The Aftermath — Modern Israel

A few years ago, the U.N. voted for international recognition of the Palestinian Authority, over the objections of Israel and the United States. After the U.N. vote, Israel immediately announced the approval of 3000 new settlements East of Jerusalem, in defiance of International law and U.S. policy. Israel was furious that the Palestinian Authority would dare seek international recognition; but was even more upset by the newly created unity government between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. The U.S. and Israel consider Hamas to be a terrorist organization. So, in June of 2014 when three Israeli teenagers were murdered in the West Bank, Prime Minister Netanyahu — knowing that they were dead — kept the information secret; lied to the public and insisted that they were kidnapped to justify a massive West Bank search… except that it was a phony search intended to punish the West Bank Arabs and dismantle the Palestinian Authority/Hamas Unity Agreement. It turned out that the two men responsible for the murders, though loosely connected to Hamas; were not acting on orders… they were just murderers. Anyway, it gave the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) a green light:

· Raids have targeted more than 1000 private homes, the offices of political parties, refugee camps, and the campuses of Birzeit University near Ramallah and the Arab American University in Jenin, resulting in the detention and arrest of students and staff.

· More than 500 Palestinians have been detained and/or imprisoned. Those arrested include at least seven members of the Palestinian legislature and many individuals who were recently released by Israel as part of a prisoner swap. There are currently more than 5000 Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons.

· Israeli soldiers have also targeted children for arrest, bringing the total number of Palestinian children imprisoned by Israel to more than 250 according to news reports.

· In conducting the raids, Israeli soldiers have caused widespread damage to private property, ransacking homes and offices, and confiscating computers, files and other property. They also raided the offices of journalists in Ramallah, including Russia Today television, damaging and removing computers, equipment, and hard drives.

· And according to a report from Euro-Mid Observer for Human Rights: …During the course of Israel’s three-week campaign of mass arrests in the West Bank, ostensibly to search for the killers of three settlers, the Israeli military and police conducted an average of 18 raids per day into Palestinian homes, charities and businesses, stealing cash and property worth an estimated $3 million….

The IDF mission was called Operation Brother’s Keeper. By the way, there were no search warrants issued or needed, because, to Israel, all Palestinians are considered terrorists or potential terrorists and as such are denied basic due process rights.

Netanyahu was not finished. It was his intent to destroy both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas; render them both useless; and teach the Palestinians a harsh lesson… never to challenge the authority of Israel. Therefore, On July 7, 2014, an Israeli airstrike caused a tunnel explosion, killing seven Hamas militants. This incursion into Palestinian territory was intended to incite a response from Hamas. And it did, Hamas retaliated by firing 40 scud missiles toward Israel.

Operation Protective Edge had begun, it lasted seven weeks and before it was over the Israeli military had fired 34,000 artillery rounds: 12,000 smoke, 3000 illumination and 19,000 explosives; using an American-made Howitzer 155-millimetre cannon. These were mostly fired into Gaza City with little regard to civilian casualties and intentionally crippling the cities fragile public utility infrastructure. In the aftermath more than 2,200 Palestinians lay dead; almost 11,000 wounded (by comparison, 66 Israeli soldiers and 5 Israeli citizens died in the conflict); it is estimated that 520,000 Gazans were displaced from their homes; almost every piece of critical infrastructure, from electricity to water to sewage, was seriously compromised by either direct hits from Israeli air strikes and shelling or collateral damage. The UN calculated that more than 7,000 homes were razed and an additional 89,000 homes damaged. Rebuilding costs were calculated to run from $4 to 6 billion. On the other hand, Israel was successful in its stated mission of destroying all Hamas tunnels from Gaza into Israel. Of course, Netanyahu knew about these tunnels for years and simply could have ordered them flooded with water.

For its part, Hamas and other groups fired 4,564 missiles and mortar shells into Israel, killing three Israeli citizens. The rest were either intercepted by Israel’s “Iron Dome” defense system or fell harmlessly to earth.

Monetary Costs

Let’s look at the financial costs of the “Special Relationship” between the U.S. and Israel:

It has been estimated that the true cost of our aid to Israel is in the trillions of dollars. In addition to direct aid (estimated at over $4 billion per year), there have also been several indirect costs:

· $139 Billion in aid to Egypt and Jordan, paid as bribes to sign peace agreements with Israel.

