Some critics from the right, particularly those calling for a liberalization of the Israeli economy, have started calling for the reduction or elimination of economic aid. Arnon Gafny, the former governor of the Bank of Israel, argues that U.S. aid has impaired the country's long-term competitiveness. Similarly, Moshe Syrquin of Bar-Ilan University notes how the Israeli economy went downhill with the dramatic upsurge of U.S. aid in the early 1970s. Even the selling of Israeli bonds is now questioned: According to Joel Bainerman, editor of Tel Aviv Business, the slogan, "Investing in Israel's Future," should be replaced by "building a bigger debt for Israel." Including interest, the Israeli government currently owes bondholders $6 billion; interest rates are well above similar bonds in the United States. As a result, fewer bonds are purchased by committed Zionists, and increasing amounts are bought up by international banks, financial institutions, pension funds, and state and local government agencies in the United States.
Bainerman further writes, "The end of foreign aid would not only improve the chances of reforming Israel's over-centralized economy, in which subsidies play an important part, but increase the chances for political reform as well." In the United States, such sentiment is not only echoed among traditional conservative critics of Israel; even the staunchly pro-Israeli New Republic has cited how U.S. aid has "retarded free enterprise by supporting subsidies and monopolies for favored constituencies."
Some left-wing Israelis argue just the opposite: that the United States is using its aid weapon to pressure the Israeli government to weaken the Histradut (Israel's powerful trade-union federation), privatize state-controlled enterprises, cut social services and lower taxes. Such economic restructuring has been a requirement for U.S.-backed loans to a number of countries as a means of creating a more favorable climate for U.S. investment, so it should not be surprising for Israel to be held to such standards as well. Indeed, State Department officials admit that U.S. aid is used as leverage to encourage greater privatization and that U.S. officials routinely give advice on long-term macro-economic planning.
Yet the dissent from the left regarding U.S. aid goes far deeper. First of all, the failure of the United States to use aid as leverage is seen as effectively sabotaging the efforts of peace activists in Israel to change Israeli policy, a policy which Peled referred to as pushing Israel "toward a posture of callous intransigence." In the Israeli press, one can find comments like those in Yediot Ahronot which describe their country as "the Godfather's messenger," since Israel undertakes the "dirty work" of the Godfather, who "always tries to appear to be the owner of some large, respectable business." Israeli satirist B. Michael describes U.S. aid to Israel as a situation in which "My master gives me food to eat and I bite those whom he tells me to bite. It's called strategic cooperation."
A number of Israelis and other left-wing Zionists argue that, like any other nationalist movement, Zionism has its pluralist, democratic and inclusivist elements alongside reactionary, chauvinistic and militarist elements. The primary reason the latter have dominated, they argue, is not anything inherent in Zionism, but the blank check offered by the United States that encourages Israeli oppression of its Middle Eastern neighbors and close ties with the West, undermining the last vestiges of Labor Zionism's commitment to socialism, non-alignment and cooperation with the Third World. As former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger put it, "Israel's obstinacy...serves the purposes of both our countries best." The rise of the Likud bloc in Israel from a minority faction to the dominant party, as well as the rightward drift of the Labor party, is in large part due to this large-scale American support. No parties with those kinds of policies could last very long in office, given the self-defeating effect of such militarization on economic grounds or in terms of international isolation, were they not supported to such a degree that they did not have to worry about the consequences of their policies on their own population.
These left-wing critics fear that Israel's dependence on what is seen by many as an imperialist power like the United States alienates Israel's potential allies in the Third World and leaves Israel vulnerable to the whims of U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, some go as far as to argue that Israel is being set up to be the scapegoat for U.S. policy in the region, much as the Jews of Europe were set up as tax collectors, money lenders and other positions leaving them vulnerable to popular reaction.
DISSENT IN THE U.S.
U.S. aid to Israel, like most foreign aid, is not popular with the American public. According to a 1994 poll by the Wirthlin Group, a majority of Americans favored a phase out of aid to Israel by 1998. In another question, one-third of those polled called for an immediate phase out of aid, a slightly larger number called for a reduction and only 18 percent supported current levels. Foreign aid is generally unpopular with the American public, particularly among conservatives who are suspicious of internationalism in general and advocate a more isolationist foreign policy. Yet it has traditionally been the American left that has raised these issues and forced them into the national debate, most prominently regarding Central America, but in other Third World regions as well.
