Sanctioning Israel's Ariel Sharon
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin
Also published by United Press International (UPI)
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Written April 7, 2003
Updated March 2005
In a bid to strengthen the hand of the newly elected Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, the Israelis have released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and pulled, in March 2005, from Jericho and Tulkarm. In a significant change of heart, Hamas, the militant Palestinian organization, vowed to compete in future parliamentary elections and, thus, potentially, to repeat its impressive showing on the municipal level.
As the pro-war and anti-war camps were holding a string of summits, a consensus has emerged in Europe - including Britain - that the "road map" for peace in the Middle East would be a futile exercise without some "teeth". Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation may prove to be the glue that reunites the fractious Euro-Atlantic structures.
But while the United State is reluctant to impose a settlement on the Israelis, the specter of sanctions against the Jewish state has re-emerged in the Old Continent's corridors of power. A committee of the European Parliament is said to be laboring away at various scenarios of escalating sanctions against Israel. The European Commission may be readying its own proposals.
The views of the Conservative American administration are summed up by David Pryce-Jones, Senior Editor of National Review:
"Israelis and Palestinians face each other across the new ideological divide in a dilemma that bears comparison to Germany's in the Cold War ... Israel must share territory with Palestinians, a growing number of whom are proven Islamic terrorists, and who identify with bin Laden's cause, as he identifies with theirs ... The Oslo peace process is to the Middle East what Ostpolitik was to Germany and central Europe. Proposals to separate the two peoples physically on the ground spookily evoke the Berlin Wall."
Still, such sentiments aside, in the long-run, Muslims are the natural allies of the United States in its role as a budding Asian power, largely supplanting the former Soviet Union. Thus, the threat of militant Islam is unlikely to cement a long term American-Israeli confluence of interests.
Rather, it may yet create a new geopolitical formation of the USA and moderate Muslim countries, equally threatened by virulent religious fundamentalism. Later, Russia, China and India - all destabilized by growing and vociferous Muslim minorities - may join in. Israel will be sacrificed to this New World Order.
The writing is on the wall, though obscured by the fog of war and, as The Guardian revealed in April 2003, by American reliance during the conflict in Iraq on Israeli intelligence, advanced armaments and lessons in urban warfare. The "road map" announced by President George Bush as a sop to his politically besieged ally, Tony Blair, and much contested by the extreme right-wing government of Ariel Sharon, called for the establishment of a Palestinian state by 2005.
Israel was expected to promptly withdraw from all the territories it re-seized during the 30 months of second intifada. Blair had openly called on it to revert to the pre-Six Day War borders of 1967. In a symbolic gesture, the British government decided to crack down on food products imported from Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza and mislabeled "Made in Israel" or "Produce of Israel". The European Union pegs the total value of such goods at $22 million.
Wariness of Israel in both Europe and the Arab world was heightened in April 2003, when then National Infrastructure Minister, Yosef Paritzky, saw fit to inform the Israeli daily, Ha'aretz, about a plan to revive a long defunct oil pipeline running from Mosul to Haifa, a northern seaport. This American-blessed joint venture will reduce Israel's dependence on Russian crude and the cost of its energy imports. It would also require a regime change in Syria, whose territory the pipeline crosses.
Partly to prevent further Israeli provocations of an extremely agitated and radicalized anti-Western Arab street, European leaders revived the idea of economic sanctions, floated - and flouted - in 2002. The EU accounts for one third of Israel's exports and two fifths of its imports. It accords Israeli goods preferential treatment.
In April 2002, in the thick of the bloody intifada, Germany and Belgium suspended military sales to Israel. Norway boycotted some Israeli agricultural commodities. The Danish Workers Union followed suit. The European Parliament called to suspend Israel's Association Agreement with the EU. Though Belgium supported this move, harsher steps were avoided so as to allow Colin Powell, then U.S. Secretary of State, to proceed with his peace mission to the Middle East.
Israel has been subjected to boycotts and embargoes before. In the first four decades of Israel's existence as well as in the last five years, the Arabs imposed strict market access penalties on investors and trade partners of the Jewish state. The United States threatened its would-be ally with economic and military sanctions after the Suez War in 1956, forcing it to return to Egypt its territorial gains in the desert campaign.
