No More Bro Hugs: Time to Reset U.S./Israel Relations
Photograph Source: U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv – CC BY 2.0
Israeli ground troops enter Lebanon. Iran sends missiles into Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promises to retaliate. Violence in the Middle East escalates, but this didn’t have to happen. In another example of the bizarre co-dependent nature of U.S./Israel relation, last week news sources reported that Israel was ready to agree to a U.S. backed 21-day ceasefire including Gaza and Lebanon. Instead, Netanyahu backtracked. In opposition to the agreed ceasefire, the Israeli Prime Minister declared at the United Nations General Assembly; “All that has to happen is for Hamas to surrender, lay down its arms, and release all the hostages. But if they don’t, we will fight until we achieve victory. Total victory.” He went on; “And we’ll continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met.” Shortly after his U.N. speech, Netanyahu ordered the assassination of the Hezbollah leader in Beirut, continues sending rockets raining down on Beirut and now initiates a ground invasion into Lebanon. All are diametrically opposed to the ceasefire that had been agreed upon.
Beware of friends and allies and not just enemies is wise diplomatic advice. Netanyahu is supposed to be a friend and ally. But he continues to fail to cooperate with the United States except when he desperately needs its help to defend Israel. If Israel continues killing innocent civilians and causing one million displaced in egregious breaches of International Humanitarian Law (IIHL), emboldens a larger Middle East conflict and possibly costs the Democratic Party the 2024 election, why should the United States continue to back Israel with Netanyahu as its leader?
Besides causing horrific suffering and destruction, Netanyahu has also humiliated the United States. Even though President Biden said that the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah was “a measure of justice” for his many victims, and added that Washington fully supported Israel’s right to defend itself against Iran-supported groups, there is no question that the United States is often out of the loop when Netanyahu makes major decisions. (“The United States was not involved in this operation [the assassination of Nasrallah] and was not warned in advance,” said Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh.) The Israeli leader no longer considers Washington a priority in his decision-making process despite the fact that Washington continues to be Israel’s significant funder and weapons supplier.
As Patrick Wintour wrote in The Guardian about Netanyahu’s about face on the ceasefire: “For Washington, this is a diplomatic humiliation and a display of its inability, or refusal, to control its troublesome ally…In some ways, it is the culmination of nearly 12 months of an American strategy that now lies in ruins. Time after time since the 7 October attacks by Hamas, the US has asked Israel to adopt a different strategy over the delivery of food into Gaza, protection zones, a ground offensive in Rafah, the terms of a ceasefire and, above all, over avoiding conflict escalation…Each time, Netanyahu acknowledged the US position, sidestepped a clear response and then ultimately ignored Washington. Each time, the US – vexed and frustrated – has expressed misgivings about Netanyahu’s strategy, but each time it has continued to pass the ammunition.”
How far will the United States accept diplomatic humiliation? Ronald Reagan famously said “trust but verify” when dealing with Mikhail Gorbachev during the Cold War. (The expression trust but verify comes from a Russian proverb that rhymes overyay, no proveryay). But Reagan was dealing with the leader of the Soviet Union, the sworn enemy of the United States.
Netanyahu and the United States are supposed to be friendly allies. But friendships and alliances have their limits. If “trust but verify” was used by Reagan in dealing with an enemy, why shouldn’t a “trust but verify” posture be applied now when dealing with an ally who continues to renege on his promises?
The verification process has taken place. Netanyahu is not to be trusted.
What should follow? According to USAFacts, “The United States committed over $3.3 billion in foreign assistance to Israel in 2022, the most recent year for which data exists. About $8.8 million of that went toward the country’s economy, while 99.7% of the aid went to the Israeli military.”
