Israel, America and the “Unbreakable Bond” that Threatens the World
There is a reason why the US is so hesitant to oppose Israel’s policy of “removal” of the Palestinian people.
In 2016, when the Obama Administration signed the largest arms deal ever between the US and Israel, US National Security Adviser Susan Rice opened the ceremony, saying that “We affirm today the unbreakable bond between the United States and Israel.”
Indeed, although there is no formal mutual defense treaty or other military alliance between the United States and Israel, this “unbreakable bond” serves to join the two countries at the metaphorical hip in seemingly every way.
Last year, the US and Israel signed The Jerusalem U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Joint Declaration, whose preamble stated:
The United States and Israel reaffirm the unbreakable bonds between our two countries and the enduring commitment of the United States to Israel’s security.
This unbreakable bond is a recurring theme among relations between the two countries. When Israeli (figurehead) President Isaac Herzog addressed Congress earlier this year, he opined:
“Our evolutionary societies have so much to give to the world and so much to learn from each other. Our bond may be challenged at times, but it is absolutely unbreakable.”
But on what is this “unbreakable bond” based? According to the aforementioned Jerusalem Declaration, it is “based on a bedrock of shared values”. Indeed, the idea of “shared values” is also a recurring theme. When Antony Blinken visited Israel in January 2023 to affirm Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to Israeli security, Israeli PM Netanyahu claimed that the two countries were bonded:
“We share common interests, which are growing by the day,” Netanyahu said. “We share common values”.
But just what are these “values”?
Both secular states? No.
The US is a secular nation, based on the Jeffersonian “wall between Church and State”. The United States Constitution contains no mention of “God” — the founding fathers were intent on setting up a secular society, in which both freedom of religion and freedom from religion would be tolerated.
By contrast, Israel does not even have a Constitution. This is because ever since the founding of the Jewish state there has been an internecine struggle between those Israelis who want a secular state similar to that of the USA, and those such as Bibi Netanyahu and his ruling radical right coalition partners who want a religiously based state that relies on “halakhah”, the Jewish version of Sharia Law.
David Ben Gurion, one of the Zionist founders of Israel and the first Israeli Prime Minister, “believed the government had more urgent matters on its agenda”.
But according to the Jewish Virtual Library, “the delay in the preparation of a constitution resulted primarily from the clash between a secular constitution and halacha (the Jewish religious law)”.
Equality for all before the law? No.
Although the United States started out as a deeply unequal society, it has evolved over the past 250 years to be a modern society in which all citizens are equal.
By contrast, Israel has devolved, becoming LESS secular, LESS equal and MORE theocratic as time goes on.
Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, started out well enough, decreeing equality and secularism as the standards for Israel:
“Every man will be as free and undisturbed in his faith or his disbelief as he is in his nationality,” Herzl pledged. “And if it should occur that men of other creeds and different nationalities come to live amongst us, we should accord them honorable protection and equality before the law.”
However, today’s Israel is a de facto “Apartheid” state. This unequal system does not just impact the Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank. Arab Israelis living in Israel proper are treated as second class citizens and discriminated against in many ways.
An independent judiciary? No.
Israel’s judicial system has always been complicit in maintaining an unequal system, and now, under Netanyahu, the euphemistically named “judicial reform” currently proposed will eliminate all secular aspects of the Israeli judicial system in favour of the religiously based Halacha.
As Amnesty International reports:
Israel’s judiciary has regularly upheld laws, policies and practices which help to maintain and enforce Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians — the Supreme Court has signed off on many of the violations that underpin the apartheid system.
The report continues:
The court has greenlighted the demolition of thousands of Palestinian homes, and approved the destruction of entire villages. In 2018, for example, it ruled that the village of Khan al-Ahmar in the occupied West Bank could be razed to make way for illegal settlements. In 2022, the court approved the demolition of nine villages in Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank and the forcible transfer of the 1,150 Palestinians who live there.
This is not the sort of independent judiciary system with “checks and balances” that the US system boasts.
So what values DO Israel and the United States have in common?
THESE are the “values” that Israel shares with the United States
The following “shared values” are explained in the section below:
Shared Value Number 1: Settler Colonialism
Both the US and Israel were colonised by white Europeans who stole the land they settled from the indigent population. In pursuing their goals, they exterminated or otherwise “removed” the indigent population.
What Israel is pursuing now in Gaza, namely the forced displacement and expulsion of over 2 million Gazans, is strikingly similar to the US “Indian Removal Act” under the racist US President Andrew Jackson.
