02/24/17 – Grant F. Smith on the billions in yearly US aid to Israel, and the apologists who claim it’s no big deal for such a great US ally – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, tell Scott Horton Show.
I got Grant Smith on the line.
He runs the Institute for Research Middle Eastern Policy, IRMEP.org, IRMEP.org.
And he's the author of a ton of books, 10 or a dozen or something books about the Israel lobby and their nefarious and or criminal activities in the United States.
The latest is Big Israel.
For that, divert NUMEC, Zalman Shapiro, and the diversion of U.S. weapons-grade uranium into the Israeli nuclear weapons program.
And here he's got one at Antiwar.com, $254 billion in unconditional U.S. aid to Israel is unique.
Oh, is that so?
Welcome back to the show.
How you doing, Grant?
Hey, Scott.
Thanks for having me on again.
Unique, huh?
So you don't think he doesn't give $258 billion to everybody?
Well, not everybody.
Certainly not me or you, but if you take all of the aid figures from the latest Congressional Research Service report, which is compiled by Jeremy Sharp, you can see that since 1949, when we right off the bat gave the new country today's equivalent of a billion dollars, we've been funding Israel very generously, and I would argue unconditionally, decade after decade.
So can you tell us a little bit about the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies that you talk about in here?
Yeah.
I mean, in terms of a think tank, it's a think tank that offers a lot of analysis and perspective about military and geostrategic areas.
They claim they're nonpartisan.
They focus on the Middle East.
They give recommendations to senior Israeli decision makers.
They're kind of like an Israeli Brookings or American Enterprise Institute, and they do a lot of lectures and studies and host events in Washington, Tel Aviv, Seoul, South Korea.
So they're movers and shakers who take a position on what should be going on in the Middle East in terms of security and defense.
What's interesting, you use here right at the very beginning this chart that compares how much money the Israelis are getting compared to Germany, Japan, and South Korea, and then compared to the trade-off of how many troops they let us station there.
I'm not sure it's really to our benefit, but anyway, point taken that we don't really have bases in Israel, but we're still lavishing them with all this military aid anyway that they can use for operations that we would participate in or not, as opposed to the way it works in, say, for example, South Korea, where if they're getting in a war, it's because we're in a war with them.
Right.
And right there in the DMZ, as is identified, almost 28,000 U.S. troops there.
Still no real end to the North Korea-South Korea dispute.
But what's important here is that this very influential think tank and one of its analysts, Hillel Frisch, are trying to change the debate or change the terms of debate on what counts as military aid.
And so the hope here, or at least what it looks like to me, is that they want to have this equivalency between these treaty allies, Japan, Germany, South Korea, Italy, that have signed on to either NATO or some other treaties.
They want to have the cost of U.S. troops stationed in those countries compared to what Israel gets.
Even though, as I argue in the article, it's really kind of two rotten apples and oranges that you're comparing.
They're both rotten as far as...
In other words, they're invoking the cost of America stationing Marines in Okinawa as aid to Japan just in order to try to make it look like Japan's getting as much as they are, when really that's a whole different species of spending.
It is.
And I think you've had some people on your show to talk about just how the Okinawans feel about having basically an aircraft carrier in the middle of their island nation.
I'm sure they'd prefer we treat them like Israelis.
You can have all the money, but we won't station troops there.
So the Japanese, depending on who you're talking to, government or Okinawans protesting the bases, the government seems to want to deepen the relationship.
But the calculation here is basically, yeah.
And this is not just this think tank.
Commentary Magazine, linking to an article in Antiwar.com, was saying, look at these horrible people who keep saying that the U.S. is giving more aid to Israel than anybody else.
It's just not true, says Commentary Magazine, citing this study at this think tank.
So I kind of see this as a larger effort to minimize, because there has been a lot of new analysis about exactly what U.S. aid to Israel gives the U.S. in return.
There's this effort to push back.
It's like, no, no, no, no, no.
It's only a fraction.
