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Texas Independent Oilmen Support Israel

http://10tv.nana10.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=809854

Q. When was the last time you visited the United States? 

A. Two weeks ago, in Midland, Texas, the Texas capital – and possibly the US capital – of the independent oil producers. I held two days meetings with independent oil producers, who support the enhancement of strategic relations between the USA and Israel, mostly as a result of the current seismic developments in all Arab countries.  These developments clarify that while the USA cannot rely on any of the Arab countries, Israel is highlighted as the most reliable, stable, capable, democratic and unconditional ally of the USA.

Q. How long did you live in Texas?

A. I did my undergraduate studies in Texas and I also served as Israel’s Consul General in Houston, Texas. In my current work I often visit Washington, DC and Texas, which has become a key State in the USA in general and in the overall increasing American support for the Jewish State in particular.

Q. Why Texas in particular?

A. Texas, because of its historical and cultural background. Texas is the only state in the US that joined the Union not through acquisition or conquest, but rather joined willingly.  As a result, its rights are superior to all other states.  For example, Texas is the only state that can secede, or even split to 5 states. But more importantly, Texas is a state that greatly appreciates tradition, patriotism, religion, independence and can-do mentality, defiance of odds and roots. 

Q. Do Texans/Americans support Israel because of the influence of the Jewish community?

A. The support, by Texans in particular and Americans in general, of Judaism and the concept of a Jewish State dates back to the early Pilgrims who landed in America in 1620. They left England, “the modern-day Egypt,” sailed through the Atlantic Ocean, “the modern-day Red Sea” and arrived to America, “the modern-day Promised Land” or New Canaan. Since then until today, American appreciation of Judaism and of the idea of the reestablishment of Jewish sovereignty in
the Land of Israel constitute key issues in the American ethos, American justice and as of lately, USA national security.

Q. Who was the most pro-Israel American president?

A. In my opinion, the leading one was Ronald Reagan and in another way Richard Nixon, in spite of the fact that Nixon was received only 12% of the Jewish votes, so he had no political IOUs to the Jewish community. But, in 1970, he witnessed Israel forcing the rolling back of the Syrian invasion of Jordan – that threatened through a Domino Syndrome Saudi Arabia and other oil producing Arab states in the Gulf. The Jewish state – which until then was not considered by Nixon a strategic asset – demonstrated its capability to snatch the hottest chestnuts out of the fire with no requirement of a single American soldier, while the US was bogged down in Vietnam. President Nixon became a supporter of Israel. It was Nixon who, during the 1973 Yom Kippur War – despite his Secretaries of State and Defense – decided to replenish Israel with significant military systems, in order to bolster the only effective ally of the US in the Middle East.

Q. And who is the least American President appreciative of Israel?

A. President Bush 41st and his Secretary of State, Baker. Jimmy Carter is in the same league and perhaps even
worse. President Obama “threatens” to join them, but he is not there yet.

Q. Why Obama?

A. Because of his ideology and his view of the world, irrespective of  Israel.  For instance, an American president who does not believe in American moral, political and military Exceptionalism is less effective for Israel and the Free World.  Israel and the Free World do not need a local American policeman; they needs an American Marshal.  Obama believes that the U.N – which is not the home court of the US or Israel – is the playmaker of international relations.  He does not believe in the existence of international Islamic terrorism, only in local Islamic terrorism – Taliban and al- Qaeda.  He does not believe in the existence of Jihadist terrorism, because – according to his advisor on countering terrorism – “Jihad is a process which purifies the soul.”  Obama wants to be more European than the Europeans. He subordinates unilateral US policy to multilateral coalition considerations. Finally, he believes that the Palestinian issue is the root cause of Middle East instability and anti-American terrorism, and that the Palestinian issue is the crown-jewel of intra-Arab policy-making. All of which has no relevance to Middle Eastern reality.

Q. Maybe an American president who is not so pro-Israel can be more neutral and help bring the conflict to an end? 

A. We need to comprehend that the crux of the Arab-Israeli conflict does not depend on Israel or on the Americans. It is a derivative of the Middle East as it has been for 14 centuries. One shouldn’t ignore the fact that for 1,400 years, since the appearance of Islam, there has not been intra- Arab/Moslem peace, intra-Arab/Moslem compliance with intra- Arab/Moslem agreements, intra-Arab/Moslem ratification of all borders and not a single Arab/Moslem democracy. Terror has been an integral key element of intra-Arab/Moslem policy. In defiance of such an entrenched reality, some of us wish that the Arabs would bestow upon the Jewish State that which they have yet to accord to one another.  I wish that it would be a logical expectation, but it is not.  Moreover, the less involved is the USA in the Arab-Israel conflict, the lower are Arab expectations, and the less strained are US-Israel relations.  The US involvement has added fuel to the fire of Arab expectations and radicalism and undermined US-Israel relations. US-Israel relations are based on shared values, threats and interests and not on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Q. What will happen in September when there will be a unilateral declaration of a “Palestinian state”?