For well over a decade afterwards, Israel was barred from direct purchases of American weaponry, securing materiel through West German intermediaries and from France. After the Six Day War, French President Charles de Gaulle imposed an arms embargo on the country. Faced with Arab intransigence and virulent enmity towards Israel in the Khartoum Summit in 1967, the USA stepped in and has since become Israel's largest military supplier and staunchest geopolitical supporter.
Yet, even this loyal ally, the United States, has come close to imposing sanctions on Israel on a few occasions.
In 1991, Yitzhak Shamir, the Israeli Prime Minister at the time, was reluctantly dragged into the Madrid Arab-Israeli peace conference by a victorious post Gulf war administration. He proceeded to negotiate in bad faith and continued the aggressive settlement policies of his predecessors.
In consequence, a year later, President George H.W. Bush, the incumbent's father, withheld $10 billion in sorely needed loan guarantees, intended to bankroll the housing of 1 million Jewish immigrants from the imploding Soviet Bloc. Shamir's successor, Yitzhak Rabin, succumbed to American demands, froze all new settlements and regained the coveted collateral.
Only concerted action by the EU and the USA can render a sanctions regime effective. Israel is the recipient of $2.7 billion in American annual military aid and economic assistance. In the wake of this round of fighting in the Gulf, it will benefit from $10 billion in guaranteed soft loans. It has signed numerous bilateral tax, trade and investment treaties with the United States. American sanctions combined with European ones may prove onerous.
Israel is also finding itself increasingly on the wrong side of the "social investing" fence. Activist and non-governmental organizations are applying overt pressure to institutional investors, such as pension funds and universities, to divest or to refrain from ploughing their cash into Israeli enterprises due to the country's "apartheid" policies and rampant and repeated violations of human rights and international law.
They are joined by student bodies, academics, media people and conscientious Jews the world over.
According to The Australian, a petition launched in 2002 by John Docker, a Jewish-Australian author and Fellow of the Australian National University's Humanities Research Centre and Christian Lebanese Australian senior lecturer and author Ghassan Hage of Sydney University's Anthropology Department, "calls (for a) ban on joint research programs with Israeli universities, attending conferences in Israel and disclosing information to Israeli academics".
It is one of many such initiatives. In the long run such grassroots efforts may prove to be have the most devastating effects on Israel's fragile and recessionary economy. Multinationals are far more sensitive to global public opinion than they used to be only a decade ago. So are governments and privatized academic institutions.
Israel may find itself ostracized by consent rather than by decree. Already a pariah state in many quarters, it is being fingered by European left-leaning intellectuals as being in cahoots with the lunatic fringes of Christian and Jewish fundamentalism. Yet, if sanctions cause a recalcitrant Israeli right to trade occupied land for a hitherto elusive peace, history may yet judge them to be a blessing in disguise.
Appendix: The USA, the Friendly Bully
I. Introduction
It is common knowledge that, in international affairs, emotions defer to self-interest. As George Orwell noted in his masterpiece, "1984", the flux of circumstance may render yesterday's foe tomorrow's friend.
Thus, ever since the USA bombed Yugoslavia in 1999 and then proceeded to champion the cause of the restive Albanian minority in 2001 (amidst a bloodied insurgency), America was widely considered by many Macedonians as the enemy. A mere 7 years later, Bush's United States has become Macedonia's last hope and great supporter in its conflict with Greece over the "name issue".
But Macedonia would do well to learn from Israel's turbulent and bitter experience with the United States. Despite the fact that the Israeli lobby in Washington - AIPAC - is by far the mightiest and the best organized, backed as it is by millions of affluent and politically active Jews, Israel was often pressured by its "friend" and strategic ally into compromises that subverted its national interest and even endangered its very existence.
II. 1948-1967
During the 1950s and 1960s, the USA was essentially pro-Arab. It attempted to secure the oil fields of the Middle East (in the Gulf, Iraq, and Iran) from Soviet encroachment by nurturing friendly relations with the region's authoritarian regimes and by fostering a military alliance with Turkey (later, a part of an extended NATO).
Remarkably, Israel was forced to rely on the USSR for arms (supplied via the Czech Republic) and, later, on France and Britain, who were desperately trying to hang on to the smoldering remnants of their colonial empires
Thus, in 1956, Israel (in collusion with France and Britain) attempted to prise open the critical recently-nationalized waterway, the Suez Canal, by invading the Sinai Peninsula, then, as now, a part of Egypt. The USA forced Israel into a humiliating and public retreat and threatened the fledgling state with economic, military, and diplomatic sanctions if it did not comply with American demands without ado.
