- Truth NGO, 08 November 2015 06:08
The conservative Washington D.C.-based think tank American Enterprise
Institute has announced that it would grant the Irving Kristol Award
2015 to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recognition of
his contributions to democratic leadership and the role he played in
enhancing the US-Israel relations.
The AEI President Arthur C. Brooks said the Israeli PM has
demonstrated the courage to defend his nation’s values and a commitment
to free enterprise, democracy and human dignity.
The award is named after Irving Kristol, the late American journalist
and columnist who is popularly known as the “godfather of
neo-conservatism”, with close ties to the Israeli government and
political institutions. Irving Kristol’s son William is also a
conservative political analyst and the founder of The Weekly Standard
magazine. He died of lung cancer on September 18, 2009.
Benjamin Netanyahu has called Irving Kristol a “stalwart friend of
Israel and a great champion of the US-Israel alliance”, voicing his
contentment with the decision by the American Enterprise Institute in
naming him the recipient of the 2015 award.
In an interview with Truth NGO, the Canadian scholar and former
university professor Denis Rancourt said awarding the AEI prize to
Benjamin Netanyahu is mostly an effort to mend the muddled relations
between the Israeli PM and his close friend, the US President Barack
Obama.
“The prize and its timing are part of the on-going mediation and
communication of interests between the ruling elites of the two nations
[the United States and Israel], in such a way as to best advantage and
protect the mega-interests that fund the influential think-tank that is
AEI,” he said.
Prof. Rancourt believes this award is part of a “mechanism of repair
and mediation” to haul the relations between Washington and Tel Aviv,
which suffered significantly due to the US government’s insistence on
sealing the nuclear deal with Iran and its opposition to the Israeli
settlement constructions in the Palestinian lands.
Calling Israel the United States’ “main strongman in the Middle
East,” Denis Rancourt underlined the White House’s determination to
defend Israel’s modus operandi in the Middle East and Palestinian
territories, which he said entails mutual benefits for both states.
Denis Racourt is a former professor of physics at the University of
Ottawa, Canada. He was removed from all teaching duties in 2008 on the
accusations that he granted A+ grades to 23 students in one course of a
winter semester, and that he incorporated social activism into his
scientific undertakings and teaching methodology. Rancourt is the author
of more than 100 academic papers in peer-reviewed journals. He has been
a member of “Ottawa-Carleton Institute for Physics.” In 2013, he
published the acclaimed book “Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight
Against Racism” in which discusses the limits of academic freedom in
North America.
In the following interview with Prof. Rancourt, we discussed the
American Enterprise Institute’s nomination of Benjamin Netanyahu as the
recipient of Irving Kristol Award 2015, the nuances of US-Israel
relations and the global image of Israel at a time when its settlement
policies and failed peace talks with Palestine are being seriously
debated in the public and by the media.
Q: The American Enterprise Institute has announced that it
would present the Irving Kristol Award 2015 to the Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his contributions to democratic
leadership, human rights and the strengthening of U.S.-Israeli
relations. What’s your feeling about this award? Why is it being awarded
to Mr. Netanyahu at a time when his settlement construction policies
are being widely excoriated and the chances for a solution to the
conflict with Palestine are growing dimmer? In reaction to the
announcement, Benjamin Netanyahu talked of the special relationship
between Israel and the United States and said this relationship needs to
be bolstered so that the two countries can address the common
challenges they face together. Why are the U.S.-Israeli relations so
“special”?
A: Israel is the USA’s main strongman in the Middle East. It has
“boots on the ground”, a highly developed intelligence network, military
preparedness, an ideologically uniform and committed population, and
coercive influence on nations in the region. Israel is the USA’s main
ally asset in this region that has a controlling share of world oil
production capacity, and oil is the most important strategic and
economic commodity. In addition, if the US can force oil to be purchased
in US dollars, then this secures the US dollar’s preeminence as a
global currency.
But Israel is much more than an asset. The USA ruling elite has, over
many decades, allowed a symbiotic relationship between the political
classes of the two countries to develop, which is mediated by what has
been broadly termed the “Israel lobby”, which, in turn, is financed as
part of the ruling and economic structure of the whole.
These two elements [that is] Israel’s enforcement role for US
dominance in the Middle East, backed by a nuclear arsenal, and the
symbiotic system of financed political influences between the two
countries, constitute the “special” and “warm” relations that we are
told about ad nauseam to generate public acceptance of the
non-democratic and criminal arrangement; criminal because it enables
war, occupation, and genocide.
