Israel's Unprecedented Interference In Domestic American Political Life

Israel has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and it is well known that it is in possession of an arsenal of nuclear weapons.

(WASHINGTON, DC) - Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign military assistance since World War II. To date, the U.S. has provided Israel $118 billion (current or non-inflation adjusted dollars) in bilateral assistance.

According to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report to Congress prepared by Middle East specialist Jeremy M. Sharp, "Israel has received benefits not available to any other countries...Israel's ability to use a significant portion of its annual military aid for procurement from Israeli manufacturers...is a unique aspect of its assistance package. No other recipient of U.S. military assistance has been granted this benefit."

One result of this special treatment is that Israel is now the sixth largest arms exporter in the world, with sales totaling $12.9 billion. When he visited Israel in March 2013, President Barack Obama pledged that the U.S. would continue to provide Israel with multi-year commitments of military aid.

Israel has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and it is well known that it is in possession of an arsenal of nuclear weapons. By any standard, it has the most powerful military establishment in the region. This is true, in large part, because of American largesse.

Despite all of this, just as the U.S. and its allies have signed an interim agreement with Iran to freeze their nuclear program and, more than this, to return Iran to the international community after years of isolation, the Israeli government is directly interfering in domestic American politics to thwart any such effort. Israel's alternative seems to be war with Iran.

In November, the largest American Jewish organization, the Jewish Federation of North America, held its 65th General Assembly in Jerusalem. The group was addressed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called upon American Jews to "stand together with us" to stop any deal with Iran. He said that American Jews had a responsibility to stop the agreement and declared, "That's what I expect from every one of you, and it's achievable."

Netanyahu, comparing contemporary Iran with Nazi Germany, as he tends to do with all of Israel's potential adversaries, said the task was urgent "in light of the Holocaust, when we were silent," in the face of genocide and that Jews haven't come through 4 millennia "to have the likes of the ayatollahs threaten our life." He referred to a collective "us," the Jews. He declared: "The purpose of the Jewish state is to enable Jews to defend themselves. This is something we could not do before we had the Jewish state."

Giving his American audience their marching orders, Netanyahu stated that, "...it is possible right now, given the precariousness and vulnerability of the Iranian economy, to press forward the demand for Iran to dismantle its nuclear bomb-making capacity. That's what I expect from every one of you...When I think of the challenges the Jewish people have undergone...I know that we have the inner strength to guarantee the Jewish future...Together we're going to achieve exactly that---to defend and secure the Jewish people and the one and only Jewish state. I say that here in our eternal capital, Jerusalem, and I know that you stand with me."

Netanyahu, as ever, was not content to speak in the name of his own citizens, but insists on speaking in behalf of all Jews, something he has no mandate to do. And his allies in the U.S. began to do their best to thwart any agreement with Iran, calling it "Munich" and declaring "it is 1938." Editorially, USA TODAY pointed out that, "...in the U.S. Senate, where Netanyahu enjoys more influence than any foreign leader should, key senators were threatening to move ahead with legislation that would tighten sanctions, an in-your-face response that would almost certainly kill the Iranian attempt at outreach."

Writing in THE NEW YORK TIMES, columnist Thomas Friedman declares that, "Never have I seen Israel and America's Arab allies working in concert to stymie a major foreign policy initiative of a sitting U.S. president and never have I seen more lawmakers, Democrats and Republicans, more willing to take Israel's side against their own president's. I'm certain this comes less from any careful consideration of the facts and more from a growing tendency by many American lawmakers to do whatever the Israel lobby asks them to do in order to garner Jewish votes and campaign donations."

While there may be legitimate disagreement about the merits of the interim agreement with Iran, few have inquired about the motives of the Israeli government in launching this campaign, or about the propriety of a foreign recipient of massive amounts of U.S. aid involving itself in our domestic politics.

THE NEW YORK TIMES' Roger Cohen notes that, "Diplomacy involves compromise, risk is inherent to it. Iran is to be tested. Nobody can know the outcome. Things may unravel, but at least there is hope. Perhaps this is what is so threatening to Netanyahu. He has never been willing to test the Palestinians in a serious way---test their good faith, test ending the humiliation of the occupation, test from strength the power of justice and peace. He has preferred domination...Obama and Kerry have invited Netanyahu to think again---and not just about Iran. Nothing, to judge by the hyperventilating Israeli rhetoric, could be more disconcerting. Nothing is more needed. Cheap allusions to 1938 are a poor template in the 21st century."

Two of our most respected foreign policy practitioners, Brent Scowcroft, a Republican, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, a Democrat, said with regard to Iran that "should the United States fail to take this historic opportunity, we risk failing to achieve our non-proliferation goal and losing the support of allies and friends while increasing the probability of war...Additional sanctions now against Iran with the view to extracting even more concessions in the negotiations will risk undermining or even shutting down the negotiations."

Those groups such as AIPAC, which do Israel's bidding in Washington, claim to speak in behalf of American Jews. In fact, they are quite unrepresentative of the thinking of Jewish Americans. The first major study of American Jews in more than ten years by the Pew Research Center's Religion and Public Life Project found them skeptical about the Israeli government's commitment to making peace with the Palestinians. Fewer than one in five thinks West Bank settlement-building makes Israel more secure. A quarter of all Jews ages 18-29 believe that the U.S. is too supportive of Israel. Among Jews younger than 30, only 32% believe that identification with Israel was important to their religious identity. According to THE ECONOMIST, "On many measures, white evangelical Protestants are a more reliably pro-Israel voter bloc, possibly because white evangelicals are twice as likely as American Jews to believe that God gave Israel to the Jews."

Israel proclaims itself to be our closest ally in the Middle East, and is said to be precisely that by the groups which lobby in its behalf in Washington. Directly interfering in our domestic politics-----and this is hardly the first time----is a strange way to make the case for such a status. Perhaps the time has come for a careful examination of the real nature of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. Many think it is long overdue.