Neo-con view (this time on Turkey) still heard loud and clear in Washington

This piece originally appeared at Mondoweiss:

Barack Obama may have taken the helm of the White House, but neo-conservative influence, disastrous as it was during the Bush years, has certainly not been swept away in Washington, D.C. This fact was on display yesterday morning at a House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing titled “Turkey’s New Foreign Policy Direction: Implications for U.S.-Turkish Relations.”

Two of the four testimonies were given by representatives of hawkish, pro-Israel neo-conservative groups: the “AIPAC cutout” (as M.J. Rosenberg put it) group called the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and the American Enterprise Institute.

Not surprisingly, given that the Committee on Foreign Affairs head is Democratic Rep. Howard Berman, a self-professed Zionist, a good portion of the testimonies focused on Israel/Palestine and Turkey’s role in the Gaza aid flotilla. The fact that Turkey is asserting its independence from Western hegemony and taking a stand in support of the Palestinians is worrisome to pro-Israel neo-cons. The hearing follows a stampede of anti-Turkish sentiment expressed by neo-conservatives and by mainstream media stories that have demonized Turkey and the Turkish aid group IHH.

In prepared testimony, Berman said:

Is Turkey moving away from the West?… And how crucial is Turkey to us as an ally?… although we can’t compel Turkey to view Hamas as a terrorist group – Prime Minister Erdogan has labeled it a ‘resistance’ group – we should expect Ankara to respect the terrorism list of an important ally, namely, the United States.

After Israel killed eight Turks and one Turkish-American aboard the Mavi Marmara, Turkish-Israeli relations hit a new low, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasted Israel for committing a “bloody massacre.” Turkey has threatened to cut ties with Israel unless it issues a public apology for the killings, agrees to an international investigation into the incident and changes its policy towards Gaza.

Soner Cagapty, the director of the Turkish Research Program at WINEP, used alarming language on Turkey and called on the U.S. to “deny the Erdogan government the influence and prestige that comes with being promoted as a regional mediator.”  Cagapty also said:

Now, with the EU pushing its boundaries into the Balkans up to Turkey, and with Al Qaeda pursuing a war between the “Muslim world” and the West, a gray area in which Turkey can position itself no longer exists; it must become an EU member and part of the West, or else fold into the Muslim world, as per Al Qaeda’s vision.

But suggesting that Turkey is about to align itself with “al Qaeda’s vision” seems particularly strange given that Turkish police recently arrested 120 suspected members of al Qaeda.

Then there was Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq during the Bush administration who has called for the assassination of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who told the committee:

Prime Minister Erdoğan, and the Justice and Development Party (AKP) have changed Turkey fundamentally. They do not simply seek good relations with their Arab neighbors and Iran. Instead, they favor the most radical elements in regional struggles, hence their embrace of Syria over Lebanon and of Hamas over Fatah, and their endorsement Iran’s nuclear program.

What’s it going to take to throw the dangerous neo-con worldview out of positions of power and influence? The disaster of the Iraq War should have, but apparently Rep. Berman, who invited discredited neo-cons to testify, hasn’t learned that lesson.

Ehud Barak threatens Lebanon with ‘Dahiya doctrine’ in case of new war

I forgot to post this yesterday.  It originally appeared at Mondoweiss:

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak threatened Lebanon with the implementation of the “Dahiya doctrine” in the case of another war between Israel and Hezbollah in an interview with the Washington Post.  Israel and Hezbollah have engaged in a war of words as of late over a potential new conflict in Lebanon.

The “Dahiya doctrine,” which is illegal under international law, refers to the Israeli strategy of applying “disproportionate force” and causing “great damage and destruction” to civilian and governmental infrastructure during a conflict. In the 2006 Lebanon War, Israel “inflicted massive destruction on Dahiya,” a neighborhood in Beirut, according to the Goldstone report.

