The Staggering Cost Of Israel To Americans

By Pamela Olson

Israel has a population of approximately 7.8 million, or a million fewer than the state of New Jersey. It is among the world's most affluent nations, with a per capita income similar to that of the European Union.[1]Israel's unemployment rate of 5.6% is much better than America's 9.1%,[2] and Israel's net trade, earnings, and payments is ranked 48th in the world while the US sits at a dismal 198th.[3]

Yet Israel receives approximately 10% of America's foreign aid budget every year.[4] The US has, in fact, given more aid to Israel than it has to all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined—which have a total population of over a billion people.[5] And foreign aid is just one component of the staggering cost of our alliance with Israel.

Given the tremendous costs, it is critical to examine why we lavish so much aid on Israel, and whether it is worth Americans' hard-earned tax dollars. But first, let's take a look at what our alliance with Israel truly costs.

Before the Iraq War in 2003

Direct Foreign Aid

According to the Congressional Research Service , the amount of official US aid to Israel since its founding in 1948 tops $112 billion, and in the past few decades it has been on the order of $3 billion per year.[6](In 2011, for example, this amounted to over $8.2 million every single day.)

But this money is only part of the story. For one thing, Israel gets its aid money at the start of each year, unlike other nations.[7] This is significant: It means Israel can start earning interest on the money right away. And it costs the US more than the typical year-end disbursements because the US government operates at a deficit, so it must borrow this money to pay Israel and then pay interest on the amount all year.

Israel is also the only recipient of US military aid that is allowed to use a significant portion annually to purchase products made by Israeli companies instead of US companies. (The costs to Americans caused by this unique perk are discussed below.)

In addition, the US gives roughly $2 billion per year to Egypt and Jordan in aid packages arranged largely in exchange for peace treaties with Israel. The treaties don't include justice for Palestinians, and are therefore deeply unpopular with the local populations.[8]

On top of this, the US gives roughly half a billion to the Palestinian Authority each year,[9]much of it used to rebuild infrastructure destroyed by Israel and to bolster an economy stifled by the Israeli occupation.[10] This would be unnecessary if Israel were to end the occupation and allow the Palestinians to build a functioning and self-sustaining economy.

Yet there's still much more to the story, because parts of US aid to Israel are buried in the budgets of various US agencies, mostly the Department of Defense. For example, since at least 2006, the American Defense budget has included between $130 and $235 million per year for missile defense programs in Israel.[11]

In all, direct US disbursements to Israel amount to approximately 10% of all U.S. aid abroad, even though Israelis only make up 0.001% of the world's population. In other words, on average, Israelis receive 10,000 times more US foreign aid per capita than other people throughout the world, despite the fact that Israel is one of the world's more affluent nations.[12] And that number rises significantly when one considers disbursements to Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority and Defense spending on behalf of Israel.

Additional Ad hoc support for Israel

Dr. Thomas Stauffer, a Harvard economist and Middle East studies professor who twice served in the Executive Office of the President, wrote a comprehensive report about all components of the alliance with Israel's cost to American taxpayers for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs in 2003. He wrote:

"Another element is ad hoc support for Israel, which is not part of the formal foreign aid programs. No comprehensive compilation of US support for Israel has been publicly released. Additional known items include loan guarantees... special contracts for Israeli firms, legal and illegal[13] transfers of marketable US military technology, de facto exemption from US trade protection provisions, and discounted sales or free transfers of 'surplus' US military equipment. An unquantifiable element is the trade and other aid given to Romania and Russia to facilitate Jewish migration to Israel; this has accumulated to many billions of dollars."[14]

Israel has often used its privileged access to US military technology against both the US government and US corporate interests. According to the Associated Press in 2002, "In France, Turkey, The Netherlands and Finland, Israeli companies have edged such U.S. firms as Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and General Atomics out of arms deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years. The irony, experts say, is that tens of billions of U.S. tax dollars and transfers of American military technology helped create and nurture Israel's industry, in effect subsidizing a foreign competitor."

The AP article quoted a vice president at the Aerospace Industries Association of America, who bluntly said, "We give them money to build stuff for themselves and the U.S. taxpayer gets nothing in return."[15]

Meanwhile, according to the Christian Science Monitor , Israel has also "blocked some major US arms sales, such as F-15 fighter aircraft to Saudi Arabia in the mid-1980s. That cost $40 billion over 10 years."[16]

Even worse, Israeli weapons "buttress the arsenals of nations such as China that the United States considers strategic competitors, alarming US military planners," theAssociated Press article went on to report. "[In 2001] US surveillance planes flying along China's coast were threatened by Chinese fighter jets armed with Israeli missiles... Had Chinese fighter pilots been given the order to fire, they could have brought down the US planes with Israeli Python III missiles... US defense chiefs say Israel sold China the missiles without informing the United States."[17]

Lost jobs, trade, and standing

One of the most devastating indirect costs of the US alliance with Israel was the Arab oil boycott of 1973. The Arab states imposed the boycott in protest of US support of Israel during the 1973 war, in which Arab countries attacked Israel to try to reclaim lands Israel had invaded and occupied in 1967.

"Washington's intervention triggered the Arab oil embargo which cost the U.S. doubly: first, due to the oil shortfall, the US lost about $300 billion to $600 billion in GDP; and, second, the US was saddled with another $450 billion in higher oil import costs," wrote Stauffer in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.[18]

Then there's the cost in lost jobs. "US policy and trade sanctions reduce US exports to the Middle East about $5 billion a year, costing 70,000 or so American jobs," Stauffer estimates. "Not requiring Israel to use its US aid to buy American goods, as is usual in foreign aid, costs another 125,000 jobs."[19]

But perhaps the most damaging cost to the US has been its loss of standing in the Arab and Muslim worlds, where US largesse towards Israel as it commits human rights violations[20] provokes deep resentment. "To many of the world's Muslims, it places the US taxpayer on the Israeli side of its conflicts with Arabs," observed the Associated Pressarticle.[21]

