August 24, 2024
Source: Counter currents
On July 24, 2024, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech to a joint session of the United States Congress, where nearly half of the House and Senate Democrats were not present. In his address, which was presented in terms of a binary opposition between barbarism (“Iran’s axis of terror”) and civilization (“America, Israel, and our Arab friends”), and riddled with false and unsubstantiated claims, he tried to defend his government’s horrific war on Gaza, as a result of which tens of thousands of Gazans, mostly women and children, have been killed or injured, nearly 2 million have been displaced, and the entire civilian infrastructure has been destroyed. His address to Congress was later followed by separate meetings with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, who did not preside over Netanyahu’s address to Congress, and former President Donald Trump.
Shortly after returning to Israel, fired up by all the private meetings, warm handshakes, and standing ovations in Congress, Netanyahu managed to wreak even more havoc in the region by ordering the killing of senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut. Shukr’s assassination was soon followed by the killing of Hamas’s political bureau chairman Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, an act that has been widely blamed on Israel, which had pledged to kill him for his alleged role in Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel. Haniyeh was also the target of an Israeli assassination attempt in 2003.
Holding Israel responsible for the July 31 operation that killed Haniyeh, Iran has vowed to retaliate against Israel, albeit at a proportional level, in the days or weeks to come. Consequently, the United States and some other countries in and outside the Middle East have urged Iran to forego such retaliation for fear of a broader conflict engulfing the region. Whether or not Iran heeds their call for restraint remains to be seen.
For now, Israeli officials continue to count on what seems to be the unconditional backing of the United States, no matter what crimes they commit. And this, without a doubt, is the main source of not just the protracted nature of the current conflict, but also much of the instability that exists in the Middle East. Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza, establishment of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, extrajudicial assassinations in the region, and lack of regard for international law are good cases in point here, none of which would be possible without the full support of the United States.
US support for Israel has also allowed it to ignore the rulings of the United Nations’ top court, the International Court of Justice, whose nonbinding July 19 Advisory Opinion ordered Israel to end its “unlawful” presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible and pay reparations to “all the natural and legal persons concerned” in the Territory for damages caused by the decades-long occupation. The Court’s advisory opinion further concluded: “all States are under an obligation . . . not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
And yet the United States continues to provide Israel with all kinds of assistance, prompting the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch to state: “The [July 19 ICJ] ruling should be yet another wake up call for the United States to end its egregious policy of defending Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and prompt a thorough reassessment in other countries as well.”
But by supporting Israel’s war on Gaza militarily, financially, and diplomatically, despite the ICJ’s January 2024 ruling that it is “plausible” that Israel has committed acts that violate the Genocide Convention, the United States, under the Biden administration, has already shown that it is not going to stop backing Israel anytime soon, which raises the question: why is the United States so willing to be a party to Israel’s daily massacres of Gazans and other war crimes in the Palestinian territories?
International relations scholars John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard University have been arguing for a long time that US support for Israel is, in major part, due to the influence of the “Israel Lobby” in Washington, and that this influence has often worked against US interests and security in the Middle East and beyond. In a recent interview with Diwan, for example, Walt stated:
“The lobby . . . has considerable leverage over politicians and policymakers, largely due to its ability to steer huge amounts of money toward its preferred candidates in U.S. elections. To take but one example, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and others spent a record amount—roughly $14 million—to defeat Representative Jamal Bowman in a recent primary election, solely because Bowman had criticized Israel’s conduct in Gaza.”
Mearsheimer and Walt are also of the view that, from a strategic as well as a moral point of view, Israel has been more of a liability to the United States than an asset in the region. Thus, they advise US politicians and policymakers to distance themselves from the Lobby and instead focus on protecting US interests in the region, when such interests are not identical to those of Israel.
To their analysis of the Israel Lobby’s influence in Washington, one might add, however, the lucrative nature of wars that the United States is often a party to as an arms supplier in the region and beyond, which may explain further why the United States is so willing to support Israel in its war on Gaza. Quite revealing in this regard is the New York Times article headlined “Middle East War Adds to Surge in International Arms Sales,” in which the author explains: “The conflict between Israel and Hamas is just the latest impetus behind a boom in international arms sales that is bolstering profits and weapons-making capacity among American suppliers.”
