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![]() Israel: strategic ally or liability for the USA?
Stephen Sniegoski debunks the arguments that Israel is a strategic US asset, advanced by Israel lobbyists such as billionaire chief editor of US News & World Report Mort Zuckerman, and argues that Israel is in fact a significant political, military and strategic liability for the United States.
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Saturday, June 12,2010 23:18 | ||||||||||||
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Stephen Sniegoski debunks the arguments that Israel is a strategic US asset, advanced by Israel lobbyists such as billionaire chief editor of US News & World Report Mort Zuckerman, and argues that Israel is in fact a significant political, military and strategic liability for the United States.
Zuckerman is a real estate billionaire and editor-in-chief of US News & World Report, and his article came out in that magazine. (He is also publisher/owner of the New York Daily News. Zuckerman’s writing for his own publications has given him a facade of credibility for other media outlets, and he regularly appears on MSNBC and The McLaughlin Group. Between 2001 and 2003, Zuckerman was the chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Giraldi highlights Zuckerman’s pro-Israel orientation: “Zuckerman is frequently spotted on the television talking head circuit where he dispenses analysis of international events that could have been crafted in Tel Aviv or Herzliya, where the Israeli intelligence service Mossad has its headquarters.” Zuckerman’s immense wealth and media influence exemplifies why Israel has been able to gain the reputation as a valuable ally to the United States. Giraldi, however, points out that the United States is not technically an ally of Israel’s. Giraldi writes that
Zuckerman maintains that there are no drawbacks to America’s support for Israel, explicitly denying the allegation that American support for Israel causes anti-American hostility in the Islamic countries. Instead, Zuckerman maintains that the Muslims “are fighting America because they see the whole West and its culture, values and belief in democracy as antithetical to their own beliefs.” Giraldi correctly points out that this is ridiculous – a higher-IQ version of Bush’s “they hate us for our freedom”.
It would seem almost self-evident that support for the Arabs’ fundamental enemy would lead to the hostility of Arab states or, should a particular regime remain friendly to the United States, cause groups within the state to threaten its stability. During the Cold War, US/Israeli ties caused some Arab states to turn to the Soviet Union, especially since the Soviets were willing to provide them with weapons, which they could not obtain from the US because of the opposition from Israel and the Israel lobby. American support for Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war led to the Arab oil embargo against the United States in the same year. Obviously, US support for Israel has induced the Islamic terrorism during the past decade, as Osama Bin Laden has maintained. Certainly, the Gaza flotilla massacre has heightened Arab and Islamic animosity to the United States, which has been recognized even by mainstream media commentators. Because of the power of the Israel lobby the United States cannot offer harsh criticism of Israel and must work to prevent any form of United Nations sanctions against it, thus complicating its relationship with the entire Arab/Islamic world. While it must be acknowledged that hostility to the United States has also been accentuated by its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; the American military involvement has been caused in large part by the influence of the Israel lobby.
I would simply point out that this belief in Israel’s moral superiority is not some objective notion that is determined by an objective weighing of all the evidence, but exists primarily in United States because of the power of the pro-Zionist media and political lobby. If somehow the wealth and power conditions of American Jews and Arab Americans were reversed, and all mainstream media information coming to the American public was filtered through a pro-Arab/Palestinian slant, it is inconceivable that America would support Israel over the Palestinians. It is hard to believe that someone as sharp as Cordesman does not recognize the power of the Israel lobby in American domestic politics, and he undoubtedly does, but he is also keen enough to know that people who openly express such a view do not hold cushy positions in leading think tanks. However, so as not to go too far off track, the issue here is whether Israel is a strategic asset to the United States, not whether the US should support Israel for moral reasons, and concerning the issue at hand Cordesman comes down against the strategic asset argument. Jim Lobe alludes to the career ramifications of speaking the truth regarding Israel when he quotes Stephen Walt, the co-author of the bombshell book, The Israel lobby and US foreign policy, who states: "The fact that Cordesman would say this publicly is a sign that attitudes and discourse are changing... Lots of people in the national security establishment – and especially the Pentagon and intelligence services – have understood that Israel wasn’t an asset, but nobody wanted to say so because they knew it might hurt their careers."
