The state of Israel, formed in 1948, has led a tumultuous existence since its birth. While achieving impressive scientific and industrial feats, its political and sovereign societal stance has been based on a claimed secular democracy that is ironically based on strong religious notions, non-inclusive, paranoid (for historical reasons that are nevertheless fading away) and ineffective structures, ideas, and governing policies. The Israeli democracy does not uniformly apply to its Arab citizens residing within the pre-1967 borders, the misplaced refugees and the populations under its occupation since 1967, the sum of which may closely equal or exceed the “Jewish” population of Israel and the Occupied Territories. The closest parallel to this is the selective pseudo-democracy practiced by the former apartheid Government of South Africa which eventually collapsed.
Ignoring any moral judgment on the Israeli methodology and focusing on the realities of the situation and the sustainability of such governance, it is reasonable to regard Israel, as an independent entity, a failed state since it is simply unable to exist on its own. Yet Israel continues to exist and thrive and exercise military (strategic and tactical) dominance over its neighbors. We argue that this existence is wholly or in large part based on an extensive amount of US financial (direct and indirect) aid and assistance to the state of Israel under the pretext of protecting Israel from enemies and those seeking its annihilation (either politically or militarily). As such peace is detrimental to the existence of Israel as the primary donor (the United States) will be hard pressed by its internal politics to justify its vast quantity of aid in a peaceful environment given its own internal financial and economic disarray. In simple terms, Israel stands to lose significant financial benefits should peace take hold. We characterize Israel as an essentially failed state as it is unable to sustain itself in a peaceful environment and without significant outside assistance. As such, peace is not in the interest of Israel.
The characterization of Israel’s structures, ideas, and governing policies as ineffective is due to the fact that it has been unable to formulate an existence in over 60 years of statehood that is independent of massive explicit and direct outside financial and military support. It has not been able to overcome existential challenges without such support and provide its citizens with reasonable long-term security and peace. In fact, such challenges have exacerbated from relatively manageable conventional military threats in 1967 and 1973 to its current and biggest self-proclaimed existential challenge of facing nuclear threats in the 2000s and the possibility of mutually assured destruction. Random airplane hijackings and Olympic Village attacks have become missile-armed adversaries on its borders able to directly threaten its population centers. Submissive and demoralized generations of refugees misplaced in 1948 and years thereafter have been replaced with even larger numbers of young, angry and non-compromising children of refugee camps and occupation zones that are far more radical than Yasser Arafat’s old PLO and the residents of Sabra and Shatila. None of these developments were considerations in the past and they constitute significant increases in the costs of sustaining Israel. Militarily, today Israel is better armed and equipped as it has ever been, in fact far better conventionally armed than any of its adversaries, capped with a probable strategic nuclear arsenal of up to 200 warheads. Yet it is as unsustainable as ever, and ever more dependent on outside support.
The title of this article, “Peace is Detrimental to Israel” may have been alternately written as “Why it is unlikely that Israel will Survive In Its Current Form”. The latter, however, implies a possibility of an evolution of the existing governance structures, ideas and policies into a new set of sustainable structures, ideas and policies, whereas the current title, should peace prevail, pervades a sense of undesirable and impending change based on devolution combined with shock and awe. The latter, can also be applied to most countries, societies and government, which, based on differing paces, do evolve and change over time or at least show willingness to do so. The former generally applies to entities that are unable to self-sustain while absorbing change and rely on external forces for their sustenance. Such entities do not see the need for a behavior change as long as the external support is present without a quid pro quo.
In the case of Israel, self-sustenance is nuanced not just by the “natural” difficulties of existence any society would face, but also resistance to forces that actively and explicitly seek to change its current order if not to eradicate it outright. As such, we believe that the state of Israel in its current form, would collapse in a peaceful environment based on its inability to independently sustain itself after the external forces that directly and indirectly contribute to its existence lose their ability to sustain such support. This dependency sustenance has been the core of Israeli policies and efforts and the core contributor to its operational calculus vis-à-vis regional geographic, political, societal, and basic human challenges. Israel was created with “outside” help, has continued to exist based on “outside” help and cannot continue to do so without such help. Peace will dramatically reduce this “outside” help and cause the collapse of the state of Israel. Once the so-called humanitarian threats and genocidal enemies give way to peace, and on a purely economic basis, the costs of the outside support required to effectively deal with Israel’s issues do not seem sustainable in a global multi-polar world order that is in the process of replacing one based on a singular super-power.