According to Harvard professor Stephen Walt, "The 9/11 Commission reported that 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's 'animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with US foreign policy favoring Israel.' Other anti-American terrorists—such as Ramzi Yousef, who led the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center—have offered similar explanations for their anger toward the United States."[22]

There are many more potential categories of costs that are even more difficult to quantify. All in all, Stauffer estimates that Israel cost the US about $1.6 trillion between 1973 and 2003 alone—more than twice the cost of the Vietnam war.[23]

Costs since Stauffer's study in 2003

Israel's cost to American taxpayers has remained high since Stauffer's 2003 study. The US currently gives Israel an average of $3 billion a year in military aid, under an agreement signed by the Bush administration to transfer $30 billion to Israel over ten years, starting in 2009.[24]

All of the other extras and costs remain and in some cases have increased since 2003. For example, "Despite a tough economic climate and expected US budget cuts—including drastic cuts to the US military budget—US lawmakers will provide $236 million in fiscal 2012 for the Israeli development of three missile defense programs," reported Israeli newspaper Haaretz.[25]

In addition, the US government "has provided $205 million to support the Iron Dome, manufactured by Israel's state-owned Raphael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. The system uses small radar-guided missiles to blow up in midair Katyusha-style rockets with ranges of 3 miles to 45 miles, as well as mortar bombs… Legislation moving through the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives would give Israel additional $680 million for the Iron Dome system through 2015."[26]

And if, as many experts believe, the US would not have invaded Iraq without intense and sustained pressure from Washington insiders who advocate actively on behalf of Israel,[27] this adds yet another dimension of staggering cost to the equation: "hundreds of billions of dollars, 4,000-plus U.S. and allied fatalities, untold tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths, and many thousands of other US, allied, and Iraqi casualties," according to retired US foreign service officer Shirl McArthur.[28]

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda Bilmes put the cost of the Iraq War at over $3 trillion, and incalculably more if you take into account the opportunity costs of the resources spent on this unproductive war. For example, higher oil prices due to the war have had a devastating impact on America's economy, and so have the surging federal debt and the servicing of that debt. Without the war, the 2008 financial crisis almost certainly would not have been as severe, and the Afghanistan war most likely would have been shorter, cheaper, and more effective.[29]

The Israel lobby and partisans are currently gunning for a war with Iran with the same zeal they showed in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[30] By all estimates, the costs of a war with Iran will be much higher than the Iraq war. In addition to the loss of life, analysts predict, for example, that if Iran's oil production were taken out of the world market, gas prices would rise 25-70 percent.

If the Straits of Hormuz (straits adjacent to Iran through which 20% of the world's oil production passes on a daily basis) were attacked or blockaded, the cost of oil would skyrocket to a level never seen before, and the economic recession or depression that followed would be nothing short of "apocalyptic," according to Matthew Yglesias writing forSlate .[31]

Reasons and Consequences

So now we are back to the question of why America continues to pour money into a state that commits daily human rights violations, defies US strategic interests,[32] provokes rage and resentment among billions of people,[33] competes with and crowds out US interests using technology subsidized by US taxpayers, and sells America's military secrets to its enemies.[34]

The answer is simple and summed up well by professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer in their ground-breaking article in the London Review of Books , "The Israel Lobby,"[35] and their book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy .[36]

"Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state?" the article asks. "One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.

"Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the 'Israel Lobby.' Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country—in this case, Israel—are essentially identical."[37]

AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is consistently ranked in the top two most powerful lobbies in Washington.[38] And it is only one arm of the much larger, multi-faceted, and well-financed Israel lobby.[39]

According to Congressman Jim Moran, "AIPAC is very well organized. The members are willing to be very generous with their personal wealth. But it's a two edged sword. If you cross AIPAC, AIPAC is unforgiving and will destroy you politically. Their means of communications, their ties to certain newspapers and magazines, and individuals in the media are substantial and intimidating. Every [Congress] member knows it's the best-organized national lobbying force."[40]

Senator Joseph Lieberman proudly stated, "Any attempt to pressure Israel, to force Israel to the negotiating table by denying Israel support, will not pass in Congress… Congress will act against any attempt to do that."[41]

It's true: The US Congress, along with the executive branch, overwhelmingly support virtually any action or wish of the Israeli government, no matter how at odds with US national interest or security,[42] primarily because of the power of the Israel lobby.[43]

Even when two AIPAC employees were indicted on espionage charges in 2005, and it was determined that they had obtained classified US government information illegally and passed it to Israeli agents, the charges were quietly dropped on technicalities.[44] AIPAC fired both employees and issued a statement that they were fired because their actions did not comport with AIPAC standards.[45] One of the fired employees, Steven Rosen, filed a lawsuit for defamation, claiming his actions were, in fact, common practice at AIPAC.[46]

When Israel attempted to sink a U.S. Navy ship, the USS Liberty , in 1967, killing 34 Americans and injuring over 170, it still failed to put a dent in aid to Israel.[47] Indeed, aid quadrupled the following year.[48]

Though Congressmen receive payments and support from the lobby in exchange for their loyalty, the American taxpayer is left footing the bill. As detailed above, the total cost has run from a bare minimum of $112 billion since 1948 (the cost of foreign aid alone) to $1.6 trillion or more, factoring in Defense appropriations, oil crises, the sinking of the USS Liberty , the heightened risk of terrorism, lost trade and co-opted technology, and countless other factors. If the Iraq war and the increased risk of a war with Iran are factored in, the cost skyrockets even higher.

Critics point out how much brighter our future would be if we had invested these billions or trillions in veteran rehabilitation and care, education, job creation, social security, housing, environmental clean-up and prevention, roads, bridges, health care, and scientific and health research. Or if Americans had simply held onto their tax dollars and used them as they saw fit, in our own economy. If some of the higher estimates are closer to the mark, our support for Israel could easily have covered the $700 billion TARP bailout with a great deal left over for massive stimulus spending and/or tax breaks.