It's only 10% of what you're giving, for example, Japan.
So the article's really trying to look at whether these are apples to oranges.
The interesting thing is that the numbers used in this report, you mentioned sort of the first table saying that Japan gets $27 billion in aid.
Frisch and this think tank, Begin Sadat, get that from a book that is actually anti-military based and has a lot of good points about why they're no longer needed, but doesn't cite the book.
So they kind of want to have their cake and eat it, too.
They want to say, you know, these are extremely expensive, but they don't want to say, but they're bad, too, because they probably don't see that as their role.
But the really interesting thing is that the Pentagon, when it calculates basing costs, it only says, look, we're going to have X number of troops active in the U.S. per year anyway, and so the only costs that we calculate to say how much it costs to be in Japan is the incremental costs of moving them over there and anything we might pay to station them there.
And you have Japan and Germany and South Korea providing all sorts of housing and all sorts of roads and even kicking in money.
So the argument of the peace is really, eh, it's not really like just granting a bunch of weapons to Israel, which is basically what happens.
It's not comparable at all.
Of course, I don't really buy either Frisch's numbers, which are in Exhibit 1, or the second one, which are the Pentagon numbers, which seem way too low.
If you really look at the difference between Israel and these so-called treaty ally countries, what you find is, you know, we've got two signed treaties with Japan, one which started right after, kind of began right after the occupation of World War II, heavily involved in saying what Japan could or couldn't do, heavily trying to keep Japan from militarizing.
So it's really heavy-handed U.S. treaty forced on Japan for U.S. needs.
You have Germany, kind of the same situation, South Korea a little bit different.
But these are all countries bound to the U.S. because the U.S. wanted them to do certain things.
And that really contrasts a great deal with Israel, which has no treaty and essentially has no real obligations to do anything ever for this massive amount of aid.
So the $254 billion that we give Israel is re-indexing to inflation to say, okay, you know, what was the dollar worth in 1949?
Oh, okay, we gave them that much?
Okay, that was worth a billion dollars.
How much was it worth in 1979?
Oh, we gave them $16 billion that year.
So it really takes each year of aid and expresses it in 2017 dollars.
And the bottom line is, it's really aid that does not get anything for the United States in return.
There is no commitment on the Israeli part to do anything for the United States.
And if you answer the question, why do they get it then?
This is a thing that the Begin Sadat Center and Frisch are trying to say is not true.
It's not true that this is all because of domestic lobbying, but I think when you look at who's actually trying to get the money every year, it's not the military.
I mean, there's this myth that you hear a lot of conferences, oh, this is a military industrial complex.
They're forcing Israel to take all this stuff and it's just not true.
This is just a drop in the bucket in terms of the U.S. military industry.
This is all about AIPAC and various Israel lobbying organizations lobbying hard for this.
Well, and look, even if it was true that the billions of dollars that get recycled to American arms firms, which I'm sure they're happy to get, I'm sure they participate in lobbying to a degree, that kind of thing, overall to the people, that's still just a waste.
I mean, military spending is still just spending really always inflated prices on diverting precious resources into making bombs and bomb delivery systems that are only good for killing people and destroying property and mathematically, provably making everyone poorer overall, as opposed to that money being invested into providing a good or a service for somebody or being saved up as an investment for some new kind of good or service that could be developed.
You know, this is all wasteful, even in the best interpretation that, hey, well, that money's getting spent back here on Lockheed products.
So you might as well be dumping it into a black hole.
Exactly.
Exactly.
No, I agree.
On principle, that is exactly, exactly right.
I hear what you're saying, though, which is, nah, what they spend on American defense products is chump change.
That's not really, that's sort of a diversionary explanation of the real dynamic behind American military aid to Israel.
That's not who's driving this car, you're saying.
Right.
And I just think in this particular case, given that this seems to be a program, this is going to be, you know, I assume this will be the kind of thing that's trotted out at AIPAC and newspapers will start picking it up and they're really trying to change things like the chart in the Washington Post that said, OK, this, you know, they showed this map.