During the 1960s, even when America did (rarely) sell weapons systems to Israel, it made sure to make the same armaments available to Israel's avowed and vociferous enemies, Egypt and Jordan. By 1967, the USA has granted the Hashemite Kingdom of Trans-Jordan far larger sums of military and foreign aid than it did its neighbor to the west, Israel.
President Johnson was a staunch supporter of Israel. Yet, in the run-up to the Six Days War, the Johnson Administration summoned Israeli politicians and military leaders to Washington and publicly chastised and berated them for refusing to succumb to American pressure and yield to Arab demands (which amounted essentially to the dismantling of the Jewish State by economic and diplomatic means). Secretary of State Dean Rusk went as far as blaming Israel for the war. A diplomatic solution, he insisted, was possible, had Israel shown more flexibility.
The deliberate or mistaken Israeli attack, during the conflict, on the USS Liberty, an American intelligence-gathering ship, moored in international waters, did not help bilateral relations any.
III. 1967-Present
Still, Israel's decisive victory over the combined forces of numerous Arab states, many of which bore Soviet arms, changed perceptions in Washington and among the Jews: here was a military democracy that could serve as a bulwark against Soviet expansion in the Middle East; a regional cop; a testing ground for new weapons; a living breathing demonstration of the superiority of American arms; an intelligence gathering "front office"; and a frontline base in case of dire need.
Israel's standing was thus transformed from pariah to a major non-NATO ally overnight (a status officially granted it in 1987). Israel felt sufficiently secure in its newfound pivotal strategic role to reject a peace plan forwarded by then Secretary of State, Will Rogers in 1970.
Yet, even in the heyday of this "special relationship", Israel refrained from defying the USA and feared the repercussions of any disagreement, major or minor. This hesitancy and dread were not confined to the political echelons: the entire population were affected. People of all walks of life engaged in reading the tea leaves of "the mood in Washington" and what should Israel do to placate its fickle, thuggish, and overbearing "partner".
Thus, despite numerous warning signs that it is about to be attacked by superior Arab forces in 1973, the Israeli leadership gambled with the country's very existence and did not launch a pre-emptive strike, having been cautioned not to act by President Nixon and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger.
When Israel repelled and encircled the invading Egyptian Army, Kissinger called Israel's Ambassador in Washington, Simcha Dinitz and instructed him not to pursue a military victory. When Dinitz protested, Kissinger told him that disobeying the United States (and destroying the aggressor's remaining forces on the ground) was "an option that simply does not exist".
Kissinger then proceeded with shuttle diplomacy aimed at pressuring Israel into ceding most of the land it conquered in the last two wars in return for a mere ceasefire. Whenever Israel resisted any of his dictates, however inconsequential, Kissinger would publicly threaten Israel with abandonment and even sanctions. This modus operandi continued throughout President Carter's years in office.
Even in the early Reagan years, Israel was berated and threatened on a regular basis, owing to its invasion of Lebanon and its rejection of yet another American-imposed "peace" plan in 1982 and in 1988. The Reagan Administration also openly consorted with the PLO, at the time still an unrepentant, anti-Jewish terrorist organization.
Yet, throughout these very public and advertent humiliations, the USA remained Israel's main backer. Friendship and bullying appeared to be two inalienable facet of the same coin of American-Israeli relations.
The two countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 1981; formed a Joint Military Political Group in 1983; conducted joint air and naval exercises in 1984; stockpiled American weapons and materiel on Israeli soil; and signed a free trade agreement in 1985. Israel has also been the recipient of 3 billion USD annually (until 2004, one third of all American foreign aid) since the early 1980s.
At the very same time, Secretary of State, James Baker reprimanded Israel for its "expansionist" policies and his boss, President Bush (the father) insisted that east Jerusalem - the very soul and heart of the Jewish state - was an "occupied territory".
Blowing hot and cold on the "special" relationship strained them to the hilt. Disagreements and misunderstandings proliferated as the USA began to micromanage Israeli affairs, telling the country how to conduct its investigations into incidents and even how to hold elections (for the Palestinian delegation to a peace conference).