This is the context in which we can interpret the American Enterprise
Institute 2015 award to Netanyahu. The prize and its timing are part of
the on-going mediation and communication of interests between the
ruling elites of the two nations, in such a way as to best advantage and
protect the mega-interests that fund the influential think-tank that is
AEI.
I don’t mean that each national “ruling elite” is homogeneous and
without internal battles, but on the global scale, the main competing
and interconnected blocks agree on the overarching plan that the USA,
with the aligned satellite countries, should dominate the globe
completely, that only the US dollar – which the US prints at will –
should prevail, that only US corporations should control the most
lucrative extraction schemes in the real economy, and that all
governments must be subservient. In this system, the “internal battles”
are of a lower order and relate to which corporate alliance, including
finance corporations, will make the most money, which strategy of
dominance will most benefit a preferred corporate alliance, and which
strategy of dominance and geopolitical tactics are ideologically
preferred to ensure sustained and increasing dominance.
Thus, when Netanyahu has a “falling out” with Obama, this is
representative of a cleavage between their strategy preferences for
managing dominance of the Middle East, and this cleavage will also
generally exist between the Republican and Democrat blocks, or else
Netanyahu would not pursue it. Such a cleavage cannot be allowed to harm
the overarching project of regional and world dominance, which is the
prerequisite for staggering US multi-national corporate profits.
Therefore, efforts must be made to repair the “falling out” and to
mediate a solution.
The AEI award is part of this mechanism of repair and mediation. The
award is also a way for the AEI to increase and maintain its own status,
to remain relevant and influential.
The next question is: What are the matters of disagreement regarding
management of the Middle East? Palestine is certainly one matter, as you
suggest.
Basically, Israel has a determined policy to annex all of the
occupied territories and to deprive Palestinians of nationhood. It
achieves this in reality on the ground by combining land theft,
settlements, home demolitions, forced exodus, etc. and confinement,
constant police and administrative harassment, mass imprisonment,
apartheid, and genocidal sanctions and slaughters in Gaza.
The USA allows Israel to have its genocide, as a compromise in
exchange for the role Israel plays in US world domination, especially
against independent-minded nations in the Middle East.
The entire Israeli geo-psyche is anchored in the paradigm of a
constant and unavoidable “terrorist threat”. Netanyahu himself is a
significant promoter of this paradigm, as one can see from the titles of
books he has edited or authored, [including] International Terrorism:
Challenge and Response, edited in 1981, Terrorism: How the West Can Win,
edited in 1987, and Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat
Domestic and International Terrorism authored in 1995. Netanyahu has
succeeded in convincing the USA to adopt this view, at least as a media
cover for a devastating string of wars of aggression intended to
re-model the Middle East – Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, now Syria and
Yemen, with strong intentions regarding Iran and southern Lebanon.
Within this national paradigm of constant existential threat, Israel
is in-all-appearance committed to effectively exterminating the
Palestinians, with the main goals of stealing the land and ensuring that
no viable Palestinian state or influential political formation can ever
see the day, using the “terrorism” of children with rocks, desperate
youth with kitchen knives, and domestic rockets, as justifications for
mass slaughters and murderous military repression.
But Palestine is a problem for the nuclear regional superpower that
is Israel, and Palestine has become a source of cleavage between the USA
and Israel. The problem is that no empire can sustainably rule and
exploit by the threat of force alone. In the age of distributed instant
journalism, and thanks to the remarkable Palestinian resistance
organized throughout Palestinian society, the peoples of the world have
become thoroughly disgusted and outraged at Israeli massacres in Gaza,
which are condoned by the USA. This popular outrage has organized itself
and has achieved significant political leverage in the UK, France,
Germany, etc., and to some degree even in the USA and Canada.
The world is disgusted at the military ethos of Israel, and,
increasingly viewing Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya at the now too apparent
military ethos of the USA. As such, the USA, under Obama, has come to
understand that another Israeli massacre in Gaza could strike a serious
blow to the Empire’s image, and that a war with Iran could be
intolerable for Europe. These are the considerations that bring Obama to
want to de-escalate, but Israel experiences de-escalation as an
existential threat, thus, there are presently unavoidable tensions.
