The American people, who still want to stop Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, are only dimly aware that longtime U.S. “allies” Israel and Saudi Arabia have shifted into an effective alliance with those Sunni jihadists as part of their regional war against Iran and Shiite Islam, as Lawrence Davidson explains.
By Lawrence Davidson
It is often alleged that the basis for U.S.-Israeli relations lies in “shared concerns and interests.” But what really holds the relationship together is a systemic aspect of American politics – the system of special interest lobbying and the money that underlies it.
That practice is just about as old as the country itself, and the Zionist lobby is a past-master at exploiting this system. With the Supreme Court rulings telling us that political spending and donations are forms of free speech, this rather perverse aspect of U.S. politics is not going to change in the foreseeable future.
President Barack Obama stands with Israeli President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the President’s official arrival ceremony in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Therefore, one would assume that the present deterioration in relations between the Obama White House and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as refreshing as it is, only represents a temporary glitch rather than a permanent breach in the alliance between the two countries. Well, perhaps, but getting the relationship back to the status quo ante may be harder than many expect.
For example, on March 29, the New York Times reported that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations to let him know that she wants to “improve relations with Israel.” That sort of statement is a standard prerequisite for anyone planning to run for the presidency in 2016.
While there was no elaboration on the meeting coming from Clinton’s office, Mr. Hoenlein was quite forthcoming. According to him, “Secretary Clinton thinks we need to all work together to return the special U.S.-Israeli relationship to a constructive footing, to get back to basic shared concerns and interests.”
Wishful thinking aside, is that really possible? While Clinton is attuned to her political interest in keeping the Zionist lobby bipartisan in 2016, Mr. Hoenlein seems blind to the fact that the U.S. and Israel no longer have any “shared concerns and interests” in the Middle East. In fact, looked at it objectively, their “concerns and interests” are now in opposition.
A Major Foreign Policy Goal since 2001
Since the terrorist attacks of 2001, a major foreign policy goal of the U.S. government has been the pursuit and destruction of the Sunni extremist organization al-Qaeda and its offshoots. To that end the Americans invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and, more problematically, Iraq in 2003.
The popular frustrations that resulted from those wars brought Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008 in order to change tactics but not the goal. In other words, the American public still approved of going after al-Qaeda, but were tired of the costly war-making approach characteristic of the Bush Republicans and their neoconservative advisers.
In truth the Bush approach of invasion and “regime change” proved disastrously counter-productive. It caused the collapse of political stability in both Afghanistan and Iraq thus creating power vacuums that became breeding grounds for al-Qaeda.
Obama rationalized the anti-al-Qaeda campaign. He ended the unpopular American occupation of Iraq and wound down the Afghan War. In their places he substituted drone warfare. Drones kill jihadists (and a lot more folks as well) with no great risk to American lives (though harm to the psychological health of the computer jockeys guiding these weaponized model airplanes is certainly a cost).
You just remotely steer the drones to the place where your informants say your target happens to be (dinner party, family visit, wedding, etc.) and launch the drone’s missiles into that spot. Straightforward, except for the fact that, on average, drones kill 28 civilians for every enemy individual they target. In fact, that is what the U.S. was doing in Yemen before the Saudis started their present, much more indiscriminate, bombing campaign (using real airplanes) throughout that country.
U.S. allies in the region, specifically Israel and Saudi Arabia, had no problem with the drone attacks against al-Qaeda until 2011. That was when civil war broke out in Syria and when al-Qaeda and its offshoots showed up to fight against the embattled Assad regime in Damascus.
Keep in mind that Assad was seen as an enemy of Israel. Syria called for help from Shiite Iran and Hezbollah (also enemies of Israel). Soon the fighting spread across the border into northern Iraq, and the Iraqi government also called for help from Iran.