The map was the size of the aid they were getting.
Of course, you had Israel and Egypt huge and all these sub-Saharan African countries small.
And it's embarrassing.
But, yeah, I mean, the overall argument, is it wasteful?
Absolutely.
It's the devil in the details.
Overall, is this spending just a tragedy in terms of society?
I mean, agreed, agreed, agreed.
But I think it is I think it is important.
And you've mentioned this before.
And this is true.
I was in living in Colombia for Plan Colombia, and you've had people on your show saying, well, you know, the lobbying for that was really all about selling helicopters.
Yeah, it was Ron Paul.
That is true.
Ron Paul.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's absolutely true.
That is what it accomplished.
He said he said that when they were debating Plan Colombia in the House of Representatives that there was no other interest involved in the discussion.
There's nobody.
There's no concern moms about cocaine abuse group that saying we must do this to stop cocaine production.
It was Bell Helicopter and then whatever.
They were the competition.
And that was the only fight was which helicopter company was going to get the contract.
And so they compromised.
They both got it, of course.
And so, you know, but again, I would argue and again, it's because I've looked at the lobbying reports.
I just don't see Lockheed Martin, Boeing and the others fighting to do these Israel aid packages when you go to the signing ceremonies.
And I have gone to the signing ceremonies for the big aid package.
They're not there.
They're just not there.
Who's there.
Apex.
They're the ADLs.
They're the AJC.
So again, you know, this this I think it's I think it's important to know who's lobbying.
And if it's the helicopter companies, they do support the think tanks, though, don't they.
What's that now?
Lockheed and Northrop Grumman and the like.
They do support the neocon think tanks.
Well, I was telling you again.
I asked Christopher Demuth at AEI at a panel that had Richard Pearl on the panel, all these other people.
I said, how much is Lockheed giving you guys?
And he looked at me, he said, not enough.
And I thought it was just a kind of get rid of this guy type thing.
But when I looked, some of these think tanks are trying to start being a little bit more transparent.
It wasn't that much.
I mean, they enjoy moving money and being influential.
I'm not I'm not sure exactly how much a major league neoconservative think tank gets from the military industrial complex.
I mean, they should get a lot because not because of the aid they deliver to Israel, but just the chaos they create in the Middle East sells a lot of weapons.
But, you know, it's been a while since I looked this up.
But there was at one point, some pretty good reporting at Fairness and Accuracy and reporting about the the money behind the think tanks.
And, you know, there's a great new piece, it got very little attention.
I should interview the guy about it, man.
It's a Tim Shorrock did a thing about the Coindonistas, Petraeus and McChrystal and all the Center for a New American Security people.
And he writes in there about how CNAS got all their money.
I don't know if he says all or not, but they got substantial sums of their operating budget from, you know, the favorites, right?
General Dynamics, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman and Boeing and etc.
Those guys.
Right.
But well, the key to having a think tank be influential on behalf of an industry is to hide those ties so that you look credible.
So it's one of the things that's I didn't even know they were ashamed.
You know, I thought I'm from Lockheed.
I'm here to lobby you for war with Iraq.
Well, no, not the not the lobbyists.
But I'm talking about the geo.
Well, what what some people talk about, they say think tank is, you know, thinkers for the makers of tanks.
There is an effort to hide and there's absolutely no disclosure requirements to, you know, whether it's the IRS form 990, the tax exempt organizations fill out or what have you.
There's absolutely no need and no law requiring anybody to say where they're getting their funding, whether it's from, you know, the defense contractors or not.
So, you know, I wish it, you know, some of the first reports that I ever wrote about this in 2002, 2003, we're trying to crack this nut and I don't know, it's not so easy.
And well, and your real point is, it's the Israel lobby.
I think, you know, in your work, you've you've emphasized criminal activity, but there's a lot of democratic activity, too.
That's the way Walton Mearsheimer always emphasized that.
