2015-2016 Controversy: Decreasing US support for

Rationale Options for policy change 1. Diplomacy 2. Military ties/Security cooperation 3. Critical affirmative ground A. Advocacies B. Framings 1. Security/Necessity 2. The Human/Life 3. Biopolitics 4. Coloniality Potential negative ground 1. Disadvantages 2. Counterplans 3. Kritiks Direction for wording papers 1. Agent options 2. Non-list option A. Verb option: Substantially curtail B1. Direct object option one: Relationship B2. Direct object option two: Bilateral ties B3. Direct object option three: Alliance C. Possible concerns 3. List option A. Pressure 1. Compellence 2. Coercive diplomacy 3. Negative incentives B. Diplomatic Support 1. Diplomatic support 2. Diplomatic cover C. Military/Security ties 1. Military Assistance 2. Security Assistance/Cooperation D. Alternative areas to explore 1. Sanctions 2. Economics/Trade Answers to likely criticisms 1. Too timely? 2. Too small? 3. The , again? Contributors

1

Rationale

Israel is the most controversial US ally in the Middle East. The US views Israel as the anchor of Middle Eastern democratic growth and an important avenue for US power projection in the region. Israel receives a substantial amount of military assistance and diplomatic support from the , while strategically utilizing this alliance to take internationally unpopular and possibly illegal actions against other countries in the region. Due to a confluence of political and strategic factors, US support for Israel is unwavering. However, because many analysts view the US strategy as a failure, options for policy change are ripe for debate. This topic proposal takes advantage of academic and policy attention, focusing on one of the most important actors in the world. In what follows, we present a rationale for debating Israel, outline a series of policy proposals, discuss potential negative ground and provide guidance for topic wording.

We believe that there are three guiding principles that promote a sustainable topic, all of which are present in this controversy area. First, the topic must be timely, but the status quo must not be subject to radical shifts. In the case of Israel, there is an abundance of contemporary literature and a vast array of scholarship advocating policy changes; however, there is also near universal agreement that the US is unlikely to reverse course in its alliance with Israel.1 This means students will have reason to be engaged in daily research, but affirmatives are unlikely to lose on inherency and negatives are sure to retain unique DAs throughout the season.

Second, the topic must provide robust opportunities for critical affirmative ground. Sticking the affirmative with a morally tenuous proposal will unreasonably skew the topic towards the negative or cause more teams to eschew the topic entirely. A topic that forces the affirmative to reduce support for Israel remedies this concern well. Some of the most prolific public intellectuals of the academic left strongly support a curtailment of the US alliance with Israel; and, there is a robust critical literature supporting statehood and human rights for Palestinians. Hopefully, this provides traditional policy folks an incentive to investigate literature from the academic left, and creates topical avenues for teams that support a non-traditional approach to debate.

Third, the topic must ensure negative disadvantages besides the politics disadvantage. Political ideology, congressional calendars, an intransigent House of Representatives, and the whims of an unpredictable Congress each undercut the strategic utility and reliability of the politics disadvantage. Because of this, a sustainable and engaging topic must ensure that the negative has policy ground that is not solely limited to discussing the negative political drawbacks of a course of action. In the case of Israel, the controversy is constructed to ensure a variety of other potential negative disadvantages: Israel-US relations, reduced US leverage over Israel, the negative response of other US allies to a decrease in support, US elections and Israeli politics. Evidentiary support for these disadvantages can be found in the ‘negative ground’ section.

1 See: Beinen, Miller, Richter & Lauter in later sections, as well as the more developed answer to this criticism in the final section of the paper

2 Along with fitting the practical concerns for a sustainable topic, Israel is an area that carries unique educational opportunities. US support for Israel is extremely controversial and commonly criticized, yet the practicalities of policy changes are rarely discussed (especially in policy debate). Not only is the public relatively uninformed about US policy towards Israel, activists often times hope for peace, but ignore the detailed advocacy necessary to navigate the complex regional dynamics. By contrast, detailed activism can have a positive effect, and a refocused effort could change the political trajectory of US policy towards Israel in the future: Chomsky 15 – PhD, Professor, linguist and philosopher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, outspoken political commentator, and activist, perhaps the most well-known intellectual critic of US and Western foreign policy (Noam, “Q&A: Noam Chomsky on US Colleges, Israel-Palestine Conflict,” Interviewed by Julian Jacobs, http://tsl.pomona.edu/articles/2015/2/13/news/5982-q-and-a-noam-chomsky-on-u.s.-colleges-israel- palestine-conflict) In the past 10-15 years, activism – much of it among students – has brought about very substantial changes. Merely to illustrate from my own experience, for many years I had police protection when I gave talks on Israel-Palestine, even at my own university. Those days are over. By now talks attract large and engaged audiences, and there are no longer threats of disruption or worse. As for approaching a “one state solution” – more realistically, some kind of binational state – there is only one substantive proposal on the table, to my knowledge: in stages, beginning with a two state settlement in terms of the overwhelming international consensus, followed by gradual erosion of highly artificial borders and closer integration as the two communities come to realize common interests. Successes and failures have many reasons. One common cause of failure is unwillingness to distinguish clearly between proposals and genuine advocacy, which requires sketching out a realistic path from here to there. Proposals are easy; advocacy is hard, but meaningful.

In particular, the only way to limit the influence of ideologically biased lobbies in the US is to translate findings from debate into pressure on the US government to reverse its course: Gordon et al 13 - professor of the humanities and of history at New York University (Linda, w/ Alice Kessler-Harris, a former president of the American Studies Association, is a professor of history at Columbia University and Elaine Tyler May, also a former president of the American Studies Association, is a professor of American studies and history at the University of Minnesota, “Don’t Cut Off Debate With Israeli Institutions—Enrich It Instead,” http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2013/12/31/dont-cut-off-debate-with-israeli-institutions-enrich-it- instead/) Instead of cutting off debate, we should be enriching it, strengthening engagement with Palestinian academics by promoting greater possibilities for scholarly exchanges, funding collaborative projects with Palestinian academics, developing initiatives that bring Palestinian scholars to our conferences and seminars. We should encourage Israeli, Palestinian, and U.S. students and teachers to study and work together, and encourage joint projects of inquiry. We did this, more or less successfully, with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and we are doing it with China now.∂ We also believe that a better focus of protest by American scholars would be the U.S. policy of unquestioning support of Israel. The Congressional Research Service’s most recent summary (from April 2013) shows that the United States has given Israel a cumulative total of $118-billion, mostly in military aid, and that Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. aid since World War II, although it is neither among the most needy countries nor the

3 least stable. The 2013 budget asked for $3.1-billion. Private investment in Israel is also substantial. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, as of 2008 foreign investors accounted for roughly two-thirds of Israeli private equity-venture capital.∂ We would call on those concerned for the future of a democratic Israel to concentrate on what our own country does in supporting Israeli policy toward Palestinians and their lands. Several American Jewish organizations aim to do this, but our politicians are still far too subservient to the money and threats from lobbyists who support Israeli policy.∂ Concerned scholars need to support these organizations and ratchet up the pressure on the American government to change its policies of blind support for Israeli policies that make it ever harder for Palestinians to move toward a positive future.

From a pedagogical perspective, Israel is a topic of crucial importance. In a society where discussions and debates about America’s relationships with Israel and Palestine are “absurdly constrained,” the debate community has a responsibility to test and interrogate the pro-Israeli viewpoints that much of the broader public takes for granted.2 Indeed, the national discourse on the Israel-Palestine conflict is remarkably shallow, with “talking points, decontextualized sound bites, charges of bias and other kinds of ad hominem arguments” serving as a substitute for well-reasoned arguments.3 This is regrettable, as the Israel-Palestine conflict is not some far-off or irrelevant concern, but rather an ethically significant issue that demands serious academic attention from students and scholars within the U.S. The need for an intelligent conversation about these issues is urgent, as the “1.8 million people in Gaza are experiencing the worst humanitarian crisis in years.”4 Fortunately, the debate community has an opportunity to challenge the prevailing conventional wisdom and reverse the public neglect of the Israel-Palestine dilemma, by selecting this area as the 2015-2016 controversy.

In addition, the 2016 election cycle will be heavily focused on US support for Israel, and US policy towards the Middle East broadly. Even 18 months before the election, candidates are already developing campaign platforms based on support for Israel, foreign policy and federal commitments to foreign assistance. Therefore, the 2015-2016 season is the perfect opportunity to critically interrogate US support for Israel, which will hopefully create informed and reflexive voters. Although the CEDA/NDT community has debated a Middle East topic twice in the last decade, Israel has largely been an afterthought of these discussions. In fact, Israel has not been the primary focus of a debate topic since the Spring of 1974. Moreover, as you can see from the developments below, Israel is important for a variety of reasons that extend far beyond the region. Our proposal remedies this omission of one of the most important and highly unique foreign policy relationships in the world. Because of these pedagogical benefits, as well as the practical advantages that this area has for negative uniqueness and critical affirmative ground, limiting US support for Israel is a worthy area of investigation by the policy debate community.

2 Waldman, P. (2014). Moral Responsibility and the Israel-Palestinian Conflict. The American Prospect. https://prospect.org/article/moral-responsibility-and-israel-palestinian-conflict 3 Hiskes, J. (2015). Debating Palestine in the Public Sphere. Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities - the University of Washington. https://simpsoncenter.org/news/2015/03/debating-palestine-public-sphere 4 Omer, M. (2015). ANALYSIS: One year later, Palestinian reconciliation is stalled. Middle East Eye. http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/analysis-one-year-later-palestinian-reconciliation-stalled-662397524

4 Options for policy change

The following section is divided into three parts, each representing a core component of the US-Israel relationship, corresponding to potential areas for the final resolution. Although we are not settled on exact terminology, these three areas are: diplomacy (including positive and negative action), military ties and critical affirmative ground (which is encompassed within the other three, but worthy of its own section because of its distinct nature).

This division does not necessarily mean that we support a list as the best resolutional choice. To the contrary, a non-list topic holds a lot of appeal given that the topic will be narrowly focused on Israel. These ideas are more thoroughly developed in the final section of the essay.