From an American, anti-al-Qaeda perspective, things began to look really bad. ISIS (aka the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), an al-Qaeda inspired movement operating in both Syria and Iraq, declared itself the “new caliphate” and started to take and hold territory while cutting off the heads of anyone who got in the way.
The Obama administration did not want to go back into another Middle East war (they still had residual troops on the ground in Afghanistan) but fortunately “boots on the ground” proved unnecessary. Why? Because there was another power right in the region willing to pick up the slack – a power which was just as much an enemy of al-Qaeda as the U.S. was. That power was Iran.
That meant that certainly by 2014 the United States and Iran understood that they were on the same side of a struggle that, in the U.S., represented a primary concern of the American people for the past 15 years.
On the Iranian side the concern was even more immediate because the aggressive behavior of ISIS threatened Iran’s western border as well as its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah. Given this situation, the last thing both countries wanted was open hostilities with each other. That encouraged both parties to work hard to settle the dispute over Iranian nuclear power.
The Divergence
Unfortunately, Israel, and by extension the American Zionist lobby, had lost interest in U.S. concerns about al-Qaeda. Indeed, Tel Aviv had come to take the opposite point of view, seeing some merit in Islamic terrorists as long as they were Sunnis.
One has to keep in mind that the Israelis are obsessed with Shiite Iran and its nuclear energy program, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has hysterically proclaimed a danger to the survival of Israel. From that point of view any enemy of Iran is a friend of Israel – even if it is al-Qaeda.
Indeed, in 2013 Michael Oren, then Israeli ambassador to the United States (actually he grew up in West Orange, New Jersey), told the Jerusalem Post, “We always wanted Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren’t backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran.”
A year later, Oren was at an Aspen Institute Conference and declared that Israel would prefer the victory of ISIS to the continuation of an Iranian-backed Assad. Nor have the Israelis been shy about acting on this preference. They have established a non-aggression pact with an al-Qaeda Syrian affiliate called the al-Nusra Front, cared for al-Nusra wounded in Israeli hospitals, and mounted attacks on the Lebanese and Iranian forces opposing al-Nusra.
So, at least in Syria, Israel is actively supporting a group that had, in an early incarnation, attacked the U.S. – one that represents forces that still pose a major worldwide risk to U.S. security. Perhaps someone ought to update Congress on this point.
This rearrangement of allies has made for strange bedfellows – not only the U.S. and Iran, but also Israel and Saudi Arabia. And that brings us to the present situation in Yemen. Until the recent Saudi air strikes in Yemen, that country was the most active site of U.S. drone attacks against al-Qaeda operatives.
But the Saudis don’t see the war on al-Qaeda as any more important than the Israelis. Their main concern is, once more, Shiite Iran whom they see as much more an enemy than either jihadists or Zionists. So the Saudis have thrown a temper tantrum over the recent deal over Iran’s nuclear program.
Part of their acting out was to tell Washington to pull its drone operators out of Yemen because the Saudis were going to bomb that country and particularly its Shiite Houthi population to ruination. Ruination of course, means the creation of a power vacuum in Yemen, and just as in Syria and Iraq, power vacuums create the ideal breeding ground for extremist groups like al-Qaeda.
Finally, there are unconfirmed reports that at least some of the munitions the Saudis are dropping on Yemen are made in Israel.
Obviously the real “concerns and interests” of the United States in the Middle East have noticeably diverged from those of Israel. As a consequence Israel is now loudly complaining that Washington has abandoned it.
Well, Washington might do well to play the same game – to loudly complain about Israel’s traitorous behavior. After all, the U.S. gives that country a lot of money and weaponry and now the Israelis chose to support their benefactor’s enemy.
We can count on the Zionist lobby to try to obfuscate this fact. And, given that their financial and ideological power helps shape self-serving political interests in Congress, they may be able to pull it off, at least in that venue. They are also financially backing the Republicans when it comes to the 2016 presidential race. Can those politicians who support the Israeli perspective win that election?
