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- 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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