The Biden administration is set to give Israel $3.5 billion to spend on U.S. weapons and military equipment, according to a report by CNN.
The Biden administration is set to give Israel $3.5 billion to spend on U.S. weapons and military equipment, according to a report by CNN.
Following Israel’s assault on Gaza, the United States has firmly supported Israel in word and deed.
The Biden administration is set to give Israel $3.5 billion to spend on U.S. weapons and military equipment, according to a report by CNN.
This move came 24 hours after Israeli airstrikes targeted the Abdul Fattah Hamoud and al-Zahra schools in Gaza City, killing at least 16 people on 8 August.
Despite being the subject of a request for an international arrest warrant before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Benjamin Netanyahu, for his part, was entitled to warm applause from the chambers assembled in Congress last July.
“Since the [Hamas] attack in October, America has dealt with Israel like it’s the 51st [U.S. state],” Raed Debiy, the head of the political science department at An-Najah National University in Nablus in the West Bank, told Al Jazeera.
He added, “Biden brought American machines to protect the Israeli occupation and used American vetoes [in the United Nations Security Council] to protect Israel’s genocidal policies.”
Israel: The 51st U.S. state?
Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. financial aid. Between 1946 and 2023, U.S. aid to Israel amounted to USD 263 billion, 1.7 times more than neighbouring Egypt, which ranks second on the list.
The bilateral relationship between the United States and Israel is the strongest globally. Israel is the only country to receive more than $3 billion in military aid from the United States every year for decades.
In addition to this financial support, the United States participates closely in its defence: joint military exercises, intelligence sharing, military research, and weapons development.
The United States was the first to recognise Israel in 1948. Since then, it has become America’s most trusted partner – and perhaps its only true partner – in the Middle East.
According to most historians, 1958 was pivotal in developing relations between America and Israel.
For the United States, communism no longer constituted the only obstacle to its regional interests. To this threat was added that of pan-Arab nationalism personified by Jamal Abdennasser and his violent attacks against American policy in the Middle East.
Therefore, the United States had to find a faithful and reliable ally in the region to counter its growing influence.
In the years that followed, they only consolidated the U.S. and Israel alliance, as did certain events, such as the fall of Iran and later 9/11.
Since 1967, the alliance has mainly been military aid, as imperialism has always used heavily armed colonies in enemy territory to rule from a distance.
Former U.S. President Gerald Ford, then M.P., explained how the Six-Day War aroused his interest in the Middle East, which, according to him, was provoked by the communists. “It is in the interest of the United States to sell fighter jets to Israel. The fate of Israel is directly linked to the national security interests of the United States,” he said.
In this context, Ronald Reagan, who became President of the United States in the 1980s, pointed out the significance of the fall of the Shah’s dictatorship in Iran. He emphasised the importance of Israel’s political and military support to the United States, especially in light of the fall of Iran. He suggests that Israel has become even more valuable as a strategic ally in the region, possibly the only one the U.S. can reliably depend on.
The Israeli state is the main customer of the national military industry, whose exports reached $12.5 billion in 2022. The only “democracy” in the Middle East is a prime customer of the U.S. military-industrial complex. In 2018, Israel spent more than $6 billion on military equipment, more than half of which went to the United States.
Israel has established joint working groups with the United States to develop military innovation and is investing in multiple smaller startups. Therefore, the “Startup Nation,” the banner under which Israel promotes innovation in new technologies, includes a significant military component.
More than 30% of military startup employees are IDF veterans whose battlefield experience contributes to the relevance of their innovations.
Israel is driven by an organic desire to innovate in military applications. Hence, for example, the experiments carried out in the field of artificial intelligence (A.I.) in the context of the war against Gaza.
Project Nimbus, a $1.2 billion joint contract signed in 2021 between Google and Amazon, aims to provide the Israeli government and its military with cloud computing infrastructure, artificial intelligence (A.I.), and other technology services.
On 15 August, four-day-old twins were killed in Gaza along with their mother and grandmother by a precision strike missile. The newborns were merely four days old when their father went to collect their birth certificates.
Israel used a very specific Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) that consisted of pointing a laser at its target. This enables Israel to precisely see and determine whether the targets are male, female, or children based on their body heat and shape.
Doctor Juman Arfa, the mother of the twins, was targeted explicitly in her apartment, which was the last floor of the building that the IDF struck. Indeed, Juman Arfa denounced the direct targeting of Palestinian children in the head and chest by Israel’s snipers on her Facebook page.
For several weeks, the Middle East has been facing a tense political context, particularly with Israel’s targeting of Lebanon and Iran’s threat in the war against Gaza.
Additionally, other developments are worrying the United States.
Today, Saudi Arabia, an unwavering ally since the 1930s, wants to pursue a more independent path and plays on rivalries between the great powers. Last year, Saudi Arabia and Iran announced they had reached a deal with help from China. The two countries want to restore diplomatic relations.
Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia joined BRICS+, the alliance of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. This alliance is now expanding to five other countries in the same region. In addition to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the Emirates, United Arabs joined the alliance.
In this context, the President of the United States, Joseph Biden, had to reiterate his old slogan. Indeed, if Israel had not existed, the U.S. would have already invented it.
While even countries like Saudi Arabia seek to move beyond their exclusive relationships with the West, the United States is still determined to keep its strong security ties with Israel.
Israel cannot survive without financial and political support from Washington, and the United States needs its local stronghold to defend its interests in the region, especially at a time when other allies in the region begin to behave more independently.
Indeed, the Israel-US axis finds itself increasingly isolated on the world stage through the disapproval that the war arouses among Israel’s Arab neighbours such as Iran, Lebanon and Yemen.
The Zionist lobby machine in America
On the other hand, the Zionist lobby machine present in Washington is a central part of the close relations between Israel and the United States.
Pro-Israel lobbying groups in the United States, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), exert significant influence on U.S. domestic and foreign policy.
As Chomsky points out, the role of pressure groups is crucial in U.S. political decision-making.
“Without Israel’s alleged geopolitical role, it is unlikely that the various pro-Israel lobbies in the United States would have had much influence on policy”, Noam Chomsky explains in his book ‘The Fateful Triangle’ (1983).
He also adds that when Israel is seen as a threat rather than a supporter of vital U.S. interests in the Middle East, this influence will most likely diminish.
