By Denis Korkodinov
On January 9, 2020, the United States passed a bill to provide Israel with $ 3.3 billion in annual financial assistance. The initiators of this bill were Senators Chris Koons and Marco Rubio. In the framework of the “deal of the century” announced by Donald Trump, the decision of on additional financing for Tel Aviv creates significant difficulties in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
It is worth noting that the decision on annual investments for Israel was made almost immediately after Tehran stepped up its military-political presence in Iraq. Thus, Tel Aviv received guarantees that the United States remained committed to creating a privileged position in the Middle East for Israel.
At the same time, Palestine clearly finds itself in a position of a discriminatory minority, since it was deprived not only of territory in accordance with the “deal of the century”, but also of hope for ensuring financial parity.
The set of economic support measures for Israel is formally part of the Memorandum of Understanding concluded between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu in 2016. Then Washington had the intention of regularly supplying Tel Aviv with weapons and soldiers to protect it from attacks by pro-Iranian forces, in general, and Palestine in particular.
Now the White House administration has decided to coincide with the process of providing assistance to the “deal of the century”, thereby creating for Tel Aviv the opportunity to receive funding beyond what was originally envisaged by the plan of Jared Kushner. Senator Marco Rubio explained this decision by saying that Israel was faced with unprecedented pressure, and therefore it needed additional funding to increase the defense capability of its state.
The White House administration’s funding of Israeli ambitions is largely driven by election campaigns that are currently run by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. On the eve of the presidential election, Washington is extremely interested in supporting the Israeli lobby, which is the main driving force of the Donald Trump administration. In turn, against the backdrop of a third attempt to form a coalition government in Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to demonstrate to his voters the ability to attract international investment under the guise of rhetoric about the threat to national security.
Over the past 70 years, Israel has received more than $ 142 billion in financial assistance from the United States, of which $ 101 billion was used to develop the Tel Aviv military-industrial complex. However, the assistance provided to Palestine was discontinued. Based on this, it is impossible to ensure any balance of power in the region and to declare the desire of the United States to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict, since the advantage in the military and economic sphere, thanks to American assistance, is clearly on the side of Israel.
Meanwhile, the security of the Israeli state is now becoming the subject of international manipulation, since almost any military activity on the part of any countries in the Middle East leads to the fact that Tel Aviv receives certain privileges in the form of large investments from the United States. In this regard, any military conflicts in the Middle East region in economic terms are extremely beneficial to Israel.
(The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights)
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