In the new world order and after the economic disasters of 2009, the “outside” ability to sustain is decreasing while the cost of such sustenance is increasing. During the 60 years of 1948-2008, this equation was positive to the benefit of such sustenance. During this period, the booming economies of the West, specifically that of the United States allowed for such support. The estimates for the total amount of US aid to Israel since 1948 by Israeli-friendly sources is well over $120 Billion, with the annual figure exceeding the billion mark beginning in 1974 (including but not limited to outright financial aid, military aid, partnerships, [possibly un-repaid] loans and loan guarantees, and myriads of other vehicles designed for such activity) . In addition, other sources estimate the interest paid on this aid to be upwards of $50 Billion. These figures are not adjusted for the present value of the aid in the past 60 years (i.e. $100 Million in 1950 was worth far more than today’s $100 Million) nor do they include the private funds collected from various US political and religious groups destined for Israel. A comprehensive estimate in 2002 by a Washington-based economist puts the complete cost of Israeli support to the US at $1.6 Trillion only since 1973. Therefore the total cost to the US from 1948 to 2010 can be extrapolated to be around $2 Trillion in today’s (2010) dollars, with the costs increasing annually. While this figure may be disputable (although not by much), it is indisputable that Israel is the largest foreign recipient of US funds and such numbers are harder and harder to sustain in an era where as of June 6, 2010, the US Budget deficit is slightly over $13 Trillion.
As a comparison, the current US budget deficit on a per-US-resident (population of 308 million) basis is $42,300 whereas the $2 Trillion spent on Israel, on a per-Jewish-citizen basis (using the 5 million non-Arab population figure) is $400,000. So the money the US has spent since 1948 on every Israeli citizen is almost ten times as much as each and every American currently owes. We have not discussed and certainly do not deny US aid to Arab and other countries (much smaller than the aid to Israel) and have focused solely on Israel, at that is the topic of this writing. Even if we use lower figures than the $2 Trillion amount, the disparity between these two metrics is quite significant and noteworthy.
As pointed out earlier, this massive support has yet to produce a self-sustaining, peaceful country. Controversy surrounds any and every action of the Israeli Government. From suppressing occupied peoples for decades to the building of new settlements to bulldozing the homes of innocent people in already dilapidated, highly dense and by all accounts squalid areas, the state of Israel has produced more enemies over the years than friends. This is generally not a characteristic of a long-term, truly independent, self sustaining state.
Given that the US is in a dire financial situation and that it dangerously came close to a total collapse of its financial system (and quite possibly the global financial system) in 2009 and with a rapidly increasing deficit of over $130 Trillion, the sustenance of Israel becomes more and more expensive as time goes on. The cost to the US taxpayer will increase while the taxpayer is mired in debt, in an uncertain economic future and in receipt of less government services. The US ability to sustain Israel is decreasing while Israel does not seem concerned about the loss or possible reduction of this support. That again, is not the sign of a long-term self-sustaining state.
Using a scientific analogy, the creation of Israel has been the primary source of equilibrium disturbance in the Middle East since 1948.
“In chemistry, Le Châtelier’s principle, also called the Chatelier’s principle, can be used to predict the effect of a change in conditions on a chemical equilibrium.”
“This principle has a variety of names, depending upon the discipline using it……It is common to take Le Châtelier’s principle to be a more general observation, roughly stated:
Any change in status quo prompts an opposing reaction in the responding system.”
The creation of Israel was a major change in the status quo of the Middle East over 60 years ago. An artificial state was carved out of an un-willing and hostile population by force. This change prompted an opposing reaction in the region that has been growing and getting stronger in its threatening posture to Israel ever since. The state of Israel has not been able to absorb or neutralize this reaction, by either multiple violent methods, despite multiple attempts, and despite receiving $2 Trillion in outside aid since its birth. Given that the outside aid is not sustainable long term and in a peaceful environment, and the forces trying to restore the “equilibrium” in the region have become only stronger, it is highly unlikely that Israel will be interested in peace as it is unable to survive in its current form and without significant outside aid.
Furthermore, in a peaceful environment, an Israeli “democracy” would have to either relinquish the occupied territories and concede to a Palestinian state, or absorb them all into a greater Israel and grant citizenship to all their residents, overwhelmingly Arabs. Neither of these scenarios is desirable as the first option conflicts with the current (and long term) Israeli strategy of changing the facts on the ground and expanded settlement activity, and the second, will create an Arab majority, which in a true democracy, would erode the “Jewishness” of Israel. A third option, the best and safest so far, is to keep an on-going conflict with occasional uprisings and military adventures. And use that as a pretext for ongoing and increasing financial receipts from an American electorate conditioned for exactly this purpose.
Israel is forced to show that it is interested in making peace and participate in related meetings and conferences, while on the ground and in reality, it is taking steps on a daily basis to erode peace and any chance thereof. Peace is detrimental to the existence of the State of Israel, and like any other entity, interested in survival, it will actively work to avoid peace and its potential internal collapse.
NOTES
[1] Multiple web-based sources but primarily the website for the Jewish Virtual Library http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/index.html and the following Israeli Aid calculations: and http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Isr…
[2] http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/cost_of_israe…
[3] http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.htm…
[4] US Debt Clock: http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
[5] Ibid
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Chatelier%27s_prin…
[7] Ibid