1. Diplomacy

Diplomatic protection extended to Israel in international forums is one of the most important aspects of the United States’ relationship with Israel. For decades, presidents have utilized America’s outsized influence in diplomatic settings to shield Israel from international condemnation and criticism. At the moment, there is an extensive discussion about how the US should utilize its veto power at the United Nations Security Council with regards to Israel. Because the US is one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (along with China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom) it can unilaterally override any resolution it finds objectionable and thus obstruct its adoption. For decades, the US has deployed this veto power on behalf of Israel, which constitutes a form of diplomatic support.5

As it relates to diplomacy, the authors of this paper envision two possible mechanisms for changing policy towards Israel. An Israel resolution should grant affirmative teams the flexibility to advocate both the negative action of reducing US diplomatic support for Israel, and the positive action of increasing pressure on Israel via the proposal of a quid-pro-quo agreement or sanctions. This approach would allow for affirmatives to meaningfully depart from the status quo, accessing exciting advantage areas and guaranteeing defensible negative ground.

This, and the following sections, will demonstrate the United States has considerable leverage in its relationship with Israel due to the substantial military assistance and diplomatic support it provides. Throughout the relationship’s history, this leverage has rarely been used as a stick to pressure Israel to pursue policies in accordance with American desires. This remains true of the Obama administration today. Changing the relationship with Israel to anything other than unconditional aid and support is also not in the cards for any of the 2016 candidates making this policy option unique: Beinin 15 - Professor of History and Professor of Middle East History at Stanford University (Joel, Coexistence, Equality, and Universal Principles in Israel/Palestine: Regrouping in the Absence of a Two-State Solution, Tikkun Magazine, 30.2) The United States, for its part, despite its protracted record of failure (the 1993 Oslo Accords were negotiated behind the back of the administration of President ), continues to view itself as the

5 McCormick, J.M. (2012). The Domestic Sources of American Foreign Policy: Insights and Evidence. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Google Ebook. pg. 27

5 “sole legitimate mediator” of the conflict and has always rejected European efforts to substantively influence the contours of a Palestinian-Israeli peace. The policy of every Democratic president since 1967 is that Israel should be cajoled, but not pressured, no matter how much Israeli prime ministers have personally exasperated them. Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush did exert minor pressures on Israel. But the presidency of George W. Bush and the ascendancy of the Tea Party excised that option from the Republican policy repertoire. President Obama has repeatedly demonstrated that he does not have the political will to do what is necessary to bring about a two-state resolution to the conflict. Even though he apparently believes this would be a good thing in principle, Israel’s strategic value to the American empire and the campaign contributions of Israel-aligned donors are more important. The Democratic candidates who seek to succeed him are almost certain to come to the same conclusion. So, regardless of who wins the presidency in 2016, we can expect more of the same—happy talk about resuscitating the clinically dead “peace process,” but no Palestinian state. Those who continue to call on President Obama or Secretary of State John Kerry to encourage negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government are facilitating, perhaps unwittingly, the strategy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who are seeking not to resolve but to manage the conflict while entrenching and expanding the settlement project.

As far as affirmative advantage ground goes, including the diplomatic relationship in any potential Israel resolution would allow for a wide-range of international issues to be discussed. Many significant countries such as Syria, , Palestine and Iran are implicated by America’s blockage of U.N. resolutions regarding Israel and the peace process. While it would be impossible to provide a full account of all the potential advantages, several areas immediately come to mind.

The choices the US makes with regards to its diplomatic support for Israel will have major implications with regard to its international credibility and Middle East stability: Sharqieh 14 - Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution's Doha Center and Adjunct Professor at in Qatar (Ibrahim, and Ghassan Shabaneh is an Associate Professor of International Studies at Marymount Manhattan College. Posted: 12/02/2013, updated: 02/01/2014, The World Post – A Partner of the Huffington Post and Berggruen Institute, “Is Iran's Nuclear Deal a Model for the Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations?” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ibrahim-sharqieh/is-irans-nuclear-deal-a- m_b_4371598.html?1385994253) Fed up with managing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations effectively on life support, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry expressed his frustration by publicly warning the Israeli government of the consequences of failed negotiations. He cautioned, "If we do not find the way to find peace, there will be an increasing isolation of Israel, there will be an increasing campaign of delegitimization of Israel that has been taking place on an international basis." What Secretary Kerry failed to mention, however, is that such isolation will also likely include the United States if Washington continues to align itself with the intransigent policies of a fanatical Israeli government.¶ This process of isolation, in fact, has already begun. Just weeks ago, UNESCO suspended the voting rights of Israel and the United States, "two years after both countries stopped paying dues to the UN's cultural arm in protest over its granting full membership to the Palestinians." With even the most hopeful analysts predicting failure of the most recent Arab-Israeli negotiations, it seems Secretary Kerry will soon be forced to choose between protecting the interests of his country or facing isolation along with the Netanyahu government.¶ It is true that losing UNESCO

6 membership may not mean much for Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. However, for a superpower like the United States, for which every diplomatic forum to manage global order amplifies diplomatic power, it would be a disaster to lose an international platform like UNESCO. National Security Advisor Susan Rice seems to feel the pressure of impending U.S. isolation. On her Twitter account, Rice wrote, "Shameful that US has lost its vote at UNESCO. Congress needs to fix this. Current law doesn't punish the Palestinians; it handicaps the US."¶ Secretary Kerry has serious cause for concern. The Netanyahu government will continue to push for the implementation of its colonial agenda, regardless of who pays the price - be it the Palestinians, the Americans, or both. This week, the Israeli government approved the construction of 800 new units in Israeli illegal settlements in the West Bank, despite global demands to freeze settlement building during negotiations. Kerry should not expect genuine cooperation from a government that tailors its policies to maintain ties with radicals like Naftali Bennett, who publicly admits, "I've killed lots of Arabs in my life and there's no problem with that." This same government's leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, even went so far as to defy President Obama in U.S. Congress after the American leader requested only a temporary freeze of settlement activities to restart negotiations.¶ Of course, this is not the first time Israel's reckless behavior has embarrassed the United States on the global stage. After US-supported Operation Cast Lead in 2008, the US had to answer to the global community over the findings of the Goldstone report, which accused Israel of committing war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Furthermore, the US found itself compelled to defend Israel over the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) regarding the wall Israel built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The ICJ ruled that the wall was illegal in a vote of 14 to one. The only judge who found Israel's actions to be legal was American. Of course, use of the veto over 40 times at the Security Council to protect Israeli practices in the Palestinian territories raises serious questions about whether U.S. diplomacy will continue to unconditionally protect what former Defense Secretary Robert Gates called "an ungrateful ally," which is "isolating Israel on a global level."¶ What makes Secretary Kerry even more nervous about the failure of ongoing negotiations is the fact that the Palestinians are beginning to use diplomatic escalation, or a "diplomatic intifada," which will place additional pressure on American diplomacy in the region. If the negotiations fail, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will have exhausted all available options to justify his commitment to an unsuccessful peace process. His negotiation team has already officially submitted their resignation in protest of Netanyahu's aggressive settlement policies. By insisting that he will abide by the nine-month negotiation time frame agreed upon with Secretary Kerry, Abbas would have a free hand to take any action he chooses after negotiations. If these negotiations fail, the Palestinians will go to the Security Council and International Criminal Court, among other world forums. They certainly have several issues to pursue, including the illegal wall that is built on their land, the war reports chronicled by the Goldstone report, and most recently the Swiss investigation of the death of Yasir Arafat. On top of that, a third intifada, as Kerry mentioned, could be an additional consequence of failure. This international campaign will simply become a diplomatic nightmare for Washington. Failing to take the right position over it will mean that suspension of UNESCO voting rights for Israel and the U.S. is only the harbinger of wider international isolation.¶ Despite the grim picture facing Secretary Kerry, he still has options to make the negotiations a success. Iran's nuclear deal proves that the international community is capable of working collaboratively to produce an agreement and avoid violence and isolation. Kerry should take note that the international community will support him and work with him when he decides to engage in serious negotiation with the Netanyahu government to ensure its compliance with the requirements for peace in the region. Producing a deal would be a remarkable win for the Obama Administration, given its failure to create a

7 cohesive policy in the Middle East during the Arab Spring and specifically its ineptitude in dealing with the Syrian crisis. Kerry should keep in mind that working collaboratively with the international community will advance American interests as well peace and stability in the region. However, bowing to pressure from Netanyahu, Lieberman, and Naftali along with their colonial agenda, will lead to American isolation beyond UNESCO, which, at best, in Susan Rice's words, "handicaps"[undermines]* the nation's broader foreign policy. Kerry should remind his boss, President Obama, that "Yes, he can" - as he did with Iran's nuclear deal. *modified for ableism

In addition, the diplomatic cover that the US provides Israel enables Israel to violate international law with impunity: Bisharat et. al 9 (George E. Bisharat*, Professor of Law, UC Hastings College of the Law, Timothy Crawley, UC Hastings College of the Law, Class of 2011, Sara Elturk, Carey James, Rose Mishaan, Akila Radhakrishnan, UC Hastings College of the Law, Class of 2009, and Anna Sanders**, UC Berkeley School of Law, Class of 2010, Winter, 2009, Denver Journal of International Law & Policy, 38 Denv. J. Int'l L. & Pol'y 41, “General Article: Israel's Invasion of Gaza in International Law” Lexis) Israel's capacity to trample international humanitarian law in its current state is a function of two factors: its overwhelming military superiority as against any combination of its neighbors; and the cocoon of impunity in which it has been enwrapped-largely due to the diplomatic cover provided it by the United States. The United States government has exercised its veto power in the United Nations Security Council forty-two times-over half the vetoes it has employed since the birth of the United Nations-to spare Israel censure for its actions. n538 In the recent fighting in Gaza, a Security Council resolution for a ceasefire was delayed in part out of concern over a probable U.S. veto, permitting Israel to extend its operation into several weeks. n539 Meanwhile, U.S. President Obama, as a candidate, affirmed support for a military aid package for Israel of $ 3 billion per year for ten years. n540

These violations have dramatic implications for the success of the U.N. and international law as a whole. There are a wide range of possible advantages regarding international law alone: Erakat 12 (Noura Erakat*, * Adjunct Assistant Professor of International Human Rights Law in the Middle East at Georgetown University; B.A. UC Berkeley; J.D. Boalt Hall School of Law. Currently the Legal Advocacy Consultant for Badil Resource Center for Refugee and Residency Rights and Jadaliyya Co- editor of its Occupation, Intervention, and Law (OIL) page. Visiting Scholar at Georgetown's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (2007-08). Visiting Researcher at the in Beirut's Issam Fares Institute (2010), 2011 / 2012, UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law, 11 UCLA J. Islamic & Near E.L. 37, “ARTICLE: IT'S NOT WRONG, IT'S ILLEGAL: SITUATING THE GAZA BLOCKADE BETWEEN INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE UN RESPONSE”, Lexis) In addition to the devastating impact on international peace and security, specifically on Gaza's population, the UN's failure to resist Israel's attempts weakens its authority, weakens international law, and collapses the distinction between jus ad bellum and jus in bello. The UN's failure to distinguish between jus ad bellum and jus in bello serves to undermine the entire regime of occupation law. Further, the lack of clarity expands the available use of force to states and empowers them determine and apply law in the furtherance of their own national interests. This blatantly undermines the purpose [*77] of

8 humanitarian law, which is not meant to embolden states but to protect civilians by placing limits on state behavior during armed conflict. This has untold consequences upon populations living under occupation. While the UN is tending to the political sensitivities of the Middle East peace process it has foregone its responsibilities as a guarantor of international law wherefrom flows peace and security. The signal to states is that while the law is noble, it can and should be marginalized when it obstructs political expediency. States, bound by international law, will surely not object to relief from such responsibilities, however, citizens, aliens, refugees, stateless persons, and civilians in general will bear the violent brunt of this shift.