Hopefully, the Israeli point of view will now prove to be a hard sell when it comes to the American voter. The recent agreement with Iran has created a new reality for the country’s foreign policy – one that is consistent with the popular desire for no further U.S. military involvement in the Middle East.
It is going to be difficult for bought-off politicians, even those allied with Fox TV, to throw everything into reverse and declare al-Qaeda an ally and Iran still the mortal enemy. With some good luck, that will translate into political failure in 2016 for anyone who wants to undo the new accord with Iran.
Lawrence Davidson is a history professor at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He is the author of Foreign Policy Inc.: Privatizing America’s National Interest;　America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood; and Islamic Fundamentalism.
“Israel’s Unsavory ‘New‘ Allies – an effective alliance with Sunni jihadists”
‘New’ allies?
Eli Ben-Jospeh says: “The hope here is only that extremists, whether siding with Iran, Al Quaeda or the Islamic State, will destroy each other.”
This has been the ultimate wet dream of Israel, which it has tried to implement a few times in its 67 year history by supporting one militant group or other that was deemed an enemy of an enemy. In this way, Hamas was actually an Israeli pet project in the early 1980’s because the PLO was considered the main threat at the time.
Iran is a rising power in the Middle East, and is seen by many countries in the world (the U.S. being just one such) as a worthy ally in the fight against the ISIS barbarians. Even if Israel and Saudi Arabia (birds of a feather) were to succeed in implementing Congressional sanctions through Israel’s lobby’s choke-hold on U.S. politicians, those sanctions would not bind any other country, nor the U.N.S.C. It would just demonstrate to the entire world how dysfunctional the American political system has become, and would serve as an impetus for a fundamental change.
Thanks, professor Davidson. A most disturbin, and important, post. In my head, a recollection from George Orwell’s novel 1984 (written in 1948) appears; in Orwell’s World the Three major Powers are constantly at war according to the formula Two against One, the combination changing at times — the Powers however declaring that the Enemy of Today is, of course, the eternal Enemy of yesteryear as well of tomorrow.
Israel’s changing of Enemy No 1 is a fascinating process. Will Uncle Sam eventually realize that Israel, and some others, now in reality belong to the Enemy camp?
If Israel is truly neutral in its dislike of Islamists, why does it provide support to Sunni Jihadists and targets Hezbollah and Assad’s forces? This argument holds no water and is in conflict with reported facts. UN observers in the Golan heights have also attested that Israel actively supports the Al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Nusra Jihadists. Presuming that the Israeli argument favors “end justifies the means,” the moral bankruptcy of such posit is loud and clear. The fact is that Israel which initially started as a liberal-leftist concept has transformed into a fascist project threatening not only the regional piece but the democracies abroad by corrupting politicians in Western societies. Jews and people of Middle East deserve better.
Mr. Loeb,
1. Congress can’t do anything to prevent a deal nor change it after it’s signed. This agreement will be signed by Russia, France, the UK, China, the US and Germany. It’s not a bilateral agreement between the US and Iran. It has nothing to do with Israel.
2. Iran does not have nor has ever had a nuclear weapons program and there’s no evidence otherwise. Their program is for energy and medical isotopes, nothing else. They have stuck to the NPT they signed (that Israel and the US did not sign).
3. Sanctions on Iran are illegal and immoral and the Iranians should not be punished because of lies from Israel, the US or anyone else.
4. Iran has never attacked nor intends to attack another country, unlike Israel and the U.S. who illegally attack any country any time for any (non) reason.
5. Iran should demand that the U.S. and all signatories to the agreement show their stockpiles and agree to destroy them and permit inspections at regular intervals, and their hypocrisy be called into account.