If Israel were using these funds for a good purpose, one could debate whether the price was worth it. But Israel uses most of the money to prolong a 45-year military occupation (which regularly involves gross violations of international law),[49] commit egregious human rights violations,[50] and destroy billions of dollars worth of Palestinian homes and infrastructure[51] (resulting in still more U.S. tax money being sent to Palestinians to rebuild demolished homes, hospitals, and schools), while building illegal Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian land.[52]

It makes the prospect of peace ever more distant, creates dangerous hostility to the US, placing Americans in peril, and puts the US Congress in violation of the Arms Export Control Act,[53] all for the sake of campaign contributions.

There is no good reason to keep throwing good money after bad in a failed, ill-founded policy. It's long past time for a fundamental rethinking of the American government's blank check to Israel.

#

This report was produced by If Americans Knew analysts, particularly Pamela Olson, a President's Scholar at Stanford University 1998-2002 with a major in Physics, a minor in Political Science, and 1600 GRE scores. Before coming to IAK, Olson lived and worked in the West Bank; worked as a researcher in Moscow, Siberia, and China; and was a research analyst at the Institute for Defense Analysis. She is the author of Fast Times in Palestine.

This analysis updates the groundbreaking 1998 work by Richard Curtiss, "The Cost of Israel to U.S. Taxpayers," published in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. Mr. Curtiss, following military service in World War II, served for 30 years as a career Foreign Service Officer. He received the U.S. Information Agency's Superior Honor Award and the Edward R. Murrow award for excellence in Public Diplomacy, USIA's highest professional recognition. Upon retirement, Mr. Curtiss co-founded and the American Educational Trust, which produces the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. He is also the author of two books on U.S.-Middle East relations. A more extensive bio can be read here.

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[1] "Country Comparison: GDP Per Capita (PPP)," CIA World Factbook, 2011.https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html

[2] "Country comparison: Unemployment rate," CIA World Factbook, 2011.https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2129rank.html

[3] "Country comparison: Current account balance," CIA World Factbook, 2011.https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2187rank.html

[4] US Department of States, "FY 2012 State and USAID - Core Budget," February 14, 2011. http://www.state.gov/s/d/rm/rls/fs/2011/156553.htm

[5] Richard Curtiss, "The Cost of Israel to the American People," Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, 1998.http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org/component/k2/item/583-billions-in-aid

[6] Jeremy Sharp, "US foreign aid to Israel," Congressional Research Service , September 16, 2010. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf

[7] Clyde R. Mark, "Israel: US Foreign Assistance," Congressional Research Service, April 26, 2005http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/IB85066.pdf

(Particularly noteworthy is the subsection of this report entitled, “Special Benefits for Israel.”)

[8] Jeremy Sharp, "U.S. Foreign Assistance to the Middle East: Historical Background, Recent Trends, and the FY2011 Request," Congressional Research Service , June 15, 2010. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL32260.pdf Most of this money goes to elites rather than the general population, adding to the resentment about these policies.

[9] Jim Zanotti, "US foreign aid to the Palestinians," Congressional Research Service , November 9, 2011. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS22967.pdf

[10] "Sustaining Achievements in Palestinian Institution-building and Economic Growth," World Bank, September 18, 2011. http://unispal.un.org/pdfs/WBank09-2011_AHLCReport.pdf Quote from the report: "Ultimately, in order for the Palestinian Authority to sustain the reform momentum and its achievements in institution-building, remaining Israeli restrictions must be lifted." See also: Dan Murphy, "Amid Palestinian statehood push, a grim World Bank report on the West Bank, Gaza," Christian Science Monitor , September 14, 2011.http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2011/0914/Amid-Palestinian-statehood-push-a-grim-World-Bank-report-on-the-West-Bank-Gaza Quote from the article: "The World Bank says that recent economic growth in Gaza and the West Bank has been almost entirely thanks to foreign aid, that a slowing of foreign aid delivery has presented the PA with a possible fiscal crisis, and that Israeli policies continue to stand in the way of sustainable economic improvement in the territories."

[11] Jeremy Sharp, "US foreign aid to Israel," Congressional Research Service , September 16, 2010. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf For the 2012 budget of $235 million, see John T. Bennett, "U.S., Israeli Military Cooperation Remains Strong," US News and World Report, March 2, 2012.http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/03/02/us-israeli-military-cooperation-remains-strong

[12] US Department of States, "FY 2012 State and USAID - Core Budget," February 14, 2011. http://www.state.gov/s/d/rm/rls/fs/2011/156553.htm

[13] 'Illegal transfers' refers to several instances in which Israel has been accused of violating the Arms Export Control Act, which prohibits the use of US military assistance for purposes other than legitimate self-defense. For example, during Israel's invasions of Lebanon in 1982 and 2006, the Israeli air force dumped tens of thousands of cluster bomblets over wide civilian areas, resulting in horrific and long-lasting civilian casualties with dubious military utility. That's not even to begin to touch on daily Israeli violations of human rights in the Palestinian territories. Despite overwhelming evidence of Israeli violations of international law using US-supplied weapons, the US Congress has done little to comply with its own laws against funding such violations.

[14] Thomas Stauffer, "The Costs to American Taxpayers of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: $3 Trillion," Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 2003.http://ifamericansknew.org/stats/stauffer.html Stauffer's original paper, prepared for the conference: "The United States and the Arab World: Challenges and Opportunities" at the William S. Cohen Center for International Policy, University of Maine, and the US Army War College in October 2002, is posted here: http://www.solargeneral.com/library/cost-of-us-middle-east-policy-an-economic-overview-dr-thomas-r-stauffer.pdf (PDF) and here:http://www.scribd.com/Abegael88/d/88696279-Cost-of-Us-Middle-East-Policy-an-Economic-Overview-Dr-Thomas-r-Stauffer

[15] Jim Krane, "U.S. Aid to Israel Subsidizes a Potent Weapons Exporter," Associated Press, June 20, 2002. http://ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/p-krane.html

[16] David Francis, "Economist tallies swelling cost of Israel to US," Christian Science Monitor , December 9, 2002. http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html

[17] Jim Krane, "U.S. Aid to Israel Subsidizes a Potent Weapons Exporter," Associated Press, June 20, 2002. http://ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/p-krane.html