With the first Gulf War imminent in 1990, Bush affirmed the USA's commitment to Israel's existence and security. But, only a year later, when Iraq attacked Israel with Scud missiles and Israel heeded America's request not to retaliate did relations between the two asymmetric allies thaw. Israel was granted loans, albeit under the condition that it freezes all settlement activities in the West Bank.
Relations between Israel and the Administration of President Bush (the son) started off on the wrong foot, with recriminations and accusations, only to be rendered an intimate collaboration by the terrorist attacks of September 2001.
Currently, in the throes of an umpteenth honeymoon, Israel can do no wrong. But, history teaches us that such phases are invariably followed by discord. Israel has consistently jeopardized both its national security and its interests to placate American impetuous demands and to cater to its ally's geopolitical and -global economic interests.
Thus, at America's vehement and minacious behest, Israel has ignored Syrian offers to negotiate a peace accord. Similarly, Israel has cancelled the sale or maintenance of proprietary weapons systems to China, Venezuela and other countries the USA deemed "unfriendly".
When Israel dared to service and upgrade an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) it has previously sold to China, it was harshly penalized: joint development programs, shipments of military equipment, and regular communication between the departments of defense of the two allies were all suspended.
Acting as the latter-day equivalent of a colonial or imperial master, the USA demanded from Israel a detailed report about dozens of transactions with Mainland China; the right to supervise and inspect Israel's military equipment sales supervision system; and an effective veto power on all future arms sales.
Israel in 2025: Interview granted to Nova Makedonija, December 24, 2014
Q. Now, that the 2-states solution has been finally accepted and implemented by both nations, why the renewed tension between them?
A. In order to be able to sign the Hebron Framework Agreement in February last year (which transformed the Palestinian Authority into a state recognized by Israel), Prime Minister Netanyahu was forced to make concessions to the more extreme far right. The Constitution was changed to say that the State of Israel is the Jewish home of the Jewish people, excluding 1.5 million Arabs within its pre-1967 borders and fostering the current unrest and "resistance" among them. Additionally, Israel was effectively transformed into a theocracy with enhanced powers granted to the rabbinate and to other Jewish Orthodox structures in various fields of life, including the military, education, and housing construction. This alienated the secular majority of Israelis. Fractured and weakened, Israel is in no position to make further compromises.
Palestine is in no better shape: its economy is still heavily dependent on Israel: VAT returns, food supplies, electricity, water, the Internet, trade in goods and services - everything comes from or through Israel. More than half the Palestinian budget still relies on international and Israeli handouts.
Moreover, the 2 security corridors or cordons that Israel insisted on maintaining cut across Palestinian territory and effectively bisect the new country, rendering it mutilated and dysfunctional. Roads, neighborhoods, villages, and cities are rended in half; police forces cannot engage in hot pursuit of, for instance, Israeli settlers, who are involved in terrorist activities, protesting the Hebron Agreement; goods are stuck in the border crossings and left to rot. This cannot go on for long. The Hebron Agreement foresees the elimination of these 2 arteries in 20 years, but I think it should and will be sooner than that - or Israel will face a fourth Intifada.
Q. What happened to Hamas?
A. Hamas was totally discredited, even in the Arab street, when its close ties to certain intelligence agencies - including and especially the Israeli Mossad and Shin-Bet - were revealed. Still, it maintains its network of charities, schools, hospitals, and kitchens for the indigent throughout the Gaza Strip. Palestine right now has a technical government which is preparing all the necessary legislation, institutions, and Constitution prior to the elections in March next year. Fatah will remain in the lead, but Hamas may surprise with a comeback. The new political movement, al-Nahda, modeled after the successful party in Tunisia, may emerge as the third potent force in the territory.
Q. Five years ago, Israel was at war with Syria ...
A. Syria under al-Nusra and the remnants of ISIL was just the front. Israel was actually at war with the backers of the new Islamist regime there: Turkey, Iraq, Iran. But, in hindsight, this war was a "good" thing: it brought all the moderates in the region to their senses and made the Hebron Framework Agreement possible. The region was on the verge of nuclear war. It was a Cuba crisis moment. No one wants to see it happening again.