6. All the wars since WWII that the U.S. has been in and instigated have been illegal and have caused the death and destruction of millions of innocent people. The rest of the world should sanction America, jail its war criminals (and do the same with Israel whose treatment of the Palestinians meets all the criteria of “apartheid” as described in Article 49 of the Geneva Conventions),
7. All the current roiling troubles in the middle east (now moving eastward into Ukraine toward Russia) have been caused by America. Muslims were happily looking forward to Obama’s presidency when he made his famous talk in Cairo. They’ve learned the hard way that the USA cannot be trusted, thus terrorists have flourished.
My reply to you.
1. I don’t know how this would play out.
2. Yes. Iran does not have the bomb. But they are putting everything in place to have one.
3. The fact of Iranian expansionism is not a lie from Israel. It is the truth from anywhere you choose to look at it from. This is the same defense that was made for Hitler and soon he became everyone’s problem.
4. Big Lie. Iranian Commanders have been in Lebanon for years now. Iranian commanders are comming militias in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. Scores of Sunnis are being killed in the fight against ISIS. So don’t wait till all their forces are in before you say Iran is fighting a war. They are fighting as we speak.
5. Iran actually has the right to stock pile as much as they can. But the region become a whole lot volatile when an expansionist country and one calling for the destruction of Israel is making a move to own nuclear weapons. That is when their right become another’s problem.
6. Check your history books and you will confirm that the world has know less large-scale was in the 20th century than any other time in human history. This is because of the rise and prominence of diplomacy. I don’t support US wars because the US has been the strongest pillars of diplomacy than Stalin’s USSR. I guess you prefer the latter.\
7. Naviety at best. Sunnis and Shiites have been in wars long before Europeans discovered the Americas. Muslims have killed each other long before civilization was born. Don’t blame the US for their woes. The 10 or 11 Shia imams were killed long before the declaration of independence…..
Stop feeding yourself with hate of the US or Israel.
This article is true but very one-sided.
Mr. Loeb,
1. Congress can’t do anything to prevent a deal nor change it after it’s signed. This agreement will be signed by Russia, France, the UK, China, the US and Germany. It’s not a bilateral agreement between the US and Iran. It has nothing to do with Israel.
2. Iran does not have nor has ever had a nuclear weapons program and there’s no evidence otherwise. Their program is for energy and medical isotopes, nothing else. They have stuck to the NPT they signed (that Israel and the US did not sign).
3. Sanctions on Iran are illegal and immoral and the Iranians should not be punished because of lies from Israel, the US or anyone else.
4. Iran has never attacked nor intends to attack another country, unlike Israel and the U.S. who illegally attack any country any time for any (non) reason.
5. Iran should demand that the U.S. and all signatories to the agreement show their stockpiles and agree to destroy them and permit inspections at regular intervals, and their hypocrisy be called into account.
6. All the wars since WWII that the U.S. has been in and instigated have been illegal and have caused the death and destruction of millions of innocent people. The rest of the world should sanction America, jail its war criminals (and do the same with Israel whose treatment of the Palestinians meets all the criteria of “apartheid” as described in Article 49 of the Geneva Conventions),
7. All the current roiling troubles in the middle east (now moving eastward into Ukraine toward Russia) have been caused by America. Muslims were happily looking forward to Obama’s presidency when he made his famous talk in Cairo. They’ve learned the hard way that the USA cannot be trusted, thus terrorists have flourished.
Posted for Peter Loeb: As I have observed in these spaces previously. I do not see any difficulty for opponents to weaken this “preliminary framework” (not an “historic deal”) and the US will fail to provide the reduction of sanctions which Iran has sought from the beginning.
Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly said , “You can’t trust the Iranians”. I wonder
if one can trust the US which seems always to have been negotiating on Israel’s behalf. Information on sanction reductions has yet to be released.
If there is indeed a popular consensus from which this policy “diverges”, it has been an extremely silent one. Instead, as Professor Davidson long ago pointed out, while the number of so-called “Jewish votes” is small nationwide in the US excepting specific constituencies, the power of “Jewish” financial resources is significant. (While in the US this cannot be given directly to an individual politician, there are other ways of doing serious damage to any candidate and no political candidate is enthusiastic about his diselection.)
