Lest We Forget 1949-2011

Lest We Forget

The “Special Relationship”
1949-2011

Americans for Middle
 East Understanding

Fourth Edition — June, 2011


Many of the events catalogued here have been treated in depth in AMEU's bimonthly publication, The Link. See our website: www.ameu.org.


Lest We Forget

The Israeli lobby in Washington has successfully influenced the U.S. Congress to give billions of non-repayable dollars each year to Israel

on the premise that Israel’s loyalty and strategic importance to the United States make it an ally worthy of such unprecedented

consideration.

Is it?

In his Farewell Address, George Washington warned Americans to avoid a passionate attachment to any one nation because it promotes "the

illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists."

In 1948, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Forrestal, an opponent of the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, warned that, even though

failure to go along with the Zionists might cost President Truman the states of New York, Pennsylvania, and California, “it was about time

that somebody should pay some consideration to whether we might not lose the United States.”

Israeli actions over the past 63 years involving U.S. interests in the Middle East seriously challenge the "strategic asset" premise of the

Israel lobby. Some of these actions are compiled in the list that follows:



May 28, 1949:  President Truman sends an angry note to Israel demanding it withdraw from territories captured during the 1948-49 war and

that it take back a certain number of refugees. Failure to comply, warns the president, will force the U.S. to conclude that “a revision of

its attitude toward Israel has become unavoidable.” Ten days later, Israel rejects all U.S. demands.

September 1953: Israel illegally begins to divert the waters of the Jordan River. President Eisenhower, enraged, suspends all economic aid

to Israel and prepares to remove the tax-deductible status of the United Jewish Appeal and of other Zionist organizations in the United

States.

October 1953: Israel raids the West Bank village of Kibya, killing 53 Palestinian civilians. The Eisenhower administration calls the raid

"shocking" and confirms the suspension of aid to Israel.

July 1954: Israeli agents firebomb American and British cultural centers in Egypt, making it look like the work of the Egyptian Muslim

Brotherhood in order to sabotage U.S.-Egyptian relations.

October 1956: Israel secretly joins with England and France in a colonial-style attack on Egypt’s Suez Canal. Calling the invasion a

dangerous threat to international order, President Eisenhower forces Israel to relinquish most of the land it had seized.

1965: 206 pounds of weapons grade uranium disappear from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) in Apollo, PA. The plant

was bought in 1955 by David Lowenthal, who is closely associated with Israeli intelligence. Plant president Zalmon Shapiro, former head of

the local Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), is a sales agent for the Defense Ministry of Israel in the U.S. On a September 10, 1968

visit to NUMEC by Mossad agent Rafael Eitan, Israel’s top spy targeting nuclear facilities in the U.S., another 587 pounds of highly

enriched uranium go missing. CIA Tel Aviv station chief John Hadden calls NUMEC “an Israeli operation from the beginning.” Later CIA

Director Richard Helms will charge that Israel stole the uranium.

June 8, 1967: Israel bombs, napalms and torpedoes the USS Liberty, killing 34 Americans, wounding 171 others, and nearly sinking the lightly

armed intelligence ship. Later, Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1970-1974, would charge that the attack

"could not possibly have been a case of mistaken identity."

June 9, 1967: Against U.S. wishes, Israel seizes and occupies Syria's Golan Heights.

June 5, 1968:  Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian Christian, kills Sen. Robert Kennedy.  He gives as his motive his rage over U.S. support of

Israel in the 1967 war and the Senator’s pledge to send 50 Phantom jets to Israel if he is elected president.

December 9, 1969: Secretary of State William Rogers offers the Rogers Plan for peace, calling for direct negotiations leading to a

settlement based on U.N. Resolution 242 that would deny the legality of acquiring territory by force. Jordan and Egypt accept the plan.

Israel rejects it.  Prime Minister Golda Meir accuses Rogers of “moralizing.”

October 6, 1973:  Egypt, in a surprise attack, crosses the Suez Canal and inflicts heavy losses on Israeli army. U.S. security officials are

warned the embattled state is readying its nuclear-tipped missiles. President Nixon sends Israel over 22,000 tons of equipment, including

M-60 tanks—at the time the largest military airlift in history. The tide turns on October 9 and on October 22 the United Nations, with U.S.

and Russian approval, calls for a cease-fire. Israel disregards the order, intent on starving the encircled Egyptian army into submission.