[18] Thomas Stauffer, "The Costs to American Taxpayers of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: $3 Trillion," Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June 2003.http://ifamericansknew.org/stats/stauffer.html Stauffer's original paper, prepared for the conference: "The United States and the Arab World: Challenges and Opportunities" at the William S. Cohen Center for International Policy, University of Maine, and the US Army War College in October 2002, is posted here: http://www.solargeneral.com/library/cost-of-us-middle-east-policy-an-economic-overview-dr-thomas-r-stauffer.pdf (PDF) and here:http://www.scribd.com/Abegael88/d/88696279-Cost-of-Us-Middle-East-Policy-an-Economic-Overview-Dr-Thomas-r-Stauffer

[19] David Francis, "Economist tallies swelling cost of Israel to US," Christian Science Monitor , December 9, 2002. http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html

[20] For a small sampling of Israeli human rights violations, see Amnesty International's "Annual Report: Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories 2011"http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/reports/annual-report-israel-and-the-occupied-palestinian-territories-2011, Human Rights Watch's most recent reportshttp://www.hrw.org/by-issue/publications/228, and the publications of B'Tselem (the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories)http://www.btselem.org/publications

[21] Jim Krane, "U.S. Aid to Israel Subsidizes a Potent Weapons Exporter," Associated Press, June 20, 2002. http://ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/p-krane.html

[22] Stephen Walt, "Whiff of Desperation," Foreign Policy, April 25, 2011.http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/25/whiff_of_desperation?page=full

[23] David Francis, "Economist tallies swelling cost of Israel to US," Christian Science Monitor , December 9, 2002. http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html

[24] Shirl McArthur, "A conservative estimate of total direct US aid to Israel: almost $114 billion," Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2008.http://ifamericansknew.org/stats/114bill.html

[25] Natasha Mozgovaya, "Obama signs bill that includes added U.S. military assistance to Israel," Haaretz, December 24, 2011. http://www.Haaretz.com/blogs/focus-u-s-a/obama-signs-bill-that-includes-added-u-s-military-assistance-to-israel-1.403268

[26] "U.S. eyes funding boost for Israel's 'Iron Dome' shield," Reuters, May 17, 2012.http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/18/us-usa-israel-irondome-idUSBRE84G10P20120518

[27] John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, "The Israel Lobby," London Review of Books , March 23, 2006. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby See also: Stephen J. Sniegoski, "The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel," Ihs Press, September 1, 2008.

[28] Shirl McArthur, "A conservative estimate of total direct US aid to Israel: almost $114 billion," Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November 2008.http://ifamericansknew.org/stats/114bill.html

[29] Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, "The true cost of the Iraq war: $3 trillion and beyond," Washington Post , September 5, 2010. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302200.html

[30] See articles at http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org/costs/iran

[31] Matthew Yglesias, "War for No Oil," Slate , March 7, 2012. Link

[32] See, for example: Mark Landler, "Obama Presses Netanyahu to Resist Strikes on Iran," New York Times, March 5, 2012.www.nytimes.com/2012/03/06/world/middleeast/obama-cites-window-for-diplomacy-on-iran-bomb.html And: "Biden condemns new Israeli settlement plan," USA Today, March 9, 2010. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-03-09-Israel_N.htm

[33] Andrew Sullivan, "Why Continue to Build the Settlements?" The Daily Beast, March 30, 2012. http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/03/why-beinart-matters.htmlExcerpt: "The deliberate population of occupied lands violates the Geneva Conventions. The occupation itself enrages the Arab and Muslim world and creates a huge drag on the US's strategic need to build up allies among emerging Arab democracies, and defuse Jihadism across the globe." See also: Philip Weiss, "Former State Department official says Obama calls for human rights and democracy are 'undercut' by position on Palestinians,"Mondoweiss , April 2, 2012. http://mondoweiss.net/2012/04/former-state-dept-official-says-obama-calls-for-human-rights-and-democracy-are-undercut-by-position-on-palestinians.html

[34] Jim Krane, "U.S. Aid to Israel Subsidizes a Potent Weapons Exporter," Associated Press, June 20, 2002. http://ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/p-krane.html

[35] John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, "The Israel Lobby," London Review of Books , March 23, 2006. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby

[36] John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy , Farrar, Straus and Giroux, August 2007.

[37] John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, "The Israel Lobby," London Review of Books , March 23, 2006. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby An earlier book by former Congressman Paul Findley, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby, first exposed this in 1985. Findley and others founded the Council for the National Interest to try to counter this.

[38] Jeffrey Birnbaum, "Washington's Power 25: which pressure groups are best at manipulating the laws we live by?" CNN Money , December 8, 1997.http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1997/12/08/234927/index.htmOther top contenders include the American Association of Retired Persons, with over 40 million members, and the National Rifle Association.

[39] "Introduction to the Israel lobby," Council for the National Interest , August 19, 2011.http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org/israellobby

[40] Michael Lerner, "The Israel Lobby," Tikkun Magazine , September/October 2007.http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/Lerner-the-israel-lobby

[41] Jeremy Sharp, "US foreign aid to Israel," Congressional Research Service , September 16, 2010. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf

[42] Max Fisher, "Should U.S. Veto UN Measure Condemning Israeli Settlements?" The Atlantic Wire , January 20, 2011. http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/01/should-u-s-veto-un-measure-condemning-israeli-settlements/21438

[43] "Even if Democrats and Republicans bicker on every other issue, AIPAC leaders seemed constantly eager to stress that one thing on which the parties can come together is unswerving devotion to Israel." Gregory Levey, "Inside America's powerful Israel lobby,"Salon , March 16, 2007. http://www.salon.com/2007/03/16/aipac Just recently has there been some high-level pushback against AIPAC's hegemonic power in Washington. See, for example: Robert Dreyfuss, "AIPAC: Still the chosen one?" Mother Jones , September/October 2009. http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/09/aipac-still-chosen-oneAnd: Alex Kane, "Sunlight on the lobby: AIPAC's push for war exposed in 'Atlantic' magazine blog," Mondoweiss , February 24, 2012.http://mondoweiss.net/2012/02/sunlight-on-the-lobby-aipacs-push-for-war-exposed-in-atlantic-magazine-blog.html

