-military-aid\/","title":{"rendered":"In the Name of \u2018Israel\u2019s Security\u2019: Retreating US Gives Israel Billions more in Military Aid"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Isreali Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) and US President Donald Trump. (Photo: File)<\/p><\/div>\n

22 Jan 2020 – <\/em>Billions of US taxpayers\u2019 dollars will continue to be funneled into Israel in the next fiscal year, and for many years in the foreseeable future. Republican and Democratic Senators have recently ensured just that, passing a bill<\/a>\u00a0aimed at providing Israel with $3.3 billion in aid\u00a0every year.<\/p>\n

The Bill, co-sponsored by Democratic Senator Chris Coons and Republican Senator Marco Rubio, was passed on 9 January, only one day after Iran\u00a0struck<\/a>\u00a0US positions in Iraq. Enthusiasm to push the Bill forward was meant to be an assurance to Tel Aviv from Washington that the US is committed to Israel\u2019s security and military superiority in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Despite a palpable sense of\u00a0war fatigue<\/a>\u00a0among all Americans, regardless of their political leaning, their country continues to sink deeper into Middle East conflicts simply because it is unable \u2013 or perhaps unwilling \u2014 to challenge Israel\u2019s benefactors across the US government. \u201cWhat\u2019s good for Israel is good for America\u201d continues to be the supreme maxim within Washington\u2019s political elites, despite the fact that such irrational thinking has wrought disasters on the Middle East as a whole, and is finally forcing a hasty and humiliating American retreat.<\/p>\n

The latest aid package to Israel will officially put into law a \u201cMemorandum of Understanding\u201d that was\u00a0reached<\/a>\u00a0between the right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Barack Obama administration in 2016. At the time, Obama had offered Israel the\u00a0largest<\/a>\u00a0military aid package in US history.<\/p>\n

Senator Rubio\u00a0explained<\/a>\u00a0the passing of the recent Bill in terms of the \u201cunprecedented threats\u201d that are supposedly faced by Israel. Coons, meanwhile, said that \u201cthe events of the past few days [the US-Iran escalation], were a stark reminder of the importance of US assistance to Israel\u2019s security.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is particularly odd about Coons\u2019 statement is the fact that it was not Israel, but US positions in Iraq that were struck by Iranian missiles, and that they were fired in response to the\u00a0killing<\/a>\u00a0of Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.<\/p>\n

Yet, the American taxpayers\u2019 funding of Israel\u2019s military adventures continues unabated, despite the rapidly changing political reality in the Middle East, and the shifting US role in the region. This confirms further that the blind US support of Israel is not motivated by a centralized, distinctly American, strategy that aims to serve US interests. Instead, the unconditional \u2013 and, often, self-defeating \u2014 US government funding of the Israeli war machine is linked largely to domestic American politics and, indeed, the unparalleled power wielded<\/a>\u00a0by the pro-Israel lobby in the United States.<\/p>\n

According to the public policy research institute of the United States Congress, the Congressional Research Centre (CRS), between 1946 and 2019 (including the requested funds for 2020)\u00a0US aid to Israel<\/a> has exceeded $142 billion. Most of this immense sum of money \u2014 over $101 billion \u2014 went directly to the Israeli military budget, while over $34 billion and $7 billion went to Israel in terms of economic aid and missile defense funding respectively.<\/p>\n

It is becoming increasingly obvious that the US no longer possesses a well-defined and centralized strategy in the Middle East; President Donald Trump changes American priorities from one speech or tweet to the next. However, the one consistent key phrase in whatever political agenda happens to be championed by Washington in the region at any particular time is: \u201cIsrael\u2019s security\u201d.<\/p>\n

This precarious term seems to be linked to every American action pertaining to the Middle East, as it has for decades under every American administration, without exception. Wars have been launched or funded in the name of Israel\u2019s security; human rights have been violated on a massive scale; the five-decade \u2014 and counting \u2014 military occupation of Palestine, the protracted siege of the impoverished Gaza Strip and much more, have all been carried out, defended and sustained in the name of Israel\u2019s security.<\/p>\n