The U.S. threatens to open the siege lines itself and feed the Egyptian troops. Israel accepts the cease-fire but demands more truce-related

concessions and threatens an adverse publicity campaign against the U.S. government for joining with the Soviet Union in dictating truce

terms. The U.S. suppresses its indignation and attempts to mollify Israel by delivering the additional planes and tanks requested.

March 21, 1975:  President Ford warns Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin that if Israel does not make concessions to reach a second Sinai

agreement, the United States will have to reassess its Middle East policy, “including our policy towards Israel.” The threat backfires.

Israel becomes more inflexible and, the next day, the talks collapse.

July 19, 1977:  President Carter tells visiting Prime Minister Begin that Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza closes off

all hope of negotiations for peace and is incompatible with U.S. policy.  Begin is unbending. Two months later his minister of agriculture,

Ariel Sharon, unveils “A Vision of Israel at Century’s End,” calling for the settlement of two million Jews in the occupied territories.

March 1978: Israel invades Lebanon, illegally using cluster bombs and other U.S. weapons given to Israel for defensive purposes only.

1979: Israel frustrates U.S.-sponsored Camp David Accords by building new settlements on the West Bank. President Carter complains to

American Jewish leaders that by acting in a "completely irresponsible way," Israel's Prime Minister Begin continues "to disavow the basic

principles of the accords."

1979: Israel sells U.S. airplane tires and other military supplies to Iran, against U.S. policy, at a time when U.S. diplomats are being

held hostage in Tehran.

July 1980: Israel annexes East Jerusalem in defiance of U.S. wishes and world opinion.

July 1981: Illegally using U.S. cluster bombs and other equipment, Israel bombs P.L.O. sites in Beirut, with great loss of civilian life.

December 1981: Israel annexes Syria's Golan Heights in violation of the Geneva Convention and in defiance of U.S. wishes.

June 1982: Israel invades Lebanon a second time, again using cluster bombs and other U.S. weapons. President Reagan calls for a halt to

further cluster bomb shipments to Israel.

August 1982:  President Reagan tells Prime Minister Begin not to use American arms for offensive purposes.  Begin replies he will not be

instructed by an American president or any other U.S. official, adding: “You must have forgotten that Jews kneel but to God.”

September 1982: Abetted by Israeli forces under the control of Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, Lebanese militiamen massacre hundreds of

Palestinians in Beirut's Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.  President Reagan is “horrified” and summons the  Israeli ambassador to demand

Israel's immediate withdrawal from Beirut.

September 1982: Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin rejects President Reagan's Peace Plan for the occupied territories as a “serious

danger” to Israel, and labels any Israeli who accepts it as a “traitor.”

January-March 1983: Israeli army harasses U.S. Marines in Lebanon. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger confirms Marine commandant's report

that "Israeli troops are deliberately threatening the lives of American military personnel ...  replete with verbal degradation of the

officers, their uniforms and country."

March 1985: Israel lobby in Washington pressures U.S. Congress to turn down a $1.6 billion arms sale to Jordan, costing the U.S. thousands

of jobs, quite apart from the financial loss to American industry. Jordan gives the contract to Russia. A frustrated King Hussein complains:

"The U.S. is not free to move except within the limits of what AIPAC [the pro-Israel lobby], the Zionists and the State of Israel determine

for it."

October 1985: Israel lobby blocks $4 billion aircraft sale to Saudi Arabia. The sale, strongly backed by the Reagan administration, costs

the U.S. over 350,000 jobs, with steep financial losses to American industry. Saudi Arabia awards contract to England.

November 1985: Jonathan Jay Pollard, an American recruited by Israel, is arrested for passing highly classified intelligence to Israel. U.S.

officials call the operation but "one link in an organized and well financed Israeli espionage ring operating within the United States."

State Department contacts reveal that top Israeli defense officials "traded stolen U.S. intelligence documents to Soviet military

intelligence agents in return for assurances of greater emigration of Soviet Jews."

December 1985: U.S. Customs in three states raid factories suspected of illegally selling electroplating technology to Israel. Richard

Smyth, a NATO consultant and former U.S. exporter, is indicted on charges of illegally exporting to Israel 800 krytron devices for

triggering nuclear explosions.

