<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<h1 class="title" id="page-title">Obama gives $1.9 billion in
weapons as welcome gift to Israel’s racist government</h1>
<div class="submitted">
<span property="dc:date dc:created"
content="2015-05-22T12:23:08+00:00" datatype="xsd:dateTime"
rel="sioc:has_creator">Submitted by <span class="username"
xml:lang="" about="/users/rania-khalek"
typeof="sioc:UserAccount" property="foaf:name" datatype="">Rania
Khalek</span> on Fri, 05/22/2015 <br>
<b><small><small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/obama-gives-19-billion-weapons-welcome-gift-israels-racist-government">http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/obama-gives-19-billion-weapons-welcome-gift-israels-racist-government</a></small></small></small></b><br>
</span> </div>
<div class="field-body">
<p>The Obama administration approved a $1.9 billion arms sale to
Israel in recent days as “<a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.657276">compensation</a>” for
the US nuclear deal with Iran, which the Israeli regime
staunchly opposes. </p>
<p>Among the tens of <a
href="http://defense-update.com/20150519_israel_ordnance.html#.VV5GKOuN72g">thousands
of bombs</a> included in the weapons package are 3,000
Hellfire missiles, 12,000 general purpose bombs and 750 bunker
buster bombs that can penetrate up to twenty feet, or six
meters, of reinforced concrete.</p>
<p>This generous weapons gift comes in the wake of Israel’s most
ferocious attack on the Gaza Strip to date, in which the Israeli
army deliberately targeted civilians, including <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israel-directly-targeted-children-drone-strikes-gaza-says-rights-group">children</a>,
as a matter of <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/patrick-strickland/israeli-soldiers-ordered-kill-civilians-gaza-says-breaking-silence">policy</a>.</p>
<p>The degree of firepower Israel unleashed on Gaza was so extreme
that senior US military officials who participated in the
illegal invasion and criminal destruction of Iraq were left <a
href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/8/26/israel-bombing-stunsusofficers.html">stunned</a>. </p>
<p>Even the Pentagon and State Department were forced to
acknowledge that Israel did <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/atrocities-mount-gaza-us-approves-israeli-request-more-bombs">not
do enough</a> to avoid civilian deaths. But this did not
prevent the Obama administration from rushing to provide Israel
with the means to carry out more atrocities. </p>
<h2>Bunker busters</h2>
<p>Sadistically nicknamed the “<a
href="http://www.villagevoice.com/2003-04-08/news/the-saddamizers/full/">Saddamizer</a>,” the
bunker buster bomb was originally developed by the US military
during the first Gulf war to penetrate Iraqi command centers
buried deep underground. </p>
<p>In recent years, these earth-shattering explosives have been
repeatedly deployed against besieged and largely defenseless
Palestinians trapped in the Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>Israel <a href="http://www.wired.com/2008/12/israeli-jets-dr/">pounded</a>
Gaza with US-supplied bunker buster bombs during Operation Cast
Lead, the three-week assault in the winter of 2008-2009 that
killed 1,400 Palestinians, including nearly 400 children. </p>
<p>Obama quietly transferred <a
href="http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/why-did-obama-bunker-buster-bombs-israel-145927712.html">dozens
more</a> bunker buster bombs to Israel in 2009 in an effort to
prevent it from obstructing negotiations with Iran. </p>
<p>The Obama administration replenished that stockpile after yet
another Israeli attack on Gaza in 2012 with a <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/u-s-to-sell-israel-munitions-to-renew-stock-after-operation-pillar-of-defense.premium-1.484114">$647
million arms package</a> that included thousands of bunker
buster bombs. </p>
<p>Israel used those bunker buster munitions to pummel Gaza’s <a
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2014/10/protective-destruction-professional">high
rise towers</a> and wipe out entire <a
href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/gaza-outraged-israel-s-use-gbu-28-missile-1699621250">families</a>
as they sheltered in their homes during Operation Protective
Edge, the 2014 Israeli assault that ultimately killed over 2,200
Palestinians, most of them civilians, including over 500
children.</p>
<p>If the past is any indication, Obama’s weapons package will
enable Israel to intensify its unspeakable atrocities against
civilians in Gaza, and possibly Lebanon if Israel’s <a
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/shameless-propagandist-civilians">saber-rattling</a>
about <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/hizballah">Hizballah</a> is
to be believed. </p>
<p>Asked whether the Pentagon is concerned that its weapons might
be used to harm innocent people, a spokesperson, Roger Cabiness
II, offered the following vague statement: “As with any security
cooperation activity, the United States assesses requests from
its partners on a case-by-case basis, taking into account
political, military, economic, arms control and human rights
conditions in making decisions on the provision of military
equipment and the licensing of direct commercial sales to any
country, in accordance with the Conventional Arms Transfer
Policy, the Arms Export Control Act and relevant international
agreements.”</p>
<h2>Rewarding hate</h2>
<p>Ever since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted
an invitation by the Republican opposition to trash Obama’s
diplomatic maneuvering on Iran in a speech to Congress, analysts
have warned of a growing rift in US-Israel relations, insisting
that the so-called special relationship has reached its <a
href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/01/binyamin-netanyahu-congress-speech-us-israeli-relations">lowest
