[CTRL] "Strategic Ally or Constant Impediment?"

[William Shannon]

"Strategic Ally or Constant Impediment?" by Matt Giwer Israel and its supporters have been relentless in repeating the assertion that Israel is a strategic ally of the US. They can rarely make a statement regarding the relationship of the two nations without asserting that as a mantra.� Much cynicism has been heaped upon the "ally" part of that question. Very little has been said on the "strategic"� part. Just what is its strategic value? As examples of strategic value our bases in Germany, England, Greece, Spain are strategic assets. Even our bases on little Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean are strategic assets. These permit pre-positioning troops, supplies and the hardware of war. The US has no bases in Israel. Given the US bases in Turkey, Greece and Saudi Arabia there is not the slightest need for one in Israel. With the modern reliance upon air power, passage through friendly air space to get to the enemy in the shortest distance is strategically valuable for many reasons. Israel is land-locked to the North, East and South by nations ranging from unfriendly to hostile making it useless for a US airbase. If we look back to the Cold War days we do not find a strategic value for Israel. Rather we find a political entity with the military capability to confront Soviet sponsored military expansion in the region. One can argue that was strategic but it was limited to a small part of the Mideast and far from the oil region. With the Cold War over and with a US base in Saudi Arabia in the middle of the oil region Israel cannot be considered of potential, future strategic utility in any sense. At times the US has considered some countries to be strategic assets such as the Union of South Africa for metals needed for military jet engines and oil in the Mideast today. Israel has no particular mineral assets and certainly no rare ones. It exports no finished products which could be considered necessities for the US. It is clear by inspection Israel has no strategic value to the US. The territory of Israel is of no value. The mineral assets of Israel are of no value. Its products are of no value. It follows clearly Israel is of no value to the US strategic or otherwise. In reviewing the record we find Israel was useless to the US in the Gulf War. We find Israel is useless in this current terrorism war. We can go back further and find it did positive harm to the US with its invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and provoking war with Syria in 1967. In addition to specific events we find Israel's on-going policies of military occupation, illegal settlement and oppression of Palestinians, even if not one of the causes of the 9/11 attack, certainly pretexts which can be exploited to the benefit of terrorists in recruitment and organization. Israel has not only refused to even slow down it insists upon escalating them. Rather in this present near crisis, Israel has moved to take advantage of the 9/11 attack to exacerbate every detrimental policy. Israel has done everything but give a straight out refusal to cooperate. It has declined every request to cooperate and support the US. Are those the actions of even a friend, much less an ally, much less a strategic ally? And in making matters worse Israel is directly harming the US effort to establish a coalition. One might even suggest it is deliberately doing so with that as the objective. That Israel would act as it is without fear of US response suggests its Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, truly believed it when he said in the Knesset, "Jews control America" a month after the 9/11 attack. We cannot find any strategic value of Israel to the US. We do find Israel refusing to act as an ally. We even find Israel believing Jewish Americans are more loyal to Israel than to the US and apparently acting accordingly. These are not the acts of an ally. As a result of the 9/11 attack the true colors of Israel are being shown to the US. Israel's idea of being an ally is only when it benefits and not if bound to reciprocate. It has the unmitigated gall to impugn the loyalty of Jewish Americans. These are not the acts of an ally but of an enemy.