According to Encyclopaedia Britannica:
Indian Removal Act, (May 28, 1830), first major legislative departure from the U.S. policy of officially respecting the legal and political rights of the American Indians. The act authorized the president to grant Indian tribes unsettled western prairie land in exchange for their desirable territories within state borders (especially in the Southeast), from which the tribes would be removed.
Britannica continues:
The rapid settlement of land east of the Mississippi River made it clear by the mid-1820s that the white man would not tolerate the presence of even peaceful Indians there. Pres. Andrew Jackson (1829–37) vigorously promoted this new policy, which became incorporated in the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
Under the Indian Removal Act, the Native Americans faced the same bleak choice that Palestinians now face: leave and live, or stay and die.
This:
Shared Value Number 2: Theft of Indigenous Resources
As mentioned above, one of the driving forces behind the Indian Removal Act was the profound desire to expel native Americans from the land east of the Mississippi. This was why the Cherokee were “removed” from their rich, cultivated fields in the East to the desolate plains of Oklahoma.
The reason they had to be removed was that GOLD was discovered on Cherokee land in 1829, setting off the Georgia Gold Rush. as the whites stole those Cherokee riches for themselves:
People from the neighboring state of Georgia wanted that gold. Georgia passed laws that took away Cherokee rights and started giving away Cherokee land to Georgians. When the Cherokees protested to the U.S. government, they found that the new president, Andrew Jackson, would not help them.
Instead, Jackson pushed through the Indian Removal Act, and so the white Europeans of the United States sent the Cherokees on their “Trail of Tears”.
Israel’s Theft of Gaza’s Oil & Gas
In 1830, the United States wanted Cherokee gold, the most precious resource at the time. In 2023, Israel wants Gaza’s gas and oil reserves, as those are the most precious commodities of today.
It started in 1999, when British Gas (BG) discovered gas off the coast of Gaza. They drilled two wells — Gaza Marine 1 and Gaza Marine 2 — and determined the field could contain up to 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. (EgyptOil-Gas.com, April 5, 2018).
In 1999, the rights to that gas was awarded to the Palestinian Authority. And shortly thereafter, Israel started actively preventing the Palestinians from exploiting their resources.
According to a recent United Nations study, geologists and resources economists have confirmed that “the occupied Palestinian territory lies above sizeable reservoirs of oil and natural gas wealth”. These natural resource reservoirs are in Area C of the West Bank and the Mediterranean coast off the Gaza Strip, according to the UNCTAD study.
The new discoveries of oil and natural gas in the Levant Basin, amounting to 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas at a net value of $453 billion (in 2017 prices) and 1.7 billion barrels of recoverable oil at a net value of about $71 billion, offer an opportunity to distribute and share a total of about $524 billion among the different parties.
The “different parties” refers to the fact that Israel, Egypt and the Palestinians should share the wealth of the oil and gas. However, Israel has been determined to prevent the Palestinains from benefitting from their resource wealth.
The exploitation of Palestinian natural resources, including oil and natural gas, by the occupying Power imposes on the Palestinian people enormous costs that continue to escalate as the occupation remains in effect. This is not only contrary to international law, but also in violation of natural justice and moral law. To date, the real and opportunity costs of the occupation exclusively in the area of oil and natural gas have accumulated to tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars.
For 24 years, Israel refused to allow the Palestinian Authority (PA) to arrange a gas exploitation deal. Finally, the PA signed a deal in 2021 with Egypt’s Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS) to develop the Gaza Marine field and the necessary infrastructure. The deal remained on hold until Israel, facing increased international pressure, agreed to allow the deal to go ahead in June, 2023, but only under certain conditions.
Announcing the move on the Gaza Marine project, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said progress would hinge on “preserving the State of Israel’s security and diplomatic needs”.
While Egypt and Israel have been producing gas in the eastern Mediterranean for years, the Gaza Marine field, about 30 km (20 miles) off the Gaza coast, has remained undeveloped due to political disputes and conflict with Israel, as well as economic factors.
Nothing did happen with that deal, as a few months after Bibi’s announcement, the Hamas attack of October 7 happened. The Israelis then implemented their own “Palestinian Removal Act” of forced displacement of the Gazans to Egypt.
And so the people of Gaza, pommeled by Israeli bombs and rockets, were forced to embark on their own “Trail of Tears” south towards the Sinai desert.
Shared Value Number 3: A Violent and Deadly Racist Police State
In 2014, a white police officer shot and killed an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri. The police officer fired a total of 12 bullets at the unarmed Michael Brown, whose bullet-ridden body was left to rot in the middle of the street for hours un the sweltering August heat.
The sheer brutality and disregard of the policeman and the authorities in general for the life of Mr. Brown set off a massive wave of protests in Ferguson and other cities around the country.