When the US has made this rickety “framework” unattractive to Iran and its political consituencies, we should focus on Iran’s other options. We know that a meeting is currently planned between Terahn, Moscow, and Beijing for later in the spring.
Washington has not negotiated in good faith regarding the reduction of sanctions but has defined “serious negotiations” (Secretary of State John Kerry) as those from which the US alone benefits.
Other aspects have been covered by Robert Parry, Gareth Porter and others in Consortium.
I have commented to these as they have appeared.
I also predicted the method which would most likely be used to defeat the “framework” in
Congress and with both statements and proposed bill S 615 in the US Senate this seems
to be developing.
—–Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Israel has a history of getting cozy with thug outfits and regimes. For decades Israel was aligned with the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Last month the Wall Street Journal confirmed reports from last year (by UN observers on the Golan Heights) that Israel was cooperating with Al Nusra, the Syrian branch of Al Qaida.
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Report-Israel-treating-al-Qaida-fighters-wounded-in-Syria-civil-war-393862.
In the past couple of weeks a number of sources in the refugee camp in Yarmouk on the outskirts of Damascus, only about 60 km from Golan, have reported that Al Nusra helped the Islamic State (IS or ISIS) to take over the camp. Al Nusra and ISIS had previously been considered rivals, or even enemies, even though they are both fighting to overthrow Syria’s secular government.
In the case of Al Nusra, which is fighting the Lebanese Hezbollah in Syria, it looks like Israel’s enemy’s enemy is its friend. Al Nusra’s cooperation with ISIS also makes Israel, at least indirectly, an ally of ISIS. This contradicts Benyamin Netanyahu’s recent comment to the US Congress: “So when it comes to Iran and ISIS, the enemy of your enemy is your enemy”.
Israel, Israel, Israel. Sure gets a story printed. However, now that Iran has announced that it will use its advanced centrifuges as soon as “the deal” is signed, what say you?
what say you?
Me ` say you ` need to get used to “the deal†> Obama no kiss Zionist- Arses . . me say !
To assert any kind of alliance between the State of Israel and a member body of the radical Jihadist persuasion is a bit preposterous, if not entirely ludicrous.
Israel has opened its borders with Syria in order to provide medical treatment to Nusra Front and al-Qaida fighters wounded in the ongoing civil war, according to The Wall Street Journal
With the current data at hand, it is far from ludicrous – actually, it is the most plausible description.
But who am I to argue with the israelis, patching up wounded terrorists, and sends them back into Syria to kill some more children – or protecting Al Nusra on the Golan by giving them free passage into Quneitra, and attacking Hezbollah / SAA / iranian advisors – the only force fighting the terrorists. Being allied with Saudi Arabia because they share their hatred towards Iran. Nevermind that the Saudis and other Gulf States is the very vein that keeps the terrorists alive – unless of course Al Qaeda / Al Nusra / ISIS / FSA or whatever you may call them, have learned to grow toyotas and weapons under desert rocks.
Israel, as spoken by Michael Oren himself, has allied itself with what it sees as the “lesser evil”, because it “prefers” Al Qaeda to rule Syria infront of Assad.
Terrorists are very predictable to a certain degree, and much less a threat than a nation state, with a solid unity, stable economy, with strong allies and with a standing army.
Iraq had that, but it was destroyed.
Libya had that, but it was destroyed.
Syria under Assad is secular and protective of the minorities, has a standing army, allied with Iran, allied with Hezbollah, now Israel cannot have that, so it too, must be destroyed.
If Islamic State or al-Nusra were able to build a firmly rooted regime, their next objective would be annihilate the Jewish state. It’s important to understand that Israel views ISIS and al-Nusra as ephemeral pesticide against Iran, for short term user only, not as real political entities.