April 1986: U.S. authorities arrest 17 persons, including a retired Israeli General, Avraham Bar-Am, for plotting to sell more than $2

billion of advanced U.S. weaponry to Iran (much of it already in Israel). General Bar-Am, claiming Israeli Government approval, threatens to

name names at the highest levels. Rudolph Giuliani, U.S. Attorney General for the Southern District of New York, calls the plot

“mind-boggling in scope.”

June 4, 1986: Jonathan Pollard is given a life sentence for stealing military secrets and giving them to Israel.

July 1986: Assistant Secretary of State Richard Murphy informs the Israeli ambassador that a  U.S. investigation is under way of eight

Israeli representatives in the U.S. accused of plotting the illegal export of technology used in making cluster bombs. Indictments against

the eight are later dropped in exchange for an Israeli promise to cooperate in the case.

January 1987: Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin visits South Africa to discuss joint nuclear weapons testing. Israel admits that, in

violation of a U.S. Senate anti-apartheid bill, it has arms sales contracts with South Africa worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Rep.

John Conyers calls for Congressional hearings on Israel-South Africa nuclear testing.

November 1987: The Iran-Contra scandal reveals that it was Israel that had first proposed the trade to Iran of U.S. arms for hostages. The

scandal becomes the subject of the Tower Commission Report, Senate and House investigations, and the Walsh criminal prosecution inquiries.

April 1988: Testifying before U.S. Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism and International Operations, Jose Blandon, a former intelligence

aide to Panama's General Noriega, reveals that Israel used $20 million of U.S. aid to ship arms via Panama to Nicaraguan Contras. The empty

planes then smuggled cocaine via Panama into the United States. Pilot tells ABC reporter Richard Threlkeld that Israel was his primary

employer. The arms-for-drugs network is said to be led by Mike Harari, Noriega's close aide and bodyguard, a high officer in the Israeli

secret services, and chief coordinator of Israel's military and commercial business in Panama.

June 1988: Mubarak Awad, a Palestinian-American advocate of nonviolence, is deported by Israel. The White House denounces the action,

saying, "We think it is unjustifiable to deny Mr. Awad the right to stay and live in Jerusalem, where he was born."

June 1988: Amnesty International accuses Israel of throwing deadly, U.S.-made gas canisters inside hospitals, mosques, and private homes.

The Pennsylvania manufacturer, a major defense corporation, suspends  shipments of tear gas to Israel.

November 1989: According to the Israeli paper Ma’ariv, U.S. officials claim Israel Aircraft Industries was involved in attempts to smuggle

U.S. missile navigation equipment to South Africa in violation of U.S. law.

December 1989: While the U.S. was imposing economic sanctions on Iran, Israel purchased $36 million of Iranian oil in order to encourage

Iran to help free three Israeli hostages in Lebanon.

March 1990: Israel requests more than $1 billion in loans, gifts, and donations from American Jews and U.S. government to pay for resettling

Soviet Jews in occupied territories.  President Bush responds, “My position is that the foreign policy of the U.S. says we do not believe

there should be new settlements in the West Bank or East Jerusalem.”

June 1990: Officials in the Bush administration and in Congress say that Israel has emerged as leading supplier of advanced military

technology to China, despite U.S.’s expressed opposition to Israeli-Chinese military cooperation.

September 1990: Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy asks the Bush administration to forgive Israel’s $4.5 billion military debt and

dramatically increase military aid. Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Arens expresses concern over expected $20 billion in U.S. arms sales to

Saudi Arabia and asks for an additional $1 billion in military aid to Israel.  Facing rising congressional opposition, White House backs off

from plan to sell Saudi Arabia over $20 billion in military hardware. Bush administration promises to deliver additional F-15 fighters and

Patriot missiles to Israel, but defers action on Israel’s request for more than $1 billion in new military aid. Arens questions U.S.’s

commitment to maintain Israel’s military advantage in the Middle East.

October 1990: “Aliya cabinet” chair Ariel Sharon encourages increase in settlement of Soviet Jews in East Jerusalem, despite his

government’s assurances to the U.S. that it would not do so. Bush sends personal letter to Prime Minister Shamir urging Israel not to pursue

East Jerusalem housing. Shamir rejects appeal.