In response to Jerusalem bureau chief Janine Zacharia’s question about what Barak means when he says that “Israel will hold the government of Lebanon responsible for any Hezbollah provocation,” Barak said:

It means that unlike what happened in 2006 where under request from the administration, [Secretary of State] Condoleezza [Rice] called at the time [Prime Minister] Olmert and asked him not to touch the precious government of Siniora, and we didn’t. I think that they’re responsible for what happens and if it happens that Hezbollah will shoot into Tel Aviv, we will not run after each Hezbollah terrorist or launcher of some rocket in all Lebanon. We’ll see the government of Lebanon responsible for what happens, and for what happens within its government, its body politic, and its arsenal of munitions. And we will see it as a legitimate to hit any target that belongs to the Lebanese state, not just to the Hezbollah. And somehow, we are not looking for it. I am not threatening. We are not interested in such a deterioration. But being surrounded by so many proxies that operate not just under immediate threat under them, but probably activated by other players for external reasons, we cannot accept this abnormality and I believe that no other sovereign would have accepted it.

The “Dahiya doctrine” was used during “Operation Cast Lead” in Gaza, as the Goldstone report documented, resulting in war crimes, including “the massive destruction of businesses, agricultural land, chicken farms and residential houses.” A direct consequence of this doctrine is a high death toll for civilians, as occurred during the Lebanon conflict and the Gaza conflict.

The Goldstone report had this to say about the legality of conflating military targets with civilian institutions:

The fundamental rule of international humanitarian law applicable to attacks against buildings and infrastructure is enshrined in article 52 of Additional Protocol I (“General Protection of civilian objects”). This provision is generally recognized as codifying customary law applicable to both international and non-international armed conflicts:

1. Civilian objects shall not be the object of attack or of reprisals. Civilian objects are all objects which are not military objectives as defined in paragraph 2.

2. Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives. In so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.

3. In case of doubt whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used…

The Mission rejects the analysis of present and former senior Israeli officials that, because of the alleged nature of the Hamas government in Gaza, the distinction between civilian and military parts of the government infrastructure is no longer relevant in relation to Israel’s conflict with Hamas. This analysis is accompanied, in the statements of Col. Gabriel Siboni and Mr. Matti Steinberg, by an explicit argument that Israel should “put pressure” on Hamas by targeting civilian infrastructure to attain its war aims.

392. The Mission is of the view that this is a dangerous argument that should be vigorously rejected as incompatible with the cardinal principle of distinction. International humanitarian law prohibits attacks against targets that do not make an effective contribution to military action.  Attacks that are not directed against military (or dual use) objectives are violations of the laws of war, no matter how promising the attacker considers them from a strategic or political point of view. As a recent academic contribution to the discussion on whether “new wars” require “new laws” has noted, “if this argument [that attacks against political, financial or psychological targets may prove more effective than those against military or dual-use objectives] was decisive, in some societies – in particular in democracies – it may be hospital maternity wards, kindergartens, religious shrines, or homes for the elderly whose destruction would most affect the willingness of the military or of the government to continue the war.”

Benny Morris exposes his nasty side

Israeli historian Benny Morris is famous for being part of the “New Historians” of Israel that exposed a great deal of Zionist myths about the founding of the state of Israel, including the falsehood that leaders of surrounding Arab states told Palestinians to leave their homes, and that they listened.  The truth, of course, is that there was a deliberate policy of expulsion carried about by Jewish forces, and that many Palestinians fled and became refugees because they were fearful for their lives.

Morris obviously has had a huge impact on the discourse on Israel/Palestine.  But he’s also an ardent Zionist who routinely expresses racist attitudes towards Arabs and Palestinians.  In a piece he wrote for Tablet magazine, where he interviews Israeli President Shimon Peres, he asks Peres:

Perhaps ending the 1948 war with this demographic was a mistake?

Peres: No, moral considerations took priority over demographic considerations. Ben-Gurion knew that every war and conflict takes place twice—once on the battlefield and then in the history books. He didn’t want things to be written in the history books that were in dissonance with the foundations of Judaism. He really believed that without a moral priority there is no existence for the Jewish people. To expel he saw as contrary to his moral values.

Morris’ question reveals a lot: he obviously doesn’t consider Palestinians as human beings.  Referring to them as “this demographic” is deeply dehumanizing, and he also seems to be suggesting that Israel should have just expelled all of the Palestinians in the 1948 war.

This is not a new revelation, however.  Morris is on record as saying that he is quite alright with ethnically cleansing Palestinians, and that it was a mistake to not “finish the job” in 1948.

This is from an interview published in Ha’aretz, via Counterpunch(Morris’ answers are bolded by me):

They perpetrated ethnic cleansing.