[44] Wikipedia, "Steven J. Rosen."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_J._Rosen#The_indictment_of_Rosen_and_Weissman

[45] Nathan Guttman, "AIPAC Gets Down and Dirty in Pushback vs. Defamation Suit," The Forward, November 16, 2010. http://forward.com/articles/133172/aipac-gets-down-and-dirty-in-pushback-vs-defamatio

[46] Jeff Stein, "Ex-AIPAC official got at least $670,000 from donors," Washington Post , November 19, 2012. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2010/11/ex-aipac_official_got_670000_from_private_donors.html

[47] The findings of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Israeli Attack on theUSS Liberty , the Recall of Military Rescue Support Aircraft while the Ship was Under Attack, and the Subsequent Cover-up by the United States Government can be read athttp://ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/ul-commfindings.html

[48] Jeremy Sharp, "US foreign aid to Israel," Congressional Research Service , September 16, 2010. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf

[49] Jeremy R. Hammond, "Rogue State: Israeli Violations of U.N. Security Council Resolutions," Foreign Policy Journal, January 27, 2010.http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/01/27/rogue-state-israeli-violations-of-u-n-security-council-resolutions

[50] For a small sampling of Israeli human rights violations, see Amnesty International's "Annual Report: Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories 2011"http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/reports/annual-report-israel-and-the-occupied-palestinian-territories-2011, Human Rights Watch's most recent reportshttp://www.hrw.org/by-issue/publications/228, and the publications of B'Tselem (the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories)http://www.btselem.org/publications

[51] See, for example, "Frequently Asked Questions," The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. http://www.icahd.org/?page_id=313 And Rory McCarthy, "Hamas offers $52m handouts to help hardest-hit Gazans," The Guardian, January 25, 2009.http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/26/hamas-payout-gaza-infrastructure

[52] "Israeli Settlements on Palestinian Land," If Americans Knew, May 2002.http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/settlements.html

[53] The Arms Export Control Act prohibits the use of US military assistance for purposes other than legitimate self-defense. Despite overwhelming evidence of Israeli violations of international law using US-supplied weapons (a few of them outlined in citations above), the US Congress has done little to comply with its own laws against funding these violations.

The Colorado Campaign To Stop $30 Billion In Military Aid To Israel

Mission: Our mission is to educate Coloradans about the extent of US military aid to Israel ($30 billion over a 10-year period) in order to create grassroots opposition and a demand that the aid end.

Why the campaign is necessary:  As reflective and responsible citizens, we have a moral responsibility to provide a check on our government’s foreign relations, and we know that the US government has aided and abetted Israel’s lawlessness and criminal conduct. By providing$30 billion in military aid to Israel over a 10-year period, the US government makes Israel's war crimes against the Palestinian people inevitable. We cannot afford to stand by while so much evil is done with our tax money and in our name. Nor is it in our self-interest to remain at odds with other nations, all of whom are appalled by the contradiction between the ideals we claim to hold and the crimes we aid and abet. 

Ours is a moral call: We refuse to let our tax money be used to fund Israel's war crimes against Palestinians. Americans have no legitimate national interest in enabling Israel's colonialist war against an indigenous people. We say: Not in our name, not with our taxes.

Via: "Colorado Stop 30 Billion"

Ending Mindless American Support For Israel

John Grant writes,

The legacy of the Zionist revolutionaries who once enraptured the parlors of Europe and America with talk of a Jewish homeland as a moral beacon in a benighted region has instead bequeathed to the Jewish world and the West a highly militarized dependency — a state that has achieved great feats of cultural and economic development but has failed to build strong enough institutions to balance its military zeitgeist with imaginative or engaging diplomacy.

- Patrick Tyler, from Fortress Israel: The Inside Story of the Military Elite Who Run the Country — and Why They Can’t Make Peace

Recently there have been cracks showing in the Israeli militarist right’s lock on free thinking in the minds of citizens of the United States.

This mind lock in America became evident to me some years ago when an Israeli gunship pilot from an Israeli anti-war group spoke in Philadelphia. He told about a conversation he had in Tel Aviv with a member of The American Israel Public Affairs Committee or AIPAC. With some threat in his tone, the man said,” Say anything you want here in Israel, but don’t go to America.” America, of course, is the bankroller for what Tyler calls the “highly militarized dependency” that Israel has become.

Serious cracks began to show up after the Palestinian Authority won statehood recognition in the UN and the Netanyahu government responded by publicly approving steps leading to a huge development east of Jerusalem that would make a two-state reality impossible.

First, there was the prominent upper west side New York synagogue that proudly broadcast its opposition to both Israeli and US leadership by declaring the UN General Assembly recognition of Palestine as a nation state in the world of nations as “a great moment for us as citizens of the world.”

Some Jewish American members of the B’nai Jewshurun synagogue were “delighted;” one said: “I think it was great.” Some members were, of course, “in a state of shock.” Responding to those in shock, the leaders of the synagogue accordingly back-peddled a half step. But they did not retract their enthusiastic approval of the UN General Assembly action.

Likewise, it’s clear cracks are developing in the support for the Israeli right’s militarist policy when New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman says from Tel Aviv, “I am stunned at what I see here politically.” He sees only two options being considered in Israeli politics: the “iron fist” and the “iron dome.” The former implies dictatorship and the latter a reliance on the so-called Iron Dome anti-rocket technology that will presumably create a shield to protect Israel in the future. Friedman might have used the term Iron Wall as well, the term coined in 1923 by the father of Israeli militarism, Se’ev Jabotinsky, to indicate how Jews should separate themselves from the Palestinians they militarily dominate and whose land they occupy.

Andrew Bacevich, a US Army veteran and conservative historian, recently published an essay titled “How We Became Israel” that explains what it means to associate peace with dominance — versus associating peace with harmony. His point is that the US is tragically following the Israeli militarist lead in this respect.

Though these voices are not from the traditional left, their ideas represent a political opening for the left. The recent US election arguably set the far right back on its heels here and seems to have opened some wiggle room for the left. At the same time, as the Middle East and North Africa go through waves of profound change and the Israeli militarist right doggedly moves farther to the right, it may be creating a line in the sand that some American Jews find hard to cross. The next step, then, is speaking out like the B’nai Jewshurun synagogue did.