Q: Prime Minister Netanyahu is being lauded by the
conservative think-tank AEI for his role in cementing the ties between
Israel and the United States. However, he has had bitter confrontations
with President Obama over the settlements constructions and the Iran
deal, which President Obama considers his most significant foreign
policy legacy, and now even the Israeli media are talking of the need
for an Obama-Netanyahu rapprochement. Do you think that Netanyahu has
really been successful in bringing the United States and Israel closer
together?
A: Well, Netanyahu has “cemented the ties between Israel and the USA”
in all the usual ways, such as co-supporting Daesh (ISIS) against
Syria, as a US target for destruction, providing intelligence, providing
propaganda support to attack Iran, and killing Palestine in the hope of
permanent eradication. These are blood ties nourished by vast
expenditures.
The Iran deal is a needed effort to de-escalate the US aggressions of
sanctions and of constant and irrational threat of war. The deal was
needed in order to create a barrier to prevent Israel from performing
rogue airstrikes against infrastructure in Iran. The Iran deal is a huge
setback for Israeli militarism. Israel sees the deal as a massive
strategic error that threatens its identity as the regional bully, when
it comes to nations that cannot be bought or coerced.
Thus, Iran is a major source of tension, at this time, between Israel
and the USA. But the question is not so much whether Netanyahu has
created the tension. The tension was the result of a dramatic shift in
US foreign policy in the region, a shift that is pragmatic, in view of
dominance of the entire world, whereas Israel’s ambitions are regional.
The shift was away from military confrontation with Iran, and away from
Israeli rogue military actions, in order to preserve an appearance of
legitimacy as “leader of the free world”.
This shift was due to several factors related to real forces on the
ground, in the context of the world’s reaction to Israel’s slaughters in
Gaza. The first factor is the resolve and integrity of Iran itself,
which is a model of national self-determination and strength of
character, and which also has hardened military experience and vast
resources and regional influence. Another factor is the valiant war of
self-defense waged by Syria, aided by Iran, in which the Syrian people,
government and army defended the territory for many years, forcing the
USA and its blood-thirsty allies to create a growing monster that
repelled the world.
As always, the military battles on the ground, just like the present
Russian involvement in Syria, are the main determinants of adjustments
in the US foreign policy of dominance, rather than personality
differences with leaders such as Netanyahu.
Q: During his upcoming visit to Washington D.C., Benjamin
Netanyahu will also meet the experts and fellows at the Center for
American Progress, a left-leaning advocacy and research organization
that falls on the extreme end of the political spectrum as opposed to
the American Enterprise Institute, a neo-conservative group which backs
Israel’s policies unreservedly. Is he trying to appeal to the Democratic
Party and the American liberals and improve his status in their eyes?
A: The shift in US foreign policy of world dominance that has led to
the Iran deal is significant, which suggests that the shift is not a
mere Democrat policy preference but rather an actual US-regime decision.
The decision appears to be to move away from Israel as the sole nexus
of Middle East policy, towards a multi-polar approach. For that reason,
Netanyahu’s efforts cannot be limited to the Republican block.
Netanyahu will use the occasion of this award to continue selling his
vision of military might as the only agent of sustainable advancement
for a USA-Israel partnership of dominance in the Middle East, to extract
military “aid” increases to compensate for his perceived loss of
security, and to continue testing the strength of his Israel lobby in
America. He is understandably concerned and must make it a priority to
salvage the relationship and secure the most profitable role for Israel.
In a sense, this catastrophe for the Israeli regime is partly of
Netanyahu’s making because he is responsible for his mass slaughter
campaigns in Gaza, which significantly mobilized anti-Israel sentiment
across the world, including among strongly allied nations of the USA,
which could decide to have more foreign policy independence on select
issues, such as not supporting USA war campaigns, US sanction campaigns,
and US-led economic exchange deals that are meant to exclude global
rivals.
The US needs its allies to align with its campaigns because it wants
to vigorously oppose the economic emergence of the BRICS association
[made of] Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. BRICS is poised
to leave the US Empire’s economy behind and to eventually abandon the
US dollar as its trading currency. BRICS will attempt to play following
market forces, whereas the US is habituated both to global control and
to an irrelevant debt, since it prints the money.
At this stage, it is difficult to see how the US-Israel partnership
will be impacted by Russia’s now-demonstrated willingness to militarily
assist its allies and to defend against the threats that US carnage has
created. No doubt Netanyahu is promoting Israel’s battle readiness as a
needed shield or intervention capacity in what he will project as a grim
future.