When black people began to riot in Ferguson, the mayor deployed highly militarised police in armoured military vehicles, with snipers and machine gunners.
Tom Nolan, a 27-year veteran of the Boston Police Department and professor at SUNY Plattsburgh wrote in an op-ed at the time:
Have no doubt, police in the United States are militarizing, and in many communities, particularly those of color, the message is being received loud and clear: “You are the enemy.”
How could this happen in America?
Why — and how — is it that American domestic police forces are being “up-armoured” and trained in brutal military tactics used in the suppression of insurgent forces rather than their fellow citizens?
How is it that American “non-white” communities of colour are being treated not only like second class citizens, but indeed like “enemy forces”?
The answer, not surprisingly, is ISRAEL.
Deploying military-style assets using deadly force against a domestic population is something that the Israelis have been doing for 75 years. The US and Israel operate multiple “exchange” programs designed to train local US law enforcement officers and Chiefs of Police in Israeli military tactics used to oppress, brutalise and subjugate the Palestinian population.
According to the citizens’ action group against this practice, Deadly Exchange:
One of the most dangerous places where state violence in the U.S. and Israel converge is in exchange programs that bring together police, ICE, border patrol, and FBI from the US with soldiers, police, border agents, etc. from Israel. In these programs, “worst practices” are shared to promote and extend discriminatory and repressive policing in both countries. These include racial profiling, massive spying and surveillance, deportation and detention, and attacks on human rights defenders.
In fact, the “knee on the neck” tactic used to kill George Floyd is one that was developed and is regularly used by Israeli police on Palestinians.
Who is behind these programs?
Various UIS and Israeli organisations coordinate the exchanges. For example, the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) is a major Jewish rights organisation in the US, but it is also a primary sponsor and funder of police exchange programs between the US and Israel.
Another sponsor is the weirdly named Jewish Institute for National Security of America, or JINSA.
Perhaps not unsurprisingly, the scope of the US-Israeli cooperation on domestic law enforcement really expanded in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in New York.
Months after the September 11 attacks, US law enforcement delegates attended their first official training expedition to Israel to exchange “best practices” in “counter-terrorism”.
Since then, thousands more from across the US — including agents from the FBI, CIA, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — have been schooled at these meetings in both Israel and the US, sponsored by far-right Israeli lobby organisations.
An organiser for Jewish Voice for Peace told Aljazeera:
“The exchange programmes create the opportunity for US armed forces and Israeli armed forces to come together and swap tactics, and deepen the harmful practices and policies that already exist in both countries.”
In fact, the St. Louis County police chief — the one who ordered the militarised response in Ferguson — had gone to train and study in Israel:
The other side of the coin
There is also an unlikely outcome to this evil collaboration shown in the fact that, during the Ferguson uprising in 2014, Palestinians professed their solidarity with the black protesters and even gave them advice on how to react to the Israeli tactics.
The Greatest Shared Value: Islamophobia as Official Policy (the “Crusade”)
There is one “shared value” that has come to be the true foundation of the “unbreakable bond” that unites both Israel and the United States: a merciless militarism against Arabs accompanied by a psychopathic disregard for Arab and Muslim life.
9/11 Changed EVERYTHING
This “shared value” arose in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks of 2001. The emergence of the so-called “War on Terror” served to place the populations of both the US and Israel in the same position of FEAR. Fear of Arab terrorists, a permanent feeling of being under threat, and a quasi-totalitarian society obsessed with “security”.
As Human Rights Watch summed up:
The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the United States triggered rights abuses by successive US administrations and foreign governments around the globe that reverberate to this day — torture, secret and indefinite detention, unlawful airstrikes, profiling of Muslims, overbroad counterterrorism laws, and intrusive surveillance, among others.
The Bush Administration Neocons themselves admit that these “overbroad” measures were implemented using Israel as an example.
Former Bush Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, who famously discounted the Presidential Daily Briefing entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside US”, while on a trip to Israel in 2012. described the sea change that Washington underwent after the fall of the Twin Towers:
While Jerusalem and Washington were always good friends, after the attacks they became allies “with a common cause in the fight against people who would seek political gain by attacking civilians, parents and children,” she said.
As The Times of Israel reported, Rice declared that, for the United States, the Al Qaeda attack attack “changed the conception of security“.
“We realised that Israel, our good friend, was very advanced in this area. Security has been a concern of Israel’s since the day it was born”, she said.
And so, in one fell swoop, the United States suddenly found itself under the same “security threat” that Israel faced. The two countries now shared a bond of blood.
It was a “moment that mattered,” Rice said.