A. The sun will rise and the moon will appear, just as they did following the 1988 UN General Assembly recommendation – supported by 132 countries – to recognize a Palestinian state and the 1975 UN General Assembly declaration of Zionism as Racism. Since then, Israel has surged economically and otherwise. The U.N General Assembly is an ineffective body, and in the U.N Security Council there is a US veto. The anti-Israel UN proceedings, in September 2011, will constitute another bump on the way of the Jewish State to further achievements.

Q. You are refuting many myths. There is an assumption that the US may curtail/stop aid to Israel if Israel would not comply with US policy. Is that also a myth?

A. It is a myth, but in a different way. I was very involved in Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision – during his first term as Prime Minister – to end US non-military aid. The non-military aid was eliminated over 10 years, half of which was transferred to the military aid.  The decision paid off economically and diplomatically, in defiance of naysayers. Israel will thrive and prosper even more upon phasing out, over 10 years, of the $3BN in US military aid, rededicating each year 10% of the aid to the establishment of an additional bi-national employment and export driven fund.

Q. But the military aid sustains Israel’s ability to hold its own militarily!

A. That is what the naysayers told Netanyahu in 1996, but the sun rose and it was much warmer and friendlier for Israel following the gradual phase out of the Economic Support Fund (non-military foreign aid). Israel incurs high cost for the USA aid. The Israeli defense industry prefers, sometimes, to operate in the USA because Israel’s Ministry of Defense has more dollars, and therefore it is easier to purchase from an Israeli company that operates in Florida, Alabama, California or Texas. Moreover, the US aid limits Israel’s defense exports, occasionally undermines Israel’s R & D, accelerates the regional arms race and the resulting burden on Israel’s economy (Egypt receives military foreign aid in correlation with aid to Israel) and portrays Israel – unjustifiably – as a member of under-privileged countries which require “foreign” “aid.”  If those $3BN will be gradually reduced, at 10% each year, expanding cooperation between the defense industries of both countries – which would then benefit from a similar tailwind currently available to the commercial industries – it would create more jobs, exports and research & development in the USA and in Israel. A year later, the 10% of the reduced military foreign aid would be directed at an employment-driven collaboration between their water-related industries, which would advance the effort to overcome the water crisis, leveraging each other’s technological edge. Then, a year later, collaboration between alternative energy industries, and so on. Mutually-beneficial joint ventures and trade are always preferable to foreign aid.


Q. USA aid does not go to Israel only.

A. USA relations with Israel are unique among recipients of foreign aid.  They are not a one way street; they constitute a two way, bottom up, mutually-beneficial street, where both give and receive. For example, the intelligence the USA receives from Israel exceeds that which the USA receives from all NATO countries combined. The late General Alexander Haig who was the Supreme Commander of NATO and US Secretary of State considered Israel the largest USA aircraft carrier which did not require a single American on board, that couldn’t be sunk, that saved the US tax payer $20-$30Billion per year and was deployed in a most vital region to critical American
interests.

Q. Finally, what would you suggest to Prime Minister Netanyahu regarding Israel relations with the USA?

A. First and foremost Israel needs to understand that an American President is not The American Government, but one of three branches of government, which are equal in power to one another.  The US Congress and the Courts are the other 2/3rds. Prime Minister Netanyahu should recognize Congress – a systematic bastion of support – as a co-equal and a co-determining player in setting US foreign policy in general and US-Israel relations in particular.  In fact, until November 2012, Congress could potentially be even stronger than the President, who needs Congress in order to be reelected.  Finally, Netanyahu should rid Israel of the dependency on US military aid.
http://10tv.nana10.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=809854




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President Biden’s pressure and Israel’s Judiciary Reform

Israel’s proposed Judiciary Reform ranks very low on President Biden’s order of priorities, far below scores of pressing domestic, foreign and national security threats and challenges.

Therefore, he has not studied the various articles of the reform, but leverages the explosive Israeli domestic controversy as a means to intensify pressure on Israel, in order to:

*Gradually, force Israel back to the 1967 ceasefire lines;
*End Jewish construction and proliferate Arab construction in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank);
*Advance the establishment of a Palestinian state on the mountain ridges of Judea and Samaria, which overpower the coastal sliver of pre-1967 Israel;
*Re-divide Jerusalem;
*Prevent game-changing Israeli military actions against Palestinian terrorists and Iran’s Ayatollahs.