point</a> in recent memory. </p>
<p>Relations apparently deteriorated further following Netanyahu’s
election day campaigning, when, in a last ditch appeal to the
worst inclinations of his rightwing base, he summoned the spirit
of <a
href="http://digital.archives.alabama.gov/cdm/singleitem/collection/voices/id/2952/rec/5">George
Wallace</a>, warning, “<a
href="http://http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/election-day-israeli-leaders-step-anti-arab-incitement">Arab
voters are coming out in droves</a> to the polls. Left-wing
organizations are busing them out.”</p>
<p>In an <a
href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/05/obama-interview-iran-isis-israel/393782/">interview</a>
with former Israeli prison guard Jeffrey Goldberg, Obama
insultingly equated the creation of a Jewish settler state in
historic Palestine with the African American civil rights
movement, while at the same time emphasizing the importance of
“preserving” Israel’s Jewish majority. He went on to criticize
Netanyahu’s anti-Arab electioneering, claiming to have enacted
“foreign policy consequences” against Israel as a result.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the pundits’ handwringing over cracks in the
special relationship has been largely unfounded. </p>
<p>In reality, the only penalty Obama has imposed on Israel is
tepid disapproval of Netanyahu’s overt racism, which is rendered
meaningless by Obama’s ongoing material support for Israel’s
crimes.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Netanyahu has assembled the <a
href="http://www.alternet.org/world/prime-sinister-new-faces-netanyahus-new-israeli-government">most
racist government</a> in Israel’s history, with unabashed
genocide enthusiasts occupying the most senior level positions. </p>
<p>Israel’s new education minister is Naftali Bennett, leader of
the religious ultra-nationalist <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/habeyit-hayehudi">Habeyit
Hayehudi</a> (Jewish Home) party who famously <a
href="http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Bennett-under-fire-for-comments-about-killing-Arabs-321467">bragged</a>,
“I’ve killed lots of Arabs in my life — and there’s no problem
with that.” In response to international outrage at the Israeli
massacre of four children playing soccer on the beach in Gaza
last summer, Bennett accused Palestinian resistance fighters of
“<a
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/hasbarapocalyse-committing-genocide">conducting
massive self-genocide</a>” to make Israel look bad. </p>
<p>Israel’s new justice minister is Ayelet Shaked, the lawmaker
who last June endorsed a <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-lawmakers-call-genocide-palestinians-gets-thousands-facebook-likes">call
to genocide</a>, which declared “the entire Palestinian people
is the enemy” and demanded the slaughter of Palestinian mothers
to prevent them from birthing “little snakes.” </p>
<p>Israel’s new culture minister is Miri Regev, who in 2012 helped
incite a <a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/demonstrators-attack-african-migrants-in-south-tel-aviv-1.432262">violent
anti-African riot</a> when she stood before a racist mob and
labeled non-Jewish African asylum seekers a “cancer”, a
statement that <a
href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/most-israeli-jews-agree-africans-are-a-cancer/">52
percent</a> of Israeli Jews agreed with. Regev later <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-lawmaker-miri-regev-heaven-forbid-we-compare-africans-human-beings">apologized</a>,
not to Africans but to cancer survivors for likening them to
Black people. </p>
<p>Israel’s new deputy defense minister is Eli Ben-Dahan, who
proudly <a
href="http://972mag.com/next-head-of-civil-administration-said-palestinians-are-sub-human/106533/">proclaimed</a>, “[Palestinians]
are beasts, they are not human,” and, “A Jew always has a much
higher soul than a gentile, even if he is a homosexual.”</p>
<p>Citing a combination of religious text and the writings of far
rightwing Israeli figures, Israel’s new deputy foreign minister
Tzipi Hotovely asserted Jewish ownership over all of historic
Palestine, declaring, “<a
href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.657520">This
land is ours</a>. All of it is ours. We did not come here to
apologize for that.” </p>
<p>Earlier this month, Moshe Yaalon, who will continue to serve as
Israel’s defense minister in Netanyahu’s new governing
coalition, <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/israeli-defense-minister-promises-kill-more-civilians-and-threatens-nuke-iran">threatened</a>
to nuke Iran and promised to kill civilians, including children,
in any future conflict with Lebanon or Gaza. </p>
<p>Unlike Obama’s hollow threats, this is not empty rhetoric. We
saw this incitement play out last summer, from the burning of <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/muhammad-abu-khudair">Muhammad
Abu Khudair</a> by Jewish extremists and “death to Arabs” mobs
<a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/merciless-israeli-mobs-are-hunting-palestinians">hunting
Palestinians</a> in the streets of Jerusalem, to the <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israeli-officer-admits-ordering-lethal-strike-own-soldier-during-gaza-massacre">sadistic
conduct</a> and <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/killing-40-civilians-one-go-reasonable-says-israel-army-ethicist">eliminationist</a>
<a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israeli-government-promotes-rape-advocate-expert-palestinians">chauvinism</a> exhibited
by Israel’s military in Gaza.</p>
<p>With Israeli Jewish society submerged in anti-Palestinian
racism from the top down, the Obama administration has
guaranteed Israel’s capacity to carry out its most destructive
ambitions. </p>
</div>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>