You know what the the Israel lobby, you know what they do?
They do democracy well, and they got phone trees and they got email lists and they got dedicated people who when they get the word to call, they call.
And you know, when it comes down to keeping track of which congressmen from some state nobody ever heard of crossed us, they are good at keeping track.
And when it comes time for primary season next time around, they don't forget.
And basically they just there's not really I don't know what other groups I guess AARP really does organize their rank and file pretty solidly, too.
But I don't know.
And the NRA, you know, I guess supposedly at least in mythology, they're able to mobilize their people pretty well.
I don't know how true that really is.
They kind of suck.
But anyway.
But yeah, I mean, that's the real thing of it, right, is that that's what it's really all about.
People put Israel first.
And yeah, the arms, the arms corporations are like, hey, all right.
I agree.
I agree.
You know, most of it is plain old organizing, really being efficient with the funding that they do raise myth making developments.
For a while they were able to say, well, we're unbeatable.
And so you've got to go along with us because we never lose and we'll oust people from Congress.
The JCPOA didn't help that reputation at all.
And they definitely can be beaten whenever there's a groundswell against one of their programs.
They often operate in stealth mode, though.
Sometimes it's really hard to tell what they're doing.
But again, you do have these, you know, when it's winner take all, they're going to do whatever it takes to win.
And that's why in some of these books, I focused on the espionage in the free trade agreements on the Lawrence Wilker or the Franklin and Weissman and Wilkerson or Larry, Colonel Lawrence Franklin case and some of the things that were going on with missile treaties.
When it comes right down to it, sometimes they do.
They really do play hardball and do things that, to my knowledge, the NRA doesn't do.
AARP doesn't obtain classified information on a regular basis.
So, you know, they're not in contact in collaboration with a foreign country.
So there are some key differences between this lobby and a lot of those organizations.
You know, the bottom line on this piece about the aid is that it is unique and trying to compare it with anything else, even the NRA, even AARP, is pretty difficult.
And I still think it's really difficult because a majority of the population that AIPAC claims to represent are not members.
They don't have anything to do with them.
Maybe it's true with the AARP as well, but I don't know.
I don't hear too many retired people saying the AARP doesn't focus on any of their issues or that the NRA doesn't focus on any gun rights or gun ownership issues.
But there are an awful lot of Jewish organizations now that are saying AIPAC doesn't represent us, we're not part of the Conference of Presidents, we're not lobbying for this aid.
And yet AIPAC, AJC, ADL tries to present a unified front.
So there are a lot of struggles going on right now, which are a vast consequence for bystanders, whether it's moving the embassy to Jerusalem, whether it's normalizing illegal settlements, whether it's one state or two state, whether it's launching wars against Iran to divert attention.
And so focusing on these things, these major initiatives of the lobby, particularly a major reframing like this, I think is good.
I think people should be talking about it.
I think it should be out in the open.
Because otherwise, you're just constantly subjected to these new talking points and new initiatives.
And if nobody's following them, I do think that we get into this situation like in 2002-2003, where attacking Afghanistan and Iraq was presented as a solution to new problems, when after all it was kind of on the books for decades.
And nobody knew who was plotting this or raising money or spreading the talking points.
So I think it's just so important that people keep track of this.
And if the interest in these articles and conferences that we're doing about this kind of stuff is any indication, people do care.
And they want to know about it.
Yeah.
Well, you know, especially in this day and age, it used to be that just, you know, if you had an alternative point of view, people couldn't hear you.
But now there's just YouTube and Twitter and things.
And people can get the point across that our support for Israel jeopardizes our security.
And it's not just for being little old Israel and minding their own business, it's for their cruelty to the Palestinians that they occupy.
That's the thing.
That's the controversy.
And you used to not ever be able to hear that anywhere.
But now you can.
You know?
It's just so amazing how that story has just been nobody knows about it.
And there are so many great documentaries and great content that you can access now that literally 10 years ago, because there wasn't an independent producer out there doing the interviews, going to the countries, you know, getting the historical footage, putting together a new narrative, you just wouldn't get it.
