A Special Relationship: The US and Israel

30 June, 2008

“The Special relationship between the United States and Israel is as strong as it is because of your (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s) fidelity to the partnership.” – Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).[i]

 

The US and Israel share a special relationship that began in 1948 when the US became the first nation to recognize the “provisional government” of the new Jewish state in Palestine.[ii]  After the 1967 War, the US recognized that Israel could be a “strategic asset” in its cold war with the former Soviet Union,[iii] making it the number one recipient of US foreign aid by the end of the 1970s.[iv]  However, due to American desire for good relations with Arab oil-producing nations, the decline of the Soviet threat and Israeli treatment of native Palestinians, forces in conflict with the relationship emerged.  In 1989, after the start of the First Intifada, Yale Law Professor Charles Black wrote that this special relationship “is sweepingly and grossly incompatible with our country’s (US’) supposed dedication to the cause of human rights throughout the world.”[v] 

 

Lobbying influence of the Zionist state seems to dominate US Middle East foreign policy.  Pat Buchanan once described the US capitol as “Israeli-occupied territory,”[vi] which can be surmised from the following quote by Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), “Lawmakers depend on AIPAC for good, honest information and that’s exactly what we’ve gotten.”  And in return for that “good, honest information,” Israel has gotten a 10-year, $30 billion security agreement, with $2.55 billion in aid for fiscal year 2009.[vii]

 

AIPAC, a major force behind the US-Israel special relationship, lobbies members of Congress and the Executive Branch to support a pro-Israel agenda, and screens politicians for appropriateness of their views and votes.  Any criticism of the Jewish state results in swift retribution, as former Illinois Congressman Paul Findley and South Dakota Senator James Abourezk learned by loss of their seats.[viii]  AIPAC’s lobbying expertise is unmatched, with an overall success rate of 60% for passage of their agenda items and if the US President approves the item, the rate increases to 95%.[ix]  As former US President Bill Clinton has testified, “AIPAC has done a magnificent job, better than anyone else lobbying in this town…You have been stunningly effective.”

 

Some highlights of this “stunningly effective” career of AIPAC are worthy of mention. 

AIPAC lobbied to squelch the investigation of an Israeli attack on the USS Liberty on 8 June 1967.  The attack, which resulted in the loss of 34 American lives and 171 wounded, “was outrageous,” according to then Secretary of State Dean Rusk.[x]  Equally outrageous was AIPAC lobbying in the year following the attack, which was influential in the sale of Phantom F-4 jet fighters to Israel in 1968.[xi]  Another success was the passage of the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 that called for moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in violation of international law, but a loophole has allowed the US President to postpone the transfer for 6 months at a time.[xii]  In 2005, senior AIPAC employees Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman were indicted for receiving classified information from Pentagon Analyst Lawrence Franklin, who was sentenced in 2006 to 12 years.[xiii]  This is not the first involvement with espionage, as AIPAC is reported to have lobbied for the release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard.[xiv]  Most recently, AIPAC lobbied for the invasion of Iraq[xv] and was instrumental in facilitating Israel’s brutal attack on Lebanon in the summer of 2006.[xvi]

 

What makes AIPAC so successful as a lobbying organization?  One reason is that Washington is obsessed with Jewish voting power, according to AIPAC former chief lobbyist Douglas M. Bloomfield.  In addition, he states, “One other reason for its success is that the lobby sells fear; it is easier to rally people around the fear of terrorism and Iranian nuclear weapons than around hope for peace.”[xvii]  And, of course, fear leads to suspicion, hatred and dehumanization of others, increased military spending, and eventually to war.  And a war with Iran seems to be the next goal of the US – Israeli “partnership” as indicated by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s remarks after his recent meeting with President Bush.  "We reached agreement on the need to take care of the Iranian threat," said Olmert.  Continuing, as if reading a scripted narrative, he informed Bush, “Israel loves you very much, you and your wife Laura.”[xviii]

 

There are other aspects of this “special relationship” as well.  The US and Israel are both nuclear powers, a fact Israel was recently forced to acknowledge by President Carter’s disclosure regarding the size of the Zionist nuclear arsenal.[xix]  US knowledge of the Israeli nuclear program at Dimona appears to date back to 1964 when President Johnson deliberately “looked the other way” in exchange for Israeli and American Jewish support for his Vietnam war policies.[xx] Additionally, both Israel and the US are “on the same page” when it come to the obstruction of meaningful resolutions towards international disarmament.  In October of 2002, both Israel and the US were the ONLY two nations to veto (by abstention) two significant UN Disarmament Committee resolutions, one for prevention of the militarization of space and the other reaffirming the 1925 Geneva protocols banning chemical and bacteriological methods of warfare.[xxi]

 

Both nations engage in state-sponsored terrorism through blatant violations of international law, extra-judicial assassinations, pre-emptive strikes, illegal occupations and a general disregard and callousness for the concerns of other sovereign nations and their citizens.  The US has killed thousands of children in Iraq.  Haifa Ahmed Fuad, the 8-year-old daughter of Ahmed Fuad from a village near Ramadi, is the name of one of them.[xxii]  Israel has also killed hundreds of children --842 since 29 September 2000-- in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and has in fact killed 62 children this year in Gaza alone as of this writing.  One of them, 8-year-old Aya Hamdan Al-Najjar was killed by a rocket fired from an Israeli helicopter.[xxiii]

 

Both the US and Israel were built by ethnic cleansing[xxiv] and continue to act with callousness and impunity towards indigenous populations.  The ethnic cleansing of the Native Americans by the US colonists is well documented, as is the treatment of Blacks, Latinos, Japanese and other minorities.  Israel’s on going ethnic cleansing of the native Palestinians has also been documented by Ilan Pappe,[xxv] John Rose[xxvi] and most recently by former President Jimmy Carter.[xxvii]  The discrimination by the Ashkenazi-lead government of their Sephardi and Mizrahi brethren has also been well documented by Israeli authors.  One such case, studied by Yael Tzadok, concerned the Zionist government’s condoning the kidnapping of Yemeni infants and placing them with Ashkenazi families.[xxviii] 

Finally, the US and Israel share the bond of cruelty towards those who dare to resist their imperialist policies of aggressive wars and illegal occupations, employing inhumane methods of detention and interrogation of the unfortunate individuals who are apprehended as suspects.  The Zionist regime currently has thousands of Palestinians,[xxix] including women and children, locked up in jails under cruel, inhumane and degrading conditions,[xxx] and routinely uses torture and humiliation under the pretext of “bitahon,” Hebrew for security.[xxxi]  Similarly the Washington regime has held prisoners at Gulag Guantanamo for over 5 years under inhumane conditions, isolating some prisoners up to 22 hours a day and using torture during interrogations, all justified in the name of the “war on terror.”[xxxii]  Bush The Liar -- "As I've said before, the United States does not torture. It's against our laws and it's against our values. "[xxxiii] -- has admitted recently that he knew his top aids had approved of the use of torture during interrogation procedures.[xxxiv]

 

Israel and the US indeed have a special relationship, sharing common bonds of militarism, racism and ethnic cleansing, as well as torture and other inhumane treatment of prisoners, indigenous populations and minorities within their respective imperial boundaries.  Both nations justify their cruelty under the guise of defense while maintaining a facade of democracy, moral elitism and unquestionable innocence.

 

“Avoid cruelty.  Whoever commits it, his life will become dark.” – Imam Ali (PBUH)[xxxv]

 

Yuram Abdullah Weiler

2008-06-28

Posted by yuram 10:21 | General , Palestine , United States | Comment(3) | Permalink

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