Diplomatic cover also allows the US and Israel to thwart measures aimed at promoting accountability and human rights: Erakat 12 (Noura Erakat*, * Adjunct Assistant Professor of International Human Rights Law in the Middle East at Georgetown University; B.A. UC Berkeley; J.D. Boalt Hall School of Law. Currently the Legal Advocacy Consultant for Badil Resource Center for Refugee and Residency Rights and Jadaliyya Co- editor of its Occupation, Intervention, and Law (OIL) page. Visiting Scholar at Georgetown's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (2007-08). Visiting Researcher at the American University in Beirut's Issam Fares Institute (2010), 2011 / 2012, UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law, 11 UCLA J. Islamic & Near E.L. 37, “ARTICLE: IT'S NOT WRONG, IT'S ILLEGAL: SITUATING THE GAZA BLOCKADE BETWEEN INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE UN RESPONSE”, Lexis) Arguably, the greatest impediment to the prevalence of law, the rule of law, and accountability in response to the Gaza blockade has been U.S. opposition. As a permanent member of the Security Council, afforded veto power, the U.S. has been able to thwart nearly all measures aimed at accountability in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, demonstrated most recently by its veto of a Security Council resolution on settlements. Moreover, the U.S.'s role as peace broker in the political track has enabled the superpower to remove the conflict from an international arena, subject to scrutiny, international law, and human rights norms, and to insulate it as an exceptional U.S. foreign policy issue. This is exacerbated by the U.S.'s self- proclaimed unique alliance to Israel wherein it provides military, economic, and diplomatic aid to the occupying power. Notably, U.S. diplomatic aid has worked to shield Israel from meaningful international censure in the face of opposition, arguably representing a position of international consensus.

In addition, diplomatic support of Israel has negative repercussions for the US in terms of its relations with important countries like Egypt, Tunisia and Turkey. Including diplomatic support would also allow affirmatives to access advantages about Israeli aggression against the Palestinians: Greenwald 12 (Glenn, journalist, constitutional lawyer, and author of four New York Times best-selling books on politics and law, 11-17-12, The Guardian, “Stop pretending the US is an uninvolved, helpless party in the Israeli assault on Gaza” http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/nov/17/israel-gaza-us-policy) A central premise of US media coverage of the Israeli attack on Gaza - beyond the claim that Israel is justifiably "defending itself" - is that this is some endless conflict between two foreign entitles, and Americans can simply sit by helplessly and lament the tragedy of it all. The reality is precisely the opposite: Israeli aggression is possible only because of direct, affirmative, unstinting US diplomatic, financial and military support for Israel and everything it does. This self-flattering depiction of the US as uninvolved, neutral party is the worst media fiction since TV news personalities covered the Arab Spring

9 by pretending that the US is and long has been on the side of the heroic democratic protesters, rather than the key force that spent decades propping up the tyrannies they were fighting.¶ Literally each day since the latest attacks began, the Obama administration has expressed its unqualified support for Israel's behavior. Just two days before the latest Israeli air attacks began, Obama told Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas "that his administration opposes a Palestinian bid for non-state membership of the UN". Both the US Senate and House have already passed resolutions unequivocally supporting Israel, thus earning the ultimate DC reward: the head-pat from Aipac, which "praised the extraordinary show of support by the Senate for Israel's struggle against terrorist attacks on its citizens". More bipartisan Congressional cheerleading is certain to come as the attacks continue, no matter how much more brutal they become.¶ In reflexive defense of Israel, the US government thus once against put itself squarely at odds with key nations such as Turkey (whose prime minister accused Israel of being motivated by elections and demanded that Israel be "held to account" for mounting civilians deaths), Egypt (which denounced Israeli attacks as "aggression against humanity"), and Tunisia (which called on the world to "stop the blatant aggression" of Israel).¶ By rather stark contrast, Obama continues to defend Israel's free hand in Gaza, causing commentators like Jeffrey Goldberg to gloat, not inaccurately: "Barack Obama hasn't turned against Israel. This is a big surprise to everyone who has not paid attention for the last four years" (indeed, there are few more compelling signs of how dumb and misleading US elections are than the fact that the only criticism of Obama on Israel heard over the last year in the two-party debate was the grievance that Obama evinces insufficient fealty - rather than excessive fealty - to the Israeli government). That the Netanyahu government knows that any attempt to condemn Israel at the UN would be instantly blocked by the US is a major factor enabling them to continue however they wish. And, of course, the bombs, planes and tanks they are using are subsidized, in substantial part, by the US taxpayer.¶ If one wants to defend US support for Israel on the merits - on the ground that this escalating Israeli aggression against a helpless population is just and warranted - then one should do so. As I wrote on Thursday, it's very difficult to see how those who have cheered for Obama's foreign policy could do anything but cheer for Israeli militarism, as they are grounded in the same premises.¶ But pretending that the US - and the Obama administration - bear no responsibility for what is taking place is sheer self-delusion, total fiction. It has long been the case that the central enabling fact in Israeli lawlessness and aggression is blind US support, and that continues, more than ever, to be the case under the presidency of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner.¶ The US is not some neutral, uninvolved party. Whatever side of this conflict you want to defend - or if you're one of those people who love to announce that you just wish the whole thing would go away - it's still necessary to take responsibility for the key role played by the American government and this administration in enabling everything that is taking place.

Advantages to pressure affirmatives can be garnered from either the effect hardening the stance towards Israel has on American credibility, or the change in Israeli policy resulting from US pressure. For example, an affirmative could threaten to end military assistance if Israel does not stop settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. This affirmative could have an advantage to Israel stopping settlements and also to the signal the plan sends that US military assistance is not unconditional. The advantages mentioned in the solvency section cards include terrorism, proliferation credibility, and the peace process.6 Israeli arm sales and military cooperation with China is another large advantage area. Israel and China have a notorious relationship in this regard that has previously been hindered by US pressure, however Israel is

6 See Mearsheimer (p. 11) and Duss (p. 12)

10 seeking to augment/renew sales and cooperation.7 Another advantage area is the Chemical Weapons Convention. Israel has not ratified this treaty and its credibility relies on the US pressuring them to do so.8 This topic area therefore offers a host of advantages related to US strategy in the Middle East, but also broader US foreign policy objectives.

A two-state solution is not the only Palestine related advantage, others are based on the effect pressure has on Palestinian actions: Yoon 3-31-15 Sangwon, Obama’s Next Move May Be Lifting US Protection of Israel at UN, http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-03-31/obama-s-next-move-may-be-lifting-u-s- protection-of-israel-at-un First, the U.S. could back a French plan to draft a Security Council resolution that would set a binding timeframe in which to define the parameters of a two-state solution based on Israel’s 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as their shared capital, said two knowledgeable Security Council diplomats.∂ French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on March 27 that in the “coming weeks” France will restart discussions on such a text, which ended in December due to U.S. objections.∂ Cornerstone Resolution∂ Robert Serry, the UN’s departing Mideast peace envoy, urged the Security Council last week to update its 1967 Resolution 242, which has been a cornerstone of almost 50 years of diplomatic efforts. It was adopted after Israel captured East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights and Gaza from its Arab enemies in the Six-Day War that year. Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt after the two countries signed a peace treaty in 1979.∂ Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Egypt, said “a carefully crafted resolution on parameters” is the most realistic option for the U.S. to take, “provided that it is balanced and doesn’t go into so much detail as to prejudge negotiations.”∂ The biggest challenges will be whether to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, which the Palestinians and the French oppose, and what security arrangements should be included to ensure that a new Palestinian state couldn’t be a launching pad for attacks against Israel, said the two diplomats.∂ The second U.S. option is to introduce a new draft Security Council resolution that outlines no parameters. It would call on both parties to make progress toward resuming negotiations and condemn activities such as Israel’s settlement-building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank for obstructing the path to peace, said an Arab diplomat at the UN who also spoke on condition of anonymity.∂ Pressuring Israel∂ While such a resolution is unlikely to be adopted, a draft would pressure Israel and Netanyahu to at least freeze settlement construction, said three Security Council diplomats who asked not to be named commenting on sensitive matters.∂ Such actions also might help deter the Palestinians, at least for a time, from seeking full statehood recognition from the Security Council and membership in international treaties, or from pursuing its request that the International Criminal Court probe alleged Israeli war crimes, said the three diplomats.

As it relates to solvency mechanisms, there are a variety of ways the US could conceivably reduce its diplomatic support for Israel or increase diplomatic pressure upon Israel. The options for pressure provide

7 These three articles establish the affirmative argument here: “China, Israel and the US: The Problematic Triangle,” http://chr.sagepub.com/content/49/1/143.short “Israel-China Arms Trade and the US Factor,” http://isssp.in/israel-china-arms-trade-and-the-us-factor/ 8 “U.S. should press Israel, Egypt to sign chemical weapons ban,” http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/us- should-press-israel-egypt-to-sign-chemical-weapons-ban/2013/09/09/c09f75c6-1951-11e3-80ac- 96205cacb45a_story.htm

11 the affirmative with a variety of avenues for positive action and advantages related to actions regarding Palestine, sanctions for human rights abuses, and violations of international laws.