And I guess it's fashionable to say that it's the media's fault now, but dang, it really is.
I mean, our media is so unreliable, it's so susceptible to public relations and so susceptible to this sort of stuff, like, no, they're not the biggest aid recipient that, God, no wonder we are where we are.
It's just, it's shameful.
And I'm not, I'm not saying this for the first time.
I think the only way to counter it is to be the media and well, I'm preaching to the choir now.
Yeah, well, and you know, look, you're right.
And I think it's huge that, you know, the Israel lobby's claim that they speak for all American Jews on this issue is just ridiculous.
As you said, the polls show constantly and consistently that most American Jews are liberals and most American liberal Jews are for some kind of two-state solution or peace and equal rights or some kind of treating the Palestinians fairly.
And against settlements, against settlements, an incredibly large percentage.
So that's true.
Well, if people really want to see an interesting documentary, exactly the sort of thing that that I'm talking about, they should really watch Tom Hayes' documentary, Two Blue Lines.
This guy's put 25 years of independent work with very little support, talking to Israelis, mostly Israelis about what's going on, including Ben-Gurion's secretary and showing, you know, American-made ordinance dropping in on Gaza and talking about the wall and talking about UN votes.
And it's a fascinating documentary.
It's probably one of the best things I've seen in years.
But nobody's ever heard of it, ever.
Is it on YouTube or the Pirate Bay or anything easy like that?
I've only seen it on Amazon Prime.
It costs like two bucks, three bucks to watch it.
Two Blue Lines.
And who's it by?
What's the guy's name?
Producer's name is Tom Hayes.
If you don't come away with a good understanding of the relatively simple questions involved in this long-ranging conflict and U.S. complicity in it, then, you know, then you need to do more homework.
But it's just an excellent, excellent documentary and we're hoping to screen it at the Israel Lobby and American Policy Conference on March 24.
The what, Grant?
Oh, oh, oh, the what?
The big conference at the National Press Club, March 24.
And we're going to screen it from 8 till 9, probably, and then have a bunch of other great speakers come up and talk about just these issues.
So.
Hey, you know what I think?
I'd hate to have you do the exact same thing again, but that Jim Loeb neoconservatism in a nutshell speech that he gave last time, man, that was so great.
And I'm partial to Jim Loeb anyway, but I just I just thought that was great.
And you do this.
I'm not sure why it has a different name every year, but what is it called this time?
Your conference?
Yeah, the conference now is is called the Israel Lobby and American Policy.
You could compare the name of our conference to the name of the book, which is about 10 years old now.
It's called the Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.
But this conference is called the Israel Lobby and American Policy because it's about what we do domestically as much as what we do internationally.
So right now there's a big drive to make things like grassroots boycotts against Israeli products and and, you know, services and even academics illegal across the 50 states.
So there's a lot of domestic policy involved in this so-called special relationship.
But why do we keep changing the name of the conference every year?
You know, keep it fresh, keep it relevant.
And it just means I can never find them when I'm trying to show them to people.
Yeah.
Well, that's why we if you just go to IRMEP.org, there's always a big banner there.
If you go to Mondoweiss.net, there's a big banner for the conference there.
So just go to one of your favorite information sources.
Hey, everybody reads Mondoweiss email like me, right?
Exactly.
So go get access to this ungainly URL through Mondoweiss.
But yeah, we've got Hanan Ashrawi, Palestinian legislator, John Mearsheimer, author of the Israel Lobby book, Ilan Pape, who's an expert on settler colonialism, Wajahat Ali, who wrote Fear, Inc. about individuals and organizations funding Islamophobia, Catherine Franke talking about some of the legal challenges that are taking place on campus, all sorts of people.
We're adding a bunch more.
And it's just it's going to be really big and it's a chance to actually go and talk to people.
And, you know, we like people on all sides of the issue to come.