November 1990: In his autobiography, former President Reagan says Israel was the instigator and prime mover in the Iran-Contra affair and

that then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres “was behind the proposal.”

January 1991: White House criticizes Israeli ambassador Zalman Shoval for complaining that U.S. had not moved forward on $400 million in

loan guarantees and that Israel “had not received one cent in aid”  to compensate for missile damage (in Gulf War).”  U.S. says comments are

“outrageous and outside the bounds of acceptable behavior.”

February 1991: Hours after long-disputed $400 million loan guarantees to Israel are approved, Israeli officials say the amount is grossly

insufficient. Next day, Israel formally requests $1 billion in emergency military assistance to cover costs stemming from the Gulf War.

March 1991: Israeli government rejects President Bush’s call for solution to Arab-Israeli conflict that includes trading land for peace. In

a report to Congress, U.S. State Department says Soviet Jewish immigrants are settling in the occupied territories at a higher rate than the

Israeli government claims. During tour of West Bank settlements, housing minister Sharon says construction of 13,000 housing units in

occupied territories has been approved for next two years. Plans contradict statement by Prime Minister Shamir, who told President Bush that

the Israeli government had not approved such plans.

April 1991: Prime Minister Shamir and several members of his cabinet reject U.S. Secretary of State Baker’s suggestion that Israel curtail

expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories as gesture for peace. U.S. calls new Jewish settlement of Revava “an obstacle”

to peace and questions Israel’s timing, with Secretary Baker due to arrive in Israel in two days. Hours before Baker arrives, eight Israeli

families complete move to new settlement of Talmon Bet. U.S. ambassador to Israel William Brown files an official protest with the Israeli

government about establishment and/or expansion of settlements in the West Bank. Housing Minister Sharon says Israel has no intention of

meeting U.S. demands to slow or stop settlements. Secretary Baker, in a news conference before leaving Israel, says Israel failed to give

responses he needed to put together a peace conference.

May 1991: Israeli ambassador to U.S. Zalman Shoval says his country will soon request $10 billion in loan guarantees from Washington to aid

in settling Soviet Jewish immigrants to Israel. Secretary Baker calls continued building of Israeli settlements “largest obstacle” to

convening proposed Middle East peace conference.

May 1991: President Bush unveils proposal for arms control in Middle East.  U.S. administration confirms that Israel, which has not signed

the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, has objected to provision on nuclear weapons.

June 1991: Prime Minister Shamir rejects President Bush’s call for Israeli acceptance of a greater United Nations’ role in proposed

Arab-Israeli peace talks.

July 1991: Israeli Housing Minister Sharon inaugurates the new Israeli settlement of Mevo Dotan in the West Bank one day after President

Bush describes Israeli settlements as “counterproductive.”

September 1991: Israeli Prime Minister Shamir refuses President Bush’s request to delay asking Congress for a $10 billion loan guarantee to

resettle Russian immigrants in the occupied territories. Shamir tells the U.S. it has a “moral obligation” to give Israel the money.

October 1991: The Washington Post reports that President Bush waived U.S.-mandated sanctions against Israel after U.S. intelligence

determined that Israel had exported missile components to South Africa.

November 1991: Hours after concluding bilateral talks with Syria, Israel inaugurates Qela’, a new settlement in the Golan Heights. Secretary

of State Baker calls the action “provocative.”

February 1992: Secretary of State Baker says U.S. will not provide loan guarantees to Israel unless it ceases its settlement activity.

President Bush threatens to veto any loan guarantees to Israel without a freeze on Israel’s settlement activity.

March 1992: U.S. administration confirms it has begun investigating intelligence reports that Israel supplied China with technical data from

U.S. Patriot missile system.

April 1992: State Department Inspector issues report that the department has failed to heed intelligence reports that an important U.S.

ally– widely understood to be Israel–was making unauthorized transfers of U.S. military technology to China, South Africa, Chile, and

Ethiopia.

May 1992: Wall Street Journal cites Israeli press reports that U.S. officials have placed Israel on list of 20 nations carrying out

espionage against U.S. companies.

June 1992: U.S. Defense Department says Israel has rejected a U.S. request to question former General Rami Dotan, who is at center of arms

procurement scandal involving U.S. contractors.