“There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide – the annihilation ofyour people – I prefer ethnic cleansing.”

And that was the situation in 1948?

“That was the situation. That is what Zionism faced. A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on.”

The term `to cleanse’ is terrible.

“I know it doesn’t sound nice but that’s the term they used at the time. I adopted it from all the 1948 documents in which I am immersed.”

What you are saying is hard to listen to and hard to digest. You sound hard-hearted.

“I feel sympathy for the Palestinian people, which truly underwent a hard tragedy. I feel sympathy for the refugees themselves. But if the desire to establish a Jewish state here is legitimate, there was no other choice. It was impossible to leave a large fifth column in the country. From the moment the Yishuv [pre-1948 Jewish community in Palestine] was attacked by the Palestinians and afterward by the Arab states, there was no choice but to expel the Palestinian population. To uproot it in the course of war.”

L.A. Times: ‘Many’ Palestinians prefer the one-state solution

The one-state solution debate is picking up steam and media coverage in the wake of Israeli journalist Noam Sheizaf’s Ha’aretz article on prominent right-wing calls for the incorporation of the West Bank into Israel.  For more on the significance of Sheizaf’s article and the growing calls from the right for some type of one-state solution, I would recommend reading Ali Abunimah’s analysis here.

Now the Los Angeles Times–the best national newspaper on Middle East issues by far–has a blog post up that reports that “a poll on the Palestinian Ma’an news website that ended Monday showed that more than 56% of Palestinians support a former Israeli defense minister’s idea to annex the West Bank and grant Israeli citizenship to its 2.5 million residents.”

The L.A. Times goes on and says:

Apparently, Arens’ idea seems to have struck a chord among Palestinians. What the poll indicates is that a slim majority of Palestinians in the occupied territories have given up on the idea of two states – Israel and Palestine — living side by side in peace and security. Many now prefer the one-state solution, which means Israel would incorporate the remaining parts of historic Palestine, excluding the Gaza Strip, which Arens seems to have ignored.

However, the Palestinians’ reasoning for their decision is totally different from that of Arens, a right-wing Israeli politician. While Arens dismisses the general Israeli concern that granting West Bank Palestinians Israeli citizenship would change the demographic and Jewish structure of Israel, Palestinians believe they would eventually become a majority in Israel in light of their higher birth rate, which means they could eventually take control through democratic and peaceful means.

The idea of a one-state solution has been gradually gaining Palestinian support as the Oslo process, started in 1993, has failed to bring about an independent state for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Strong advocates of the two-states idea are also now talking about one state. Recently, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suggested the one-state solution if negotiations to bring about an independent state fail.

The Ma’an poll, while not very scientific, reflects the general Palestinian mood in the occupied territories after efforts to give them a state have stalled and hopes pinned on the Obama administration faded. Palestinians still carry the one card that can either make or break peace in the Middle East: their presence on the land. Israel will have to deal with that reality sooner or later.

This is important–a Palestinian movement for equal rights and citizenship in one-state will change the game in Israel/Palestine.  Once it picks up to a critical mass, the fundamentally flawed “peace process” will die and Israel, as Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak have said before, will have to deal with the simple call for respecting the human rights of the Palestinian people, including the millions of refugees who long to return to their villages.  That means the end of Zionism.

‘Debate’ in PA Senate race is over who loves Israel more

The following originally appeared on Mondoweiss:

The dueling ads for the Senate race in Pennsylvania by J Street and neo-conservative outfit the Emergency Committee for Israel, headed by William Kristol, has media outlets talking about a “proxy fight over President Obama’s Middle East policy, for the right and the left.” The Forward described the two groups as “trading barbs and pointed advertisements” over Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak’s record on Israel, and quotes conservative writer Michael Goldfarb of the committee as welcoming this “debate.”

What the ads really tell us, though, is that there is no debate going on amongst political candidates when it comes to Israel and that the Israel lobby’s line is still reigning supreme in American politics. It is a demonstration of how little room there is to have a candid discussion on the United States’ policy towards Israel/Palestine.

After the Emergency Committee for Israel aired a menacing ad accusing Sestak of being affiliated with a “front group for Hamas”–a reference to the Council on American-Islamic Relations–and for apparently not being sufficiently supportive of Israel, J Street hit back, sort of.