From the point of view of Palestinians, a boot on your neck is a boot on your neck, whether it’s an Arab dictator like Mubarak or a militarist occupying state like Israel. At some point, the fear is it’s all going to catch up to the Israeli militarist right, and when it does, it will be explosive.

Ponder for a moment the powerful symbolism of the recent triumphant return of Hamas leader Khaled Meshal to Gaza. In 1997, an Israeli Mossad targeted assassination team tried and failed to murder Meshal in Amman, Jordan, with poison. The killers were caught and an embarrassed Netanyahu, in a prior stint as prime minister, had to order the antidote sent to Amman. It doesn’t get much more dramatic than that. So, now, Meshal, a man who Mubarak would not permit access to Gaza through Egypt, is allowed to enter through Egypt by President Morsi. Meshal tells thousands of gathered Gazans that it is his “third birth.” First, there was his natural birth, second his survival of the botched Mossad targeted assassination, and third, this moment, his triumphal return to Gaza. Netanyahu reportedly was ballistic.

Those on the right will poo-pah calls for diplomacy with people like Meshal, since the entire history of Israel has been founded and managed on the principle of militaristic dominance of Palestinians and, thus, a disdain for respectful diplomacy. And Meshal and Hamas are, like the Israeli right and unlike the Palestinian Authority, intensely militaristic from an underdog position.

In his new book Fortress Israel, Patrick Tyler lays out the history of how Israeli leaders’ militarism consistently trumped diplomacy. Echoing Bacevich’s notion of the US as a strange lackey for the Israeli militaristic right, Tyler quotes former Israeli intelligence chief Avi Dichter. “The state of Israel has turned targeted assassinations into an art form. Foreign delegations come here on a weekly basis to learn from us, not just Americans.” It’s an “art” all right — except when it fails, as with Meshal, then it’s dark Keystone Cops comedy.

This is what it has come to: This is why in the US we have an imperial President who, like our founding imperialist “bully” President, Theodore Roosevelt, has a Nobel Peace Prize. In President Obama’s case, he doesn’t send out river gunboats and waterboard Filipino guerrillas to bring light to the benighted corners of the world. Rather, he has his own personal hit list for Seal Team targeted assassinations of globalized guerrilla networks.

Those targeted for assassination now in 2012 are essentially the updated counterparts of the guerrilla armies that fought the British, French and American colonial occupying armies of the early and middle 20th century in places like Kenya, Vietnam and the Philippines. As the old, classic empires crumbled and faded, colonialism became imperialism. Once capital and power became fully globalized, naturally the opposing elements of bottom-up opposition formed globalized networks themselves. Thus, we have the much feared al Qaeda and a host of others that ebb and flow. In need of demons, the forces in support of a US Global War On Terror do their best to make the al Qaedas of the world into enemies worthy of the Myth of American Exceptionalism.

The dance between entrenched power and the bottom-up impulse for liberation goes on. Each side pursues its game plan by demonizing and attempting to murder the other. It’s a very messy confrontation, now reaching into Africa, with lots of moral damnation to go around.

Via: "CounterPunch"

How We Became Israel

By ANDREW J. BACEVICH
Courtesy Of "The American Conservative"

Peace means different things to different governments and different countries. To some it suggests harmony based on tolerance and mutual respect. To others it serves as a euphemism for dominance, peace defining the relationship between the strong and the supine.

In the absence of actually existing peace, a nation’s reigning definition of peace shapes its proclivity to use force. A nation committed to peace-as-harmony will tend to employ force as a last resort. The United States once subscribed to this view. Or beyond the confines of the Western Hemisphere, it at least pretended to do so.

A nation seeking peace-as-dominion will use force more freely. This has long been an Israeli predilection. Since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, however, it has become America’s as well. As a consequence, U.S. national-security policy increasingly conforms to patterns of behavior pioneered by the Jewish state. This “Israelification” of U.S. policy may prove beneficial for Israel. Based on the available evidence, it’s not likely to be good for the United States.

Here is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describing what he calls his “vision of peace” in June 2009: “If we get a guarantee of demilitarization … we are ready to agree to a real peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state.” The inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank, if armed and sufficiently angry, can certainly annoy Israel. But they cannot destroy it or do it serious harm. By any measure, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wield vastly greater power than the Palestinians can possibly muster. Still, from Netanyahu’s perspective, “real peace” becomes possible only if Palestinians guarantee that their putative state will forego even the most meager military capabilities. Your side disarms, our side stays armed to the teeth: that’s Netanyahu’s vision of peace in a nutshell.

Netanyahu asks a lot of Palestinians. Yet however baldly stated, his demands reflect longstanding Israeli thinking. For Israel, peace derives from security, which must be absolute and assured. Security thus defined requires not simply military advantage butmilitary supremacy.

From Israel’s perspective, threats to supremacy require anticipatory action, the earlier the better. The IDF attack on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 provides one especially instructive example. Israel’s destruction of a suspected Syrian nuclear facility in 2007 provides a second.

Yet alongside perceived threat, perceived opportunity can provide sufficient motive for anticipatory action. In 1956 and again in 1967, Israel attacked Egypt not because the blustering Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser possessed the capability (even if he proclaimed the intention) of destroying the hated Zionists, but because preventive war seemingly promised a big Israeli pay-off. In the first instance, the Israelis came away empty-handed. In the second, they hit the jackpot operationally, albeit with problematic strategic consequences.

For decades, Israel relied on a powerful combination of tanks and fighter-bombers as its preferred instrument of preemption. In more recent times, however, it has deemphasized its swift sword in favor of the shiv between the ribs. Why deploy lumbering armored columns when a missile launched from an Apache attack helicopter or a bomb fixed to an Iranian scientist’s car can do the job more cheaply and with less risk? Thus has targeted assassination eclipsed conventional military methods as the hallmark of the Israeli way of war.

