A new CIA assessment has exposed how Israel is scrabbling to entrench permanent US military backing. The settler-colonial state is terrified that future administrations will cut support amid plummeting public support.
They’re right to worry. Israel’s brazenly genocidal assault on the Palestinians has seen traditionally solid US support for the ethno-state plunge.
“Israel-first”
Journalist Aida Chavez, formerly of the Nation and the Intercept, wrote on her Class and Empire Substack:
Israeli officials believe the political fight over Israel in the United States is becoming harder to win, and that the era of indefinitely securing billions of dollars in annual military aid is coming to an end, according to the assessment, which was described to Capital & Empire by several U.S. officials.
Chavez said:
Instead of relying on direct U.S. military aid – an increasingly visible and politically contentious form of support – Israel is racing to embed itself more deeply in America’s military, intelligence, and national security apparatus in ways designed to outlast future administrations.
Enter a new CIA assessment on Israel’s plans…
Chavez said the report:
describes discussions about expanding intelligence cooperation and the possibility of hosting a permanent U.S. military base on Israeli territory.
She described how Israeli officials have been “cultivating”:
prominent figures in the American technology sector to build long-term political and financial support for the strategy.
The individuals are not identified.
Last week, Chavez wrote, US Congress “quietly approved”:
Section 219 of the National Defense Authorization Act, establishing a permanent U.S.-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative within the Pentagon.
This:
establishes a Pentagon executive agent charged with coordinating bilateral defense research, development, industrial cooperation, and technology integration.
Partisan support for neocolonialism
Both Democrats and Republicans have been organising the plan, the true scope of which has been poorly reported in legacy media.
Chavez wrote:
Earlier this year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu floated phasing out direct U.S. military aid altogether. Most mainstream news coverage framed the proposed shift as a reflection of Israel’s growing economic and military strength, or self-sufficiency.
However, the assessment indicates that the CIA “views the strategy differently”:
The spy agency believes that Israel is seeking to insulate the U.S.-Israel alliance from America’s changing political landscape by replacing highly visible foreign aid with deeper, longer-lasting forms of military and industrial integration.
The kinship between the two violent settler-colonial states is well documented. But this new proposal risks entrenching virtually permanent military support between the imperial power and Israel — it’s brutal policeman in Middle Eastern. Unpicking those obligations may be impossible if the new deal comes to pass. For that reason and others it must be vehemently opposed.
Featured image via the Canary
By Joe Glenton