J Street falls all over itself to point out that Sestak is indeed pro-Israel: “Sestak consistently votes for aid to Israel,” the J Street ad says, and as an admiral in the Navy, Sestak “helped strengthen Israel’s defenses.”

This is anything but a debate over Israel. It’s a narrow discussion encased in a box between one group that supports sanctions on Iran (J Street) and another that just wants to bomb Iran.

Sestak is indeed pro-Israel–he voted in support of the Israeli assault on Gaza, which eventually killed some 300 children, and signed onto the recent letter in the aftermath of the Israeli raid on the Gaza flotilla that signals support for the blockade, saying that it “was instituted to stop terrorists from smuggling weapons into Gaza to murder innocent civilians.”

But is it really a good thing for Sestak to support Israel when it massacres 1,400 people during “Operation Cast Lead” and commits war crimes?  Shouldn’t we be having a debate over Israel’s destructive policies of war, blockade, occupation and colonization that we fund?

The day when candidates can truly debate whether we should be funding Israeli war crimes is certainly something that I want to see. The Pennsylvania Senate race, though, with J Street defending a candidate that is firmly pro-Israel, isn’t going to be it.

As Australian-Jewish writer Antony Loewenstein recently commented, “if this is the way to move the debate forward in the US, we’re in deep trouble.”

WashPost Sheds Light on Secret Government–but Alt Media Were There First

The following piece originally appeared on the FAIR blog:

The Washington Post‘s blockbuster story (7/19/10) by reporters Dana Priest and William Arkin on the bloated, secretive and largely privatized national security apparatus established after the September 11, 2001, attacks is making a lot of noise, and for good reason. The Post describes a “top-secret world” that has become “so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.”

But the story of how many “national security” functions of the U.S. government have been privatized, from fighting wars to collecting intelligence to interrogating prisoners, is not a new one, as readers of the alternative press would know. The Post, however, does not credit the independent journalists who have been doing the legwork on this issue–like Tim Shorrock (Democracy Now!, 7/19/10) and Jeremy Scahill of the Nation–continuing a pattern (Salon.com, 10/31/08) of corporate media picking up important stories first reported in the independent press without giving credit where it’s due. As Shorrock pointed out in a Twitter posting today, he first wrote about the vast privatization of the collection of intelligence back in 2005 (Mother Jones, 01-02/05), with a major follow-up in Salon (6/1/07) and a 2008 book, Spies for Hire.

This is also not the first time that Post reporter Priest pushed a big story into the spotlight without mentioning independent journalists who had earlier investigated the same terrain. Priest’s story (Washington Post, 10/07) on the sub-par conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center led to a number of government-appointed commissions to investigate the quality of care for returning veterans. But it was Mark Benjamin in Salon that first reported on the conditions at Walter Reed (1/27/05) more than two years earlier. There was no mention of Benjamin’s piece in Priest’s story (CounterSpin, 3/2/07).

Interview with Antony Loewenstein on Israel/Palestine

Yesterday I posted a long and wide-ranging interview with Australian-Jewish blogger, journalist and activist Antony Loewenstein at the Indypendent‘s blog.  Check out the whole thing.

An excerpt:

Alex Kane:  How did you get so involved in writing about Israel and Palestine?

Antony Loewenstein:  Well, many years ago when I was growing up—I grew up in Australia, in a very liberal, Jewish home—Israel was never a central part of my family but it was something, as most Jews will understand, that was important to support.  My grandparents escaped Nazi Germany, my family were killed in the Holocaust, so the idea of Israel being a homeland for the Jews was sort of seen as a given.  My grandparents have never been to Israel, my father’s only been once, my mother has never been, and I remember when I was a teenager, well before the Web, talking about something that happened that week, a suicide bombing or something in Israel, and I would sometimes express disdain or criticism of the official Israeli line, and it was met with unbelievable anger and ferocity by my family, by my parents, my other family, and there was a real, clear racism that was existing back then.  Two things:  one, that we can’t expect Arabs to behave any better because, after all, that’s what Arabs do, i.e., be violent against Jews, it’s sort of inherent in their system, and secondly, that whatever Israel was doing was always defensive.