US aid to Israel \u2014 the occupying state \u2014 continues, while all American\u00a0aid to the Palestinians<\/a> \u2014 the people under Israeli occupation \u2014 has been cut off, including the $300 million annual donations to the UN Agency responsible for the welfare of Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. The Agency has provided education, healthcare, and shelter for millions of refugees since 1949, but is now, bizarrely, seen by both Israel and the US as \u201can obstacle to peace\u201d.<\/p>\n

Inexplicably, Israel receives roughly \u201cone-third of the American foreign-aid budget, even though (it) comprises just .001 percent of the world\u2019s population and already has one of the world\u2019s higher per capita incomes,\u201d\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0Professor Stephen Zunes in the\u00a0Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.<\/p>\n

This massive budget includes much more than the $3.3 billion of annual funding, but the other amounts and perks rarely make headlines. Anywhere between $500 million to $800 million is given to Israel every year as part of a missile defense package; an additional $1 billion benefits Israel in the form of tax-deductible donations, while $500 billion is invested in Israeli bonds.<\/p>\n

Then there are the\u00a0loan guarantees<\/a>, where the US government assumes the responsibility for billions of dollars that Israel can access as a borrower from international creditors. If Israel defaults on its loans, it is the legal responsibility of the US government to offset the interest on the borrowed money.<\/p>\n

Since 1982, Israel has been receiving US aid as a lump sum, as opposed to scheduled payments, as happens with other countries. To fulfill its self-imposed obligations to Israel, the US government borrows the money and is thus left to pay interest on the loans. \u201cIsrael even lends some of this money back through US treasury bills and collects the additional interest,\u201d Zunes explained.<\/p>\n

US relations with Israel are not governed by the kind of political wisdom that is predicated on mutual benefit. But they are not entirely irrational either, as the American ruling classes have aligned their interests, their perception of the Middle East and their country\u2019s role in that region with that of Israel, thanks to years of media and official indoctrination.<\/p>\n

Despite the fact that the US is retreating from the region, lacking strategy and future vision, lawmakers in Washington are congratulating themselves on passing yet another generous aid package to Israel. They feel proud of their great feat because, in their confused thinking, a \u2018secured\u2019 Israel is the only guarantor of US dominance in the Middle East. That is a theory that has been proven false, time and time again.<\/p>\n

______________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of <\/em>The Palestine Chronicle. His last book is <\/em>The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London) and his forthcoming book is <\/em>These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 ramzybaroud.net<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Join the BDS-BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS <\/em>campaign<\/em><\/strong><\/span> to protest the Israeli barbaric siege of Gaza, illegal occupation of the Palestine nation\u2019s territory, the apartheid wall, its inhuman and degrading treatment of the Palestinian people, and the more than 7,000 Palestinian men, women, elderly and children arbitrarily locked up in Israeli prisons.<\/p>\n

DON’T BUY<\/strong> PRODUCTS WHOSE<\/strong> BARCODE<\/strong> STARTS WITH<\/strong> 729<\/strong>, which indicates that it is produced in Israel. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0DO YOUR PART! MAKE A DIFFERENCE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

7 2 9: BOYCOTT FOR JUSTICE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

22 Jan 2020 – Despite the fact that the US is retreating from the region, lacking strategy and future vision, lawmakers in Washington are congratulating themselves on passing yet another generous aid package to Israel. In their confused thinking, a \u2018secured\u2019 Israel is the only guarantor of US dominance in the Middle East. That is a theory that has been proven false, time and time again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":112039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[1161,1126,1050,88,767,291,1105,769,450,70,886],"class_list":["post-152132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide","tag-arms-industry","tag-hegemony","tag-imperialism","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-military","tag-military-industrial-complex","tag-military-supremacy","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-usa","tag-zionism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275060,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152132\/revisions\/275060"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}