Regarding Zuckerman’s reference to the provision of “good intelligence”, Giraldi observes that “The intelligence provided by Israel that Zuckerman praises is generally fabricated and completely self serving, intended to shape a narrative about the Middle East that makes the Israelis look good and virtually everyone else look bad.” For some specific examples of actually misleading intelligence, it should be recalled that Israel was providing some of the spurious intelligence on Iraq’s alleged formidable weapons of mass destruction during the build-up to the 2003 US invasion (the Knesset investigated this issue) and, for the past decade, has been issuing alarmist warnings that Iran is on the verge of developing nuclear weaponry. In short, the intelligence Israel provides to the United States is intended to induce it to take actions to advance Israel’s interests, which can run counter to the interests of the United States. The idea of Israel as a strategic asset is especially significant because, as mentioned earlier, it is expressed not only by Israel firsters but also by Noam Chomsky and his epigones, and thus is a view that looms large in the anti-war camp. Stephen Zunes, a prominent member of the Chomsky group, even implies that Israel is but the passive instrument of American policymakers (see my article: “Israel-lobby denial: The bankruptcy of the mainstream left as illustrated by Stephen Zunes”. This approach, of course, provides psychological satisfaction to those on the left who want to believe in the ultimate evil of gentile capitalism and the perpetual victimization of Jews, but is counterproductive in actually dealing with the problem of American military intervention in the Middle East.
Cordesman seems to believe that Israel can alter its policies to establish much improved relations with the Palestinians and its neighboring countries so that American interests would not be harmed. In short, Cordesman does not say that Israel could become a strategic asset, but that, by following conciliatory policies towards its current enemies, it could become much less of a liability to the United States.
The problem with Cordesman’s position, however, is that the Israeli leadership, and the Zionist establishment in the United States, really believe that Israel has to do what it does to preserve the existence of Israel, i.e., the exclusivist Jewish state. As an exclusivist Jewish state, Israel is threatened by peaceful demographics as well as by terrorism and warfare. To stave off this danger, Israel will not allow for any significant Palestinian return to Israel or any viable Palestinian state, which is exactly what the Palestinians and the Arab and Islamic countries supporting them demand. In short, the positions of Israel and the Palestinians and their backers are antithetical. The United States cannot support Israel without antagonizing the Arab and Islamic states, and vice versa. Since it is widely recognized that friendly relations with the oil-producing Middle Eastern states are vital to US national security, America’s unwavering backing of Israel can only harm its strategic interests. Furthermore, unconditional support for Israel fuels terrorism against the United States, making American citizens less safe abroad and even on American soil. And, of course, such terrorism can lead America into wars that would not take place if the United States were not targeted. Finally, automatic support for Israel completely undermines the United States’ advocacy of a world governed by international law, a goal which President Obama has addressed on a number of occasions. As Scott Wilson writes in the article, “Obama's agenda, Israel's ambitions often at odds” in the Washington Post: “Since its creation more than six decades ago, the state of Israel has been at times a vexing ally to the United States. But it poses a special challenge for President Obama, whose foreign policy emphasizes the importance of international rules and organizations that successive Israeli governments have clashed with and often ignored.”
America’s concern about international legality did not begin with Obama – Woodrow Wilson was a major proponent of the League of Nations and Franklin Roosevelt of the UN – even though America’s unwillingness to join the League of Nations resulted from its devotion to national sovereignty and opposition to permanent alliances that could force the country into unwanted wars. America’s continued support for international legality during the interwar period (while the US was outside the League of Nations) was especially illustrated by the involvement of American peace advocates and Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg in framing what became known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, which was a multilateral treaty outlawing war except for purpose of self-defence. It was signed by all major countries (eventually 62 signatories), except for Soviet Russia. Although sometimes ridiculed as a meaningless utopian gesture, the treaty served as the basis to judge the Nazi high command at Nuremberg in 1945-46, and was incorporated and expanded in the UN Charter. America’s verbal support for international law is not based simply on morality, nor does it represent high-sounding but empty rhetoric. As a wealthy, powerful nation the United States has a vested interest in maintaining the international status quo in the same way as the preservation of the status quo was sought by the victors of the Napoleonic Wars and World War I. (The Congress of Vienna, of course, was far more effective than the Paris Peace Conference in establishing a long-lasting peace.) International stability not only preserves America’s power position, but also provides the optimal environment for the international trade and investment that benefits the American economy. Stephen Sniegoski is the author of The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel.
Source: Redress Information & Analysis (http://www.redress.cc). Material published on Redress may be republished with full attribution to Redress Information & Analysis (http://www.redress.cc)
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tags: Massacre / Gaza / Flotilla / Zionists / Iran / Obama / Osama Bin Laden / Israel lobby / Middle East / Palestinians / Knesset / Washington / International Law
Posted in Palestine |
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