The Biden administration’s decision to sell $20 billion worth of additional weapons to Israel is the latest driver of this surge, which includes 50 F-15 fighter jets, tank ammunition, mortar rounds, tactical vehicles, and advanced air-to-air missiles, all being sold under the banner of a commitment to Israel’s security and the United States’ own vital national interests.
But the lucrative nature of Israel’s war on Gaza is not merely limited to the value of such contracts, as the war has also sent through the roof the stocks of US weapons manufacturers. In a Newsweek article published on October 16, 2023, and headlined “Military Contractor Stocks Have Skyrocketed Since Israel War Started,” the author explains how “Shares of some of the U.S. biggest military contractors have soared since the beginning of Israel’s war against Hamas, with companies such as Lockheed Martin reporting a 10 percent increase in their stock values.”
In the case of Lockheed Martin alone, the article goes on to explain that “On October 10, Barron’s investment magazine reported that the company had added $23 billion to its market capitalization after Hamas’ attack.” Raytheon Technologies, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman are the other beneficiaries of the war mentioned in the article.
Clearly, then, war is big business, where “merchants of death” (known as “defense contractors” today) and Wall Street are involved. And it is also true that investors of all kinds in and outside Israel and the United States are reaping massive financial gains from Israel’s war on Gaza, in spite of the horrific fact that Israel has already killed, injured, and displaced tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians in the occupied territories.
It is, thus, incumbent on the international community to do all it can to put an end to Israel’s war on Gaza and occupation of the Palestinian territories. Extremely helpful in this regard would be more protests around the world calling for a permanent ceasefire, as well as more pressure on the Biden administration to stop the flow of aid or assistance to Israel in line with the ICJ’s July 19 advisory opinion. Netanyahu and company must also be forced to relinquish their wicked plan to drag the United States into some sort of military confrontation with Iran, as this would undoubtedly engulf the whole region and might even start World War III.
On July 24, 2024, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech to a joint session of the United States Congress, where nearly half of the House and Senate Democrats were not present. In his address, which was presented in terms of a binary opposition between barbarism (“Iran’s axis of terror”) and civilization (“America, Israel, and our Arab friends”), and riddled with false and unsubstantiated claims, he tried to defend his government’s horrific war on Gaza, as a result of which tens of thousands of Gazans, mostly women and children, have been killed or injured, nearly 2 million have been displaced, and the entire civilian infrastructure has been destroyed. His address to Congress was later followed by separate meetings with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, who did not preside over Netanyahu’s address to Congress, and former President Donald Trump.
Shortly after returning to Israel, fired up by all the private meetings, warm handshakes, and standing ovations in Congress, Netanyahu managed to wreak even more havoc in the region by ordering the killing of senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut. Shukr’s assassination was soon followed by the killing of Hamas’s political bureau chairman Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, an act that has been widely blamed on Israel, which had pledged to kill him for his alleged role in Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel. Haniyeh was also the target of an Israeli assassination attempt in 2003.
Holding Israel responsible for the July 31 operation that killed Haniyeh, Iran has vowed to retaliate against Israel, albeit at a proportional level, in the days or weeks to come. Consequently, the United States and some other countries in and outside the Middle East have urged Iran to forego such retaliation for fear of a broader conflict engulfing the region. Whether or not Iran heeds their call for restraint remains to be seen.
For now, Israeli officials continue to count on what seems to be the unconditional backing of the United States, no matter what crimes they commit. And this, without a doubt, is the main source of not just the protracted nature of the current conflict, but also much of the instability that exists in the Middle East. Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza, establishment of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, extrajudicial assassinations in the region, and lack of regard for international law are good cases in point here, none of which would be possible without the full support of the United States.
