A new lawsuit filed by the director of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy aims to put an end to some 40 years of the US government violating its own International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976, related to providing military aid to clandestine nuclear weapons power.
In this case the focus is on Israel, which is widely acknowledged to have a substantial nuclear weapons arsenal, but is not a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Since 1976, the US has provided some $234 billion in military aid to Israel, with a new record deal expected to be finalized soon.
The intention of the law (in particular the Glenn Amendment) was to ensure that the US was not supporting, even indirectly, any nation which had embarked on a program to create nuclear arms. The law provided a loophole, which would allow a president to continue such aid if he could both certify the aid was a key US interest AND that the country in question was to put its entire program under IAEA auspices. Israel, however, has had no such intentions.
The lawsuit further alleges that the US government has made it a matter of policy since 1976 to keep Israel’s nuclear program a secret, citing the FOIA recovery of a heavily redacted directive of the Department of Energy which effectively banned all US officials and contractors, under threat of prison, from mentioning Israel’s nuclear capabilities.
This attempt to skirt the letter of the law through “ambiguity” closely mirrors what the US did with Egypt after their 2013 military coup d’etat. US law similarly forbids providing military aid to a nation ruled by a military junta, a law which the Obama Administration got around by just never “officially” recognizing the coup.
The Israel effort is the same, except more preposterous, as US officials often more or less publicly affirm their intention to keep Israel’s arsenal “secret,” and in 2010 President Obama even declared Israel to have a “right” to possess nuclear arms, even though this admission ought to have obliged the end to military aid to Israel.
The billions sent to Israel annually have become such a centerpiece of US policy that it is virtually unthinkable that they would allow a little thing like its overt illegality get in the way. Still, if they lost this lawsuit they’d be obliged to either end the aid or change the law to admit Israel can flout this restriction.
This lawsuit, though justified, will go nowhere…and will not be mentioned in the US mainstream media. The last thing the USG and their sycophants want to talk about is the amount of money we waste on Israel, especially when contrasted with the amount of good that same money could be doing to fix the problems here in our own country.
Of course the lawsuit is correct. Of course it won’t work anyway. The Court will decline to get involved in politics, or declare it a national security matter. It isn’t of course, the law is clear, and it would be enforced against any other nation. THAT is the politics.
Seems like Netanyahu has ruffled enough feathers here to have NUMEC dug back up and the old Symington-Glenn cudgel dragged out of mothballs.
About as likely to work as sending cavalry archers into battle against tanks, but it’s a start.
OOPS! Sorry. One problem. Israel is above the law.
Same as a US election or anything else from the stink of the oBUMMER, impeach this traitor and liar before he runs away to israle with H.Clinton, better YET NUKE ISRAEL today and save the WORLD!
There’s no doubt that Obama is a traitor for allowing Russia to establish a presense in Syria and also allow the bad, bad, bad deal to succeed with Iran. Treason I say! Black faced uppity treason!
Obama aided Iran by allowing the nuclear deal to go ahead and he set up the conditions to legitimize Russia’s presense in Syria so there’s no reason why he can’t help Israel too.
I mean, isn’t it obvious that Israel and the US are fucked for taking Syria and Iran to complete the PNAC agenda? No way Putin is going to lose that leg up on ME power that Obama gave him! And no way the US is going to risk turning N.Y and L.A. and a few others into glass parking lots.
Would anyone care to point out precisely where within the US Constitution it allows the US gvt to steal money from Americans “via taxation” and to then give those stolen monies to any foreign government??
No one has ever taken up this challenge! I wonder why??
Too bad this lawsuit will never make the nightly mainstream news, and the judiciary will dismiss it as a “political question” if it ever gets to SCOTUS