Stopping or reducing funding to Israel as well as changing the arms shipments would be a first step. Canada and the Netherlands have already halted arms shipments to Israel in recognition of how Israel’s use of weapons has violated IHL. Israel’s use of American weapons clearly violates IHL. The assassination of the Hezbollah leader was by a 2000 pound “bunker buster” bomb supplied by the United States. During the targeted assassination, Israeli media reported that 15 missiles were fired at Beirut, resulting in the destruction of six buildings, the death of eight people, and injuries to 91 others. The use of these bombs in densely populated areas is prohibited under the Geneva Convention due to their potential for widespread, indiscriminate destruction.
It is time to challenge the oft-repeated assumptions in the following recent piece by Roger Cohen, former Opinion columnist for The New York Times: “The United States does have enduring leverage over Israel, notably in the form of military aid that involved a $15 billion package signed this year by President Biden. But an ironclad alliance with Israel built around strategic and domestic political considerations, as well the shared values of two democracies, means Washington will almost certainly never threaten to cut – let alone cut off – the flow of arms.”
What “ironclad alliance”? What “shared values of two democracies”? These assumptions are from the past. The continuing invasion of Gaza, the indiscriminate bombing in Lebanon, and now the ground forces incursion are more than proof of why this friendship/alliance must evolve. We are well past 1948 and the role of the United States in the establishment of the state of Israel. We are well past President Biden’s October 2023 bro hug with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. We should also be well past “Washington will almost certainly never threaten to cut – let alone cut off – the flow of arms.”
Netanyahu’s policies have caused enormous, unnecessary human suffering as well as physical, political, diplomatic, and moral damage. Supporting Israel against Iran does not deal with the fundamental question of Benjamin Netanyahu’s illegal and dangerous solo diplomacy which risks engaging the United States in a larger conflict. Netanyahu no longer merits the United States’ trust. The relationship between the United States and Israel needs immediate resetting.
Netanyahu’s Dangerous Militarism
Photograph Source: U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv – CC BY 2.0
“Israel, in sum, has recovered the military primacy it lost when Hamas fighters surged across the Gaza border on Oct. 7 and ravaged Israeli civilians.”
– David Ignatius, oped, Washington Post, October 2, 2024.
“We Absolutely Need to Escalate in Iran.”
– Bret Stephens, editorial, The New York Times, October 3, 2024.
The mainstream media has been largely critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dangerous use of military power, and largely supportive of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s equally dangerous use of military power. The leading proponents of these contrasting views have been David Ignatius in the Washington Post and Bret Stephens in the New York Times.
Ignatius could not be more wrong about Israel recovering its military primacy. Israel never lost the primacy it established in the Six-Day War in 1967 in the rapid sequencing of defeating the military forces of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan in that order. The surprise attacks of the October War in 1973 and the Hamas attacks of October 2023 were essentially aberrations that could be attributed to intelligence and political failures on both occasions. Prime Minister Golda Meir lost her leadership because of her failures; Prime Minister Netanyahu will lose his whenever Israel gets around to holding another election.
The Middle East is facing its greatest peril at this juncture because Netanyahu now has a free hand to conduct any military operation he desires against Iran. Netanyahu no longer has to be concerned with the responses of Hamas and Hezbollah to an Israeli attack against Iran because both organizations have been strategically defeated on the battle field. Netanyahu no longer has to be concerned with U.S. calls for restraint because the Biden administration is tethered to the demands of an imminent presidential election and President Joe Biden has shown no interest in using the only leverage in his policy quiver—the withholding of military assistance. Netanyahu no longer has to be concerned with domestic opposition because it has vanished, and even former prime ministers such as Naftali Bennett are calling for Israel to destroy the network of pipelines, refineries, and oil terminals on Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf as well as the missile complex in Isfahan.
Stephens is the major U.S. cheerleader for Bennett’s proposed bombing campaign. He has invoked the need to defeat the “axis of evil” (Russia, China, and North Korea) before it provides technical help for Iran’s nuclear ambitions. According to Stephens, Biden—“at a minimum”—should destroy the Isfahan missile complex as a “direct and and proportionate response” to Iran’s aggressions. Carrying out such a threat, according to Stephens, could convince Iran to order Hezbollah and the Houthis to “stand down” and even “pressure Hamas to release its Israeli hostages.”
