The Mechanics Of Funding The Anglo-Zionist Empire

Yesterday, while explaining Why 'Anglo-Zionist Empire'? I made the argument that there is a synergy at work between The Israel Lobby and the American Deep State—as well as other components of the overall Empire. Which is to say that, although the each component may not share a total commitment to the goals of other components, each component’s goals are served by the satisfaction of the goals of the other components. Here’s the passage in which I made that argument—perhaps not as articulately as might be, but …

This confluence of Zionist ambitions with the geopolitical ambitions of the Anglo-American empire forms the basis for a very real Anglo-Zionist empire. This despite the total dependence of Israel for its existence on American military power. Why is this so? Because the pervasive control that the Israel Lobby exercises over US politics also provides the political muscle that the Deep State needs for its own agenda. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship, that does an end run around normal democratic processes and representative government.

Why cannot the US tell Israel that if it wants an ethno-religious apartheid state in the Middle East, it should do it itself? The answer is simple enough. It costs far less money to buy American politicians and corrupt the entire US constitutional order than it does to arm a tribal militia—which is, after all, what the IOF is—with the full panoply of military hardware needed to dominate its neighbors. This leads to a further dynamic.

Because Israel is totally dependent on American global hegemony, that means that Israel’s supporters are strongly motivated to preserve that hegemony and to crush any challenge to that hegemony. Russia? Yes. China? Yes. Neither can be relied upon to preserve Israel as an apartheid state and regional hegemon. This is what Israel Lobby support for US forever wars and reckless proxy wars is ultimately about. It cements the relationship into a real Anglo-Zionist Empire.

Today at naked capitalism there’s an article that makes that point in a much more systematic way:

The ‘Israel Lobby’ Works for the US Military Industrial Complex

The author, Rob Urie, also attempts to extend the reasoning to the American war on Russia, but I’ll confine myself to extracting what I consider the main point of how this all works. Probably because he’s focused on the Military Industrial Complex, Urie takes aim at the Mearsheimer/Walt idea that superior PR is what has led to the remarkable success of the Israel Lobby. I think Urie is being unfair in that regard, in that the outstanding PR employed by the Israel Lobby also serves the interests of the Deep State and ipso facto of the MIC—as I tried to argue yesterday. The fact that much of the aid to Israel ends up enriching corporate entities of the MIC doesn’t change the fact that Zionist interests—interests that the MIC executives may be largely indifferent to—are also served. The flip side of that coin is that, absent Israel Lobby political muscle, the MIC might have to work that much harder to get what it wants. Be that as it may I offer this excerpt as an update to yesterday’s post:

Since publication of John Mearsheimer’s and Stephen Walt’s ‘The Israel Lobby’ in 2007, superior public relations has served as the main explanation for the outsized influence that the nation of Israel holds over American politicians. In that telling, AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) and other supporters of Israel built a sophisticated and far-reaching public relations machine that promotes US politicians who support Israel and punishes those who don’t.

Conceived this way, rich supporters of Israel finance public relations campaigns whereby American politicians are (legally) bribed and coerced into giving US foreign aid to Israel. This aid is then delivered to the nation of Israel, with a preponderance of the money being spent on weapons produced by American weapons producers. To the extent that the goal of ‘the Israel lobby’ is to maximize US foreign aid to Israel, it is also maximizing funding for the American MIC (military-industrial complex).

According to data on political lobbying (charts below), the Israel lobby has spent about two percent (2%) of US foreign aid to Israel on political persuasion inside the US since 1948. In US dollar terms, this is $6 billion spent by the Israel lobby to get $280 billion in US foreign aid for Israel. And while this ratio isn’t far from what the US ‘defense’ industry and other corporate pleaders get for their ‘investment’ in American politicians, most of the money that Israel receives from the US is used to buy weapons and materiel from American suppliers.

Again, I would argue that the Israel Lobby and the MIC work more or less hand in glove. Viewing them separately risks providing a misleading picture. Taken separately, neither might be as effective as they are as—more or less—a team.

In other words, while the ratio of money spent to largesse secured is about the same for US corporations as it is for the Israel lobby, most of the money given to Israel is ‘passed through’ to the American MIC (chart below). Compared with the money given to Ukraine, which initially included a lend-lease agreement with the US, Israel has no contractual commitment to commit national suicide (like Ukraine) in return for funding from the US. This means that Israel could in theory buy military equipment from non-US suppliers— a threat to the US MIC.

In fact, what is put forward inside the US as ‘foreign aid’ is in many cases payments by the Federal government of the US to foreign governments for them to purchase goods and services from American providers. Rather than leaving the matter to ‘markets,’ the Federal government subsidizes US industries through so-called foreign aid. The receiving nations are on the hook to repay the loans either directly or through taking actions— like launching wars, that the US directs them to do. With respect to Israel, the US has a mutual defense agreement, but evidence of lend-lease type constraints on Israel wasn’t found.

None other than US President Joe Biden has been the largest recipient of (legal) bribes from supporters of Israel amongst American politicians by a wide margin (chart below). That Mr. Biden describes himself as a ‘Christian Zionist’ who has previously complained that Israel wasn’t killing enough Palestinian women and children might be interpreted differently if his political career hadn’t been supported by Israel to the tune of $6,000,000. To tie this together, Mr. Biden received the most money from Israel, and he is Israel’s most reliable co-genocidalist.

For those who may be unaware, were we ‘little people’ to offer $1 apiece to voters to vote or not vote for a candidate, doing so would be a Federal crime. But hostile foreign governments (e.g. Israel) are allowed to pay a US politician (Biden) $6,000,000 to do their bidding as long as their instructions are left at the level of ‘doing their bidding’ rather than passing particular legislation. With the US and developed Europe collecting names to restart their military drafts, American politicians are being paid by foreign governments to put American kids in harms’ way.

There are two components in play here. This first is the conceit that paying politicians for votes is different from paying ordinary voters for votes because politicians serve the public. In fact, very few citizens believe that American politicians serve the public. A majority (link above) believes that Congressional corruption has undermined democracy in the US. This suggests that most Americans don’t see a material difference between personal and professional corruption. If they did, the American system of funding campaigns wouldn’t be considered so corrupt. Another way to state this is that Israel certainly treats Joe Biden, and American politicians more generally, like the hired help.

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… were Iran or Venezuela to do the same, the American response would be to aggressively shut the effort down. For instance, Russia was accused of spending $75,000 on internet troll ads that mostly ran after the 2016 election, and Russiagate was the result. However, at least part of the American charges against Russia appear to be fraudulent.

Urie has much, much more to say, but that’s enough for now.