This evening we will join with Jews around the world in the celebration of Passover to commemorate the liberation of the Jewish people from slavery and our emergence on the historical stage as a people. This Passover also marks nearly 35 years of Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. Only the most narrow-minded understanding of Jewish history and culture can fail to see the painful irony in celebrating our own liberation as Israel-- with the support of all too many American Jews and our government -- cruelly and systematically oppresses the Palestinian people - denying it the most fundamental human rights as well as the rights of independence and statehood.
Americans often see the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians as an irrational cycle of violence in which our government periodically intervenes as a mediator. This obscures three fundamental realities of the conflict. The most basic is that since the 1967 Arab-Israeli war Israel has been occupying the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem -- territories that the Palestinians, backed by the consensus of international opinion, seek to turn into an independent state. Since 1988 the PLO has recognized Israel’s statehood in 78% of historic Palestine, expecting that in turn Israel would recognize Palestinian statehood in the remaining 22%. The Oslo process did not provide for this, and Ehud Barak did not offer this at the Camp David summit in July2000. That is the origin of the most recent escalation in the conflict.
Second, while there is absolutely no justification for the Palestinians’ targeting of unarmed civilians in their struggle to end the occupation, no Palestinian armed actions of any sort have ever posed an existential threat to Israel. The military balance has always been heavily in Israel’s favor, allowing it to adopt intransigent positions towards the Palestinians and its other Arab neighbors.
Finally, the United States has played a major role in maintaining Israel’s occupation and its military supremacy. The U.S. is Israel’s principal supplier of advanced weapons, including the F-16 fighters and Apache helicopters that have been used to attack the Palestinian towns and cities and to target Palestinian leaders for assassination over the last 18 months.
The first substantial commitment of American military aid to Israel was in 1969-74. In part, this was an implementation of the 1969 Nixon Doctrine, which envisioned setting up regional surrogates in the third world in order to avoid sending U.S. troops to future Vietnams. In part, it was a payoff for the partial withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights following agreements reached through Henry Kissinger’s shuttle diplomacy. Military aid to Israel escalated in 1979. This was a payment for signing the peace treaty with Egypt that year and also an effort to build up Israeli forces to replace the loss of Iran as a Middle Eastern Nixon Doctrine surrogate after the 1979 Iranian revolution. Israeli is now the single largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid. Since 1987 it has received annually about $1.8 billion in Foreign Military Financing grants, $1.2 in Economic Security Funds grants, $2 billion in loan guarantees, and about $.5 billion from other federal budgets. In fiscal year 2001 Israel is receiving $1.98 billion in military aid and $949 million in economic assistance. Over the next decade economic aid will diminish as military aid increases.
Military aid to Israel is an aspect of the broader militarization of the Middle East. The Middle East has long been the most militarized region of the globe, and the U.S. has always been one of the principal arms suppliers to the region. Since the 1991 Gulf it has become the number one source of weapons for the entire region. No other power even comes close.
U.S. military aid undermines the democratic character of Israeli society by encouraging a masculinist military culture in which the experience and practices of the military are the principal measure of all things. Hence, most of Israel’s political leaders in recent years have been former army generals. Israel tends to have a narrow conception of security based exclusively on military dominance.
US military aid to Israel also contributes to the militarization of our own society. Seventy-five percent of military aid given to Israel must be spent on purchases from US suppliers. Israel’s purchase of some 50 new F-16s from Lockheed Martin at a cost of $33.7 billion constituted almost 6 percent of that firm’s new business in 2001. In turn, military industries are a prominent component of the lobby that supports Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem and shields Israel from international criticism of the increasingly brutal measures it has used to suppress Palestinian resistance.
Increasing numbers of Israelis are now returning to the previous understanding of the Israeli peace movement that there is no military solution to the conflict with the Palestinians and that seeking to enforce one requires those serving in the Israeli armed forces to engage in systematic, unconscionable violations of human rights. Over three hundred army reservists have declared that they will no longer serve in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Hundreds more have refused to serve without stating so publicly. Sixty-two high school seniors wrote to the Prime Minister indicating their grave reservations about serving in the army. More young men have publicly declared themselves to be conscientious objectors over the last year than ever before. Although they are still a minority, these military refuseniks and their supporters are the Israelis with the clearest vision of how to end the conflict with the Palestinians and establish a just peace. Their bold actions provide Americans with an opportunity to support peacemakers rather than providing armaments.
The military supply relationship between the United States and Israel has not promoted a just resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. There is an international consensus that a such a resolution requires the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem and addressing the claims of the Palestinian refugees in exchange for peaceful coexistence and normalization of relations between Israel and Palestine and the other Arab states. American military aid to Israel should be suspended until Israel is prepared to withdrawal fully from the occupied territories and address the claims of the Palestinian refugees.
American Jews can contribute to re-envisioning America’s role in the conflict by reminding ourselves that the Passover story has a powerful universal message of liberation. Denying freedom to another people is inconsistent with celebrating our own and will ultimately make Israel and the occupied territories into an intolerable place to live for both Jews and Palestinians.
Suspend US Military Aid to Israel
End the Occupation