However, the American left, even among those concerned with issues of peace and justice in the Middle East, are divided over the question of aid. Historically, countries that invade and occupy the territory of their neighbors, engage in systematic human-rights violations, refuse to recognize the national rights of a people that it exiles and continually subjugates, use American weapons against civilian targets, arm and train death squads, ignore U.N. resolutions, and systematically flaunt international legal conventions, are the targets of American peace activists.
Yet, just as with the tendency by some on the right to single out Israel for criticism, there is a tendency on the left to single out Israel for immunity from criticism. One resulting problem is the failure of peace and human-rights activists to aggressively challenge assistance to the Israeli government on grounds of human rights and international law. Consequently, some of the more prominent groups challenging U.S. aid to Israel are those that fail to take similar positions vis-à-vis Arab regimes with
human-rights records as bad or worse than Israel's. Such double-standards leave these groups open to charges of antisemitism, which is not helped by their occasional appeals to nativist sentiments that indeed sometimes contain antisemitic overtones.
One outcome of continued high levels of unconditional aid to Israel is that it hampers congressional efforts to curb U.S. military aid to repressive regimes elsewhere. Efforts to pass legislation that would restrict aid systematically to countries that refuse to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or engage in certain violations of international law have been blocked solely because the provisions of the bill would include Israel.
It is doubtful that Israel could afford the heavy economic burden of continuing their occupation of neighboring Arab lands, such as the costs of maintaining the military forces in the territories, the construction of illegal settlements, and the expanded infrastructure to bypass autonomous Palestinian population centers, without U.S. financial support. Another problem is that the increasingly interlocked military-industrial complexes of the two nations have furthered the questionable projection of U.S. military power into other conflict-ridden areas: For example, back in the 1980s when the American peace movement had mobilized public opinion in the United States to levels which prohibited direct U.S. military assistance to Guatemala, South Africa, Iran and the Contras, the United States simply armed these countries through Israel.
Yet virtually no leading political figures, outside of some right-wing isolationists like Patrick Buchanan, have publicly questioned these ongoing high levels of U.S. aid to Israel. Most prominent liberal Democrats, who have raised questions about U.S. aid to repressive regimes elsewhere, have categorically rejected linking aid to Israeli compliance with international law and human rights. While the role of the pro-Israel lobby is often exaggerated as the determining factor in the overall thrust of U.S. Middle
East policy, there is little question that it has effectively neutralized liberal opposition on Capitol Hill. Yet congressional liberals have not had to endure much pressure from the other direction: most liberal lobbying groups have avoided addressing the Middle East altogether.
Indeed, most organized peace and human-rights groups have been unusually silent regarding U.S. aid to Israel. This derives in part to the fact that, while most strategic analysts recognize that Israel is not under immediate military threat, there is still a widespread perception that Israel is under siege. As a result, those who oppose military aid to Israel are easily depicted as advocating the destruction of the Jewish state and are thus relegated to the fringe of U.S. public opinion along with anti-Jewish
bigots. Consequently, there is virtually no chance that the U.S. government will consider a cessation or reduction in military aid to Israel in the foreseeable future. Therefore, many peace and human-rights groups argue that they should focus their energy on more immediately attainable goals, such as the ongoing peace process and an Israeli freeze on expanding settlements in the occupied territories, and not risk losing their political credibility on the aid issue. Furthermore, those opposing emphasis on the aid question believe that it raises an unnecessarily divisive issue at a time when there is a pressing need to reach out to those
with a more mainstream political perspective in both the Jewish community and elsewhere, particularly since opposing military aid to Israel will inevitably be depicted as putting Israel's survival at risk and thus alienate many potential allies.
