THE United States is to give Israel the biggest ever global package of military aid but even this is less than what the Israelis demanded. The monster deal will provide Israel with $38 billion over 10 years. Incredibly, Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu had originally demanded $50 billion. Even so this extraordinary amount beggars belief. The question has to be asked why US tax payers should be reaching so deeply into their pockets to arm a country that is in breach of countless UN resolutions, has been guilty of consistent ethnic cleansing since 1948, is promoting illegal settlements while occupying Palestine and crushing and pauperizing its inhabitants with ruthless force. For good measure, the Israelis have sunk a US warship and been caught stealing US military secrets, even though Washington's pocket book and armory has been opened wide for years. Yet this treacherous and devious ally continues to enjoy slavish US support. The Americans have always had the power to influence Israeli governments simply by cutting the flow of their munificence. Yet this leverage has never been used. Even president Barack Obama, whose personal relationship with Netanyahu never recovered from the rude hectoring the Israeli leader gave him during their first encounter, has not endeavored to trade Israeli compliance on anything in return for continued largesse from the US Treasury. Had that leverage been deployed — had the huge flow of funds been suspended — Israel might have really worked at the Oslo peace talks to find a legitimate settlement for the Palestinians. Had Washington even threatened to cut off the life blood of civilian and military aid, the Israelis might have been stopped from even embarking upon their seizure of Palestinian land and resources to construct settlements in complete and utter contravention of international law. Indeed had Washington obliged Israel to behave as a civilized state bound by accepted legal norms, US policy in the Middle East might have been a great deal more successful and its influence altogether greater. But Washington has never done any such thing. The reason is not hard to divine. When it comes to anything to do with Israel there is a massive Zionist firewall on Capitol Hill that protects Israeli interests. The US Zionist lobby is remarkable in its extent and influence. At its lowest level it starts with letter-writing and media messaging campaigns against any legislators or opinion formers who express even the mildest reservations about Israeli behavior. To question Israel is to display anti-Semitism. Even Jews who have deplored Israeli aggression have been labelled anti-Semites — a neat trick which stands the motives of ubiquitous political correctness completely on its head. At its highest level, Congress is besieged by a well-oiled and extremely efficient Zionist lobby. The irony is that some of the extensive funding for these lobbyists is doubtless drawn from the money that US administrations give so generously to the Israeli state. Thus American tax payers' cash is being used to form their country's foreign policy in the interests of another state whose ambitions are very often at odds with the greater interests of the United States. This however is a scandal to which neither Trump nor Clinton dares refer in their presidential campaigns. And if Hillary Clinton wins the White House it is entirely possible that she will up the military aid package to the $50 billion that Netanyahu originally demanded.