· Lost American jobs resulting from Defense aid financed by the U.S. that normally would go to U.S. defense contractors, but under special terms, Israeli defense contractors receive the money instead. In addition, Israel doesn’t have to account for how U.S. aid money is spent.

· Arab oil producing nations retaliated against America for supplying Israel with U.S. weapons, which were then used against Arabs during the Yom Kippur War of 1973. OPEC, including Saudi Arabia initiated an oil embargo against the United States and other countries that also supported Israel. When adding everything together, the oil crises cost the American economy approximately $1 trillion dollars.

· A secondary result of the oil crises was the establishment of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. To date these have cost the U.S. $134 billion. According to an Oil Supply Guarantee, which former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (yes, he was Jewish) provided Israel in 1975, Israel gets ‘first call’ on any oil available to the U.S. if Israel’s oil supply is stopped.

· Humanitarian aid to Palestinian Refugees.

· The second Iraq war. It is estimated that the war has already cost American taxpayers $1.7 trillion, with another $490 billion owed to Iraq war veterans. Since the Iraq invasion in 2003, some 500,000 Iraqis have been killed (mostly civilians) as well as 4,491 U.S. service members. The U.S. military destroyed much of Baghdad during its “Shock and Awe” campaign of airstrikes and then stood idly by and watched as much of Baghdad, including the National Museum of Iraq was looted by thieves. Israel was useless during both Iraq wars. Any action or involvement would have proven toxic to the fragile Arab coalition.

In spite of popular misconceptions that the war was over Iraqi oil, Cheney’s connection to Haliburton or George W. Bush’s desire to finish the job his dad had started, the main reason we invaded Iraq was to protect Israel. President Bush was surrounded by Neo-conservative, pro-Israel hawks (Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, James Woolsey, Scooter Libby, John Bolton, David Wurmser and Elliott Abrams; also joining the fray were well-known journalists like Robert Kagan, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol and William Safire [10] ) who pushed hard for regime change in Iraq, Iran and Syria… all enemies of Israel. Even though Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons had been destroyed; and that Israel had previously bombed Iraq’s nuclear capability; and that U.N. inspectors had found no evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD’s) or a new nuclear program, Israeli dignitaries (Netanyahu, Peres, Sharon, Barak) began a campaign to warn the President, Congress and American News outlets of Saddam Hussein’s hidden WMD’s and secret Nuclear program. Israeli intelligence confirmed the hysteria. The U.S. Israel lobby went to work on Congress and friendly Administration officials. So, even though Saddam Hussein had none of these capabilities and had no intentions of invading Israel… Bush and the U.S. Congress were convinced to the contrary and worrying about an impending Arab-Israeli conflict… ordered the invasion. The result has obviously been a disaster.

In my view, regardless of its history and its detractors, Israel exists and that is not going to change any time soon. It is not likely that the Palestinians or its Arab neighbors will be able to wish it away or blow it away. Israel’s main problem is not its enemies; it’s not U.S. opinion or even continued financial or military support. Israel is now capable of its own self-sufficiency and self-defense. When Israel implodes, it will be a result of its own inherent contradictions. The first, it exists as a majoritarian democracy and a Jewish nation; and second, it maintains both an internal democracy and an external military dictatorship.

For the past seventy years, Israel has been painting itself in a corner. In wars of conquest, Israel has taken control of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. It then removed its settlements from Gaza, and has left the remaining Palestinians to stay as its virtual prisoners. The West Bank, on the other hand has half a million Jewish settlers. Israel can’t accept a two State solution because if it agreed to provide the Palestinians enough land for a viable State, the Jewish Settlers would likely revolt against the Israeli Government; and the move would be very unpopular within the State of Israel. They like keeping the Palestinians squashed in an insignificant geographical area and under the thumb of a vastly superior military. Netanyahu was forced by a tight election to acknowledge publicly, what is well known in Israel: It is political suicide for any politician to really support a Two State Solution. The One State Solution is even more unpalatable to Israelis. If Israel annexed Gaza and the West Bank and made everyone citizens, then Jews would become a demographic minority, losing control of Israel’s government. The current system however, is unsustainable in the long term and eventually the apartheid-like control over the occupied territories will self-destruct, like it did in South Africa… both on humanitarian grounds; and the long-term suppression of a growing Palestinian population, now over five million people, will prove impossible and internationally intolerable.