Frontline does great documentaries. This documentary mixes eyewitness interviews with cell phone, security camera, and later journalist footage from the October 7 attacks and the attacks on Gaza that have followed over the last year and counting. It’s powerful, affecting, disturbing stuff, and the human suffering is just unfathomable. I say this with the greatest sympathy to everyone directly affected.
Let’s tackle the U.S. Israel lobby just with a few facts and figures.
First, a book I haven’t read: The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Here’s the description on Amazon:
Originally published in 2007, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, provoked both howls of outrage and cheers of gratitude for challenging what had been a taboo issue in America: the impact of the Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy. A work of major importance, it remains as relevant today as it was in the immediate aftermath of the Israel-Lebanon war of 2006.
Mearsheimer and Walt describe in clear and bold terms the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel and argues that this support cannot be fully explained on either strategic or moral grounds. This exceptional relationship is due largely to the political influence of a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively work to shape U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. They provocatively contend that the lobby has a far-reaching impact on America’s posture throughout the Middle East―in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict―and the policies it has encouraged are in neither America’s national interest nor Israel’s long-term interest. The lobby’s influence also affects America’s relationship with important allies and increases dangers that all states face from global jihadist terror.
The publication of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy led to a sea change in how the U.S-Israel relationship was discussed, and continues to be one of the most talked-about books in foreign policy.
amazon.com
Second, a chart from the Council on Foreign Relations showing that since 1946, Israel has received close to double the amount of U.S. foreign aid compared to the next largest recipient, which is Egypt. The overwhelming amount of this aid has been military, which in practice often means the U.S. government buying weapons from the private U.S. arms industry to send abroad.
And this is one argument I have heard, that part of the solid base of political support for the Israel lobby is the U.S. arms industry, because a relatively small investment in lobbying yields a huge return in profits. Which you can say about any lobbying, but in this case it is compounded by the already strong ideological, geopolitical, and highly motivated lobbying efforts in Israel’s favor.
All numbers here are as reported in the CIA World Factbook, except the last row which is me calculating GDP times % of GDP spent by the military.
| Israel | Iran | Jordan | Saudi Arabia | Egypt | |
| Population | 9 MIllion | 88 Million | 11 Million | 36 Million | 109 Million |
| GDP Per Capita (PPP) | $44,400 | $15,500 | $9,500 | $50,200 | $12,800 |
| Ginni Index | 38.6 | 40.9 | 33.7 | 45.9 | 31.9 |
| Unemployment Rate | 3.7% | 8.8% | 19% | 5.6% | 6.4% |
| Average Life Expectancy | 82.2 | 75.4 | 76.3 | 76.9 | 74.7 |
| Total GDP (PPP) | $424 Billion | $1.4 Trillion | $107 Billion | $1.8 Trillion | $1.4 Trillion |
| % of GDP spent on military | 4.5% | 2.5% | 4.8% | 6.0% | 1.2% |
| Estimated Military Spending | $19 Billion | $35 Billion | $5.1 Billion | $100 Billion | $17 Billion |
The sources of these numbers are not always crystal clear, so we can take them with a grain of salt, but still they yield some insights. Israel is just a small country. It’s about a tenth the size of Iran or Egypt in terms of population (I’m not sure how settlers and people in occupied territories are counted, but we are talking orders of magnitude here), and about a quarter to a third the size of Iran, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia in terms of GDP. An average person lives a rich country lifestyle and enjoys a long life in Israel, but in terms of sheer amount spent on the military you can see why they need foreign (i.e. U.S.) assistance and conscription to be on a similar level with these other countries in the region. I threw in Jordan, but it is a relatively small, not very wealthy country by these numbers. You can see why they would prefer not to get in fights with their neighbors or the world’s superpowers.
Please note: I wrote this before the fast-moving current events of Friday, April 19, 2024.
According to the (paywalled) Financial Times, an Israeli and/or US military strike on Iran could involve half a dozen important oil producing countries as well as snarling shipping traffic. This would seem like particularly bad news for Biden as Americans fuel up their planet-burning behemoths for the “summer driving season” followed by the fall voting season.
This is an article from 1996 in something called the Washington Report for Middle East Affairs. Here are some facts about Benjamin Netanyahu as reported by this article.
The article veers into some interesting territory from there, but I found these apparently fact-based nuggets interesting.
When I first heard about a conceptual “grand bargain” under the Obama administration, the general idea was normalization of relations between the U.S., Iran, and Israel in exchange for Iran giving up its nuclear weapons program (maybe in exchange for a well monitored nuclear power program) and Israel allowing the creation of a Palestinian state. This obviously didn’t happen.
Before these ideas, there were smaller actual bargains including peace between Israel and most of its neighbors under Carter, and movement toward a Palestinian state under Clinton.
Before the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the latest idea was a formal normalization of (already de facto?) diplomatic relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, possibly in exchange for nuclear power for Saudi Arabia. Iran was left out of this, and in fact it seemed to be the solidification of an anti-Iran block. The Palestinians were also left out of this, as far as I know. So now it seems to me that Biden is proposing a return to this deal that was already essentially made, and trying to add some progress toward a Palestinian state in the mix. It doesn’t seem that likely to me, at least until a new generation of leadership takes over in Israel, and unless/until Biden gets re-elected or a new generation of leadership takes over in the U.S.
It seems to me that the “grand” bargain is getting smaller and more cynical all the time. Still, one thing we can count on is the passage of time, and new leadership eventually taking over in all countries involved. One can hope for a brighter picture 5-10 years down the line. Hoping for a brighter picture by November 2024 seems a bit wishful to me.
Most frightening and/or depressing story: Israel-Palestine. From the long-term grind of the failure to make peace and respect human rights, to the acute horror causing so much human suffering and death at this moment, to the specter of an Israeli and/or U.S. attack on Iran. It’s frightening and depressing – but of course it is not my feelings that matter here, but all the people who are suffering and going to suffer horribly because of this. The most positive thing I can think of to say is that when the dust settles, possibly years from now, maybe cooler heads will prevail on all sides. Honorable mention for most frightening story is the 2024 U.S. Presidential election starting to get more real – I am sure I and everyone else will have more to say about this in the coming (exactly one as I write this on November 5, 2023) year!
Most hopeful story: Flesh eating bacteria is becoming slightly more common, but seriously you are not that likely to get it. And this really was the most positive statement I could come up with this month!
Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both: The generally accepted story of the “green revolution“, that humanity saved itself from widespread famine in the face of population growth by learning to dump massive quantities of fossil fuel-derived fertilizer on farm fields, may not be fully true.
This FAIR article lists some propaganda techniques it says the media uses to bias Israel-Palestine coverage. I am not taking a political stand here on the basis of my limited knowledge of these issues, but rather taking note of the propaganda techniques themselves. It is a useful skill in today’s world to be able to spot propaganda. The bold-faced headers are my paraphrasing of what the article presents, while the remaining text is my own analysis.
I’m posting this footage of an operation in the West Bank without any comment. I do not really trust media coverage of anything going on in Israel and its territories, and this is eyewitness video. For me, it helps to have some raw images in my mind when I am reading or listening to accounts and explanations of what is going on. I still won’t try to explain or interpret it here.