Fast-forward twenty years in Australia, about seven years ago, Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian politician came out to Australia, she was awarded the peace prize, a prominent peace prize out here, and the Jewish community establishment reacted with apoplexy.  She was a “Holocaust denier,” a “terrorist,” all the usual kind of things, and Ashrawi then and now is very moderate.  And the argument I said at the time was that if the Jewish community can’t accept someone like her—in fact then she was talking about a two-state solution, she’s hardly a radical—if the Jewish community can’t accept her, then there’s a serious problem.  I felt, as a Jew, and I had never written about this publicly, but I felt as a Jew, as a journalist, it was important to put my position strongly, to say that there are some Jews who are critical of Israel, who believe in open and free debate.  I wrote about that, got a lot of coverage down here in Australia, was then picked up by Robert Fisk in the Independent in London, and as you could imagine, that caused this issue to go global.  He came out and said that it’s important that there are dissenting views.

So, over the years, I spent time in the Middle East, in Israel, in Palestine, I was in the West Bank and Gaza again last year, I’ve spent time in most of the Middle East, in Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc., and feel, I suppose, in many ways that it is important, although I see myself as a human being first and a Jew second, that it’s vital to articulate an alternative Jewish perspective.  I mean, years ago, my position was fairly conventional:  I believed in the two-state solution, and I believed that because when I was in Israel, many years ago, the people I was speaking to, the one-state solution, people often forget this now, but the debate about this has moved so fast, that there’s obviously a tactical question and a moral question, but certainly, practically five years ago a two-state solution was arguably impossible anyway.  Putting aside the moral question of whether there should be a two-state solution, my position about that has changed, and in my latest edition of My Israel Question, my book, I sort of articulate why that is.  In its simplest form, it’s because, practically, the colonization process is so far advanced, and its continuing, even during the recent so-called “settlement freeze”–in fact there wasn’t a “freeze” at all, there was settlement building happening, as many journalists, including Max Blumenthal, documented in the last month.  And secondly, as a moral question, the issue of a Jewish state existing I think is fundamentally problematic because it inherently discriminates against those who are non-Jewish, which is 20 percent of the population within Israel.  I should also say this, finally, that my point is not just being opposed to a Jewish state, I have equal issues with religious states, and I’ve spent a lot of time writing about Iran, Saudi Arabia, Muslim states that inherently discriminate against non-Muslims.  Now clearly, they’re not democracies, they don’t claim to be a democracy, and Israel does.  I’m not comparing Israel to Iran or Israel to Saudi Arabia, I’m simply saying that my opposition to the concept of a religious state, and Israel is undoubtedly based inherently on an interpreted Jewish history, I think the problem is far bigger than just a Jewish state, I think it’s also the question of religious states oppressing minorities, and we see that across the Middle East.

The Voice of a Gazan

This Mondoweiss article proves why the Internet is so important.  If there was no Web, we would never hear the voice of Yousef M. Aljamal, a Palestinian living under siege in Gaza.  You should read it all.

During the time of the siege, Ahmed, a very young child in Gaza, left his home with his family because it was located very close to a big mosque that people had heard was going to be bombed. Later, while he was playing football, he was bombed by an Israeli F-16, separating his body into very small pieces. Ahmed escaped from his destiny to his destiny.

During the time of the siege, Zyneb, a youth in her twenties, was prevented from leaving Gaza to receive medical attention. Due to that, she passed away and was the first victim of the siege. She left her family, husband, and many friends, all who loved her. After she passed away, one of the Israeli soldiers who worked hard to prevent her from leaving, asked her father, as he was carrying her dead body, “Why do you cry? All of us will die!”

During the time of the siege, Salah, a very clever youth who was forced to leave school to work in one of Rafah’s tunnels in order to provide food for his family, was suffocated under the sand of a destroyed tunnel. He joined the list of 150 people who died inside the tunnels while they were “smuggling” food and medicine to their besieged people.

During the time of the siege, Fadel, a very handsome journalist was killed while he was covering an Israeli attack on Gaza, carrying only his camera. He joined the list of dozens of journalists who were killed by the same means, and maybe even by the same soldiers.