Many consider the unconditional nature of the special relationship problematic. For example, many analysts argue it is the cause of anti-American terrorism, animosity from moderate Arab states, Israeli proliferation, and the failing Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The solution is to treat Israel like a traditional ally by supporting them only when their actions are consistent with American interests and pressuring them to change their actions when they are not: Mearsheimer 9 - Professor of political science at the University of Chicago (John, Saving Israel From Itself, May 18, http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/saving-israel- from-itself/) The special relationship means Washington gives Israel consistent, almost unconditional diplomatic backing and more foreign aid than any other country. In other words, Israel gets this aid even when it does things that the United States opposes, like building settlements. Furthermore, Israel is rarely criticized by American officials and certainly not by anyone who aspires to high office. Recall what happened earlier this year to Charles Freeman, who was forced to withdraw as head of the National Intelligence Council because he had criticized certain Israeli policies and questioned the merits of the special relationship.∂ Many hope that Obama will be different from his predecessors and stand up to the lobby. The indications thus far are not encouraging. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama responded to charges that he was “soft” on Israel by pandering to the lobby and publicly praising the special relationship. He was silent during the recent Gaza War—when Israel was being criticized around the world for its brutal assault on that densely populated enclave—and he said nothing when Freeman was forced to quit his administration. Like his predecessors, Obama appears to be no match for the lobby.∂ Israel’s supporters in the United States often claim that the special relationship is not due to the lobby’s influence. The American people, they argue, identify closely with Israel and put significant pressure on their leaders to support it generously and unconditionally. But there is abundant evidence showing that this is not true. Recent polls indicate that over 70 percent of Americans think that the U.S. should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and only 47 percent of Americans think that Israel’s influence in the world is “mainly positive.” Moreover, 60 percent of Americans have said that the United States should withhold aid to Israel if it resists pressure to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians.∂ In short, a clear majority of Americans do not favor the special relationship and would back Obama if he leaned on Israel to accept a Palestinian state. The lobby, however, would surely side with Israel and pressure the White House to back off. Given the lobby’s track record—as well as Obama’s—it is difficult to imagine him not caving.∂ Israel’s supporters defend the special relationship because they believe it is an unalloyed good for both countries. In essence, they think that the two countries’ interests are synonymous, and whatever Israel deems good for Israel is good for the United States. From their perspective, there is no need for Israel to change its behavior on any major policy issue, especially on matters relating to the Palestinians.∂ But they are wrong. Israel’s interests, like any other country’s interests, are not always the same as America’s. Thus it makes little sense for Washington to back Israel no matter what it does because sometimes there will be circumstances in which the two countries’ interests clash. For example, it probably made good sense for Israel to acquire nuclear weapons in the 1960s, since it lives in a dangerous neighborhood and a nuclear arsenal is the ultimate deterrent. But a nuclear-armed Israel was not in the American national interest.∂ Both countries would be much better off if the Obama administration treated Israel the way it treats other democracies, such as Britain, France,

12 Germany, and India. In practice, this would mean backing Israel when its actions are consistent with American interests. But when they are not, Washington would distance itself from Jerusalem and use its considerable leverage to change Israeli behavior.∂ The United States is in deep trouble in the Middle East and has a serious terrorism problem in good part because of its unconditional support for Israel’s policies in the Occupied Territories. Backing Israel at almost every turn also makes it harder for Washington to get open support from moderate Arab states, even when dealing with common threats like Iran.∂ Israel’s backers often maintain that American support for Israel had nothing to do with 9/11, but this claim is simply not true. Consider the motivations of Khalid Sheik Muhammed, whom the 9/11 Commission describes as the “principle architect of the attacks.” According to the commission, “KSM’s animus toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement with U.S. foreign policy favoring Israel.” Numerous independent accounts have also documented that Osama bin Laden has been deeply concerned about the Palestinian situation since he was young, and the 9/11 Commission reports that he wanted the attackers to strike Congress, which he saw as the most important source of support for Israel in the United States. The commission also tells us that bin Laden twice wanted to move the date of the attacks forward because of events involving Israel—even though doing so would have increased the risk of failure.∂ In short, there is little hope of ending America’s terrorism problem and improving its standing in the Middle East if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not resolved. That will only happen if there is a two-state solution, and that will only occur if the United States puts pressure on Israel.

Reneging on support at the United Nations is a timely option that could take several forms, all sure to trigger political backlash within the United States providing good links to politics and elections disadvantages.9 This is widely advocated as necessary for achieving a two-state solution and peace between Israel and Palestine: Duss 3-24-15 (Matthew, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, How to Pressure Israel to Make Peace, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/03/how_to_pressure_israel_to_negotiat e_a_two_state_solution_the_obama_administration.html) In the wake of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration that a Palestinian state would not be created on his watch, the Obama administration has signaled that it is considering a “reassessment” of its options with regard to the two-state solution.∂ “We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made, or that they don’t raise questions about the prime minister’s commitment to achieving peace through direct negotiations,” said Denis McDonough, the president’s chief of staff, in remarks at a conference held Monday by the pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby J Street∂ In a Sunday interview with Israeli radio, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro confirmed that a shift is under way. While Shapiro was careful to make clear that no decision had been reached regarding future U.S. action, he did point out that

9 For other examples of diplomatic support withdrawal/pressure solvency advocates, see: “Without US cover at UN, Israel could face diplomatic avalanche,” http://www.timesofisrael.com/left-alone-at-un- israel-can-ignore-but-not-avoid-diplomatic-fallout/ “The Price Israel Must Pay,” http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/03/benjamin_netanyahu_isn_t_the_problem_the_u nited_states_has_enabled_israel.html

13 Washington’s defense of Israel at the United Nations was predicated on Jerusalem’s commitment to the two-state solution.∂ For years, Netanyahu has strung the United States and the international community along with a kind of “Two-State Hamlet” act, providing just enough reasons, little hints here, a trail of breadcrumbs there, to sustain the hope that yes, under the correct circumstances, and offered the appropriate truckload of carrots, he could be the Man to Make a Deal. But, as Netanyahu himself once said, “The question is not of hope, the question is of actual results.” And the results are now in on Netanyahu.∂ The United States and its allies remain convinced that the only way to resolve the Israeli- Palestinian conflict is through direct negotiations. Indeed, even the Palestinian leadership, while they may see international efforts at the United Nations and the International Criminal Court as useful in creating leverage against Israel, understands that the only way a two state-solution ultimately gets done is by Israelis and Palestinians sitting around a table and signing a bilateral agreement between their two states, Israel and Palestine.∂ But the administration is signaling that, at least under Netanyahu, the bilateral path is now shut. Which means it’s time to look at other options for advancing toward the two-state goal, such as diplomatic pressure at the United Nations.∂ When Netanyahu spoke of the need for results, not hope, he was referring to the need for pressure on Iran. Indeed, Netanyahu has been the loudest advocate of pressure on Iran to change its policies and engage seriously in talks about its nuclear program. And the very same logic now applies to Netanyahu and a two-state solution, particularly with regard to the ongoing construction and growth of illegal Israeli settlements on occupied territory in the West Bank and Jerusalem, which many believe will eventually make such a solution impossible.∂ While there are obvious differences between the Iranian nuclear program and the Israeli settlement enterprise, there are some remarkable similarities. Both are couched in broad nationalistic terms. Both are based in a highly tendentious interpretation of treaty commitments (though, to be fair, Iran’s assertion of its right to enrich uranium under the Non-Proliferation Treaty is a bit more plausible than Israel’s assertion that the Fourth Geneva Convention does not prohibit the transfer of its population into occupied territory). Both involve the creation of “facts on the ground”—just continue to build and expand and eventually the world will have to accept it.∂ Netanyahu constantly has warned of Iran using the international talks as a tactic to stall for time as they advance their nuclear program. Again, he should know, as this is his own strategy, something he admitted in a secretly recorded video back in 2001. Visiting a bereaved family in the West Bank settlement of Ofra, Netanyahu explained how, by defining the Jordan Valley as a security zone from which Israel would not withdraw, he created a condition that he knew would be unacceptable to the Palestinians. “Why does this matter?” Netanyahu asked. “Because at that moment I actually stopped the Oslo Accord.”∂ Reacting angrily to the prospect of U.S. pressure on Netanyahu, Obama’s critics have contended that the president treats Israel worse than he treats Iran. In an angry speech on the Senate floor last week, Sen. Marco Rubio, a likely 2016 presidential contender, ripped into Obama for even thinking about withdrawing U.N. protection from Israel, and insisting U.S. support for Israel should be “unconditional.”∂ Obviously the idea that Obama is nicer to Iran than Israel is ridiculous on its face. Iran is under the most comprehensive sanctions regime in the world, which the Obama administration has led in constructing. Israel, on the other hand, has continued to enjoy billions of dollars in U.S. aid, and protection from any international legal consequences for breaking the law and building new settlements. Indeed, it’s precisely because U.S. support has been so unconditional that successive Israeli governments have seen no reason to change their provocative policies, and Israeli voters have seen no reason to seriously challenge their governments to do so. At long last, it seems that this equation is about to change.∂ One particularly interesting part of McDonough’s remarks on Monday was something he didn’t say. While he stressed past U.S. support for Israel at the United Nations, he did not include a rejection of

14 Palestinian efforts to advance their goals at the world body, as similar statements from administration officials have done in the past.∂ This isn’t to suggest that the United States will suddenly throw its support behind Palestinian U.N. initiatives, but there are a number of other options for applying pressure on Israel. They could include crafting a U.N. Security Council resolution laying out clear terms of reference for future negotiations, something the Palestinians have long sought, and which Obama himself articulated, to Netanyahu’s dismay, in his May 2011 speech at the State Department. The United States could go further, setting out a specific set of parameters laying out the official U.S. view of a final disposition of the key final status issues—borders, security, refugees, and Jerusalem. The United States could simply choose to abstain from a new U.N. Security Council resolution declaring Israeli settlements illegal (which remains the official position of the U.S. government, though “illegitimate” has been the term used since the 1980s) rather than vetoing, as it did in February 2011. While a settlements resolution might seem less drastic at first glance than one laying out a broader set of parameters, it could actually be a more potent tool of pressure on the Israelis. A fresh U.N. Security Council resolution could serve as Exhibit A in the Palestinians’ case against settlements at the International Criminal Court. ∂ Again, none of these measures alone would resolve the issue. But they would represent the United States playing a more active and genuine role as facilitator in addressing the radical power disparities between the two negotiating parties, and the recognition that, as in any negotiation, incentives to change course must be coupled with disincentives for not doing so. Carrots alone don’t work. You need some sticks. And up until now, it’s basically been all carrots for Israel.∂ “I know what America is,” Netanyahu said in the 2001 video. “America is a thing you can move very easily.” This is what he’s still banking on, because up until this point, he has been correct. Let’s hope he’s wrong now.