People from AIPAC come, it's the same weekend.
I like to think we probably changed some minds there.
Kids from college come, retirees or activists come, people who work 9 to 5 come, they take the Friday off.
It's just an incredible conference and this is the fourth year now.
So I really encourage people to take advantage of that $85 February ticket price.
You get lunch, you get beverage tickets, you get premiums, you get DVDs and head on down to Washington.
It's unusually nice out.
So Cherry Blossom Festival, in fact, should be coming up.
Yeah, there you go.
So that's a month from today.
Yes, sir.
It starts a month from today, March the 24th at the National Press Club in D.C., the Israel Lobby, and American Policy.
This will be hosted by IRMEP and by Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
Yeah, exactly.
So that's a 30-year-old magazine.
We're MIA.
That's what I was trying to think of the acronym.
We're MIA.
Yeah.
We're MIA.org.
Yeah, it's a good, it's a very, people come out of this thing empowered, they come out with new friends, they come out with new ideas, and again, you meet all sorts of people at this conference and have a really, really engaging academic experience.
Again, whether you agree with it 100% or not, we try to have diverse perspectives from academia, from, you know, we've had former CIA, we've had former State Department, always have Israelis, always have Palestinians, and lots of American analysts.
So it's just- Well, you had a former FBI agent give an important speech one time.
Yeah.
I don't think he was ever an agent, Scott.
I think he's like running the thing, counterintelligence.
That was Marion, what was his name, Spike Bowman.
So he was quite a catch, and we've got some surprises coming up, so watch the website.
But we're hoping this year's bigger than ever, can only hold about 600 people, tickets are going fast, so appreciate being able to mention that.
It's always a big deal to do something like this to help sort of break down the barriers to this sort of conversation.
Yeah.
Well, listen, I mean, as you said, AIPAC doesn't always win, and it's really because this argument is making progress.
It is.
And it really was Walton Mearsheimer that finally kicked the door down, and they took a lot of heat for it.
They did.
But ultimately, their point pretty much won out, and they really helped normalize the discussion that used to be ridiculously taboo about America's role in what's going on over there.
And so, yeah, I mean, I think what you're doing is really helping to keep that momentum going of bringing, you know, a very highbrow and professional approach to taking the other side of this argument.
You know, we don't have the spending to have a real anti-Israel lobby, but we can at least come together sometimes and talk frankly about how it works and what's the matter with it.
Yeah, and I think to the extent that this is an academic conference, like you say, it's really designed to stay at that level.
There are a lot of bomb throwers on every side of this issue, and it almost never helps just to remain in that mode.
And, you know, I would argue this conference helps everybody.
And I think to the extent that we continue to keep the conversation fact-based and to a certain extent, you know, not emotional, I think we're doing the right thing.
And again, I hope people come.
There are book signings.
The authors who come to this conference stick around.
You get to meet them.
You get to talk to them.
The screenings are fantastic.
And so people with stamina, you come at eight, you leave at eight, and you leave with a lot more than you came with.
And so it's really quite an experience.
Yeah, well, I went one year and it was great.
So I definitely recommend it as well.
All right.
Listen, I should let you go.
All right, man.
I will really appreciate it.
I will direct everyone to your great article.
Well, first of all, to our MEP and again, everybody, it's called the Israel Lobby and American Policy.
It's March the 24th at the Press Club in Washington, D.C., our MEP.
And you also said there's a banner at Mondoweiss.net, right?
OK, good.
Go to Mondoweiss.
Yeah.
Good old Mondoweiss.
Well, see, I got an ad blocker on my Mozilla.
I don't usually look at Mondoweiss in my Chrome.
I need to figure that out.
Anyway, so there you go.
You can find the banner there at IRMEP.org or at Mondoweiss.net.
And then this article, very important article, $254 billion in unconditional U.S. aid to Israel is, in fact, unique by Grant Smith there.
Thanks again, Grant.
Thanks, Scott.
And that's Scott Horton Show, guys.
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