Stephens makes no mention of the Iran nuclear accord of 2015 that placed significant limitations on Iran’s nuclear ambitions, including its enrichment of uranium, construction of centrifuges, and production of weapons-grade plutonium. The agreement also prohibited research activities that contributed to designing and developing a nuclear device in perpetuity. If Iran is closer to development of nuclear weapons, it is due to Donald Trump’s decision in 2018 to abrogate a treaty that had significant international support, including from Russia and China. And if Iran has enough near-weapons grade nuclear fuel for several nuclear bombs, it is due to Trump and his national security adviser, John Bolton.
Stephens (and Netanyahu) wants the completion of the “decapitation” of Hezbollah and the “evisceration” of Hamas in Gaza. He has supported an Israeli invasion of Lebanon, but makes no mention of previous Israeli failures in Lebanon in 1978, 1982, and 2006, which led to unexpected losses and an unanticipated long-term occupation. U.S. efforts to pull Israeli chestnuts out of the fire led to U.S. losses in 1983. Israel successfully forced the ouster of Yasir Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization from Lebanon, but in doing so a far more dangerous Hezbollah emerged, a group that didn’t exist until Israel invaded the Lebanese capital of Beirut in 1982.
Greater use of Israeli military power has not provided Israel with greater security over the years, and there is no reason to believe that any retaliation—other than a symbolic response similar to the April attack—would end the current cycle of permanent occupation. Israeli analysts continue to speak of “escalate to deescalate,” “escalation dominance,” and “restoration of deterrence,” but Israel’s “targeted assassinations,” the violence of settlers on the West Bank, and the genocidal campaign in Gaza will never serve any long-term strategic purpose. The collusion of the Israeli defense forces, the police, and the military courts speaks to the apartheid that exists on the West Bank. Until the United States understands the necessity of diplomatic dialogue with Iran, and Israel understands the the necessity of Palestinian sovereignty on a land that they can call their own, the cycle of permanent war will continue.
By Brian Tierney
Photo by Mohammed Ibrahim
For the past year, the world has watched in horror as Israel waged one of the most brutal and murderous military campaigns against a civilian population in the 21st Century.
What began as a war of collective punishment following October 7, 2023 quickly exploded into a full-scale genocide against the people of Gaza. Israel deployed the familiar trope about Hamas using civilians as “human shields” to justify the merciless targeting of population centers, dropping U.S. bombs on homes, hospitals, schools, and overcrowded refugee camps across the narrow strip of land that is home to some two million Palestinians.
Using starvation as a weapon, Israel has blocked most humanitarian aid from entering Gaza and brought the territory’s health care system to the brink of collapse. Lives spared by Israeli airstrikes face hell on earth, displaced many times over by the attacks while enduring famine, disease, and unimaginable psychological trauma. Among the more than 40,000 deaths accounted for in the official death toll, at least 11,000 children have been murdered by U.S. bombs, and another estimated 10,000 casualties remain buried under the mountains of rubble that is now Gaza’s landscape.
The nightmare in Gaza set the stage for Israeli state terrorism on two additional fronts: first, beginning shortly after October 7 with escalating attacks by Israeli occupation forces and settlers in the West Bank; and now, with its bombing campaign and ground invasion of Lebanon to pull Hezbollah and Iran into a wider regional conflict.
Today, as a new barrage of Iranian missiles have been fired into Israel, setting off the sirens of major war in the region, one leader stands at the center of all the carnage: President Joe Biden.
While working in close collaboration with his Israeli counterpart, Biden has carried on a decades-long partnership in ethnic cleansing, colonialism, land theft, and apartheid.