Even if such a movement to cut U.S. aid were successful, so this argument goes, it might make matters worse. Such a cutoff might cause the Israeli public, increasingly open to the idea of granting the Palestinians partial rights, to close ranks behind right-wing politicians and destroy the peace process. Many Israelis would see such a move as abandonment and betrayal that would reinforce feelings of isolation and persecution built over centuries. According to this argument, this would not encourage necessary compromise but would lead to even more reckless behavior by the Israeli military. Such concerns have led many Israelis on the left, including most of the recognized leadership of the Peace Now movement, to oppose any threatened cutoff or reduction in U.S. aid.
Those peace activists advocating this more cautious approach point out that many critics of Israeli policies do not share such universal principles, and use Israeli violations of human rights and international law as an excuse for attacking the world's only Jewish state. While such people are certainly a minority among those critical of U.S. policy in the Middle East, it reinforces a widespread assumption that any criticism of U.S. support of the Israeli government carries just such a hidden agenda. For this reason, many who support a two-state solution and a more even-handed U.S. policy believe that a confrontational approach is counterproductive, that there should be no threats of a reduction of aid and that any criticism of the Israeli government should be kept private. While critics of this approach note its similarity with the Reagan and Bush administrations' "quiet diplomacy" toward Latin American dictatorships and "constructive engagement" towards South Africa, its defenders observe that Israel's isolation and the Jews' history of persecution dictates such a cautious strategy.. Indeed, Americans for Peace Now, one of the
few American Jewish groups to openly challenge the Likud government's policies, argues that U.S. aid to Israel should be kept at current levels to maintain the "strong and prosperous Israel necessary to make peace."
IMPACT ON THE PEACE PROCESS
Aid to Israel, particularly in recent years, has been justified as necessary to support the peace process. However, as the noted authority on negotiations Roger Fisher has observed, one must apply both a carrot and a stick to convince a party to make the compromises necessary in diplomacy. Using either one alone denies the party you are trying to influence any incentive. Yet, the United States has used the carrot with Israel almost exclusively. With repeated public pronouncements by U.S. officials that aid to Israel is unconditional, Israel has no incentive to make the necessary concessions that could lead to peace, or even to end its human-rights abuses and violations of international law. As former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once told a colleague, "I ask Rabin to make concessions, and he says he can't because Israel is weak. So I give him more arms, and he say he doesn't need to make concessions because Israel is strong."
This stands in contrast to the frequent use of aid as leverage to Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and other Arab states, as well as the Palestinian authority.
Yet, as this article has shown, it has long been in the U.S. interest to maintain a militarily powerful and belligerent Israel dependent upon the United States. Real peace could undermine such a relationship. The United States therefore has pursued a policy of Pax Americana, one that might bring greater stability to the region while falling short of real peace. The Camp David agreement was a prime example, in that it more closely resembled a tripartite military pact that a true peace treaty, promising more than $5 billion of additional weaponry and economic assistance to both countries and closer American strategic cooperation. The United States refused to follow through on provisions of the agreement calling for Palestinian autonomy, increasing aid to Israel even as Jewish colonization and anti-Palestinian repression in the territories greatly increased. Indeed, this aid package was supposed a one-time loan, but has since evolved into an annual grant that now takes up the majority of the U.S. foreign-aid budget.
The ability of those in the United States and Israel who oppose large-scale and unconditional aid to Israel will perhaps determine the fate of the peace process. Currently, those who support the status quo--American and Israeli military and political officials, American supporters of the Israeli government and U.S. arms manufacturers--exercise enormous political power. Indeed, despite some of the opinions of critics cited in this article, there has been virtually no debate on a national scale in either country about the risks inherent in the U.S.-Israel relationship.
The result could be tragic, not just for the Palestinians, Lebanese and others who are the immediate victims of the largesse of American aid to Israel, but ultimately for Israel itself. Like El Salvador and South Vietnam, Israel has become a client state whose leadership has made common cause with U.S. global designs in ways that could ultimately create considerable damage. Israeli leaders and their counterparts in many American Zionist organizations have been repeating the historical error of pursuing short-term benefits for their people over long-term security. For Israel's economic and military security ultimately lie not in the amount of economic and military aid it receives from the United States, but in Israel's willingness to recognize Palestinian statehood, share Jerusalem and withdraw from all occupied territories--in short, to make peace with its neighbors.
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