|
At
the end of 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic was continuing to ravage
the populations of many nations, Israel stood out as a success story,
administering
more doses
of vaccines to its modest-sized 9-million-strong population than any
other country after China, the U.S., and the UK. Today, more than 60
percent of Israelis are vaccinated, which is 20
percentage points higher
than the United States—a nation that happens to give
more foreign aid to Israel
than to any other country in the world.
This
largest beneficiary of foreign U.S. aid also experiences
lower infant mortality and maternal mortality rates
than the U.S.,
likely as a result of the universal health coverage its citizens
enjoy. In fact, in 1995,
Israel became the second-to-last developed nation in the world to
ensure that all its citizens were fully insured, leaving the United
States as the last wealthy nation on the planet to leave its people
to fend for their own health care. One analyst, C.J. Werleman, has
argued
that “Israel can afford to give its citizens universal
healthcare because US taxpayers pay for its military.”
Today
Israel is back in the news, not so much for its achievements in
combating COVID-19, but for its stunning success
in increasing the mortality rate of Palestinians,
especially children
via sophisticated weaponry. Israel has launched a relentless barrage
of airstrikes on Palestinians imprisoned inside a territory whose
borders Israel controls, with the sort of military ferocity not seen
since… well, Israel’s previous attacks on Palestinians
in 2018,
and before that in 2014.
The fact that it has done so during a global pandemic when most
people the world over are worried about dying from an invisible virus
showcases a level of impunity that ought to give U.S. taxpayers
serious pause. The American largesse that the Israeli military taps
into is being used to crush the dreams and the lives of a helplessly
trapped population whose only defense is in the form of homemade
inaccurate rockets
controlled by one militant faction.
The
United States in 2016 signed a 10-year
agreement with Israel
promising to give $38 billion in taxpayer funds as military aid to a
nation that already possesses one of the most sophisticated and
well-armed militaries in the world. That’s roughly equivalent
to “two tuition-free years for low- and middle-income students
at historically Black, tribal and other minority-serving colleges”
in the U.S., and more than one-third of the cost of making community
college entirely free for Americans. But instead of buying Americans
a free college education, those tax dollars are fueling mass killings
of Palestinians.
Saree
Makdisi,
a professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA, and author
of Palestine
Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation
explained to me in an interview
that “the Israelis literally, materially, couldn’t do
what they’re doing without the supply of weapons that comes
from the U.S.” One estimate for the amount
of aid
that the U.S. has cumulatively given Israel is nearly $150 billion.
That’s enough to wipe out all of California’s
student loan debts,
freeing up nearly 4 million Californians from a financial chokehold.
Although
corporate
media outlets
like to describe Israel’s assaults on Palestinians through
euphemisms like “dispute,” “conflict,” or
“clashes,” the lens we really ought to use is how our tax
dollars are being weaponized. More specifically, do we want our tax
dollars to be used to kill hundreds of Palestinians or to wipe out
college debt for millions of Americans? It really is that simple.
“Why are we spending money on somebody else’s war of
aggression when we have desperate needs here at home in the U.S.?”
asked Makdisi.
One
seemingly well-meaning analyst wrote
in the Los Angeles Times
that the best thing Americans could do about the “conflict”
is to “stay out of it.” Rob Eshman, the national editor
of the Forward, made absolutely no mention in his op-ed of U.S.
military aid to Israel while he exhorted readers to question “whether
taking sides alone, in the long run, helps achieve an end to the
violence.” Eshman’s principle is sound even as his
avoidance of relevant facts reveals his own bias. The United States
as a whole could literally “stay out of it” by ending
military aid to Israel, and potentially staunch the relentless
killing of Palestinians.
U.S.
military aid to Israel is considered so sacrosanct that most
commentators and media pundits choose to ignore it, accepting it as a
natural aspect of American foreign relations. But given the terror
that Israel wields against Palestinians—so much so that even
Human
Rights Watch
now labels it “apartheid”—U.S. funding ought to be
central to any and all questions of how we are aiding and abetting
mass violence in Gaza.
Yet,
American government officials remain inexplicably subservient to
Israeli decisions on how that military aid is used. Secretary of
State Antony
Blinken,
when asked about why Israel bombed a building in Gaza that housed the
offices of media agencies like the Associated Press, said, "Shortly
after the strike we did request additional details regarding the
justification for it… I have not seen any information
provided." An Israeli spokesperson brushed off the request for
justification, saying with cold impunity, "We're in the middle
of fighting. That's in process and I'm sure in due time that
information will be presented." There is no incentive for Israel
to explain itself to its dominant funder, because the U.S. has rarely
if ever, demanded accountability from its largest beneficiary.
According
to Makdisi, while U.S. aid to Israel is unconditional in practical
terms, by law there are conditions. “There are stipulations in
American law governing the export of weapons,” he said.
“They’re not to be used against civilian targets,
obviously they’re not supposed to be used for war crimes, and
yet they are, consistently.”
Only
in recent years have American lawmakers been demanding accountability
from Israel. In 2019, then-presidential candidate Senator
Bernie Sanders
(I-VT) said, “My solution is to say to Israel: ‘You get
$3.8 billion every year. If you want military aid, you’re going
to have to fundamentally change your relationship to the people of
Gaza.’” His then-rival Joe Biden dismissed the notion as
“bizarre.” More recently Sanders wrote in an op-ed,
“we provide nearly $4 billion a year in aid to Israel,”
and therefore, “we can no longer be apologists for the
right-wing Netanyahu government and its undemocratic and racist
behavior.”
As
president, Biden also faces pressure from progressive House
Democrats, with Congresswoman
Rashida Tlaib
(D-MI) demanding in a personal encounter with him that the U.S. must
stop enabling violence against Palestinians. Representative
Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez
(D-NY) is leading an effort to stop a $735 million arms sale to
Israel, and Representative Betty
McCollum
(D-FL) introduced a historic bill in April prohibiting the use of
U.S. aid in violating Palestinian rights.
As
Israeli warplanes have pounded densely populated neighborhoods in
Gaza, wiping
out whole families,
the contradictions between Biden’s position on Israel and his
stated commitment to human rights are on stark display. His
administration’s Interim
National Security Strategic Guidance
document
published in March claimed that under Biden’s leadership, the
U.S. “will defend and protect human rights and address
discrimination, inequity, and marginalization in all its forms.”
But in that same document, Biden reiterated the U.S.’s
“ironclad commitment to Israel’s security,” with no
mention of how Israel routinely violates Palestinian human rights.
This article was produced by
Globetrotter
|