Q. Finally, how do Israelis feel about the Palestinian State on their doorstep?
A. They are skeptical. Israel and the Palestinians experimented with dozens of solutions over the decades. Israel withdrew unilaterally from Gaza 2005. It built a wall around the Palestinian territories in the West Bank to isolate itself. It agreed to a Palestinian autonomy and the establishment of a state-like Authority. In 2000, Israel offered to the Palestinians 95% of all their territories and half of Jerusalem. Arafat rejected the offer. An Israeli politician once said: "The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity". The Palestinian State may be no exception. It may end up embroiled in war from within (civil war, like in Lebanon 1975-1990) and without, with Israel and Egypt.
Israel, on the other hand, has never learned how to properly administer the territories it occupied. Its administration was illegal, mean-spirited, violent, harsh, and short-sighted. It has been paying the price ever since.
Israel’s Brinkmanship: after the Elections in 2015 - Interview granted to Nova Makedonija, March 18, 2014
Q. Netanyahu won the elections in Israel a fourth time in a row. What are the geopolitical implications of this victory?
A. Faced with the prospect of losing the elections to a left-center coalition, The Zionist Union, Binyamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu, the leader of the right-wing Likud party, cast himself as a radical extremist. He announced that he is opposed to a Palestinian State (the “two states” solution); that he will continue the policy of settlements in the West Bank and even in east Jerusalem; and he has joined other ultra-rightist politicians in warning against the participation and presence of Israeli Arabs in the political process. These Arabs, who are Israeli citizens, constitute 20% of the population and occupy more than 10% of the seats in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. They also have a Supreme Court judge who serves as head of the Elections Committee.
Both the US and the EU reacted with alarm to these statements. It is clear that the peace process is now officially dead. The Palestinians will likely press ahead with their attempt via the International Court of Justice to put Israel and its leaders in the dock for war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed during the recent Gaza campaign. A fourth Intifada (uprising) is now in the cards. Israeli atrocities and Palestinian acts of terror will become a daily routine in an increasingly hopeless ambience.
Additionally, partly to divert attention from economic hardship fuelled by a growing income inequality and its attendant social unrest, Israel is surely planning military action against Hizbullah and Islamist rebel groups in Syria. An invasion of Syria and Lebanon is almost guaranteed. Recently, Netanyahu took the unprecedented step of appearing before the US Congress to attack the policy of President Obama regarding Iran’s nuclear program. If an international agreement to constrain Iran’s nuclear activities is not reached by month’s end, Israel will confront Iran one way (cyberwarfare) or another (aerial bombardment coupled with special operations on the ground).
Nothing can stop this scenario from happening. Even if Netanyahu is forced into a coalition with the Zionist Union, he will maintain a firm grip on matters of foreign policy, national security, and defense. He believes that he is the only person capable of leading Israel in these perilous times and he is not likely to relinquish his fundamental view of the world as hostile and inhospitable. Though a suave political operator, his instincts are panicky and aggressive and so is the future of the Middle-East with Netanyahu at Israel’s helm.
Q. Are Europe in general and Macedonia in particular likely to be affected?
A. Ironically, after Israel, Europe will pay the heaviest price for Netanyahu’s victory. Israel’s growing isolation and belligerence and its conflicts with neighbors near and far will generate enormous waves of refugees seeking to traverse Italy and Macedonia on the way to the EU. Many jihadists are known to hide among these illegal immigrants with an aim to sow mayhem and havoc in European cities, public utilities, airports, and infrastructure.
As Israel disintegrates, human rights abuses will multiply and force the West to consider sanctions against the Netanyahu regime. The fledgling Palestinian State will require massive doses of foreign aid on a regular basis. The standing of the USA in the region depends on its ability and willingness to distance itself from Israel, but, with a Republican Congress, this is not likely to happen. Islamist groups from Iraq to Egypt stand to capitalize on growing anti-American and anti-Zionist sentiments and drive these oil-rich lands into an “Arab Winter” of discontent and mass terrorism.
One after the other, hitherto stable Arab states and regimes – including Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia - will slide into civil strife, bordering on civil wars. The price of energy products will shoot up again and lead to a deep economic depression in Europe from which it will not recover for many years. Russia – with or without Putin – will resurge and stake claims throughout east Europe and the Baltics. Macedonia’s exports, financial sector, and real economy are not diversified. Macedonia is heavily dependent on the European Union’s well-being. Macedonia would be unable to withstand such external shocks. As usual, Macedonia’s citizens stand to pay the price for the missteps of foreign, far-away powers.
Also Read:
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The Economies of the Middle East
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