In addition to leveraging political support in international forums such as the United Nations, conditioning military or financial aid on accepting US terms on issues such as a peace process deal are ways to increase pressure advocated in the literature. Additionally, an advantage to this area of the topic is its particularly good “US key” warrant, as no other country has the same clout over Israel to coerce policy change or an appropriate alliance with both parties necessary for a peace process deal. Ben-Meir 14 - senior fellow at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs (Alon, The Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations: The US Framework for Peace Must Be Enforced, Mediterranean Quarterly 25:3) There was no better time than early to mid-2014 for the United States to use its considerable leverage on Israel and the Palestinians to bring the decades-long peace process to a conclusion. There is no closer ally to either Israel or the Palestinians than the United States, which is the only country that can provide both sides the political cover they need. It can also use coercion and inducements to compel them to find the middle ground to reach an agreement.∂ The United States ought to make it abundantly clear that, notwithstand- ing its commitment to Israel’s national security, it has the moral responsibility to advance peace, because only peace can serve Israel’s long-term secu- rity interests. Presenting the Israelis and Palestinians with a framework in and of itself will not pave the way for a peace agreement at some point in the near future. Only direct US pressure can produce real results, provided that Netanyahu fully understands that there will be serious consequences if he defies the United States. The threat of withholding political support from Israel in international forums, or making financial aid and arms sup- plies conditional upon accepting US guidance in the peace process, will go a long way toward convincing Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders that the day of reckoning is here.

15 Although the affirmative ground allowed by including “diplomatic support” in the resolution would be strong, the negative would have a variety of persuasive strategies to deploy. For instance, there would be a very strong link to the US-Israel relations DA, as scaling back diplomatic support would introduce great uncertainty into Israel’s foreign policy: Richter & Lauter 3-18-15 (Paul Richter covers the State Department and foreign policy for the Los Angeles Times out of its Washington, D.C., bureau, David Lauter is the Los Angeles Times’ Washington bureau chief, Los Angeles Times, 3-18-15, “US support for Israel at the U.N. is in jeopardy, White House says” http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-us-israel-20150318-story.html#page=1) Martin Indyk, who led the Obama administration’s last effort to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace, said recently that if the new Israeli government didn’t resume peace negotiations with the Palestinians, the administration might join the other four permanent members of the U.N. Security Council in adopting a resolution laying out key principles for a peace settlement.¶ Such a move would be jarring to Israel, which has counted on steadfast American defense at the U.N. and doesn’t want international bodies intervening in negotiations.

By virtue of the fact that affirmatives would prevent the US from vetoing resolutions which might increase Palestinian influence at the United Nations, negatives would be guaranteed a sizeable link to core positions such as the Israel DA: Berzak 13 (Joshua, J.D. Candidate, 2013, Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra University, Winter, 2013, Journal of International Business & Law, 12 J. Int'l Bus. & L. 89, “NOTE & STUDENT WORK: THE PALESTINIAN BID FOR STATEHOOD: IT'S REPERCUSSIONS FOR BUSINESS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW” Lexis) The United States already has announced that it does not support Palestine's "unilateral initiative." n78 United States President Barack Obama expressed that the U.S. believes that a Palestinian state only can come about as the result of negotiations with Israel. n79 Obama explicitly stated that, "Peace will not come through statements and resolutions at the United Nations - if it were that easy, it would have been accomplished by now." n80 The U.S. still believes in a two-state solution with both states living side by side in peace and security. n81 Simply put, the U.S. will veto the Palestinian initiative, and this veto ensures that Palestine's attempts to become a full member of the United Nations will fail. n82 Beneath the United States' spoken reason for its insistence on a veto lays Israel's role as a crucial ally of the U.S. in the tumultuous Middle East region and their pursuit of installing democracy there. n83 There are those detractors of the United States' decision who claim that the true underlying reason of the veto is because of this alliance. Specifically, the U.S. fears tension [*98] with their long-standing ally as U.N. membership would put Palestine on equal footing in negotiations, something Israel very much disfavors. n84

Increasing pressure on Israel would not only affect relations with Israel, but would have dramatic consequences for US diplomacy as a whole.

For example, while the Iranian nuclear agreement has been discussed as a politics disadvantage recently, a topic which allowed affirmatives to increase diplomatic pressure on Israel would provide more germane links to this position than have been available on previous topics. Pressuring Israel while Obama is

16 attempting to maintain an international political coalition in favor of negotiation with Iran would complicate the success of the current Iranian nuclear deal: Dyer 3-24-15 Geoff Dyer, 3-24-’15, Financial Times, “Obama faces invidious choice over Israel” http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/24a168d8-d1fa-11e4-a1a0-00144feab7de.html#axzz3Y45lRPM7 Any attempt to put pressure on Israel at the UN would be likely to prompt a furious response from Mr Netanyahu and from Republicans in Congress, just as Mr Obama might be trying to sell an Iran nuclear deal. John Boehner, the House speaker, announced on Monday he would visit Israel over the next fortnight to meet Mr Netanyahu, while Senator John McCain told Mr Obama to get over his “temper tantrum” about the election. Some of the president’s advisers might caution against picking too many fights at one time.

Therefore, the authors strongly recommend that any Israel resolution allow the affirmative to reduce US diplomatic support for Israel and increase diplomatic pressure on Israel, as the inclusion of these options would facilitate lively debates about the unique diplomatic dimension of the relationship.

2. Military ties/Security cooperation

The US military alliance with Israel is unique. Although the US and Israel are not formal treaty allies, they receive many of the same benefits of a formal alliance. In fact, strong Congressional support for Israel allows the provision of assistance to not be subject to many of the same restrictions that exist for other allies. For example, most Foreign Military Financing contains a requirement that weapons and defense equipment must be produced in the US, but Israel is exempted from this condition. Moreover, Israel can receive funds more quickly than other recipients and receives funding from outside the traditional State Department appropriations process: Sharp 14 - Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs @ Congressional Research Service (Jeremy, “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel,” CRS Report RL33222, April 11, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf) Strong congressional support for Israel has resulted in Israel receiving benefits not available to any other countries; for example, Israel can use some U.S. military assistance both for research and development in the United States and for military purchases from Israeli manufacturers. In addition, U.S. assistance earmarked for Israel is generally delivered in the first 30 days of the fiscal year, while most other recipients normally receive aid in installments, and Israel (as is also the case with Egypt) is permitted to use cash flow financing for its U.S. arms purchases. In addition to receiving U.S. State Department-administered foreign assistance, Israel also receives funds from annual defense appropriations bills for rocket and missile defense programs. Israel pursues some of those programs jointly with the United States.

This ‘special relationship’ speaks both to the importance of the US alliance with Israel and to the potential for unique arguments based on the way Israeli assistance differs from US assistance to other countries. For example, there is strong evidence that US assistance violates domestic (502B of the US Foreign Assistance Act) and international laws (UN Charter’s International Law Commission and the Fourth Geneva Convention).

17 US military assistance to Israel takes a variety of forms. The US promotes arms purchases that include live ammunition, helicopters, F-16 jets, military fuel, tear gas, communications equipment, vehicles and construction equipment used to demolish Palestinian homes: Ruebner 12 – National Advocacy Director, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (Josh, “U.S. Military Aid to Israel,” End the Occupation, http://aidtoisrael.org/downloads/Policy_Paper_print.pdf) During this 10-year period, the United States provided∂ the Israeli military, at U.S. taxpayer expense, with nearly∂ 500 different categories of weapons and related military∂ equipment, ranging from the truly mundane—one used∂ food steamer, valued at $2,100—to the most sophisticated∂ and advanced U.S. weapons systems—93 F-16D∂ fighter jets, valued at nearly $2.5 billion—and running∂ the gamut of everything in between.8∂ Due to the quantity∂ and scope of U.S. weapons deliveries to the Israeli∂ military, it is highly unlikely that even the most routine∂ Israeli military patrol could be accomplished without∂ utilizing U.S. ammunition and guns, communications∂ equipment and vehicles, making the United States complicit∂ in and partly responsible for all of Israel’s military∂ actions and the human rights abuses it routinely commits∂ against Palestinians in its 44-year military occupation∂ of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the∂ Gaza Strip.

Although there are other forms of assistance, military assistance makes up the vast majority of US aid to Israel: Sharp 14 - Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs @ Congressional Research Service (Jeremy, “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel,” CRS Report RL33222, April 11, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf) Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. To date, the United States has provided Israel $121 billion (current, or non-inflation-adjusted, dollars) in bilateral assistance. Almost all U.S. bilateral aid to Israel is in the form of military assistance.

Based on the evidence provided above, ‘military assistance’ is a large enough component of the overall relationship for affirmatives to be able to significantly reorient US policy towards Israel and for negatives to generate unique links for core disadvantages.