July 1992: General Electric Company pleads guilty to fraud and corrupt business practices in connection with its sale of military jet

engines to Israel. A GE manager had conspired with Israeli Gen. Rami Dotan to divert $27 million in U.S. military aid with fraudulent

vouchers. U.S. Justice and Defense Departments do not believe that Dotan was acting in his own interest, implying that the government of

Israel may be implicated in the fraud, which would constitute a default on Israel’s aid agreements with the U.S.

June 1993: U.S. House of Representatives passes bill authorizing $80 million per year to Israel for refugee settlement; bill passes despite

$10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to Israel and against evidence from Israeli economists that Israel no longer needs U.S. aid.

October 1993: CIA informs Senate Government Affairs Committee that Israel has been providing China for over a decade with “several billion

dollars” worth of advanced military technology. Israeli Prime Minister Rabin admits Israel has sold arms to China.

November 1993: CIA Director James Woolsey makes first public U.S. acknowledgment that “Israel is generally regarded as having some kind of

nuclear capability.”

December 1993: Time magazine reports convicted spy Jonathan Pollard passed a National Security Agency listing of foreign intelligence

frequencies to Israel that later was received by Soviets, ruining several billion dollars of work and compromising lives of U.S. informants.

December 1994: Los Angeles Times reports Israel has given China information on U.S. military technology to help in joint Israeli-Chinese

development of a fighter jet.

January 1995: When Egypt threatens not to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty because Israel will not sign, the U.S. says it will not

pressure Israel to sign.

July 1995: U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk demands Israel abolish import barriers that discriminate against U.S. imports.

November 1995: Israel grants citizenship to American spy Jonathan Pollard.

April 1996: Using U.S.-supplied shells, Israel kills 106 unarmed civilians who had taken refuge in a U.N. peace-keeping compound in Qana,

southern Lebanon. U.N. investigators, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch condemn the shelling as premeditated. The U.N. Security

Council calls on Israel to pay reparations. Resolution is vetoed by the United States.

June 1996: U.S. State Department hands Israeli defense officials classified CIA report alleging Israel has given China U.S. military

avionics, including advanced radar-detection system and electronic warfare equipment.

December 1996: Israeli cabinet reinstates large subsidies, including tax breaks and business grants, for West Bank settlers. U.S. says the

move is “troubling” and “clearly complicates the peace process.” Israeli government rejects President Clinton’s criticism of the settlements

and vows to strengthen them.

February 1997: FBI announces that David Tenenbaum, a mechanical engineer working for the U.S. army, has admitted that for the past 10 years

he has “inadvertently” passed on classified military information to Israeli officials.

March 1997: U.S. presses Israel to delay building new settlement of Har Homa near Bethlehem. Prime Minister Netanyahu says international

opposition “will just strengthen my resolve.”

June 1997: U.S. investigators report that two Hasidic Jews from New York, suspected of laundering huge quantities of drug money for a

Colombian drug cartel, recently purchased millions of dollars worth of land near the settlements of Mahseya and  Zanoah.

September 1997: Jewish settlers in Hebron stone Palestinian laborers working on a USAID-funded project to renovate the city’s main street.

David Muirhead, the American overseeing the project, says Israeli police beat him, threw him in a van, and detained him until the U.S.

Consulate intervened. U.S. State Department calls incident “simply unacceptable.”

September 1997: Secretary of State Albright says Israel’s decision to expand Efrat settlement “is not at all helpful” to the peace process.

Prime Minister Netanyahu says he will continue to expand settlements.

May 1998: Thirteen years after denying he was not its spy, Israel officially recognizes Pollard as its agent in hopes of negotiating his

release.

June 1998: Secretary of State Albright phones Prime Minister Netanyahu to condemn his plan to extend Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries and to

move Jews into East Jerusalem, particularly in the area adjacent to Bethlehem. Ignoring U.S. protests, Israel’s cabinet unanimously approves

plan to extend Jerusalem’s municipal authority.

August 1998: Secretary Albright tells Prime Minister Netanyahu that the freeze in the peace process due to the settlement policy is harming

U.S. interests in the Middle East and affecting the U.S.’s ability to forge a coalition against Iraq.

September 1998: Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad reports that the Israeli airliner that crashed in Amsterdam in 1992 was not carrying “gifts

and perfume,” as the Israelis claimed, but three of the four chemicals used to make sarin nerve gas. According to the plane’s cargo

manifest, the chemicals were sent from a U.S. factory in Pennsylvania to the top secret Israeli Institute for Biological Research.