US support for Israel has also allowed it to ignore the rulings of the United Nations’ top court, the International Court of Justice, whose nonbinding July 19 Advisory Opinion ordered Israel to end its “unlawful” presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible and pay reparations to “all the natural and legal persons concerned” in the Territory for damages caused by the decades-long occupation. The Court’s advisory opinion further concluded: “all States are under an obligation . . . not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
And yet the United States continues to provide Israel with all kinds of assistance, prompting the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch to state: “The [July 19 ICJ] ruling should be yet another wake up call for the United States to end its egregious policy of defending Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and prompt a thorough reassessment in other countries as well.”
But by supporting Israel’s war on Gaza militarily, financially, and diplomatically, despite the ICJ’s January 2024 ruling that it is “plausible” that Israel has committed acts that violate the Genocide Convention, the United States, under the Biden administration, has already shown that it is not going to stop backing Israel anytime soon, which raises the question: why is the United States so willing to be a party to Israel’s daily massacres of Gazans and other war crimes in the Palestinian territories?
International relations scholars John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard University have been arguing for a long time that US support for Israel is, in major part, due to the influence of the “Israel Lobby” in Washington, and that this influence has often worked against US interests and security in the Middle East and beyond. In a recent interview with Diwan, for example, Walt stated:
“The lobby . . . has considerable leverage over politicians and policymakers, largely due to its ability to steer huge amounts of money toward its preferred candidates in U.S. elections. To take but one example, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and others spent a record amount—roughly $14 million—to defeat Representative Jamal Bowman in a recent primary election, solely because Bowman had criticized Israel’s conduct in Gaza.”
Mearsheimer and Walt are also of the view that, from a strategic as well as a moral point of view, Israel has been more of a liability to the United States than an asset in the region. Thus, they advise US politicians and policymakers to distance themselves from the Lobby and instead focus on protecting US interests in the region, when such interests are not identical to those of Israel.
To their analysis of the Israel Lobby’s influence in Washington, one might add, however, the lucrative nature of wars that the United States is often a party to as an arms supplier in the region and beyond, which may explain further why the United States is so willing to support Israel in its war on Gaza. Quite revealing in this regard is the New York Times article headlined “Middle East War Adds to Surge in International Arms Sales,” in which the author explains: “The conflict between Israel and Hamas is just the latest impetus behind a boom in international arms sales that is bolstering profits and weapons-making capacity among American suppliers.”
The Biden administration’s decision to sell $20 billion worth of additional weapons to Israel is the latest driver of this surge, which includes 50 F-15 fighter jets, tank ammunition, mortar rounds, tactical vehicles, and advanced air-to-air missiles, all being sold under the banner of a commitment to Israel’s security and the United States’ own vital national interests.
But the lucrative nature of Israel’s war on Gaza is not merely limited to the value of such contracts, as the war has also sent through the roof the stocks of US weapons manufacturers. In a Newsweek article published on October 16, 2023, and headlined “Military Contractor Stocks Have Skyrocketed Since Israel War Started,” the author explains how “Shares of some of the U.S. biggest military contractors have soared since the beginning of Israel’s war against Hamas, with companies such as Lockheed Martin reporting a 10 percent increase in their stock values.”
In the case of Lockheed Martin alone, the article goes on to explain that “On October 10, Barron’s investment magazine reported that the company had added $23 billion to its market capitalization after Hamas’ attack.” Raytheon Technologies, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman are the other beneficiaries of the war mentioned in the article.
Clearly, then, war is big business, where “merchants of death” (known as “defense contractors” today) and Wall Street are involved. And it is also true that investors of all kinds in and outside Israel and the United States are reaping massive financial gains from Israel’s war on Gaza, in spite of the horrific fact that Israel has already killed, injured, and displaced tens of thousands of innocent Palestinians in the occupied territories.
It is, thus, incumbent on the international community to do all it can to put an end to Israel’s war on Gaza and occupation of the Palestinian territories. Extremely helpful in this regard would be more protests around the world calling for a permanent ceasefire, as well as more pressure on the Biden administration to stop the flow of aid or assistance to Israel in line with the ICJ’s July 19 advisory opinion. Netanyahu and company must also be forced to relinquish their wicked plan to drag the United States into some sort of military confrontation with Iran, as this would undoubtedly engulf the whole region and might even start World War III.
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