There is a robust literature advocating limiting or eliminating US military assistance to Israel. Advocates opposing US military assistance point to a variety of possible benefits. First, eliminating US military assistance may promote peace in the Middle East by reversing anti-Americanism and limiting the alienation of moderate Arabs who currently view the US as a dishonest broker: Madar 14 – JD, Civil Rights Attorney, Middle East analyst @ The Nation (Chase, “Why Bankrolling Israel Prevents Peace in the Middle East,” The Nation, http://www.thenation.com/article/178299/washingtons-military-aid-israel) This is regrettable, as Washington’s politically invisible military aid to Israel is not just an impediment to lasting peace but also a strategic and security liability. As General David Petraeus, then head of US Central Command, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee in 2010, the failure to reach a lasting resolution to the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians makes Washington’s other foreign policy objectives in the region more difficult to achieve. It also, he pointed out, foments anti-American hatred and fuels al-Qaeda and other violent groups. Petraeus’s successor at CENTCOM, General James Mattis, echoed this list of liabilities in a public dialogue with Wolf Blitzer last July: “I paid a military

18 security price every day as a commander of CENTCOM because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel, and that [alienates] all the moderate Arabs who want to be with us because they can’t come out publicly in support of people who don’t show respect for the Arab Palestinians.”∂ Don’t believe the generals? Ask a terrorist. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 attacks now imprisoned at Guantánamo, told interrogators that he was motivated to attack the United States in large part because of Washington’s leading role in assisting Israel’s repeated invasions of Lebanon and the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians.

This link provides the affirmative a variety of possible impacts: soft power, allied support for the war on terrorism, human rights credibility, terror motivation, and support for US bases and a variety of avenues to Middle East peace.

Second, the affirmative can read advantages based on the way limiting US security assistance changes Israeli military policy. There is an intense debate about the degree to which US assistance drives military aggression. Some believe that Israeli militarism would be diminished by removing US support: Ruebner 12 – National Advocacy Director, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (Josh, “U.S. Military Aid to Israel,” End the Occupation, http://aidtoisrael.org/downloads/Policy_Paper_print.pdf) Finally, some Israelis recognize that U.S. military aid promotes Israeli militarism and makes the establishment of a just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace more difficult. For example, Jonathan Ben- Artzi, a nephew of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, noting the effect of U.S. military aid in perpetuating Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, concluded that “If Americans truly are our friends, they should shake us up and take away the keys, because right now we are driving drunk, and without this wake-up call, we will soon find ourselves in the ditch of an undemocratic, doomed state.”93

Others believe that Israeli militarism is hindered by US support, and it may in fact be strengthened by a removal of US military assistance: Solomon 13 – staff @ Financial Post (Lawrence, “Lawrence Solomon: Israel can live without U.S. aid,” Financial Post, http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/israel-can-live-without-u-s-aid) A freed Israeli military economy would only propel its economy to new heights To the delight of Israel’s enemies and the dismay of its supporters, libertarian Senator Rand Paul, a potential Republican contender for the United States presidency, argued while in Israel this week that the U.S. should phase out the $3-billion per year in aid that it provides Israel’s military. Ending this aid along with U.S. aid to all foreign countries — call it the Rand Paul Doctrine — would actually leave Israel better off, he claimed to raised eyebrows. Criticism was quick, especially from Israel’s supporters in the U.S. Said Senator Bill Nelson: “Israel needs the full assistance of the U.S. It’s the only way Israel can remain secure.” Said the National Jewish Democratic Council: “Senator Paul’s misguided views on aid to Israel are plain wrong.” In fact, the Rand Paul Doctrine is eminently sensible and should be seen as such, including to Israel’s supporters. Paul’s assessment that U.S. “aid hampers Israel’s ability to make its own decisions as it sees fit” is indisputable, as is his assessment that the U.S. gift of military hardware represents lost contracts for Israel’s defence industries. Fresh eyes on Israel’s need for U.S. help would be salutary. For starters, let’s dispense with the myth that, but for the grace of the U.S. government, Israel

19 could never have survived against its much more populous and better-armed enemies. In the first decades following Israel’s creation in 1948, the U.S was less friend than foe, generally siding with Israel’s Arab neighbours, whom the U.S courted for their oil wealth and to keep them out of the Soviet sphere. The U.S. not only gave Israel little economic and no military aid in the early years — the first military grant wouldn’t come until 1974, a quarter century after Israel’s founding — it refused to even sell arms to help the fledgling state defend itself. Meanwhile, the U.S. not only sold arms to Israel’s enemies, it also lavished them with economic and military aid through a Marshall-type plan for the Middle East. Worse, the U.S. used the full force of its diplomacy to undermine Israel’s ability to defend itself. In 1956, after Egypt blockaded shipping into Israel and seized the Suez Canal, an international waterway owned by the U.K. and France, the three countries jointly invaded Egypt to restore their rights. Although U.S. president Eisenhower acknowledged that Egypt’s “grave and repeated provocations” had led to the invasion, he decided to curry friendship with the Arab world by forcing the invaders to withdraw. To bring to heel a resistant U.K., which was still destitute after its losses during World War II, Eisenhower threatened to financially cripple it, by selling U.K. bonds to devalue the pound and blocking a $1-billion IMF loan that the U.K. desperately needed. To get Israel to withdraw from territories captured in the war, which it refused to do without guarantees that Egypt would cease attacking its civilians and its ships, Eisenhower threatened Israel with expulsion from the UN, adding gravitas to his demands by making them in a radio and television address to the American people from the White House. The U.S. attitude toward Israel changed, and the military aid began, only after the U.S. realized that Israel had built a potent military that it could enlist in thwarting Soviet ambitions in the Middle East. Even then, from Israel’s perspective the U.S. aid often amounted to compensation, to persuade Israel to act in what would otherwise have been against its own interests. For example, after Israel won the Sinai peninsula from Egypt in the 1967 Six Day War, the Sinai became a valuable asset of Israel’s, partly because it served as a buffer to thwart future Egyptian attacks, partly because Israel discovered oil there, a commodity needed by both its military and economy. When Egypt failed to get the Sinai back in its 1973 Yom Kippur War against Israel, it decided to cut a deal with the U.S. — it would switch sides in the Cold War, abandoning the U.S.S.R. for the U.S., if the U.S. could persuade Israel to abandon the Sinai, along with the oil and military bases it had built there. The U.S. agreed to the deal, and obtained Israel’s agreement by providing it with partial compensation. Subsequent large military grants were also tied to Israel’s agreement to serve some U.S. geopolitical interest. In recent decades the U.S. has been more friend than foe, the two countries having developed a strong alliance, and U.S. military aid to Israel has grown to its current $3- billion per year level (Israel now receives no economic aid). But the common view by Israel’s supporters and haters alike that Israel needs a $3-billion handout for its survival is nonsense. Israel has a powerhouse economy — the best performing in the developed world — that could easily absorb a $3-billion hit, which amounts to about 1% of its GDP. When Israel was poor, its military absorbed a whopping one-third of its GDP. As Israel became affluent and its military more efficient over the decades, the cost steadily dropped to 25% of GDP, then 20%, then 10%, then 7.5% and now approximately 6.5% of GDP. If Israel needed to assume the full cost of its military, the cost would merely revert to 7.5% temporarily before resuming its downward trajectory. That downward trajectory would likely speed up under a Rand Paul doctrine, which would also deny aid to Israel’s neighbours. With Egypt and the Palestinians shorn of U.S. arms, Israel would be able to shrug off much of its defence burden, which today remains more than three times the Western world’s average. Israel’s defence spending would also drop because it wouldn’t be as reliant on expensive U.S. arms — under terms of its military aid agreement with the U.S., about $2.25- billion of the $3-billion must be spent on U.S. arms suppliers, whose merchandise often needs to be

20 retrofitted to meet Israeli needs. Paul’s other arguments — that Israel’s military industries would benefit once the Israeli government wasn’t tied to buying American and that “our money sometimes clouds the sovereignty of Israel” — are, if anything, understatements. Although Israel’s arms industry is one of the world’s largest, it has been thwarted on numerous occasions by the U.S., which blocked Israeli arms sales to China and Russia, and stopped Israel from building military jets that could compete with America’s. A freed Israeli military economy, the single biggest factor in Israel’s phenomenal economic growth, would only propel its economy to new heights.

Therefore, an affirmative could argue that limiting US security assistance solves Israeli military aggression by removing the means by which they fight, or argue that removing assistance would strengthen Israeli militarism by causing them to devote more of their own budget to military development.

Third, the affirmative can read advantages based on reorienting US spending towards other, more pertinent, needs: Ruebner 12 – National Advocacy Director, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (Josh, “U.S. Military Aid to Israel,” End the Occupation, http://aidtoisrael.org/downloads/Policy_Paper_print.pdf) Strong evidence exists showing that Israel’s misuse of U.S. weapons to commit human rights abuses of Palestinians∂ in furtherance of its 44-year military occupation∂ of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip violates∂ U.S. laws, including the Foreign Assistance Act and∂ Arms Export Control Act. In the past, numerous countries,∂ including Israel, have had U.S. foreign assistance∂ programs withheld, conditioned, or cut off for violating∂ these laws. Despite the State Department investigating∂ or being asked to investigate by Congress Israel’s potential∂ violations of these laws at least five times since 2000,∂ it has not once publicly informed Congress that a violation∂ of these laws occurred. Israel should not be held to∂ a different standard than other countries, and this situation∂ should be addressed without∂ fail.∂ In addition to these legal implications,∂ ever-expanding∂ amounts of military aid to Israel∂ function as a disincentive∂ for Israel to take seriously U.S.∂ foreign policy objectives. They∂ also crowd out other budgetary∂ priorities for unmet domestic∂ needs in a time of economic crisis,∂ have a diminishing strategic rationale, and are being∂ challenged by more Israelis who worry about the strategic,∂ economic, and political ramifications of relying on∂ U.S. military aid.

Budgetary savings advantages can access unique impact areas. Although these are very susceptible to counterplans that increase budgetary allocation to the affirmative’s impact area, tradeoff advantages will nonetheless be helpful against international counterplans, counterplans that transform aid and counterplans that condition assistance on Israeli political commitments.

