The Israelis, who long considered they had US politicians in their pockets and for good reason, have begun to show their exasperation at some of the Obama government’s policies. Their irritation has become public with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his band of ministers releasing comments not favourable to the elected US officials.
As long as the US abides by Israel’s bidding, then all is well. However, when US policies differ, then the Israeli machinery begins to publicly ridicule and undermine stands taken by the American government on certain issues.
The Israelis are currently not happy with the US for trying to push forward a peace agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis. It is not in their interest. And when there were some muted protests from a few voices within the US government about ongoing illegal land grabs and the building of Israeli colonies on encroached Palestinian land, the howls from Israeli public figures could undoubtedly reach the White House.
The Israelis are content with the current status quo that allows them to parcel off huge sections of Palestinian lands and allocate them to the building of colonies. And if the Palestinians do not like it, some targeted killing or a bomb run is sure to bring the Palestinians to their senses.
Earlier this year, the Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Ya’alon derided the policies of the US in seeking peace between Israelis and the Palestinians by describing John Kerry, the US Secretary of State who has been the prime mover to get the stalled peace talks started as ‘obsessive and messianic’ in his peace efforts. He added that he hoped that ‘Kerry gets a Nobel Prize and leaves us alone.’
The Israelis, whose American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) operatives in the US successfully steered America into a senseless war with Iraq, are also not content with the US approach towards Iran. They are mightily upset that the US war machine did not begin its ‘shock and awe’ exercise against Iran, a country they have on their list to marginalise and render impotent. What the Israelis desperately want and what their moles in the US government are feverishly seeking is a complete failure of the ongoing nuclear weapons talks with Iran as a prelude for a full scale attack on that country.
This was apparent when the Israeli defence minister publicly expressed his government’s displeasure with the US reluctance to launch a full scale attack against Iran. Saying that Israel ‘cannot depend on the US to lead any action against Iran’s nuclear programme and can only rely on itself,’ during an event at Tel Aviv University, Ya’alon in his criticism directed at the US administration, added that ‘we thought that the one who needs to lead the campaign against Iran is the US’ and ‘at some stage the US entered into negotiations with the Iranians, and unhappily, when it comes to negotiating at a Persian bazaar, the Iranians were better.’
Undoubtedly echoing some of the sentiments of his fellow ministers, the Israeli also criticised the American response to the Ukraine crisis, and US relations with countries in Asia and specifically China. In his verbal assault against American foreign policy, Ya’alon blurted, ‘Look what’s happening in Ukraine, where the United States is demonstrating weakness, unfortunately.’
All this from members of a government whose country receives an annual stipend of $3.1 billion in American taxpayer funds as military aid, along with untold amounts in other concessions. Israel’s apparent attempts to goad the US into wars fought on their behalf are nothing new.
In the past as nowadays, there are operatives embedded in almost all the branches of the US government that try to sway US policy towards Israeli needs and dimensions. The lobbying of Aipac, some of whose members are members in various branches also helps suppress the illegal activities of the lobby group. A standing joke for decades has been that the US Department of Justice is ‘a place where Israel lobby criminal investigations go to die.’
It isn’t something recent that the Israelis had their sights on Iran. Buoyed by their success at the US invasion of Iraq, back in 2004 two Aipac executives approached the Washington Post claiming that they had classified information that Iran was engaged in a ‘total war’ against the Americans in Iraq. Their purpose was to spread more disinformation to get an unwary public on the offensive against Iran. The pair of Aipac operatives was eventually indicted, but the case was wiped off the books under intense Israeli lobbying.
Edward Snowden, the famed whistle-blower also brought to light how Israeli interests were deeply entrenched in the US National Security Agency. In a 2009 agreement, the NSA was to ‘routinely share raw intelligence data with Israel without first sifting it to remove information about US citizens.’ Politicians are being routinely bought and sold by powerful lobbying groups.
Americans recently are becoming more aware and educated of such sinister entrenchment of a foreign power within their government, and whose continued presence threatens the democratic principles that the US stands for. It is imperative that Israeli interests not be linked with American ones for the good of the country, and let the criticisms fall where they may be.
Tariq A. Al Maeena is a Saudi socio-political commentator. He lives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/@talmaeena
