How the US oils the wheels of Zionist military machine

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EVVIVEL. among tne piace or numan rignts commando operations - It nuclear pre-tinpuon.

ISRAEL is perhaps the

most highly militarised country in the world. Where else is such a huge proportion of the budget spent on military material and personnel? Where else is almost the entire active male population either in the army or part of the regularly trained reserve?

Where else can one find so many settlements that have a largely or purely military purpose and little or no economic value? Where else can one find such a big proportion of top state and institutional functionaries who are exmilitary brass and part of the reserve army leadership?

You cannot be in Israel - the Israel of the pre1967 borders, that is without seeing soldiers everywhere. The bus stations team with soldiers on short-leave carrying THE last few years have seen Israel invade Lebanon, challenge Syrian troops and bomb a nuclear plant in Iraq. Most of the arms used in these bloody ventures come from the US. Despite occasional mild statements of disapproval, the US continues to support these ventures and shows MEANTIN its support in the clearest ways: it keeps up the arms flow.

When delivery of four F-16s was briefly halted after the Iraq bombing, the restriction did not affect deliveries of howitzer their sub-machine guns with them: religious soldiers with skull-caps, women soldiers in sandcoloured uniforms, professional soldiers, conscript to open on receipts of a cannons, surface-to-air missiles, and other equipment. As one Israeli official put it: "We know that the US is not selling us airplanes only for use on parades on Independence Day. They sell them because of the common strategic interest between our two countries Here ANDREW HORNUNG details the US military support for Zionist expansionism and Zionist terror. The article draws heavily on the May issue of MERIP magazine.

soldiers ...

In the occupied territories things are infinitely worse. "Civilian" rule is a grim joke consisting of little more than referring * Officers prepare re- * Officers prepare reto General Milsom by his academic title, Professor Milsom.

The Zionist state's obsession with "security". is not. totally unfounded. Having established itself by the gun, it must now secure itself - internally and externally - also by the gun.

Israel is both an importer of arms and a manufacturer and exporter of weaponry. Until the early 1960s Israel's most important military supplier was France. Under Kennedy and then Johnson, US military supplies were increased to include Hawk anti-aircraft missiles and Skyhawk jet fighters.

The lightning defeat of Egypt, Syria and Jordan by Israel in 1967 clearly impressed US strategists. Moreover US policy-makers felt that they would have to arm Israel to counterbalance what they saw as the pro-Soviet build-up in the region in the hey-day of Arab nationalism.

Israel was in 1968 the first country outside the NATO alliance to get F-4 bombers. According to William Quandt, who served on the National Security Council under both Kissinger and Brzezinski, •'the US-Israeli relationship came to be seen as the key to combating Soviet influence the Arab world nearly tenfold in the 1971-3 period, rising from $140 million in 1968-70 to $1.2 billion.

With the Nixon presidency the floodtide of arms increased yet further. But now Washington made available substantial credits without which Israel would not have been able to afford the new level of arms supplies. "cash low" procedure was also evolved which, among th duced since the military other things, evaded annual review procedures.

Perhaps the most important development, however, was the 1971 agreement by which the US allowed Israel to produce advanced weapons. components itself. This was not only another way of avoiding public review procedures. It also permitted Israel substantially to expand its own industrial base in high technology areas.

Under Carter there was a discernable shift in US policy: the use of the oil weapon by the conservative Arab states after 1973, the growing collaboration between these states and the US and the sudden importance of these states as financial powers and consumers all combined to make Carter rethink.

Tide But although vast quantities of weaponry was sold to' selected Arab states and certain restrictions were placed both on US sales to Israel and on co-production agreements, there was no stemming the tide. Sales tripled from the 1971-3 period to top $4.5 billion in 1974-6.

But "peace" exacted its price in weapons of war too! artly as a reward for making peace with Egypt, the US increased its shipments still further in the following period. • The sales of the 1977-9 period hit $5.2 billion. The fall of the Shah of Iran also brought new transfusions of arms to Israel.

The Reagan administration had barely taken office when Secretary Haig announced that 'international terrorism will take the place of human rights" as the focus for US policy.

If this example of Haigspeak was obscure to some, it was brilliantly clear to the Israeli administration: the next day they launched the year's first terror bombing of several Lebanese cities.

In early 1981 a new concept, "pre-positioning" was being floated. An Israeli correspondent clarified its meaning:

"The considerations behind this concept are military and financial and involve the US plans for deployment in various parts of the region. According to the _ plan, IDF [Israel's army] will keep the [US] equipment and maintain it in workable condition in case the United States needs it for a military operation in the Persian Gulf. As for Israel, the equipment would be put at its disposal in times of special emergency, as was the case during the airlift in 1973. Since the equipment will not be owned by Israel, it will not be included in the list of US equipment sold to Israel and Israel will even be paid for maintenance expenses."

This concept was connec ted to the latest US tactic, the Rapid Deployment Force. The RDF forces would have to be based in the region and given backup facilities, above all equipment servicing and medical facilities. A RAND Corporation study concluded that Israel's geographic position is worth $10 billion to the US in any military race to the Gulf, and would save over two months in the transport of a mechanised division.

Of course, if it came to any serious confrontation in the Middle East -anything beyond small commando operations - it is certain that Israeli military personnel would also be used, either in addition to US personnel or instead.

On cannot exclude an action like the 1956 Suez venture in which Israel was the partner of the then regionally dominant imperialist powers, Britain and France, but this time with the US as Israel's senior partner.

The Israeli leaders, of course, hope that they can make use of arms "prepositioned" in Israel for which they do not have to pay. But this could not become the normal practice without compromising the US in the eyes of the other states of the region.

With or without "prepositioning" and despite huge credits and waivers, the Zionist state suffers from severe financial strains. A nation that spends 40% of its budget on "defence" while having the highest per capita national debt in the world and suffering from runaway inflation cannot simply continue the arms race.

Hardware

Given the tidal wave of military hardware flooding the conservative Arab regimes and Egypt, Israel is forced into employing one of two strategies — or both at once: seeking to curb US sales to other states in the region by its friends in the US (the attempt to stop America selling AWACS reconnaisance aircraft to Saudi Arabia was a case in point), or waging war now.

Thus Israel is 'pushed inexorably towards strategy of pre-emption and, ultimately, even nuclear pre-emption.

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