Professor Davidson,
As an academic and an American living in Israel since 1974, I can assure you that Israelis and their government despise ISIS. The hope here is only that extremists, whether siding with Iran, Al Quaeda or the Islamic State, will destroy each other.
It may be true that Saudia Arabia and Israel sometimes agree on Middle East issues but an alliance is too strong a word.
I have noted that a number of commentators have taken up the belief that US now improving relations with Iran is some analogous to the Nixon administration easing relations with China. However, there is no similarity. The Middle East is not the Far East. Radical and traditional Islam are not Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism or Post-Mao Communism.
Sincerely,
Dr. Eli Ben-Joseph
Senior Teacher (retired)
The Western Galilee College
“The hope here is only that extremists, whether siding with Iran, Al Quaeda or the Islamic State, will destroy each other.”
That’s what a lot of western liberals hoped Stalin and Hitler would do to each other in the late 30’s. How’d that end up working out for Chamberlain again?
“The Middle East is not the Far East. Radical and traditional Islam are not Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism or Post-Mao Communism.”
This is tautological nonsense. Confucianism isn’t Islam, Taoism, Buddhism or Post-Mao Communism either. That doesn’t justify inept foreign policy.
Chamberlain was a member of Britain’s Conservative Party, but revisionists like you pretend that he was a liberal. Furthermore, it was the right-wingers in the Republican Party in the 1930’s who were most supportive of an isolationist foreign policy and were most inclined to appease Hitler. At that time, some American conservatives were announcing that Hitler was doing good things in Europe.
I mean liberal in a much broader sense than you do, i.e liberal capitalism as opposed to fascism or communism.
And I wasn’t talking about the United States. The Soviets spent most of the 30’s trying to get Western Europe to take Hitler seriously.
HOW IT WORKED OUT…..
To Clever Handle:
The USSR became an ALLY of the US, the UK and others battling the axis powers.
They lost 22 MILLION men—many times the number of all other nations combined—
not to mention other losses.
Stalin was known as “Uncle Joe” during World War Two. The US provided the USSR
with munitions etc.
Without the input of the USSR the result as it did.
In addition, the USSR and its “Red Army” LIBERATED Poland and the Jews in ghettoes
there. Many including my ancestors would have preferred the US to become involved
but FDR was not interested. He maintained that our priority should be to “win the war”.
—-Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
I agree. The whole world paid the price of the approach Dr. Ben-Joseph is advocating.
“To destroy each other,” an Israeli policy used to undermine the peace initiatives between Israel and the Palestinians. In the 80 s Israel began supporting the weak beginnings of Hamas while depriving the PLO in a similar divide and conquer routine. Israel’s plan went astray and suddenly they became aware that Hamas in their eye was too strong. Then we got the wars to try and set the balance again. Pathetic politics and the innocent suffer !
Despising (using your word) someone or an entity, and being allied with the same, is not mutually exclusive. USA has been operating by the “policy of the lesser evil” many decades, and so has and is Israel. The former israeli ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, suggested that himself, with no ambiguity at all.
While it may be true that “israelis and their government despise ISIS” (it would be hard for a normal individual to claim the opposite), they are happy to use them to wreak havoc on their other hate objects as well, such as the iranians, the syrians who support the current government of Assad, Hezbollah and so on.
You may have missed it, but there is a very recent interview Wesley Clark admitted “our friends and allies funded ISIS to destroy Hezbollah”.
Who hates Hezbollah the most? Israel and Saudis, and why was Wesley Clark speakin in plural?
There is much further evidence of a de-facto “alliance” as well, but outside the scope of my post, but feel free to do your own research.
The Israelis despise everyone,even themselves.
Israel and KSA sitting in the tree,K-i-s-s-i-n-g,first comes love then comes marriage(gay?)then comes another 9-11 in a baby? carriage?
The KSA Israeli love affair was first noticed on the first? 9-11,when the Ziomedia let that kingdom off the hook and went Saddam crazy.