All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.
To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.
Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
***
What a hell of an ally we have in the Middle East there in Israel. Truly indispensable.
Its warmonger leadership flirts recklessly with World War III – while relying on the geopolitical power of the United States, mind you, to back up its feigned bravado — while it sucks the American treasury dry to the tune of billions of dollars per year and enlists the government to mobilize troops whenever it snaps its fingers.
The Israeli authorities would almost certainly tread more lightly were they not the beneficiaries of a blank moral and literal check from the United States. The stick it carries is way too big for its britches.
Via Times of Israel:
“Israel has asked the United States for $10 billion in emergency military aid…
The aid package is currently being put together by Congress in coordination with the White House…
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said during a visit to Tel Aviv on Sunday that US lawmakers have discussed providing Israel with replacement ammunition for the Iron Dome missile defense system, precision-guided bombs, JDAM kits to turn standard bombs into precision munitions and 155-millimeter ammunition.”
Hold the horses, there.
I’ve been told that Israel, via relentless corporate state media propaganda, is a technological powerhouse with an advanced economy and one of the finest fighting forces on Earth capable of mopping up America’s geopolitical rivals on our behalf. That’s why, the story goes, Israel is such an important and valuable regional ally.
So what does it need ten billion MORE dollars in American money – in addition to the $4 billion it already receives every year as the world’s largest welfare queen — and weapons for?
And why must 2,000 U.S. troops march off to fight on Israel’s behalf?
Via NBC News:
“About 2,000 U.S. troops have been put on prepare-to-deploy orders for possible support to Israel, according to a defense official.
The troops are not being sent anywhere yet, nor would they necessarily go to Israel or Gaza. If they were deployed, they would go to a nearby country to be prepared to support Israel in the war against Hamas, the official said.
These who received the orders were already on 96-hour prepare-to-deploy status, which has now been shortened to 24 hours.”
But for the benevolence of the American citizenry, Israel would have ceased to exist decades ago. In fact, the entire project of the state would never have gotten off the ground in the first place without not just American support but what can only be described as full subsidy.
In return for literally owing its existence to American sponsorship, one might expect unending gratitude and deference by the Israeli state. Perhaps some groveling when it comes begging for backup and more charity.
Instead, the tail wags the dog.
Entitled neocon “Israel First” millionaire chickenhawks like Ben Shapiro threaten nuclear war from his comfy studio unless John Q. Public taxpayer shuts his antisemitic mouth and hands Israel more money and weapons with a curtsy tossed in for good measure.
When Israel says “jump,” American taxpayers ask “how high”?
That’s called Freedom™. That’s called Democracy™.
Meanwhile, AIPAC and other groups funnel tens of millions of dollars every election cycle into congressional lobbying to subvert the democratic process by bribing American politicians to do Israel’s bidding – and that’s just one of the many shadowy lobbying groups working in the same capacity on Israel’s behalf.
AIPAC and similar groups, like Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), also pour millions of dollars into their pet political candidate to ensure the loyalty of the American Congress and presidency forever.
Through the multinational corporate state’s proxies like the ADL, Israel smears and censors any American who points out the imbalances in the parasitic U.S.-Israeli relationship as “Nazis” or “domestic terrorists” or whatever.
In some American states, the government forces employees, in clear violation of First Amendment free speech protections, to sign absurd “loyalty oaths” to the Israeli state in which they pledge not to ever support a boycott of Israel.
… And the abuses go on and on – abuses that would outrage and sicken any decent American if it were any other interests committing them aside from Israel, which for labyrinthine reasons enjoys privileges to subvert and distort the American democratic process with impunity.
If Israel wants so desperately war with Iran – which is obviously does — it should be free to do so and reap the geopolitical consequences.
But it won’t get any support – moral or material (except in the form of taxpayer money it extorts through legal theft) – from a Kansas boy like myself. My nationality is American. I am loyal to America – not to the illegitimate government that rules it, but to the ideals upon which this nation was founded, which predate by centuries the creation of the Middle Eastern political entity known as “Israel.”
*Note: As you might have noticed if you follow the news closely, you’re not likely to get this kind of perspectives on the Israel-Gaza conflict from the corporate state media or even, unfortunately, from much of the independent media, a large portion of which for whatever reason sees fit to simp for Israeli geopolitical interests.
*
Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack, Armageddon Prose.
Ben Bartee, author of Broken English Teacher: Notes From Exile, is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Oct. 12, 2023. – Secretary Antony Blinken on X
