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AMIDST the decades-old Israeli/Palestinian conflict which has resulted in military and political instability in the Middle East, US President Barack Obama on his first official visit to Israel has pledged his government’s enduring support for the unbreakable friendship of the two countries.Such assurances from US presidents have become the norm as Israel is not only a friend of the U.S., but also its gendarme in the region where most of the countries are highly critical of the US policy towards the Palestinian people, who have been without a homeland since the 1948 war.
While the U.S. has been highly vocal and condemnatory of Palestinian terrorism, it has been silent on the atrocities committed by the Israelis against the people of Palestine whose just demand for a homeland has been denied.
But this double standard in foreign policy has been characteristic of almost all US administrations. Their friends and allies never do anything wrong; only their foes do and this is simply because the US foreign policy is based on the principle that their interests are of greater importance than those of other nations. In the case of Israel, its relations is based not only on geo-political and military interests, but economic interests are equally important as well. Therefore, it will never go against Israel regardless of what the latter does.
Professor Paul Eidelberg in his February 2007 article: “THE MYTH OF ISRAEL’S DEPENDENCE ON THE UNITED STATES”, pointed out:
“So long as Israel believes it’s dependent on the U.S. for its survival, Washington will continue to mediate the Israel-Arab conflict to the disadvantage of the Jewish state.
“American and Israeli politicians are ever saying that the shared moral values the U.S. and Israel[have] are the basis of their friendly relationship. Ariel Sharon often said that his friendly relationship with President George W. Bush was Israel’s greatest strategic asset. No wonder Sharon repeatedly engaged in unilateral concessions to Israel’s Arab enemies! But this obviously renders Israelis servile and undermines the security of their country.”
Professor Eidelberg noted that according to Gen. George Keegan, former chief of U.S. Air Force Intelligence, while Israel annually received $1.8 billion in military grants from the U.S. between 1974-1990, Israeli aid to America was worth between $50-80 billion in intelligence, research and development savings, Soviet weapons systems captured and transferred to the Pentagon, and testing Soviet military doctrines up to 1990, when the USSR collapsed.
He added: “Moreover, the bulk of the $1.8 billion Israel currently receives in military aid must be spent in the U.S., where it provides jobs for an estimated 50,000 American workingmen. It should also be noted that Israel would not need this amount of military aid were it not for huge American arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Egypt. U.S. military aid to Israel creates a demand for, and the purchase of, tens of billions of dollars worth of US weaponry by these and other Arab states.”
He also pointed out that American arms manufacturers have a vested interest in opposing any reduction of military aid to Israel—and so do their representatives in Congress. Directly and indirectly, Israel has enriched a welter of American corporations. For this reason alone, American congressmen, irrespective of their attitude toward Israel, will oppose cuts in military aid to the Jewish state. And as world leader in software and avionics, Israel has many corporate friends in the USA.
So the US Middle East policy is not surprising and as such it will never pressure Israel into accepting the right of the Palestinian people to a homeland, even if it means the destruction of the Palestinian people.
When the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was on the verge of reaching an agreement on the conflict, the former was assassinated, and it is likely that this act was inspired by US interests. A few years after Arafat died and there is some suspicion that he was poisoned, which is being currently probed.
What is of certainty is that the U.S. does not want lasting peace and stability in the Middle East. If it did it would have happened a long time ago, but it is simply not in their strategic, military, political and economic interests.
While the U.S. has been highly vocal and condemnatory of Palestinian terrorism, it has been silent on the atrocities committed by the Israelis against the people of Palestine whose just demand for a homeland has been denied.
But this double standard in foreign policy has been characteristic of almost all US administrations. Their friends and allies never do anything wrong; only their foes do and this is simply because the US foreign policy is based on the principle that their interests are of greater importance than those of other nations. In the case of Israel, its relations is based not only on geo-political and military interests, but economic interests are equally important as well. Therefore, it will never go against Israel regardless of what the latter does.
Professor Paul Eidelberg in his February 2007 article: “THE MYTH OF ISRAEL’S DEPENDENCE ON THE UNITED STATES”, pointed out:
“So long as Israel believes it’s dependent on the U.S. for its survival, Washington will continue to mediate the Israel-Arab conflict to the disadvantage of the Jewish state.
“American and Israeli politicians are ever saying that the shared moral values the U.S. and Israel[have] are the basis of their friendly relationship. Ariel Sharon often said that his friendly relationship with President George W. Bush was Israel’s greatest strategic asset. No wonder Sharon repeatedly engaged in unilateral concessions to Israel’s Arab enemies! But this obviously renders Israelis servile and undermines the security of their country.”
Professor Eidelberg noted that according to Gen. George Keegan, former chief of U.S. Air Force Intelligence, while Israel annually received $1.8 billion in military grants from the U.S. between 1974-1990, Israeli aid to America was worth between $50-80 billion in intelligence, research and development savings, Soviet weapons systems captured and transferred to the Pentagon, and testing Soviet military doctrines up to 1990, when the USSR collapsed.
He added: “Moreover, the bulk of the $1.8 billion Israel currently receives in military aid must be spent in the U.S., where it provides jobs for an estimated 50,000 American workingmen. It should also be noted that Israel would not need this amount of military aid were it not for huge American arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Egypt. U.S. military aid to Israel creates a demand for, and the purchase of, tens of billions of dollars worth of US weaponry by these and other Arab states.”
He also pointed out that American arms manufacturers have a vested interest in opposing any reduction of military aid to Israel—and so do their representatives in Congress. Directly and indirectly, Israel has enriched a welter of American corporations. For this reason alone, American congressmen, irrespective of their attitude toward Israel, will oppose cuts in military aid to the Jewish state. And as world leader in software and avionics, Israel has many corporate friends in the USA.
So the US Middle East policy is not surprising and as such it will never pressure Israel into accepting the right of the Palestinian people to a homeland, even if it means the destruction of the Palestinian people.
When the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was on the verge of reaching an agreement on the conflict, the former was assassinated, and it is likely that this act was inspired by US interests. A few years after Arafat died and there is some suspicion that he was poisoned, which is being currently probed.
What is of certainty is that the U.S. does not want lasting peace and stability in the Middle East. If it did it would have happened a long time ago, but it is simply not in their strategic, military, political and economic interests.