Q: In 1973, the godfather of neo-conservatism, Irving
Kristol, the award which Benjamin Netanyahu will receive is named after
him, said the people of Israel wouldn’t be happy with a cut in the U.S.
military budget proposed by Senator George McGovern, who was running for
the 1972 presidential election. Why should the people of Israel oppose
the reduction of U.S. military budget? What Israeli interests could be
at stake when the U.S. moves toward demilitarizing its expenditures and
investing more capital on the social security of its people?
A: I don’t think the USA will “demilitarize”, in the sense of
shifting its foreign policy away from military intimidation as its main
instrument and towards economic competition and distributed development,
until it is forced to do so by global reality. The USA will certainly
never voluntarily “demilitarize” in order to improve the living
conditions of its working and non-working class citizens. It is not a
simple trade-off. The US prints the global currency at will, and uses
loans of this fabricated currency to extort real labor and material
resources from its areas of exploitation. It enforces this racket with
its military and covert operations and ensures that its corporations
make disproportionate profits. The US has over 1,000 major military
bases around the globe. Therefore, unlike in other countries, the US
does not need to balance a budget. It only needs to dominate. The
treatment of US citizens by the US regime is an ideological choice. The
regime prefers to fund a massive prison system and paramilitary police
rather than create equitable opportunities.
Israel is not about to dismantle its apartheid system. Likewise, the
USA is not about to dismantle its economic apartheid within its national
borders. The US maintains its apartheid by, among other mechanisms,
approximately 1,000 murders of unarmed US citizens – virtually all black
citizens – by police officers per year. Israel, by comparison, has a
policy beyond solely maintaining apartheid, beyond containment, towards
intimidation to abandon territory, and towards complete suppression of
Palestinian freedoms. Consequently, the yearly rate of murder of unarmed
Palestinians, including children, by Israeli military and police, on a
population basis, is typically fifty to one hundred times greater than
the rate per capita of US murders of unarmed civilians by police. These
numbers do not count the injuries and early deaths from the horrendous
conditions of occupation, in both countries. Thus, there is indeed a
“special relationship”, an “unbreakable bond”, and a “mutual admiration”
between the US and Israel. And Netanyahu is certainly one of the
eminent creators of that bond.
Q: There are intellectuals and academicians as Stephen Walt
and John Mearsheimer who have elaborately documented the influence of a
powerful Israeli lobby in the United States, which significantly sways
the U.S. politics, including the decision-making of the Congress and the
foreign agenda of the administration, as well as the media and
entertainment industry. There are pundits like Walter Russell Mead,
however, who reject such a notion basically and call the Israeli lobby a
“myth”. What’s your viewpoint on these two different convictions?
A: It is beyond doubt that Walt and Mearsheimer have described a real
political structure. The Israel lobby is as real as any major
institution in the USA. It is well organized into an intricate
hierarchy, and it is exceedingly well funded, more than the traditional
think-tanks. The lobby has been allowed to flourish because it provides
large political campaign funds, while helping to create public
acceptance of the US Empire’s actions via Israel in the Middle East.
At this stage, from the perspective of those actually running the
Empire, the lobby’s influence probably needs to be reined in because
Israel’s hunger for genocide and desire for regional control is somewhat
counter to the broader interests of the US regime.
Another feature of the Israel lobby is that it achieves public
“acceptance” of the Israel-US dominance projects by outright
intimidation of academics and intellectuals in all the professions,
which is contrary to the purported values of “the freest country in the
world”. The firings of university professors and media professionals
have become routine, as has the blacklisting of entertainment industry
workers.
Likewise, there is a disturbing trend, organized and spurred by
Netanyahu, to criminalize criticism of Israel in all the allied states,
such as France, Canada, etc. The US-led Israel lobby is multi-national.
Here, in Canada, technically the government could criminally prosecute
me for “hate speech” against the state of Israel for writing this very
article, using a newly amended provision of the Criminal Code of Canada.
For this alone, and many other such achievements, Netanyahu amply
deserves the AEI 2015 Award.
But there is backlash and a societal price to pay, and the days of
being suppressed by the Israel lobby may come to an end if the US regime
decides to give Israel a lesser role. Disallowing the intelligentsia
and political activists of a nation from being critical of the nation’s
foreign policy investments is a recipe for disaster, a disaster that for
now mostly Palestine, Libya, Syria and other nations have suffered.
By Kourosh Ziabari
