As`ad AbuKhalil says current U.S.-NATO strategic calculations are demoting Israel from its once central position and will leave the apartheid state increasingly reliant on new alliances with the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia.
Consortium News –
Western support for the Ukrainian war effort will have long-lasting consequences for U.S. foreign policy in the world. The impact will most certainly be felt in the Middle East region and especially in Israel.
But the U.S. and NATO’s generous economic and military aid for Ukraine’s war effort must be making Israel nervous.
Unlike Gulf regimes, which merely buy Western protection, Israel is dependent on U.S. military largesse for its salvation. Ukraine is today the ultimate Western cause: never has any state received such military aid from the West and no state has so galvanized Western public opinion. (Notice Western media’s disregard for the opinion of the people and governments of Africa, Asia and Latin America, who do not support the sanctions against Russia. Only Westerners’ opinions seem to count).
To be sure, Israel has since its inception received tremendous coverage and support from the West — and still does in the wake of World War II and the founding of the state of Israel atop the Palestinian homeland. Since then the U.S. — among other Western countries — has armed and financed Israel’s offensive wars.
The West supports Israel over the native Palestinian population for many reasons, including traditional Western Christian hostility to Islam and Arabs. But Israel may be nervous that Ukraine has displaced it as the West’s most favored nation.
Israel’s status among Western countries has suffered greatly over the decades, but the U.S. prevents that decline from affecting Western policies in support of Israeli occupation and aggression.
The E.U. tried in the 1970s to forge a different foreign policy toward the Palestinian question. But by the 1980s, the U.S. — especially after the Iraq war of 1991 — imposed adherence and subservience on all Western allies.
Washington has ensured that Western policies toward the Middle East follow U.S. dictates: France was the last Western government to try to push for a different policy from the U.S. in 2003 when the U.S. invaded Iraq, but Paris quickly changed course and has been trying to make up for its lapse ever since.
As another example, Canada, which used to adopt a friendly policy towards the Palestinians, became as rigid in its advocacy of Zionism as the U.S. and is even worse than the U.S. in policing pro-Palestinian rhetoric and debate (very much like Germany) in the media and in academia.
Israel’s Tarnished Image
Israel’s decline in standing started after 1967 and has continued ever since, affecting public attitudes. There is (documented) public support for Palestinians among most Western countries, but those governments don’t allow public opinion to influence government policies in the Middle East.
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