Whether using tanks to conquer or assassins to liquidate, adherence to this knee-to-the-groin paradigm has won Israel few friends in the region and few admirers around the world (Americans notably excepted). The likelihood of this approach eliminating or even diminishing Arab or Iranian hostility toward Israel appears less than promising. That said, the approach has thus far succeeded in preserving and even expanding the Jewish state: more than 60 years after its founding, Israel persists and even prospers. By this rough but not inconsequential measure, the Israeli security concept has succeeded. Okay, it’s nasty: but so far at least, it’s worked.

 What’s hard to figure out is why the United States would choose to follow Israel’s path. Yet over the course of the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama quarter-century, that’s precisely what we’ve done. The pursuit of global military dominance, a proclivity for preemption, a growing taste for assassination—all justified as essential to self-defense. That pretty much describes our present-day MO.

Israel is a small country with a small population and no shortage of hostile neighbors. Ours is a huge country with an enormous population and no enemy, unless you count the Cuban-Venezuelan Axis of Ailing Dictators, within several thousand miles. We have choices that Israel does not. Yet in disregarding those choices the United States has stumbled willy-nilly into an Israeli-like condition of perpetual war, with peace increasingly tied to unrealistic expectations of adversaries and would-be adversaries acquiescing in Washington’s will.

Israelification got its kick-start with George H.W. Bush’s Operation Desert Storm, a triumphal Hundred-Hour War likened at the time to Israel’s triumphal Six-Day War. Victory over the “fourth largest army in the world” fostered illusions of the United States exercising perpetually and on a global scale military primacy akin to what Israel has exercised regionally. Soon thereafter, the Pentagon announced that henceforth it would settle for nothing less than “Full Spectrum Dominance.”

Bill Clinton’s contribution to the process was to normalize the use of force. During the several decades of the Cold War, the U.S. had resorted to overt armed intervention only occasionally. Although difficult today to recall, back then whole years might pass without U.S. troops being sent into harm’s way. Over the course of Clinton’s two terms in office, however, intervention became commonplace.

The average Israeli had long since become inured to reports of IDF incursions into southern Lebanon or Gaza. Now the average American has become accustomed to reports of U.S. troops battling Somali warlords, supervising regime change in Haiti, or occupying the Balkans. Yet the real signature of the Clinton years came in the form of airstrikes. Blasting targets in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Serbia, and Sudan, but above all in Iraq, became the functional equivalent of Israel’s reliance on airpower to punish “terrorists” from standoff ranges.

In the wake of 9/11, George W. Bush, a true believer in Full Spectrum Dominance, set out to liberate or pacify (take your pick) the Islamic world. The United States followed Israel in assigning itself the prerogative of waging preventive war. Although it depicted Saddam Hussein as an existential threat, the Bush administration also viewed Iraq as an opportunity: here the United States would signal to other recalcitrants the fate awaiting them should they mess with Uncle Sam.

More subtly, in going after Saddam, Bush was tacitly embracing a longstanding Israeli conception of deterrence. During the Cold War, deterrence had meant conveying a credible threat to dissuade your opponent from hostile action. Israel had never subscribed to that view. Influencing the behavior of potential adversaries required more than signaling what Israel might do if sufficiently aggravated; influence was exerted by punitive action, ideally delivered on a disproportionate scale. Hit the other guy first, if possible; failing that, whack him several times harder than he hit you: not the biblical injunction of an eye for an eye, but both eyes, an ear, and several teeth, with a kick in the nuts thrown in for good measure. The aim was to send a message: screw with us and this will happen to you. This is the message Bush intended to convey when he ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Unfortunately, Operation Iraqi Freedom, launched with all the confidence that had informed Operation Peace for Galilee, Israel’s equally ill-advised 1982 incursion into Lebanon, landed the United States in an equivalent mess. Or perhaps a different comparison applies: the U.S. occupation of Iraq triggered violent resistance akin to what the IDF faced as a consequence of Israel occupying the West Bank. Two successive Intifadas had given the Israeli army fits. The insurgency in Iraq (along with its Afghan sibling) gave the American army fits. Neither the Israeli nor the American reputation for martial invincibility survived the encounter.

By the time Barack Obama succeeded Bush in 2009, most Americans—like most Israelis—had lost their appetite for invading and occupying countries. Obama’s response? Hew ever more closely to the evolving Israeli way of doing things. “Obama wants to be known for winding down long wars,” writes Michael Gerson in the Washington Post. “But he has shown no hesitance when it comes to shorter, Israel-style operations. He is a special ops hawk, a drone militarist.”

Just so: with his affinity for missile-firing drones, Obama has established targeted assassination as the very centerpiece of U.S. national-security policy. With his affinity for commandos, he has expanded the size and mandate of U.S. Special Operations Command, which now maintains an active presence in more than 70 countries. In Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, and the frontier regions of Pakistan—and who knows how many other far-flung places—Obama seemingly shares Prime Minister Netanyahu’s expectations: keep whacking and a positive outcome will eventually ensue.

 The government of Israel, along with ardently pro-Israel Americans like Michael Gerson, may view the convergence of U.S. and Israeli national-security practices with some satisfaction. The prevailing U.S. definition of self-defense—a self-assigned mandate to target anyone anywhere thought to endanger U.S. security—is exceedingly elastic. As such, it provides a certain cover for equivalent Israeli inclinations. And to the extent that our roster of enemies overlaps with theirs—did someone say Iran?—military action ordered by Washington just might shorten Jerusalem’s “to do” list.

Yet where does this all lead? “We don’t have enough drones,” writes the columnist David Ignatius, “to kill all the enemies we will make if we turn the world into a free-fire zone.” And if Delta Force, the Green Berets, army rangers, Navy SEALs, and the like constitute (in the words of one SEAL) “the dark matter … the force that orders the universe but can’t be seen,” we probably don’t have enough of them either. Unfortunately, the Obama administration seems willing to test both propositions.

The process of aligning U.S. national-security practice with Israeli precedents is now essentially complete. Their habits are ours. Reversing that process would require stores of courage and imagination that may no longer exist in Washington. Given the reigning domestic political climate, those holding or seeking positions of power find it easier—and less risky—to stay the course, vainly nursing the hope that by killing enough “terrorists” peace on terms of our choosing will result. Here too the United States has succumbed to Israeli illusions.

