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Tweets by IRmep
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 A
lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, D.C.
claims that United States aid to Israel is illegal under
a law passed in the 1970s that prohibits aid to nuclear
powers that don’t sign the Nuclear Non Proliferation
Treaty (NPT).The lawsuit was filed by Grant Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy (IRMEP). The lawsuit comes as the Obama administration is pushing to finalize a ten-year memorandum of understanding which will reportedly boost aid to Israel to $4 billion per year. Such aid violates longstanding bans on foreign aid to non-signatories to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) with nuclear weapons programs, the lawsuit alleges. Since the bans went into effect, U.S. foreign aid to Israel is estimated to be $234 billion. Smith says that during investigations into the illegal diversion of weapons-grade uranium from U.S. contractor NUMEC to Israel in the mid-1970s, Senators Stuart Symington and John Glenn amended the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act to ban any aid to clandestine nuclear powers that were not NPT signatories. Symington said at the time that “if you wish to take the dangerous and costly steps necessary to achieve a nuclear weapons option, you cannot expect the United States to help underwrite that effort indirectly or directly.” More |
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 08/10/2016 On Eve of Aid Boost, Researcher Flags Israel's 'Clandestine' Nukes |
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WASHINGTON (CN) - U.S. aid to Israel violates a long-standing ban on giving foreign aid to clandestine nuclear powers, the director of a Middle East policy nonprofit claims in a federal complaint. Grant Smith, director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, says the United States has given Israel an estimated $234 billion in foreign aid since Congress passed the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976. Discussing his Aug. 8 lawsuit in an interview, Smith said the pro se litigation has been 10 years in the making. Though Israel is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Smith noted that it is a known nuclear power and recipient of U.S. aid. The U.S. has had a long-standing policy of keeping mum on the existence of Israel's nuclear weapons program, a poorly kept secret that successive U.S. administrations since Gerald Ford have refused to publicly acknowledge. Smith's lawsuit comes on the eve of a deal that would boost U.S. aid to the country by between $1 billion and $2 billion per year over a decade. Israel already gets $3 billion a year in U.S. aid. More |
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 8/9/2016 Lawsuit aims to block U.S. foreign aid to Israel - Conference Call |
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 ...Being
a journalist based in the Washington, D.C. area, I try
to ask tough questions of political figures when I can.
Perhaps my favorite question is some variation of “do
you acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons?” I’ve
asked this of many political figures and virtually no
one has given me a straightforward response. But the
most surreal — almost comical — response came from
Donald Trump’s VP pick in 2011. At the time, he was a
congressman and vice-chair of the House Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia: Question: You’ve also served on the Foreign Affairs Committee. Do you know that Israel has nuclear weapons? Pence: [long pause, looks down] I’m — I am aware that Israel is our most cherished ally. And I strongly support Israel’s right of self defense and to take such actions as are necessary to secure their homeland as much as we take actions to secure ours. Question: Do you think it increases or decreases U.S. credibility around the world when U.S. government officials can’t even acknowledge that Israel has a massive nuclear arsenal? Pence: The American people support Israel. I call Israel our most cherished ally and I will continue to stand — without apology — for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship and strong cooperation with our most cherished ally in a very volatile part of the world. He was utterly incapable of engaging on the issue of Israel’s nuclear arsenal. His passionate attachment to Israel has become a mantra and no inconvenient facts need enter the equation... More Watch Pence and other U.S. government officials respond to The Center Public Integrity's Sam Husseini questioning them about Israel's nuclear weapons on Youtube. |
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 Dennis Ross dodges question about legality of US aid to Israel - 07/05/2016 |
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| Former AIPAC/Washington Institute/Jewish Agency for Israel operative dodges an important foreign aid question on C-SPAN. | ||||
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According
the US Department of Justice, it is the US president’s
prerogative alone whether Israel’s nuclear weapons
program triggers Arms Export Control Act laws governing
US aid to foreign nuclear weapons states.
09/05/2016
Congressional Black Caucus: Deep in the Israel Lobby's
Pocket
To be sure, the CBC’s subjugation by what is generally
referred to as the pro-Israel Lobby is not unique.