And in the comments section:

Thank you everybody for your comments. What I wanted from writing this article is to show for the rest of the world ,who have been decived by the Israeli media, the truth in Gaza. These stories are not the whole story, still there are thousands of stories are not published and I wish to publish all of them oneday. I wrote this piece and I have no mean to for hating Jews, I have no problem with anyone in this world, but the problem is with those who kill my innocent people and besiege them. The one who told me about this website to publish this article is A JEW. Yeah, and this is an evidance shows that the Palestinians have no problem with Jews. For those who tried to defame the picture of my people , I feel sorry for you as you are still decieved by the Israeli probaganda. I invite you to visist Gaza and see these things by your owns green or blue eyes. Thanks again.

Thank you, Yousef, for putting a human face on the illegal siege of Gaza.  Some day, this horror will end.

East Jerusalem’s Horror Show

My colleague Ellen Davidson, an editor at the Indypendent and a long-time peace and justice activist, is currently in occupied East Jerusalem rebuilding homes that were demolished by Israeli forces.  She’s working with the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), and serves on the board for ICAHD’s U.S. branch.

Ellen is blogging for the Indypendent about her experiences in East Jerusalem, and her work provides a window into the absurd banality, and the horror, of Israeli home demolitions.

A compelling excerpt:

We dragged our sweaty bodies home for dinner and a presentation from Jeff and Salim about the Israeli occupation and the history of Beit Arabeia, the house where we are staying. Our host Salim Shawamra explained the nightmarish and expensive process he repeatedly undertook in unsuccessfully trying to get a permit to construct the house, named after our hostess, Arabeia Shawamra. This house has been demolished and reconstructed four times, the last time 2003, and there is currently a demolition order pending against it. Now it is used as a peace center, and the Shawamra family only stays here during the ICAHD summer camp, because they fear that if they lived here fulltime, they would lose their Jerusalem residency permits, and if the place is demolished again, they would be left with no place to live.

Israel’s Violent Exports

When American officials yammer on about the United States and Israel’s “shared values,” they certainly get one thing right:  both the United States and Israel have armed and supported brutal dictatorships and assisted in the repression of dissent in many countries around the world.

Writing at the London Review of Books, British-Pakistani author Tariq Ali examines the recent unrest in Kashmir, the region between Pakistan and India that has been a flash point for conflict since the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947.  Protests have recently erupted over the killings of Kashmiris by Indian forces.  Kashmir, like Palestine, is suffering under the boot of military occupation.

Ali writes:

An ugly anti-Muslim chauvinism accompanies India’s violence. It has been open season on Muslims since 9/11, when the liberation struggle in Kashmir was conveniently subsumed under the war on terror and Israeli military officers were invited to visit Akhnur military base in the province and advise on counter-terrorism measures. The website India Defence noted in September 2008 that ‘Maj-Gen Avi Mizrahi paid an unscheduled visit to the disputed state of Kashmir last week to get an up-close look at the challenges the Indian military faces in its fight against Islamic insurgents. Mizrahi was in India for three days of meetings with the country’s military brass and to discuss a plan the IDF is drafting for Israeli commandos to train Indian counterterror forces.’ Their advice was straightforward: do as we do in Palestine and buy our weapons. In the six years since 2002 New Delhi had purchased $5 billion-worth of weaponry from the Israelis, to good effect.

Throughout Israel’s history, they have exported their tactics of occupation and repression to many other regions around the world, telling them, as Ali put it, to “do as we do in Palestine and buy our weapons.”

Israel had an extensive relationship with the South African apartheid regime, as revealed in this book by Sasha Polakow Suransky.

And there’s also Israel’s history of backing abhorrent regimes in Latin America, at the behest of the United States, during the Cold War, according to this article from the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs:

Subsidized by the CIA, Israel served U.S. interests well beyond the immediate region, setting up dependable client regimes (usually military-based dictatorships) to control local societies. Noam Chomsky has documented this extensively: Israel was the main force that established the Mobutu dictatorship in Zaire, for example. They also supported Idi Amin in Uganda, early on, as well as Haile Selasse in Ethopia, and Emperor Bokassa in the Central African Republic.

Israel became especially useful when the U.S. came under popular human rights pressure in the 1970s to stop supporting death squads and dictatorships in Latin America. The U.S. began to use Israel as a surrogate to continue its support. Chomsky documents how Israel established close relations with the neo-Nazi and military regimes of Argentina and Chile. Israel also supported genocidal attacks on the indigenous population of Guatemala, and sent arms to El Salvador and Honduras to support the contras.

What wonderful “shared values.”