These three advantage areas provide suitable ground for affirmative innovation in the area of military assistance to Israel. Each link (anti-Americanism, Israeli military violence and budgetary tradeoffs) provide affirmatives a diversity of impacts, as well as an angle against stock negative counterplans (international, reform and conditions). Surely, there are advantage areas not explored in this section (especially since removal of military assistance may be considered a diplomatic afront), but the evidence

21 provided should give confidence that there is a large literature base to debate the utility of US military assistance to Israel.10

3. Critical affirmative ground

There is a wealth of “critical” affirmative ground, though I put the critical in scare quotes to suggest that on this topic, perhaps more than many in recent memory, the adjective has less meaning given the central role played by questions of ethics, humanity, and human rights in almost any debate about America’s foreign policy towards Israel and the Palestinian people. Any policymaker worth their salt understands that concerns about human rights and morality are themselves areas of concerns for policymakers, and as such the Israel-Palestine controversy serves as a provocative, relevant, and paradigmatic staging ground for the value-based disputation of political claims about American policy towards Israel and the Palestinian people. The future of the United States’ support for Israel touches on questions of self- determination, regional and global geopolitical stability, economies of violence in both qualitative and quantitative terms, international law, political support for the United States in the Middle East and elsewhere, the state of global racism, and the inequitable distribution of basic resources, to name just a few of the impact vectors in play here.

The debates in the literature suggest several provocative affirmative options of a more “critical” nature, not to mention a deep literature base enabling intense clash on the major politico-philosophical principles at hand in the controversy area. I have here divided matters into two categories, advocacies and framing, with the understanding that a number of lenses for decision calculus could be attached a a number of different advocacy proposals.

A. Advocacies

There are several critical advocacies available, including but not limited to: reducing U.S. efforts to block the Palestinian Authority’s attempts to seek justice from Israel at the International Criminal Court, marshalling the United States to withdraw its diplomatic support from Israel by ceasing to block demands for international diplomatic recognition and/or the demands of the Palestinian people for a right of return, the wholesale repudiation of the U.S.-Israel alliance by the United States, and the elimination of tax- breaks for groups participating in the Israeli settlement process.

Refusing to bring pressure in the Hague to stymie trials not only unlocks a huge critical literature base about international law, cosmopolitanism, and questions of hypocrisy--all notions dealt with in depth by thinkers like Jacques Derrida, Frantz Fanon, Giorgio Agamben, and Judith Butler to name only a few--but

10 For other military assistance solvency advocates, also see: “U.S. Should Stop Funding Israel, or Let Others Broker Peace,” http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/08/05/can-the-us-still-be-a-leader-in-the-middle-east/us-should-stop- funding-israel-or-let-others-broker-peace “Israel Has Reached Childhood's End -- It's Time to End U.S. Aid to Israel,” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven- strauss/us-aid-israel_b_4251742.html “The Case for Ending Aid to Israel,” http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-case-ending-aid-israel-7005

22 also presents an opportunity to expose the “open secret” of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian people. Obviously utilizing international law to prosecute the Jewish state would offer robust negative ground for arguments like Alan Dershowitz’s critique of anti-semitism. Related too are the intense debates about the effectiveness of international law and the ICC itself. Here are two solvency advocates for the ICC case11:US will bring pressure in the Hague to block trials: Cook 15 (Jonathan, winner of the Martha Gellnhorn Prize for Journalism and author of several books, “Palestinians at the Hague” http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/09/palestinians-at-the-hague/) In truth, the Palestinian president has other, more pressing concerns that delayed a decision to move to the legal battlefield of the Hague.¶ The first is the severe retaliation the Palestinians can now expect from the US and, even more so, from Israel. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu began by halting the transfer of tax revenues Israel collects on the Palestinians’ behalf. Israel is also preparing to lobby the US Congress to enforce legislation that would halt aid to the PA in the event of it launching an ICC action. More punishments are due to be announced.¶ In selecting the “nuclear option”, as Israeli analysts characterised it, Abbas has also left himself empty-handed in future diplomatic confrontations – and for no obvious immediate gain. War crimes allegations may take years to reach the court and, even then, be stymied by pressures the US will bring to bear in the Hague, just as it currently does in the Security Council.

Having the United States adjust its policy at the United Nations to reduce its support for Israel is also on the table. As Matthew Duss argues, the US has a long history of pro-Israeli policy leanings and adding some sticks to the carrots might bear fruit. Imagine this advocacy connected to some of the “framings” discussed in the next section: Duss 15 (Matthew, “How to Pressure Israel to Make Peace” http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/03/how_to_pressure_israel_to_negotiat e_a_two_state_solution_the_obama_administration.html#lf_comment=286455921) ¶ Obviously the idea that Obama is nicer to Iran than Israel is ridiculous on its face. Iran is under the most comprehensive sanctions regime in the world, which the Obama administration has led in constructing. Israel, on the other hand, has continued to enjoy billions of dollars in U.S. aid, and protection from any international legal consequences for breaking the law and building new settlements. Indeed, it’s precisely because U.S. support has been so unconditional that successive Israeli governments have seen no reason to change their provocative policies, and Israeli voters have seen no reason to seriously challenge their governments to do so. At long last, it seems that this equation is about to change.¶ ¶ One particularly interesting part of McDonough’s remarks on Monday was something he didn’t say. While he stressed past U.S. support for Israel at the United Nations, he did not include a rejection of Palestinian efforts to advance their goals at the world body, as similar statements from administration officials have done in the past.¶ ¶ This isn’t to suggest that the United States will suddenly throw its support behind Palestinian U.N. initiatives, but there are a number of other options for applying pressure on Israel. They could include crafting a U.N. Security Council resolution laying out clear terms of reference for future negotiations, something the Palestinians have long sought, and which Obama himself articulated, to

11 For more see Norman Pollack, 2015, writer on Populism and questions of capital, contributor to Counterpunch, “Palestinian Quest for Justice” http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/01/02/palestinian-quest-for-justice/

23 Netanyahu’s dismay, in his May 2011 speech at the State Department. The United States could go further, setting out a specific set of parameters laying out the official U.S. view of a final disposition of the key final status issues—borders, security, refugees, and Jerusalem. The United States could simply choose to abstain from a new U.N. Security Council resolution declaring Israeli settlements illegal (which remains the official position of the U.S. government, though “illegitimate” has been the term used since the 1980s) rather than vetoing, as it did in February 2011. While a settlements resolution might seem less drastic at first glance than one laying out a broader set of parameters, it could actually be a more potent tool of pressure on the Israelis. A fresh U.N. Security Council resolution could serve as Exhibit A in the Palestinians’ case against settlements at the International Criminal Court. ¶ Again, none of these measures alone would resolve the issue. But they would represent the United States playing a more active and genuine role as facilitator in addressing the radical power disparities between the two negotiating parties, and the recognition that, as in any negotiation, incentives to change course must be coupled with disincentives for not doing so. Carrots alone don’t work. You need some sticks. And up until now, it’s basically been all carrots for Israel.¶ ¶ “I know what America is,” Netanyahu said in the 2001 video. “America is a thing you can move very easily.” This is what he’s still banking on, because up until this point, he has been correct. Let’s hope he’s wrong now.

Another aff could simply eliminate the entirety of the US-Israel alliance, taking the moral high ground to argue that refusing to support Israel anymore would not only acknowledge the moral failings of U.S. support but also undermine the hegemony and leadership of the United States globally, serving as a repudiation of the United States’ role as a global force of violence:12 Pollack 1-2-15 (Norman, writer on Populism and questions of capital, contributor to Counterpunch, “The Israeli Assault on Palestinian Identity” http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/10/israeli-assault-on-palestinian-identity/) The fragmentation of the Palestinian community, legacy and present reality of the Occupation, is, for the Israelis, standard operating procedure. Where population displacement, forced evacuation, and ethnic cleansing did not fully clear the military-political-ideological agenda, all steps clearly marked from Day One in the foundation year of Israeli settlement as pointing to the creation of the Jewish State, there is six- decades-and-counting later the continued process of economic-psychological pulverization of the will of whomever remains of the Palestinian people subject to permanent exile in their own land. Not a very pretty picture, indeed, so ugly that much of the world turns away, averting their gaze lest they recognize their own complicity in the power politics of scapegoat-creation to maintain a fragile equilibrium in the world system.¶ Israel in geopolitical terms is America in microcosm—as its fortunes go, so do those of the US in its quest since World War II to maintain its unilateral global hegemony (a course parallel to, and intersecting with, the entire history of the Israeli nation), and that, not fortuitously, but as the test case of the resolution of American power. Israel is to America perhaps what India had been to Britain earlier, a structural pivot point in their respective frameworks of global imperialism—a jewel in the crown, except that in India the colonial project was one of subjugation and spoliation via the extraction of riches, while in Israel we see, for Israelis, as one of us, in the top tier of “world-civilizing races,” a partnership-of-

12 For more like this see Esam Al-Amin 2011, contributor for a number of left websites, “The Futile Undertaking of Palestinian Statehood” in Counterpunch, 9/25 http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/23/the-futile-undertaking-of- palestinian-statehood/

24 equals established for purposes of mutual advantage: Israel, a regional powerhouse as outpost of militarism and technological achievement making its way in the world economy while safeguarding America’s strategic posture in the heartland not only of oil but also, as global crossroads, that of providing a commanding position with respect to Europe, Africa, Asia, and more particularly, Russia and China. To Israel: We have your back; to America: Your global network of bases notwithstanding, we are your true, devoted (nuclear-armed) friends, the most dependable ally in reinforcing your world power. For your power is ours, your success, ours.¶ Symbolically, if one had to choose a single item, this bonding as mutual purveyors of repression, itself an emotional cement bar none in holding nations together, can be found in the massacres each committed, My Lai and Deir Yassin—windows into a mind-set that compels asking the question, Can one fathom the darkness and depravity of these events? (I am here reminded of attending a Jewish Studies lecture at my university and asking the speaker–my having just read a book by the Israeli historian Benny Morris which described widespread rape by Jewish soldiers—about IDF atrocities, to which her only reply was, “soldiers will be soldiers.”) My Lai and Deir Yassin share certain elements in common, not, however, as testifying to some universal principle of soldier-ness, but specific concrete structure, policies, and values of societies founded on militarism, ethnocentrism, and xenophobia supported by a command-system of hierarchical power, be it of whatever complexion. Not all soldiers rape and murder; hegemonic social orders, on the other hand, require a paradigm of repression to keep their order, stability, and lines of authority intact.