The Rise of the Zionist Neocons
It is by now a well-documented fact that the 9/11 attacks gave the Zionist Neocons in Washington the excuse they needed to promote a ruthless campaign of regime change wars and military conquest in the Middle east. Prior to 2001, no President would have dreamed of doing what Bush and Cheney did after they declared the “War ion Terror”.
For example, Bush’s father’s administration refused to “go to Baghdad” in the first Gulf War because they were worried about inflaming the surrounding Arab countries and losing whatever good will they still had in the region.
But such things did not bother Bush 43. His administration was ready to take on not just Iraq, but, as General Wesley Clarke has revealed, planned to “take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran“.
Like Michael Corleone in Godfather II, America was going to settle all of Israel’s “family business” in half a decade.
The next 20 years saw America setting the Middle East on fire, destroying millions of Arab and Muslim lives in the process.
Israelis After 9/11: “Your problems are our problems”
On the morning of September 11, 2001, in Union City, New Jersey, a group of young Israeli men were seen dancing on top of a van, high-fiving each other and generally celebrating as the Twin Towers burned. They were also filming the disaster. Nearby neighbors were disturbed by the display and called the police.
The NJ police arrested the 5 young men based on their “bizarre behaviour”. They were quickly identified as Israeli citizens, and claimed they were there to “document the event”.
The young Israelis also could not hide their joy and happiness that the 9/11 terrorist attacks had taken place, as they believed that the disaster would strengthen and deepen the relationship between Israel and the US, and force Americans to more closely identify — or even mirror — the Israeli antipathy towards the Palestinians.
ABC News reported on the incident at the time:
According to the police report, one of the passengers told the officers they had been on the West Side Highway in Manhattan “during the incident” — referring to the World Trade Center attack. The driver of the van, Sivan Kurzberg, told the officers, “We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem.”
The men were further investigated by the FBI and eventually released by special order from Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff (an ultra-Zionist himself) and quickly returned to Israel, where they were interviewed about their experience on Israeli TV.
The “Dancing Israelis” give rise to a Conspiracy Theory
There are, of course, many people who believe that the case of the “dancing Israelis” is proof that Israel was involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center — or at the very least, that Israel (or the Mossad) had prior knowledge of the attacks and did nothing to prevent them. These theories are vigorously condemned by the ADL as “antisemitic”, however they do persist.
Whether or not the Israelis were involved in the WTC attacks, the results are still the same: 9/11 changed not only American foreign policy but also the relationship between Israel and the US.
Sivan Kurzberg was right: thanks to 9/11, Israel’s problems had become America’s problems.
Regardless of who was behind the attacks on the Twin Towers, the Israelis themselves recognised immediately the advantages that were coming to them thanks to 9/11 and the fear, paranoia, and government overreach (domestically as well as internationally) that the attacks inspired in America.
Now the tail is wagging the dog
Thanks to the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon, the US is now completely aligned with Israel. The ruling elites in Washington are convinced that “the Palestinians are the problem”. Prior to 9/11, US Presidents would occasionally “rein in” Israel, leveraging the massive financial and military aid and diplomatic cover that the US affords Israel to force Tel Aviv to back off their Zionist campaign of conquest.
Now, the US is powerless to stop Israel. The American ruling class is so infiltrated with Zionist Neocons, the US Congress is so completely in thrall to the “Israel Lobby”, that it is now Israel who calls the shots, and the US dutifully follows the Israeli lead.
After all, if one were to compare the number of Arabs and Muslims killed by Israel with the number who have been slaughtered by the US since 9/11, one would be forced to admit that the US has killed many, many times more people.
Even when it comes to killing civilians, the post-9/11 United States is as guilty as Israel is. We now know, for example, that the Drone Strike Campaign waged by successive US Presidents in the Middle East kill innocent civilians 90% of the time (euphemistically called “collateral damage” by American officials).
In short, the impact of 9/11 on the American psyche opened the floodgates to the mass murder of innocent Arab and Muslim civilians. Under these circumstances, how can America criticise Israel’s actions in Gaza?
If any American criticises Israel’s wildly disproportionate reaction to the Hamas attacks, the Israeli leaders only have to say, “October 7 was our 9/11”, and American objections are silenced.
#End.
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Excellent article. Our "shared values" with Israel are definitely without any value to moral and compassionate people. The more Israel tries to link their 10/7 with the US 9/11, the more the smell of a false flag fills the air.
This post is a home run and gets you another subscriber.
A special thank you for pointing out where our police training comes from. I learned about that when I was training for the Navy Shore Patrol--they said they weren't going to train US like a damned occupying army and were highly critical of Israeli methods. The Navy folks also told me that the Israelis got the idea from the South African apartheid regime, and they were correct.
On the bright side, now most Americans see Israel for what it really is, and we don't like what we see.