Thanks largely to American Jews having long been the
Democratic Party’s major source of funds, estimated by
reliable sources to be at least 60% in every election
cycle, the Israel Lobby has been not only able to shape
the party’s’ Middle East agenda but, of equal
importance, determine who will be the chairs and the
ranking members on the Congressional committees and
subcommittees that have an impact on US-Israel
relations. (The same thing can be said about the
Republicans but there we see more variety among the
donors.)
 ...today it is
Muslims, Arabs and Persians in general
(Palestinians, Iranians and the territories
where they live in particular) that are under
constant assault – not by Roget’s – but vastly
more powerful forces such as the
military-industrial-congressional complex,
Hollywood, the mainstream media and not
coincidentally, many Israel affinity
organizations. Like the Japanese-American
internees once secretly targeted by the ADL,
such groups are judged to be weak, disorganized,
disenfranchised and unable to tell their own
stories – or even possess stories worth hearing.
They serve as convenient scapegoats for
enfranchised elites and the national security
state. Unlike evangelical Christians or Hispanic
groups, they do not factor into the Israel
lobby’s larger political calculations – and
likely never will – absent a radical shift in
Israel’s – and therefore the ADL’s – strategy.But their stories and tactics are relevant. Not because of "competing loyalties," but rather the sheer relevance of Palestinian resistance against all odds as an example for oppressed people tired of poverty, war and oppression around the world. Many in the peace and justice movement are both curious and have internet access. Armed with accurate information, they are unlikely to become sympathetic to the ADL’s highly selective and self-serving historical narratives of the good ol’ days... More |
Ten ways the Israel lobby "moves" America - 5/2016
 ...So
there is a false idea that these are major, major forces
in the Israel lobby. What we do know, though, is that
Americans generally, if you ask them, favorability
ratings about Israel, they’re generally favorable. Most
are favorable, 59 percent; 41 percent, not favorable or
don’t care. We’ve given over $250 billion of aid to
Israel, far more than any other country, inflation
adjusted. And a large portion of aid is classified.
President Obama made a statement at American University
that it’s now unprecedented, but you can’t get the
figure for intelligence aid. If it’s unprecedented, then
we know with military aid it’s either $1.9 billion a
year, or $13.2 billion if the president adjusted for
inflation. But when you ask the CIA, which must be
handling intelligence aid to Israel, they say sorry,
that’s classified. We’re suing them for that
information, by the way. [Applause]In a 2014 poll, when you ask Americans something beyond favorability, when you ask them about the aid and ask this question: "the U.S. gives over $3 billion annually or 9 percent of the foreign aid budget, more than any other country, this amount is _____," the statistically significant 2014 survey conducted through Google Consumer research, 60.7 percent say it’s either much too much or too much; 25.9 percent say about right; 13.4 percent too little. Well, this is an old poll. Surely, this is a fluke. Many, many respondents must have given, I don’t know, there must have been a fluke. Well, no. In 2016, they conducted again this month, the figure has risen to almost 62 percent who say it’s too much or much too much. This is a specific question with information sufficient to make an informed answer, and the movement is generally against foreign aid. So these five false narratives that are used to move America can be or should be challenged...More |
America's
first and
worst bilateral trade agreement
Centre for Research on Globalization - 5/13/2016
...Members of congress, various Israel
lobby organization pundits and chambers of commerce
occasionally trumpet the deal as a success. In
2009 Martin Indyk, head of the AIPAC research unit that
worked hard to
lobby in support of the deal (before spinning off
AIPAC’s think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy at the
peak of the FBI investigation) confidently claimed, “the
US-Israel Free Trade Agreement served as a wedge that opened
up the Congress to Free Trade Agreements throughout the
world, including the NAFTA agreement.
No doubt there are some downsides to it, but
otherwise it's been a very positive thing.” (YouTube
version)
However, the numbers reveal that it has
been positive only for Israel. In terms of the cumulative
inflation-adjusted deficit created since this first “free”
trade deal was signed, it is the worst-performing of
all US
bilateral
trade agreements, and the second-worst of
all US trade
agreements, trailing only NAFTA.
Source: US Census foreign trade data
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A
majority Americans say US foreign aid to Israel is
excessive--either "much too much" (32.5 percent) or "too
much" (29.4 percent).