November 1998: Israeli Foreign Minister Sharon urges Jewish settlers to “grab” West Bank land so it does not fall under Palestinian control

in any final peace settlement.

May 1999: U.S. denounces Israel’s decision to annex more land to the Ma’ale Adumim settlement.

June 1999: The Israeli company Orlil is reported to have stolen U.S. night-vision equipment purchased for the Israeli Defense Forces and to

have sold it to “Far Eastern” countries.

April 2001: Prime Minister Sharon announces plans to build 708 new housing units in the Jewish settlements of Ma’ale Adumim and Alfe

Menashe. U.S. State Department criticizes the move as “provocative.”

May 2001: The Mitchell Committee, headed by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, says that Jewish settlements are a barrier to peace. Prime

Minister Sharon vows to continue expanding the settlements.

May 2001: U.S. is voted off the United Nations Commission on Human Rights for the first time since the committee’s establishment in 1947.

The Financial Times of London suggests that Washington, by vetoing U.N. resolutions alleging Israeli human rights abuses, showed its

inability to work impartially in the area of human rights. Secretary of State Colin Powell suggests the vote was because “we left a little

blood on the floor” in votes involving the Palestinians.

November 2001: Secretary of State Colin Powell  calls on Israel to halt all settlement building which “cripples chances for real peace and

security.” Benny Elon, a minister in the Sharon government, says the settlers aren’t worried. “America has a special talent for seeing

things in the short term,” he says, explaining that what Powell said was only to get Arab support for America’s anti-terrorism coalition

against Afghanistan.

March 2002:  U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan calls for immediate withdrawal of Israeli tanks from Palestinian refugee camps, citing large

numbers of Palestinians reported dead or injured. U.S. State Dept. says the United States has contacted Israel to “urge that utmost

restraint be exercised in order  to avoid harm to the civilian population.”

April 2002: President Bush repeatedly demands an immediate halt to Israel’s military invasion of the West Bank. Prime Minister Sharon

rebuffs the President’s withdrawal demands, saying the United States and other nations should not “put any pressure upon us.”

April 4, 2002:  President Bush demands that Israel halt its March 29 incursion into the West Bank, withdraw immediately, and cease all

settlement building. Three days later, Secretary of State Powell says Bush’s  “demand” was  a “request.”

June 24, 2002: President George W. Bush announces his “road map” for peace, calling on Israel to end its settlement activity.

November 25, 2002:  Israel asks the U.S. for $4 billion in military aid to “defray the costs of fighting terrorism,” plus $10 billion in

loan guarantees to support its struggling economy.

March 16, 2003:  Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist, is crushed to death in Gaza by an Israeli bulldozer while trying to prevent the

demolition of a Palestinian pharmacist’s home.  Eyewitnesses say it was deliberate. A spokesman for the Israeli army says the protesting was

“irresponsible” and the death “a tragic accident.” The Bush administration accepts Israel’s account.

May 12, 2003: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rejects President Bush’s road map, saying its main requirement, a settlement freeze, is

“impossible” due to need for settlers to build new houses and start families.

May 29, 2003: Israel announces construction of a new Jewish settlement of 230 housing units in East Jerusalem.

July 29, 2003: Sharon rejects President Bush’s appeal to halt construction of a separation wall Israel is building on occupied Palestinian

land.

October 22, 2003:  Former Navy lawyer Ward Boston, who had helped lead the military investigation into Israel’s 1967 attack on the USS

Liberty, files a signed affidavit stating that President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had ordered those heading the

naval inquiry to “conclude that the attack was a case of ‘mistaken identity,’ despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.”

June 16, 2004: When 9/11 Commission inquires into the motivation of the hijackers, FBI Special Agent James Fitzgerald replies: “I believe

they feel a sense of outrage against the United States. They identify with the Palestinian problem.” His response is not included in the

Commission’s final report because, as Hamilton and Kean admit in their book “Without Precedent,” some commissioners worried that listing

U.S. support for Israel as a root cause of al-Qaeda’s opposition to the United States might indicate that the United States should reassess

that policy.

