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ACCORDING TO LIZ - As the U.S.-Israeli war of choice with Iran approaches the five month-mark, imposing escalating oil prices on Americans and promising to further aggravate global tensions along with the cost-of-living inflation Trump was elected to tame, an Economist/YouGov poll conducted from July 10 to 13 indicated that 55 percent favor ceasing the attacks on Iran.
Instead, the war is sucking more countries into the conflict. Saudi Arabia. Egypt.
Meanwhile, the National Defense Authorization Act authorizing $1.15 trillion of Trump’s $1.5 trillion military budget demand passed in the House.
Additional steps to augment the NDAA to pleasure the president will be addressed in a budget reconciliation package which Republicans can fast-track without any Democratic votes in the Senate.
Far more worrisome is a provision tucked into the existing bill. Section 214 was sponsored by Israeli interests to write pro-Netanyahu support into American law.
It initiates a U.S.-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative, primarily to enhance collaboration between the United States and Israel in defense technology by integrating Israeli-origin and jointly developed defense technologies into U.S. military systems including counter-drone technology, missile defense, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity
Oops, more opportunity for A.I. missteps and, given the porous quality of Israeli datacenters at least to Mossad operatives, Israel will then have access to all American secrets. All of them.
It would put the Secretary of Defense, currently the oh-so-trustworthy and oh-so-knowledgeable Pete Hegseth in charge of synchronizing cooperative efforts with the authority to overrule determinations by other Department of Defense agencies – with certainly more experience – to streamline integration. Straight into a hell of his own making.
This would force a shift from purportedly arms-length aid – hah! – to integrating Israel into the U.S. defense sector with the intent of raising the relationship to one equivalent to that with United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand for intelligence sharing and defense cooperation.
So far as is known, none of these have ever been under investigation for genocide and human rights abuses. Ever. During all the decades of its existence. And have these four democracies signed onto this move by two pugnacious and autocratic leaders?
There are supposed to be new reporting requirements and assessments to ensure accountability in cooperative programs. Given how current reporting obligations and their enforcement appear to be such a joke that the Pentagon has not been able to pass an audit. Ever. Don’t hold your breath.
This initiative is billed as a significant step in strengthening U.S.-Israel defense ties, reflecting evolving security challenges and the need for innovative solutions.
Yup, a sell out to AIPAC, the IDF, and the American armaments industry.
And, once signed into law, it would be extraordinary difficult for the United States to extricate itself from those commitments
Forever tarring the U.S. of A. with the brush of the Gazan genocide, the illegal Middle East war and other violent and anti-humanitarian acts its Faustian ally chooses to take.
Please note that the foregoing is not an antisemitic diatribe but an effort to lay out exactly what the NDAA stipulates in an attempt to protect American interests from a foreign country.
The IDF and Netanyahu may cloak their actions as protecting of the Jewish people but but, in truth, they are doing the diametric opposite, goading the Arab tigers of the Middle East – whose route to terrorism was facilitated by years of Israeli abuse, to attack Israel and Jews everywhere.
And now suckering the gullible egoists in Trump’s cadre into throwing American technology, taxpayer money, and what remains of world respect for the United States, into a military merger that would be far more beneficial to Netanyahu than to our country.
Many American Jews are distancing themselves from Netanyahu’s genocide and his blind belief that the righteous way for Israel is to take a page from Hitler’s playbook and revenge itself on gentiles with whom Israelis share the land God gave them.
The Torah and the Talmud are clear that while it’s human nature to want to retaliate, revenge is prohibited.
To be crystal clear, it is not antisemitic to protect American interests from a foreign country any more than it’s not anti-Russian to deny support for Putin’s rain of death and destruction on Ukraine.
Back to the bill in which this provision is buried…
What is heading to the Senate reflects savings in other areas – almost $13 billion torn from critical domestic programs for poorer Americans. From people without the political clout to fight for Medicaid and SNAP – already decimated by the slash-and-burn of Elon Musk’s DOGE.
Some Republicans are refusing to approve supplementary increases without them being further offset by deeper cuts – to the Affordable Care Act, housing assistance, education, public health, and other programs serving low-income communities and working families.
Americans are deeply opposed to the cuts in social programs once they understand that it’s not only welfare queens and the riffraff demanding handouts but mainstream Medicare and Social Security, bought-and-paid-for deductions from their own paychecks.
They are also deeply opposed to the war, and pessimistic about any near-time resolution with 46 percent of those polled believing it will go on a year or more. Only 6 percent thought the war would be over in less than a month, with an outlier 2 percent thinking under a week.
In a further flip-flop, on Fox News Trump denied he was seeking to reopen negotiations with Tehran claiming the “evil” Iranian government’s new delegation were “the ones that are stopping a deal.”
Days after the president rejected plans to escalate the war, he flip-flopped into a weekend of further strikes and counterstrikes and vowed to reimpose a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz by U.S. forces.
In yet another quintessentially irrational post, on Truth Social, he declared: “The Hormuz Strait is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran. We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE, so named because it is only stopping Iran’s ships or customers from entering or leaving.”
Adding that the U.S. would be called “the Guardian of the Hormuz Strait.”
Every American for whom freedom and democracy still hold fundamental significance, whether Jew or Gentile, whether Republican, Democrat, or Decline-to-state, must demand their representatives fight to the finish to oppose this administration’s autocratic takeover of the American military machine and its turnover to an alien and self-serving government.
What we have here is not a partisan issue, it’s a sellout.
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno now living in Vermont and a regular CityWatch contributor. She writes on issues she’s passionate about, including social justice, government accountability, and community empowerment. Liz brings a sharp, activist voice to her commentary and continues to engage with Los Angeles civic affairs from afar. She can be reached at [email protected].)
