Something unprecedented is happening in U.S.-Israeli relations. There has been a mainstream cliché that Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East.” It hasn’t mattered much that most Palestinians — including Palestinian Israelis — don’t agree.
But Israel has elected its most far-right government to-date, which now is pushing the country toward an autocracy like Hungary. Hundreds of thousands of politically diverse Israelis have protested for many months in intense and gigantic street protests.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government has stepped up repression of Palestinians. The minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has said Gaza should be “ours” and that “the Palestinians can go to … Saudi Arabia or other places, like Iraq or Iran.”
This has provoked rumblings in the American political establishment. The U.S. shovels millions to Israel every year. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wants to “rethink American aid” to Israel because “aid to another rich country squanders scarce resources and creates an unhealthy relationship damaging to both sides.”
He notes: “Today, Israel has legitimate security concerns but is not in peril of being invaded by the armies of its neighbors, and it is richer per capita than Japan and some European countries. One sign of changed times: Almost a quarter of Israel’s arms exports last year went to Arab states.”
Kristof quotes three former U.S. officials, including two former ambassadors to Israel — Martin Indyk and Daniel Kurtzer — who said the U.S. should at least discuss ending military aid.
Aid to Israel is almost entirely military assistance, which can be used only to buy American weapons. Israel also has its own little military industrial complex, which is undercut. Reuters reported in June:
“Israel exported a record $12.556 billion in defense products last year, with new Arab partners under the U.S.-sponsored 2020 Abraham Accords accounting for almost a quarter of the business, the Defence Ministry said on Tuesday. It said the 2022 figures marked a 50% increase over the previous three years and a doubling in volume over the previous decade. Drones accounted for 25% of the 2022 exports and missiles, rockets or air defense systems for 19%, it said.”
Progressive Democrats in Congress have pushed the issue into the mainstream. Since 2017, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) has introduced legislation every year that would ban Israel’s army from using U.S. aid to detain and abuse Palestinian children. This year’s bill has 28 Democratic co-sponsors.
In April, a group of 14 progressive Democrats led by Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) released a letter to Joe Biden and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken saying U.S. aid shouldn’t be used to fund abuses of Palestinian rights.
“At this inflection point,” they write, “we ask your administration to undertake a shift in U.S. policy in recognition of the worsening violence, further annexation of land, and denial of Palestinian rights.” The lawmakers call on the Biden administration to “ensure U.S. taxpayer funds do not support projects in illegal settlements” and to “determine whether U.S.-origin defense articles have been used in violation of existing U.S. laws.”
The letter criticizes the new Israeli government’s “alarming actions” and its cabinet of “far-right, anti-Palestinian individuals and parties,” asserting that the Israeli coalition in power is “pushing repressive, anti-democratic policies and escalating violence towards the Palestinian population.”
The letter explicitly mentions two laws — the Arms Export Control Act and the Foreign Assistance Act — which stipulate that U.S. weapons can only be used for purposes of self-defense and can’t be used to commit human rights abuses such as torture, extrajudicial killings, and any other “flagrant denial” of “the right to life.”
The letter demands that the administration respond to the lawmakers with a “detailed plan” on how the U.S. will make sure Israel does not illegally misuse future aid.
It is important to be explicit in your demands. The Biden administration has emphasized a number of times that Israelis and Palestinians deserve “equal measures of freedom” and that Israel should refrain from actions that undermine peace, such as the building of settlements on Palestinian land. That’s nice. Those are pretty words. But you have to back them up with action.
The courageous Israeli demonstrations for democracy inspire hope. But protesters need to realize that the main motivation for the attack on the judiciary was to crush the Palestinians. The far-right government is willing to destroy Israel’s unequal democracy to do that.
This opinion does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.