March 21, 2005: Prime Minister Sharon approves construction of 3,500 new housing units in the Israeli settlement of Ma’ale Adumim to link it

to East Jerusalem. The U.S. State Department has no comment.

May 2005: Newsweek reports that in the late 1990s, lobbyist Jack Abramoff diverted more than $140,000 from charity contributions by Indian

tribes to the Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit for sniper equipment and training of settler militias.

March 2006: Professors John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt, the academic dean at Harvard’s School of Government,

co-author a major paper in which they conclude: “For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War of 1967, the centerpiece

of U.S. Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort

to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized not only U.S. security but that of much of

the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history.”

August 2006:  The FBI issues its 2005 “Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage” report in which it states, “Israel has an

active program to gather proprietary information within the United States … primarily directed at obtaining information on military systems

and advanced computing applications that can be used in Israel’s sizable armaments industry.”

August 25, 2006: The U.S. State Department investigates Israel’s widespread use of American cluster bombs against a civilian population in

Lebanon. Although such use violates U.S.-Israeli agreements, several current and former U.S. government officials tell The New York Times

that “they doubted the investigation would lead to sanctions against Israel, but that the decision to proceed with it might be intended to

help the Bush administration ease criticism from Arab governments and commentators over its support of Israel’s military operations.”

March 25, 2008: The Washington Report reveals that a search of IRS records has identified 28 U.S. charities that collected a total of $33.4

million in private tax-exempt contributions to Jewish settlements and related organizations between 2004 and 2007.

March 31, 2008: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in the Middle East, says that Israeli “settlement activity should stop—expansion should

stop.” Hours later, Israel’s Jerusalem Planning Committee announces approval of an additional 600 housing units in Pisgat Ze’ev, and the

far-right political party Shas announces it has secured pledges from Prime Minister Olmert to approve hundreds of new units in the Beitar

Ilit settlement near Bethlehem.

April 22, 2008: Law enforcement agencies in New Jersey arrest 84-year-old Ben-Ami Kadish on charges of spying for Israel. Kadish admits

passing 50-100 documents to Israel between 1979 and 1985 regarding the U.S. nuclear program and sensitive weapons.

June 13, 2008: Just before Secretary of State Rice’s visit to Israel, Prime Minister Olmert authorizes the Israeli Housing Ministry to

announce approval of an additional 1,300 new settlement units in East Jerusalem.  The secretary denounces the action.

March 3, 2009:  On the same day that Secretary of State Clinton meets with Jerusalem mayor Nir Barak, demolition orders are issued for 50

Palestinian homes in Jerusalem’s Ras Khamis district.

September 4, 2009: In a move that commentators say is calculated to defy U.S. pressure, Prime Minister Netanyahu signals his intent to

approve construction of 455 new residential units in West Bank settlements.

September 6, 2009:  Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Eliyahu Yishai says that the proposed settlement freeze is “only a strategic delay,” and

that Israel would build hundreds more housing units “despite U.S. objections.”

October 22, 2009:  Stewart Nozette, an aerospace scientist from Maryland, is charged in federal court with espionage for allegedly passing

on top-secret information to an Israeli government-owned aerospace firm from 1998-2008.

November 17, 2009:  Israel’s Interior Ministry approves plans for government-funded construction of 900 new housing units in Gilo

settlement.  The Israel’s major newspaper Ha’aretz calls the plan “one more blow to President Obama’s prestige.

January 16, 2010:  Gen. David Petraeus, head of CENTCOM, voices his concern to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen  that the

“stymied Israeli-Palestinian peace process was directly responsible for a rising number of U.S. casualties and setbacks in Iraq and

Afghanistan,” and  that “Israeli intransigence on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was jeopardizing U.S. standing in the area.”

March 8, 2010: Vice President Biden arrives in Israel for a four-day visit to revive peace negotiations.  Simultaneously, Israel announces

its decision to unfreeze construction of 112 housing units in the West Bank settlement of Beitar Ilit. The next day Israel’s interior

minister Eliyahu Yishai announces approval of 1,600 new settlement housing units in Ramat Schlomo in East Jerusalem. The insult to Biden is

widely referred to as Israel’s “slap heard round the world.” Biden “condemns” Israel for undermining the peace process.

March 12, 2010:  Secretary of State Clinton demands that Israel prove its desire for peace by revoking its building plans and warns of

consequences if it doesn’t.

