The White House will not cut aid to Israel or stop cooperation overnight, but the day America treats Israel like any other country is nearer than we think.
by Meron Rapoport, +972 Magazine
Writing in Haaretz last week, Israeli security journalist Amos Harel reported that, at least in practice, the United States and Iran already have an unwritten agreement regarding the latter’s nuclear question. According to him, Iran will freeze its uranium enrichment, and in return the United States will allow the release of billions of dollars in Iranian assets across several countries, after the money was frozen as part of American sanctions. Israel, wrote Harel, has a fundamental role to play in the deal: do not disturb.
This short instruction — which we have heard often from reports about Washington’s relations with Iran and other Middle Eastern countries — might help explain a recent column by New York Times commentator Thomas Friedman, in which he claims that the White House has begun to “reassess” its relations with Israel. Days after the column was published, and after Biden met with President Isaac Herzog, Biden summoned the journalist to the White House and told him that the Netanyahu government’s plans for judicial overhaul could irreparably damage the countries’ “special relationship.”
Those who have become accustomed to headlines about the “strategic alliance” between Israel and the United States, and that Israel is the U.S.’s most important ally in the Middle East (if not the world) should, at least ostensibly, be puzzled by Friedman’s recent columns. If this alliance is so important to the U.S. government, how is it willing to reconsider it over the judicial overhaul? Or is it possible that Israel is not at all a strategic asset, but rather the exact opposite: a burden that must be kept at bay so as not interfere with American strategic moves in the region?
Recent Posts
The Ancient History Of Socialism In North America
Take Action Now There was nothing simplistic about moving — in many ways back to earlier traditions — to a system of governance not…
New Mexico Is Providing Free Childcare For All. It’s Time For Others To Do The Same
Take Action Now The state is setting a powerful example with its first-in-the-nation plan. But the policy has support across the USBy Katrina…
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Supports Israel’s Genocide & Trump’s War On Venezuela
Take Action Now Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado is a far-right Venezuelan coup-plotter funded by the US government. She supports…
Israeli Historian Ilan Pappé: Despite Ceasefire, Palestinians Still Face “Elimination, Genocide”
Take Action Now “I hope that the world will not be misled that Israel is now ready to open a different kind of page in its relationship with…