All aid to Israel is illegal
Israel has over 100 nuclear weapons. No one in the US government will publicly admit to this truth because to do so would break the very laws we passed decades ago against proliferation, while simultaneously exposing the hypocrisy of the current Israeli foreign policy of the US.
This denial of material fact is proof, once again, that the government cannot be counted on to be open, honest, and transparent with the American public. It appears that only through relentless FOIA requests can the public ever hope to obtain a complete understanding of what is being done behind closed doors.
Below is an overview of the laws broken, provided by Arms Control Association.
Symington Amendment
Adopted 1976. Sec. 101 of the Arms Export Control Act, formerly Sec. 669 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 as amended.Prohibits most U.S. assistance to any country found trafficking in nuclear enrichment equipment or technology outside of international safeguards. President Jimmy Carter found Pakistan in violation of the Symington amendment in 1979 because of Islamabad’s clandestine construction of a uranium enrichment plant. U.S. aid to Islamabad was possible between 1982 and 1990 only through the use of presidential waivers.
Glenn Amendment
Adopted 1977. Sec. 102(b) of the Arms Export Control Act, formerly Sec. 670 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 as amended.Prohibits U.S. foreign assistance to any non-nuclear-weapon state (as defined by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) that, among other things, detonates a nuclear explosive device. President Bill Clinton imposed Glenn amendment sanctions against India on May 13, 1998, two days after New Delhi broke its self-imposed 24-year moratorium on nuclear testing. On May 30, 1998, Clinton invoked similar sanctions against Pakistan, following Islamabad’s six nuclear tests on May 28 and 30.
The latest smoking gun comes from a report titled Critical Technology Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations, dated April 1987, that was released in response to a FOIA request after three years. This document unequivocally states that Israel has nuclear labs “equivalent to our Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge.” This level of sophistication is required for fashioning nuclear weapons, not developing power generation. It should be noted that if Iraq had anything approaching this expertise, George W. Bush would have been vindicated, and his invasion justified.
Since 1977 the US government has continued to violate its own laws, and in the process destroyed much of our credibility on the world stage. The enforcement of these laws would result in immediately terminating billions in yearly armament “aid” that would reverberate through much of the military industrial complex around Washington, DC. It would also seriously undermine the funding strategies and influence of groups, such as AIPAC, that want to keep this endless gravy train of free goodies flowing Israel’s way.
This policy of lies has ties to levels of corruption that run deep through the Beltway. When both Republicans and Democrats are feeding at the same trough of campaign funding, who among them has the audacity to make waves and silence the dinner bell by revealing the truth, with billions of dollars at stake?
The dialog over Iranian nuclear talks overshadows the fact that for more than three decades, all US aid to Israel has been illegal. Amounting to an average of just under $3 billion a year, the American taxpayers have been subsidizing Israel, effectively rewarding them for continuously violating our nuclear proliferation laws. In the meantime, they’ve built an atomic arsenal on par with Great Britain, and equipped their navy with Doomsday submarines. Israel now has five submarines with nuclear strike capabilities, and a sixth scheduled for delivery in 2019.
Israel is clearly doing what it believes is right for its people in order to survive—a self-preservation motivation—and that’s their business. The problems arise when the US government blatantly and repeatedly lies to its own people—because they can’t afford not to—about Israel’s capacity to turn the Middle East into a glass parking lot. Possessing enough nuclear warheads to destroy every city on earth with a population of over 3 million people is not exactly a minor oversight.
Are you outraged yet?
Mainstream media in this country appears to have some type of a blackout policy when it comes to covering these legal and ethical violations. For example, a recent piece at The Nation skips over the huge financial figures in jeopardy now that the truth is out. It appears that the unofficial policy is to talk about everything except the money when it comes to Israel. Television and radio discussions are no different. What happened to investigative journalism?
Elected officials must now step up and level with the world instead of pretending that Israel’s true nuclear capacity is somehow unclear. This hypocritical application of US policy drives much of the contempt the world has for Americans as we quote “the rule of law” and act as some objective arbiter of truth who is above reproach.
This selective enforcement of the laws, and use of legalese to skirt them, is employed not only by the current White House Administration, but also by those who preceded it, and only adds to the long list of selective justice examples in this country. This is not a Left vs. Right issue, but a legal vs. illegal issue of which every American should be ashamed.
It is time for the so-called most transparent Administration in history to live up to its stated principles and finally do right by the American people. We need to have an open discussion on our selective enforcement of US laws and the repercussions of breaking those laws if the US government is ever to reestablish trust, not only with the rest of the world, but with the American people themselves.