March 16, 2010:  Gen. Petraeus tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that he places “the U.S.’s inability to generate progress on the

Israeli-Arab peace process and perceived U.S. favoritism toward Israel” at the top of his list of challenges  jeopardizing U.S. interests in

his area of operations.

March 18, 2010: Israeli municipal officials in Jerusalem approve American developer Irving Moskowitz’s construction of 20 new settlement

housing units on the Shepherd Hotel site in East Jerusalem’s Shaykh Jarrah neighborhood, a project that had been explicitly denounced by the

Obama administration.

May 30-31, 2010: Israeli naval commandos and helicopters intercept the Free Gaza flotilla in international water, killing eight Turkish and

one U.S. citizen, and injuring 53 others.

June 21, 2010: Israel’s Jerusalem District Planning Commission approves the demolition of 22 Palestinian homes in Silwan, and moves forward

with the creation of an archeological park, a 1,000-unit Jewish residential area, and a tourist zone in the East Jerusalem neighborhood

where some 400 settlers live among 30,000 Palestinians. The U.S. State Department calls the plan “the kind of action that undermines trust

and potentially incites emotions.” U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon calls it “contrary to international law.”

September 27, 2010: U.S. State Department says the U.S. is “disappointed” Israel has allowed the freeze on settlement building to expire. On

the first full day after the expiration, Israel approves construction of a settler-only bypass road linking Kiryat Arba to the Tomb of the

Patriarchs/al-Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, requiring the removal of Palestinian homes and confiscation of Palestinian agricultural land.

November 8, 2010:  Israel’s Interior Ministry says it will go ahead with plans to build 1,300 new Jewish settlement housing units in East

Jerusalem, while finishing more than 13,500 units in various neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. The United States denounces the plans,

President Obama saying, “This kind of activity is never helpful when it comes to peace negotiations.”

February 25, 2011:  The U.S. vetoes a United Nations Resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, calling

them “illegal and a major obstacle to the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.” All other 14 members of the Security

Council vote for the resolution, which has over 130 countries as co-sponsors. Israeli Knesset member Ibrahim Sarsour of the United Arab List

responds: “After the exposure of lies from the U.S., we must say frankly to Obama: You no longer scare us and you can go to hell.”

What Israeli Leaders Think  of the United States


 “Our American friends offer us money, arms, and advice. We take the money, we take the arms, and we     decline the advice.”   —  Moshe

Dayan, former Israeli Defense Minister and Foreign  Minister, cited by  Avi Shlaim in  “The Iron Wall,”  p. 316

 “What we have to do is maneuver with the administration and the European establishment, which are nourished by Israeli elements and which

create the illusion that an agreement can be reached… The founders of Zionism knew, and we in the government know, how to make use of time.”

—   Moshe Ya’alon, Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs, in a 	 March 2010 interview in Yediot Aharonot on why Israel  engages in games of

make-believe negotiations.

“I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in our way.”—Prime

Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a 2001 speech in                   Hebrew that he did not know was being recorded, aired on 	 Israel’s

Channel 10, July 16, 2010.

 “The Obama administration will put forth new peace initiatives only if Israel wants it to.  Believe me, America accepts all our

decisions.”— Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in an April 22, 2009  interview with the Israeli Russian daily Moskovskiy Komosolets.

“The people of Israel have lived for 3,700 years without a memorandum of understanding with America—and it will continue to live without it

for another 3,700 years.”	—Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, quoted in The New York Times, Dec. 21, 1981.

“I know you Americans think you’re going to  force us out of the West Bank. But we’re here and you’re in Washington.  What will you do if we

maintain settlements? Squawk?  What will you do if we keep the army there?  Send troops?”—  Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan, 1979, in

response to  President Carter’s urging Israel to withdraw from the West  Bank.

“I don’t like it [the billions of dollars the U.S. gives Israel every year].  A state like mine should live on its own means.”—  Avraham

Burg, former speaker of the Israeli Knesset  (Parliament), cited in The New Yorker, July 30, 2007.

“Israel of 2009 is a spoiled country, arrogant and condescending, convinced that it deserves everything and that it has the power to make a

fool of America and the world.”	—Gideon Levy, leading Israeli columnist, in Haaretz, January  11, 2009.












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