Time to examine US aid to Israel

As Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier released by Hamas after more than five years in captivity, returned to Israel on Tuesday, he expressed a hope that his safe return would pave the way for peace in the Middle East.

In an interview on Egyptian state television, he declared: "I really hope that this deal advances peace and not more military conflicts and wars between Israel and the Palestinians."

As part of the landmark prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hamas, more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners will be released from Israeli prisons; nearly 500 have already been set free in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Shalit's brief comments served to turn the spotlight on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who surprisingly managed to win the support of his right-wing team in signing the deal with Hamas. After all, Israel and many western powers, including the US, have always shunned Hamas and maintained that the Palestinian movement, now in full control of the Gaza Strip, is a terrorist organisation.

What is puzzling about this deal is that it could have been reached years ago. The US could have helped pave the way for this deal, even Germany was reportedly instrumental in convincing Israel to come to terms with Hamas. However, it was Egypt that managed to seal the agreement.

But the western power that could have been most instrumental in securing a much earlier release of the Israeli soldier, even settling the whole Arab-Israeli conflict, is the US, which nowadays (election time) seems to be bending backwards to appease the influential Zionist lobby.

A prominent Washington Post columnist, Walter Pincus, wrote on Tuesday that considering the economic woes the US is facing, the question for the Obama administration, Congress and the American people is whether "it is time to examine the funding the US provides to Israel" — an idea that is bound to upset the apple cart.

Revelations

Pincus proceeded to expose, in an unprecedented manner, the extent of the US-Israeli relationship. He began by noting that Israel, because of the recent demonstrations against the high cost of living there, has "approved cutting more than $850 million, or about 5 per cent, from its roughly $16 billion defence budget in each of the next two years".

He continued: "If Israel can reduce its defence spending because of its domestic economic problems, should the US, which must cut military costs because of its major budget deficit, consider reducing its aid to Israel?"

He recalled that in March 2003, days after the US invasion of Iraq, then president George W. Bush requested the approval of $4.7 billion in military assistance for more than 20 countries "that had contributed to the conflict or the broader fight against terrorism".

He added that a major share of the money, $1 billion, went to Israel, which in fact had a minor role in any of these conflicts. Pincus continued that this amount was "on top of the $2.7 billion regular fiscal year 2003 assistance and $9 billion in economic loans guaranteed by the US government over the next three years".

Pincus goes on to state: In 2007, the Bush administration "worked out an agreement to raise the annual military aid grant, which had grown to $2.5 billion, incrementally over the next 10 years. This year it has reached just over $3 billion."

What's more surprising has been his revelation that "Israel's $3 billion is put almost immediately into an interest-bearing account;" and the accrued interest is used by Israel "to pay down debt from earlier Israeli non-guaranteed loans from the United States".

Another "bizarre formula that has become an element of US-Israel military aid [is] the so-called qualitative military edge (QME)," according to Pincus which has been "enshrined" in congressional legislation. It is now a required certification that any proposed arms sale to any other country in the Middle East, mainly Arab, "will not adversely affect Israel's qualitative military edge over military threats to Israel".

Pincus also divulged another military programme that allows the US to store arms and equipment on Israeli bases for use in wartime. "In the 1990s, the arrangement was expanded to allow Israel to use the weapons, but only with US permission [and] during the 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the US gave permission for Israel to use the stored cluster artillery shells to counter rocket attacks".

The rockets had struck civilian rather than military areas, touching off international complaints.

Since the mid-1990s, he continued, the US and Israel have been "co-developing missile defence systems designed to meet threats from short-range rockets as well longer-range ballistic missiles".

All this may have contributed to Netanyahu's dilly-dallying vis-a-vis the peace process. This time around in dealing with the Palestinians, he seems to have acquired the role of the Roman general, Brutus, knifing the Palestinians and Americans in the back while negotiating Shalit's release.

He is about to settle thousands of more Jews in a strategic part of occupied East Jerusalem where the Palestinians hope to establish their capital. If the Israeli prime minister succeeds in this usurpation, it will be up to US President Barack Obama to cripple the project. He has all the power to do that, thanks to Pincus's exposure.

 George S. Hishmeh is a Washington-based columnist. He is a former editor-in-chief of The Daily Star.