 To understand Israel’s role in the Middle East one needs to understand its long relationship with imperialism.
This relationship began when the rise of Zionism. Zionism is a political movement founded at the end of the nineteenth century that aimed to solve the problem of anti-Semitism in Europe by establishing a Jewish state in Palestine.
The most important figure in this movement was Theodor Herzl. While the idea of Zionism was not new, it was Herzl who identified that imperialism and Zionism had interests in common. Herzl therefore looked to the European states, and the Ottoman Empire, as the means to establishing an Israeli state. It was however the British Zionist, Chaim Weizmann, who realised at the beginning of World War One that Palestine was going to fall under the influence of Britain.
“A Jewish Palestine,” he told British cabinet minister Sir Robert Cecil “would be a safeguard to England, in particular in respect to the Suez Canal.”
The Suez Canal was considered the “jugular vein” of the British Empire, and therefore the idea of a client state adjacent to it began to win over British policy-makers. With the conversion of the British navy to oil in 1911 the British had become acutely aware of the importance of oil. As the historian Hugh Thomas noted, “British politicians have seemed to have a feeling about oil supplies comparable to the fear of castration.” World War One, where the allies supposedly “floated to victory on a wave of oil,” exasperated this fear. The potential oil supplies under Arab lands and the importance of the Suez Canal for the flow of oil, suddenly made the century old Zionist program more relevant. As the British began to seize control of Palestine, they gave their first open support to the Zionist cause with the Balfour Declaration of 1917.
By 1956, two thirds of the traffic through the Suez Canal was oil. This was the background to the 1956 British, French and Israeli invasion of Egypt. However at this point in history the US was replacing Britain as a world power, as well as the dominant power in the Middle East. This shift in power was seen in the changing control of oil, as observed by noted socialist Tony Cliff:
Then [Before the Second World War] Britain controlled 100 percent of Iranian oil and 47.5 percent of Iraqi oil; the US interest was only 23.75 percent in Iraq (equal to France’s). Since then the situation has changed radically; in 1959 the US share of all Middle East oil rose to 50 percent, while that of Britain declined to 18 percent (France had 5 percent, the Netherlands 3 percent, others, including local Arab governments, 24 percent).
In 1956 the US had been wary of stronger ties with Israel, as it could weaken relations with its Muslim allies. However the continual rise of Arab nationalism turned Israel from being one among many allies for the US in the region, to being the US’s primary ally. Despite the US’s efforts, such as in the deployment of marines to Lebanon in 1958, Arab nationalism continued to rise. Pro-western regimes were overthrown in Iraq in 1958 and in Yemen in 1962, and Arab nationalists continued courting Soviet support. As was noted in a declassified National Security Council memorandum of 1958, a “logical corollary” of opposition to radical Arab nationalism “would be to support Israel as the only strong pro-West power left in the Near East.”
By 1967, Israel’s role had changed from an ally of British, and to some extent French imperialism, to being one of US imperialism. Israel’s payoff for seriously weakening Arab nationalism in 1967 was immediate. As Lance Selfa has noted “Between 1967 and 1972, total U.S. aid to Israel jumped from $6.4 billion per year to $9.2 billion per year. U.S. loans for Israeli purchases of U.S.-made weapons jumped an average of $22 million annually in the 1960s to a yearly average of $445 million between 1970 and 1974. The U.S. Congress even allowed the Pentagon to hand weapons to Israel without expecting any payment.” As US House Speaker, John McCormack stated in 1971, “Great Britain, at the height of its struggle with Hitler, never received such a blank check” in US military aid. In fact Israel received 99 percent of its aid from the US after 1967. From this point on Israel acted as an agent of US interests in the Middle East and is politically, economically and militarily supplied and protected by the US. This is not to overlook Israel’s own interests as a state, which can sometimes create antagonisms with the US. But these antagonisms are not comparable to other US allies and have never undermined the fundamental relationship the two states have.
Sam Campbell
Further Reading:
Arnove, Anthony. "Iraq under Siege: Ten Years On." Monthly Review 52, no. 7 (2000): 14-25.
Chomsky, Noam. Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians. Updated ed. Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press, 1999.
D'Amato, Paul. "U.S. Intervention in the Middle East: Blood for Oil." In The Struggle for Palestine. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2002.
"'Floated to Victory on a Wave of Oil'; Earl Curzon Tells How Allied Ingenuity Overcame Petroleum Crisis of 1916." The New York Times, November 23 1918.
Louis, Wm. Roger. The British Empire in the Middle East, 1945-1951: Arab Nationalism, the United States, and Postwar Imperialism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
Marshall, Phil. Intifada: Zionism, Imperialism and Palestinian Resistance. Chicago and London: Bookmarks, 1989.
Rose, John. Israel: The Hijack State: America's Watchdog in the Middle East. Socialist Alternative 2006 ed. London: Bookmarks, 1986.
Sampson, Anthony. The Seven Sisters : The Great Oil Companies and the World They Made. New York: Viking Press, 1975.
Selfa, Lance. "Israel: The U.S. Watchdog." International Socialist Review, no. 4 (Spring 1989).
"Israel: The U.S. Watchdog." In The Struggle for Palestine, edited by Lance Selfa. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2002.
Thomas, Hugh. The Suez Affair. London,: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967. |