From the White House, Biden has dutifully performed various roles to prolong the suffering in Gaza and expand Israeli aggression into a greater Middle East war. These include the roles of frustrated ally to an unhinged maniac, dishonest statesman in ceasefire talks, and loyal arms supplier to a regime of war criminals. For all of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s stubbornness and belligerent bombast, it is Biden who has always held the lion’s share of leverage.
Biden’s routine handwringing in the face of genocide and Israeli intransigence can never excuse the endless arsenal of U.S. military aid still flowing into Netanyahu’s lap.
Bibi, Unbridled
After so many resolutions and rounds of global condemnation, the toothless authority of international law and global governing bodies has been laid bare.
Netanyahu is unrestrained and has used the blood of Gazans as political currency to retain power. Faced with scandals and flagging popularity, the Israeli despot has ignored calls for a ceasefire, moved the goalposts during negotiations, and resisted calls for his resignation in order to hold together his extreme right-wing Zionist government and stay in office. In Gaza, an estimated 180,000 people have been killed from all war-related causes, including starvation and disease. Some experts warn the total number killed by direct or indirect causes related to Israel’s genocide could exceed 335,000 by the end of this year.
For Netanyahu, no amount of Arab deaths and displacement – whether in Gaza, the West Bank, or Lebanon – is too much to achieve these goals.
Netanyahu has been able to cling to power with U.S. support and by heeding the most violent and racist impulses of Israeli society following October 7. But as growing numbers of Israelis, led by the family members of hostages, have demanded a ceasefire and Netanyahu’s resignation, the Prime Minister has again turned to provoke new threats.
Indeed, following Israel’s initial attacks on Lebanon using terrorist sabotage of mobile devices, its subsequent airstrikes across southern Lebanon and Beirut, and the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, Netanyahu has seen a boost in popularity and an Israeli public again whipped into the frenzied bloodlust of war.
Biden’s Monster
Today, after repeatedly loading the canons of a global pariah, the White House speaks out of one side of its mouth to feign alarm at the specter of the wider war that Netanyahu always wanted. Out of the other side of its mouth, it gives full-throated support to Israel’s every provocation in Lebanon and loudly echoes Israel’s denunciations when the predicted response is delivered from Tehran.
“Make no mistake, the United States is fully, fully, fully supportive of Israel,” Biden told reporters as the final missiles from Iran were intercepted. Vice President Kamala Harris agreed, saying she “fully supports” Biden’s decision to direct the U.S. military to help Israel shoot down the missiles.
“I condemn this attack unequivocally. I’m clear-eyed. Iran is a destabilizing, dangerous force in the Middle East,” Harris said, pretending the rest of the world hasn’t noticed Israel’s longstanding and recent actions which have proven far more destabilizing and dangerous to populations throughout the region.
On Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said of the latest Iranian retaliation that “the best answer is diplomacy.” Yet Biden joined Netanyahu’s threats that “Iran will pay,” promising “severe consequences.”
If Netanyahu is the monster in this ongoing nightmare, Biden is the mad scientist who keeps him alive.
Pundits will spin Biden’s handiwork as a dilemma, a delicate balancing act of diplomacy fraught with impossible choices. Yet, as Israel escalates the year-long genocide from Gaza to Lebanon, it is clear there was never a “red line” for U.S. support.
Not content with laying waste to Gaza, Israel is drawing in more adversaries and putting more and more civilians in its crosshairs. There should be no doubt that Israel has cemented its purpose as a cancer in the region – and the only leader with the power to extract this metastasizing tumor refuses to do so.
For Gazans, this was always Biden’s genocide to end or to escalate. And for people throughout the Middle East, this was always Biden’s war to prevent or provoke.
A choice has clearly been made.
Having withdrawn himself from a second term as president, Biden’s career may be invulnerable to the protests raging against this choice. But his legacy is as vulnerable as ever.
In our organizing and our protests, we must see to it that Biden’s place in history is relentlessly targeted everywhere that history is told.
Because we cannot allow hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to die in vain.
We can never stop attacking the machinery of colonialism and empire until it is forever broken.
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