The Cowardice At The Heart Of Our Relationship With Israel

By Peter Oborne,
Courtesy Of "The Telegraph"

It is impossible to understand the modern Conservative Party without a grasp of the scale and profundity of its links to the state of Israel. The connection dates back at least as far the historic meeting between the great Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann and the Conservative prime minister A J Balfour in 1905, during which Weizmann convinced Balfour of the case for a Jewish national state.

The warmth forged 107 years ago is today sustained by the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI). Some 80 per cent of all Tory MPs are members, including most Cabinet ministers. No other lobbying organisation – and certainly not one that acts in the interests of a foreign country – carries as much weight at Westminster. Every year, it takes a significant number of parliamentarians to Israel. Meanwhile, its sponsors play an important role in financing both the Tories nationally, and MPs at the local level.

There is no doubt that the CFI has exercised a powerful influence over policy. The Conservative politician and historian Robert Rhodes James, writing in the Jerusalem Post in 1995, called it “the largest organisation in Western Europe dedicated to the cause of the people of Israel”. Its power has not waned since. On Tuesday, it hosted approximately 100 Tory MPs, including six Cabinet ministers, and a further 40 peers, at a lunch in central London. The speaker was David Cameron, who pronounced himself a “passionate friend” of Israel, making clear (as he has done in the past) that nothing could break that friendship.

This speech can be seen as part of a pattern. The CFI can call almost at will upon the Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer or Foreign Secretary. The Palestinians enjoy no such access. They would be lucky to get a single Conservative MP in the audience for their events, and perhaps some moribund peer to make an address. There is no such organisation as the Conservative Friends of Palestinians.

This lack of even-handedness reflects itself in policy. When William Hague denounced Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon as “disproportionate”, the CFI (as I revealed in a film on the pro-Israeli lobby for Channel 4’s Dispatches) complained in person to David Cameron. It obtained a promise that the word would never be used again – one that was kept when Israel bombarded Gaza last month, even though the number of Palestinian deaths vastly exceeded those on the Israeli side.

As Foreign Secretary, Hague repeated without demur controversial Israeli claims that Hamas started the conflict (there was provocation on both sides, but the critical moment of escalation strikes me as Israel’s extra-judicial killing of the Hamas commander Ahmed Jabari). Britain has since bowed to Israeli pressure and refused to back the Palestinian bid for enhanced recognition at the United Nations. Recently, we summoned the Israeli ambassador for a richly deserved rollicking about the settlement programme, but this was part of a joint effort with a large number of other European countries, and has not been followed up.

To be fair to the Government, Tony Blair was worse, appearing at times to regard the interests of Britain and Israel as identical, and refusing even to call for a ceasefire for some time after the start of the appalling Lebanon war. William Hague and David Cameron have tried to be more robust. Unfortunately, they have largely failed. It is hard to be certain to what extent this reluctance to criticise Tel Aviv is due to the influence of the Israeli lobby in Britain, or fear of offending Israel’s international patron, the United States.

The formal position of the Government is excellent. Britain supports the two-state solution, which has been the basis of all serious peace discussions since the Oslo Accords 20 years ago. The trouble is that ministers refuse to take any concrete steps to bring it about. For example, they condemn the settlements, but only in a half-hearted way (the Prime Minister devoted 64 words to the issue on Tuesday, and almost 300 to the Iranian threat).

This is cowardice. There are times in personal as well as political life when friendship involves a great deal more than the kind of genial back-slapping with which the Prime Minister treated the Israel lobby on Tuesday. The brutal truth is that Benjamin Netanyahu is leading his country down the path to self-destruction. If he is allowed to go ahead with the latest plans for settlement construction, all hopes of Middle East peace will vanish and die.

Mark Simmonds, a junior Foreign Office minister, formally acknowledged this in a revealing but unreported Commons debate just a few hours after Tuesday CFI lunch, saying: “I think that the door is beginning to close on the realistic possibility of a two-state solution.” William Hague now believes that settlement construction will render it completely impossible within two years at most.

We will then be left with a greater Israel stretching from the Mediterranean to the Jordan river. Of course, this is a tidier geographical unit than the complicated mess which an attempt to return Israel to its 1967 boundaries would produce. But the Palestinians would suddenly find themselves in a majority. Israel would then face a choice between retaining its democracy, but ceasing to be a Jewish state, or embracing a form of apartheid in which Palestinians were refused basic rights. Judging from the rhetoric emanating from Mr Netanyahu and his unpleasant coalition allies, this is probably the choice today’s Israeli leadership would make.

On Monday night, one former British ambassador to Israel, the Hebrew-speaking Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, made an eloquent speech from which it is important to quote at some length: “I believe passionately that Israel on its present course is embarked on a pathway to assisted suicide. Suicide assisted by the Congress of the United States. The idea that the problem can be solved by walling up the Palestinians in the Middle Eastern equivalent of the Bantustans, which the South African government embarked on in the 1940s, is not only offensive morally, it is deeply out of keeping with everything we know of human history. It will not work, it cannot work, it should not work. And anyone who has a real affection for the Jewish people will want to help them to avoid this looming disaster.”

All leaders of the Conservative Party stand in the line of succession of A J Balfour, who (as foreign secretary in 1917) signed the declaration which recognised the Jews’ right to their own homeland. I believe this inheritance gives Mr Cameron a special link to Israel – and a distinct responsibility. It means he is within his rights to spell out to the present Israeli leadership that it is embarking on a dark, ugly and futile course. Given the cowed inertia of President Obama, it is all the more important that the British Prime Minister steps forward.

I cannot speak for Britain’s Jewish community, but I have a strong impression that many of them would be delighted if Mr Cameron spoke out far more strongly than he has done so far. Indeed, it is essential that he should do so. Mr Cameron does not want to go down in history as the man upon whose watch all hope of a two-state solution died, and with it all hope of a secure and peaceful future for the country a Conservative prime minister helped to bring into existence.