Israel’s Judiciary Reform and US democracy

If the President and his advisors had studied the proposed reform, they would have noticed the Israeli attempt to adopt key features of the US democratic system, which would end the current situation of Israel’s Judiciary as Israel’s supreme branch of government. The reform aims to provide Israel’s Legislature and Executive branches with the effective authority (currently infringed by the Judiciary) to exercise the responsibility accorded to them by the constituency.

For example:

*Israeli Supreme Court Justices should not be appointed – as they are today – by a committee, which is controlled by Justices (who possess a veto power) and lawyers, but rather by a committee, dominated by legislators;

*The Attorney General and the Legal Advisors of Cabinet Departments should be appointed (and fired) by – and subordinated to – the Executive, not the Judiciary. Their role should be to advise, and not to approve or veto policy matters, as it is today. Their advice should not be binding, as it is today.

*Supreme Court Justices should not be empowered to overturn Basic Laws (Israel’s mini-Constitution).

*Supreme Court Justices should have a limited power to nullify and overturn legislation.

*Supreme Court Justices should decide cases according to the Basic Laws and existing legislation, and not resort to the reasonableness of the legislation (which is utterly subjective), as is the case today.

*The Supreme Court should not be able to overturn legislation by three – out of fifteen – Justices, as is the case today.

*The Supreme Court should be supreme to lower level courts, not to the Legislature and Executive, as it is today.

President Biden’s pressuring Israel

*President Biden’s pressuring Israel reflects the return of the US State Department to the center-stage of policy-making. The State Department opposed Israel’s establishment in 1948, has been a systematic critic of Israel since then, and has been consistently wrong on crucial Middle East issues.

*This pressure on Israel represents the multilateral and cosmopolitan worldview of the State Department establishment, in general, and Secretary Blinken and National Security Advisor Sullivan, in particular. This worldview espouses a common ideological and strategic denominator with the UN, International Organizations and Europe, rather than the unilateral US action of foreign policy and US national security. It examines the Middle East through Western lenses, assuming that dramatic financial and diplomatic gestures would convince Iran’s Ayatollahs and Palestinian terrorists to abandon deeply-rooted, fanatic ideologies in favor of peaceful-coexistence, enhanced standard of living and good-faith negotiation.  Middle East reality has proven such assumptions to be wrong.

*President Biden’s pressure mirrors the routine of presidential pressure on Israel since 1948 (except 2017-2020), which has always resulted in short-term tension/friction and occasional punishment, such as a suspension of delivery of military systems and not vetoing UN condemnations of Israel.

*However, since 1948, simultaneously with presidential pressure on Israel, there has been a dramatic enhancement of mutually-beneficial defense and commercial cooperation, as determined by vital US interests, recognizing Israel’s unique technological and military capabilities and growing role as a leading force and dollar multiplier for the US. Israel’s unique contribution to the US defense and aerospace industries, high tech sector, armed forces and intelligence has transcended US foreign aid to Israel, and has eclipsed US-Israel friction over less critical issues (e.g., the Palestinian issue).

*The current bilateral friction is very moderate compared to prior frictions, such as the Obama-Netanyahu tension over the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran; the US’ brutal opposition to Israel’s bombing of Iraq’s and Syria’s nuclear reactors; the US’ ferocious resentment of Israel’s application of its law to the Golan Heights; the US’ determined opposition to the reunification of Jerusalem, and the renewal of Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria, the Golan Heights and Greater Jerusalem; and the US’ strong-handed pressure for Israel to withdraw to the suicidal 1947 Partition lines; etc.

*In hindsight, the US pressure on Israel was based on erroneous assumptions, which could have undermined vital US interests, if not for Israel’s defiance of pressure.  For example, Israel’s refraining from bombing Iraq’s and Syria’s nuclear reactors in 1981 and 2007 would have confronted the US and the world at-large with a potential nuclear confrontation in 1991 and a potential Syrian nuclearized civil war since 2011.

*Rogue Middle East regimes consider US pressure on Israel as an erosion of Israel’s posture of deterrence, and therefore an inducement to the intensified threat of terrorism and war, which gravely destabilize the region and undermine US interests (while advancing the interests of China, Russia and Iran’s Ayatollahs), threatening the survival of pro-US vulnerable oil-producing Arab regimes.

*Most Israeli Prime Ministers – especially from Ben Gurion through Shamir – defied presidential pressure, which yielded short-term friction and erosion in popularity, but accorded Israel long-term enhanced strategic respect. On a rainy day, the US prefers allies, which stand up to pressure, and are driven by clear principles and national security requirements.

*Succumbing to – and accommodating – US presidential pressure ignores precedents, overlooks Israel’s base of support in the co-equal, co-determining US Legislature, undermines Israel’s posture of deterrence, whets the appetite of anti-US and anti-Israel rogue regimes, and adds fuel to the Middle East fire at the expense of Israel’s and US’ national security and economic interests.

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Videos

The post-1967 turning point of US-Israel cooperation

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