Link: Pakistan Observer
THE US decision to provide $ 30 billion in military aid to Israel over a period of ten years will have very negative impact in the already volatile Middle East region.
The Jewish State is already armed to the teeth with most devastating and advanced weapons in addition to about one hundred nuclear warheads. Before this announcement, Washington announced the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia and some other Gulf States to pacify the Israeli neighbours.
Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians are threatened day in and day out by Israel which is almost a mini superpower in the region while Egypt and Jordan have already submitted themselves to the will of Tel Aviv and Washington and have no aggressive designs. Naturally $ 30 billion aid for arms is aimed at building further the Israeli military might which suffered humiliating defeat at the hands of Hizbullah in Lebanon most recently.
Massive economic and military aid to Israel is being extended because of the pressure of strong Jewish lobby in America. Since 1992 the United States has sold over 20 billion dollars worth of arms to Israel in an effort to keep up good relations and protect its ally in the Middle East.
By selling arms to Israel, the U.S. strains relations between itself and Palestine, as well as between Israel and Palestine, not to mention between the U.S. and most other Middle Eastern nations. On average the U.S. sells 1.8 billion dollars worth of arms to Israel every year, which is no small sum of money. If the goal is to protect the United States’ only ally in the Middle East in order to maintain a footing in such a volatile part of the world, the sale of arms seems mostly counterintuitive since it disrupts relations with the rest of the Arab world.
US arm sales to Israel greatly complicate the relations between Palestine and Israel. While the core conflict lies between Palestine and Israel, the Palestinians feel cheated by the US’s overwhelming preferential treatment of Israel in the conflict.
The advisable course of action for the policy makers in Washington is not to make Israel a dump of deadly weapons but pressurize Israel to resolve its dispute with Lebanon, vacate Golan Heights and accept Palestine as a sovereign State in line with the Saudi backed land for peace plan. That is the only way for a lasting peace in the region