Israeli Exceptionalism
JVL Introduction
The recent kerfuffle about a sentence in a Maxine Peake interview must not be allowed to distract from the deep and fundamental connection between Israel and the US.
In his analysis, Simon Korner shows that, particularly since 2001, Israel’s major contribution to US policing has been to help it reorient towards counter-terrorism and subjugation of sections of its population – based on the Israeli experience of suppressing the Palestinians.
He draws on the argument of Jeff Halper’s War Against the People that Israel is central to the “global pacification industry”,.
He argues that for the US it is guarantor of access to the vital resources of the region, as well as the real-world testing ground for new military technologies and innovations.
Korner thus concludes that: “Israel is thus an asset the US will do almost anything to protect.”
This article was originally published by The Socialist Correspondent on Fri 10 Jul 2020. Read the original here.
Israeli Exceptionalism
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Thank you for sharing this article. I was not aware how deep those links run between the US and Israel, but also UK/Israel both in ideology and military operations. It is really scary.
“…archived versions of the Minneapolis Police Department’s Use of Force Policy show that “neck restraints” and “choke holds” were part of the department’s code in 2002.” But the knee-on-neck technique was not specified in the department’s code because it was unknown to them in 2002. The’Floyd technique’ is a popular maneuver of krav maga, the Israeli martial art. There’s no record of it having been used in Minnesota until after 2012, when around 100 Minnesota cops attended a training seminar sponsored by the Chicago office of the Israeli Consulate, which dwelt on matters such as security cooperation and anti-terrorism techniques. All in all, Maxine Peak should never have apologized.
This article drawing upon the work of Jeff Halper is very informative. It highlights the Israeli government’s attempt to define its repression of indigenous Palestinians as ‘counter. terrorism’.The ‘othering’ of minority groups and left wing opponents as terrorists is a feature of a growing number of right wing populist and authoritarian governments across the globe. Increased police militarisation, surveillance and data harvesting represent a serious threat to the left not only abroad but also in the UK. The article also provides a useful update on the strategic importance of Israel to the USA. This should not be underestimated given the increased activities of Russia and Turkey in the Middle East.
The framing of Israel as a key player in the”war on terror”is also designed to legitimise the regime. This helps to cement support from Trump and religious right in the US along with Bolsonaro in Brazil. Netanyahu has. also been busy establishing economic and military ties with the fellow ethno nationalist regime of India under Modi. This focus on the war on terrorism has helped garner support for the Israeli government in Europe especially from the right including overt anti semites.The far right see Israel as an ally in their fight to defend western culture from “hordes of mainly Muslim migrants”
The point of all this is to demonstrate that the left in British politics needs to understand that the injustices faced by the Palestinians require a massive global campaign like we saw against apartheid in South Africa.Initial campaigns against annexation are to be welcomed as trigger towards the achievement of an unstoppable train towards the dismantling of Israeli Apartheid.
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Spot on Sheldon Ranz. There is a link re knee on neck techniques. If it walks and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. We should all be braver about speaking out.