This evidence supports the argument that US repudiation undercuts Israel’s devastating policy agenda. Another area would be settlement policy. In addition to the suggestion above that the United States could pursue a UN-level remedy for this issue, they could also reduce their support for settlement policy by tightening the screws on settlement organizations that use non-profit law as a tax shelter: Ginsberg 14 (Marc, Former U.S. ambassador to , “It’s Really the Settlements, Stupid!” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amb-marc-ginsberg/its-really-the-settlement_b_5993010.html) Something must be done to curb this runaway train. Netanyahu is invariably dragging Israel onto the wrong side of history. So if the Israeli Government won't voluntarily hear the growing crescendo of criticism, it's high time to make it hear where it matters most -- in the pocketbook.¶ Let's start focusing on international and American "philanthropies' that fund these settlements and fund the Yesher Council -- the Israeli settlers lobbying group. Innocuous sounding organizations such as "Friends of Ir David Foundation" or the more well-recognized World Zionist Organization, funnel hundreds of millions of tax- deductible dollars to directly fund illegal settlements -- making Americans unwitting subsidizers of those who take a tax deduction from these donations -- no matter that it is in contravention to established American policy.¶ Although a tad old, but nonetheless still on point, a July 5, 2010 New York Times in- depth examination of public records in the United States and Israel identified at least 40 American groups that have collected more than $200 million in tax-deductible gifts for Jewish settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem over the last decade.¶ The money goes mostly to schools, synagogues, recreation centers and the like, theoretically legitimate expenditures under the tax law in the absence of regulatory prohibitions by the U.S. government against funding illegal settlements. But it has also paid for more legally questionable commodities: guard housing as well as guard dogs, bulletproof vests, rifle scopes and vehicles to secure outposts deep in occupied areas.¶ By way of illustration directly from the Times article, take the Capital Athletic Foundation, run by the disgraced Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff. In its I.R.S. filings, the foundation noted donations totaling more than $140,000 to Kollel Ohel Tiferet, a

25 religious study group in Israel, for "educational and athletic" purposes. In reality, a study group member was using the money to finance a paramilitary operation in the Beitar Illit settlement, according to documents in a Senate investigation of Mr. Abramoff, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to defrauding clients and bribing public officials.¶ Mr. Abramoff, had directed the settler, Shmuel Ben Zvi, an old high school friend, to use the study group as cover after his accountant complained that money for sniper equipment and a jeep "don't look good" in terms of complying with the foundation's tax-exempt status.¶ While the donations by Mr. Abramoff's charity were elaborately disguised -- the group shipped a camouflage sniper suit in a box labeled "Grandmother Tree Costume for the play Pocahontas" -- other groups are more open. Amitz Rescue & Security, which has raised money through two Brooklyn nonprofits, trains and equips guard units for settlements. Its Web site encourages donors to "send a tax-deductible check" for night- vision binoculars, bulletproof vehicles and guard dogs.¶ The many ruses conjured up by American funders of Israeli illegal settlements to circumvent IRS regulations are too numerous to insert here.¶ In some ways, American tax law is more lenient than Israel's. The settlement outposts receiving tax- deductible donations -- distinct from established settlements financed by Israel's government -- are illegal under Israeli law. And a decade ago, Israel ended tax breaks for contributions to groups devoted exclusively to settlement-building in the West Bank. So, here we have American non-profits funding what Israeli law prevents Israel's government from doing itself!!!¶ The U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control and the IRS have the regulatory authority to put an end to this charade. It behooves the Obama Administration to start putting its money where its mouth is, and give a green light to its agency officials to begin turning the screws to these American subsidizers of Israel's illegal settlement operations.¶ For all of the Administration's bombast against settlement construction, it has long known that U.S. non-profits have been the Israeli government's chosen vehicles to funnel foreign funds directly into illegal settlements, but has never clamped down. Why? No one is prepared to give an on the record response. What is Obama worried about? Congressional opposition? Perhaps. But there is no better, sure-fire way to clamp down on funding that falls within the sweet spot of U.S. foreign policy goals with respect to a future Palestinian state.¶ It seems to me that rather than engaging in endless acrimonious exchanges between the U.S. and Israel, why not begin taking action that is directed against American funders: homegrown, focused, effective, targeted, and makes the point without giving Netanyahu much pretext to cry foul. After all, we are talking about U.S. funds going to U.S. designated tax deductible recipients for seriously questionable purposes that have already been conveniently investigated and revealed in the media.¶ What invariably is missing from the Obama Administration's Middle East goals is a strategy and a plan to execute that strategy -- well here is one arrow to add to its quiver.¶ It's high time for the White House to stop complaining about settlements, and start doing something tangible about them. Tighten up those regulations. Clamp down on the offenders. Stop turning a blind eye to circumstances that totally contradict U.S. Middle East policy.¶ Those Americans who claim hefty tax deductions while funding these front organizations are doing the sullied work that Israel's government is prevented by Israeli law from doing itself. That is one inconvenient truth, Mr. Netanyahu, that Senator Moynihan would call a fact.

B. Framings

Rather than outlining a traditional “advantage areas” section here, I want to talk more in terms of advocacy framings because these make sense of how a team might advocate one of the proposals listed above in a way that integrates pressing, thoughtful questions from existing theoretical literature. Again

26 this list is not exhaustive but is intended to be representative. Areas of framing I consider include: repudiation of necessity/security, redefinition of the human, biopolitics, and coloniality. These categories, as is the case in almost any exercise in categorization and essentialization, are incomplete; and, I would urge charitable readers to consider that there are multiple questions raised by the categorization that suggest deep sources of debate. Questions like “To what extent does it make sense to speak of racism as a global phenomenon or condition?” and “Is the Israel-Palestine case truly paradigmatic of a certain mode of power?” are worth interrogating.

1. Security/Necessity

One option for framing an aff is to critique the conservative logics that underwrite current U.S. inaction. Many advocates rebuff and refute potential advocacies by suggesting that they are either practically doomed (Israel will never go along, the U.S. will never do anything) or arguing that they are politically irresponsible given the intransigence of the situation (the Palestinian people are irretrievably violent, the situation is one of Hobbesian competition all the way down). I believe that there are a number of arguments to argue why these are not acceptable impediments for action in the area of the topic, and moreover that framing the aff in response to these objections provides an effective--or at least debatable- -rebuttal to the facts on the ground in the case in question. Stephen Morton provides one such example: Morton 07 (Stephen, Lecturer in English at Southampton, “Terrorism, Orientalism, and Imperialism” in Wasafiri 22.2) In an essay published in the¶ Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram,¶ entitled ‘Punishment by Detail’¶ (2002), Edward Said notes how, in¶ the western media, there has been¶ such repetitious and unedifying attention paid to¶ Palestinian suicide bombing that a gross distortion in¶ reality has completely obscured what is much worse:¶ the official Israeli, and perhaps the uniquely Sharonian¶ evil that has been visited so deliberately and so¶ methodically on the Palestinian people.¶ This sentence is significant not only because it clarifies the¶ way in which a discourse of terrorism serves the political¶ interests of the Israeli state and its policy of expropriating¶ and ghettoising the Palestinian people, but also because it¶ gestures towards a historical relationship between imperialism¶ and the discourse of terrorism. For the ‘gross distortion’¶ in reality that Said diagnoses in the western media’s¶ representation of ‘suicide bombing’ is itself a contemporary¶ example of what Said calls orientalism in his eponymous¶ study. In criticising the discourse of terrorism, Said is¶ not of course denying that acts of terrorism take place;¶ rather he is questioning the way in which the discourse¶ of terrorism is used by the United States and its allies to¶ describe violent acts of resistance to imperial occupation¶ rather than addressing the violence of imperial occupation¶ itself.¶ In his 1978 study Orientalism, Said describes orientalism¶ as a ‘distribution of geopolitical awareness into aesthetic,¶ scholarly, economic, sociological, historical and philological¶ texts’ (12). Such texts did not merely describe the oriental¶ world they imagined, but also contributed to the formulation¶ of colonial law and the justification of its suspension during¶ conditions of emergency, or threat to the sovereignty of the¶ colonial state. As Nasser Hussain has suggested in his study¶ of British colonial law in India, The Jurisprudence of¶ Emergency, the colony was the place where the tensions¶ between the rule of law and the absolute sovereignty of thestate were played out (6/7). And it was in and through the¶ discourse of colonialism / which Said calls orientalism / that¶ such tensions were negotiated.¶ If orientalism provides the sovereign power of the¶ colonial state with a discourse of

27 otherness to justify the¶ suspension of the rule of civil law in times of crisis, such as¶ the fiction that Sepoy soldiers assaulted white women¶ during the Indian rebellion of 1857 to justify the subsequent¶ counter-insurgency campaign in 1858 (Sharpe), the¶ contemporary discourse of terrorism would seem to serve a¶ similar function. For the contemporary postcolonial terrorist is¶ often invoked as the cause of the expansion of US and¶ British military power in the twenty-first century, which has¶ involved the war in Afghanistan and the military occupation of¶ Iraq as well as British and American political support for¶ Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Lebanon. Such a¶ causal logic conceals the fact that the threat of terrorism is¶ an instance of metalepsis: an effect of colonial discourse that¶ is presented as a cause.1¶ The idea that the discourse of terrorism is a form of¶ orientalism or colonial discourse is not entirely specific to the¶ twenty-first century formation of western imperialism,¶ however. In ‘The Essential Terrorist’, an article published in¶ Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the¶ Palestinian Question (1988), Said observed how terrorism had¶ ‘displaced Communism as public enemy number one’ in¶ American public discourse; and how this elevation of¶ terrorism in American public discourse had ‘deflected¶ careful scrutiny of the government’s domestic and foreign¶ policies’ (149). More specifically, Said argued that the¶ scholarship on terrorism is ‘brief, pithy, totally devoid of¶ the scholarly armature of evidence, proof, argument’ (150).¶ Citing a book by the then Israeli ambassador to the United¶ Nations, Benjamin Netanyahu, Said describes how¶ Netanyahu’s definition of terrorism is flawed because it¶ depends ‘a priori on a single axiom: ‘‘we’’ are never¶ terrorists; it’s the Moslems, Arabs and Communists who¶ are’ (152). In Said’s argument, it is this orientalist axiom¶ that provides the justification for Israeli state repression:the spurious excuse of ‘fighting terrorism’ serves to¶ legitimize every case of torture, illegal detention,¶ demolition of houses, expropriation of land, murder,¶ collective punishment, deportation, censorship,¶ closure of schools and universities. (156)¶ The problem with this orientalist axiom of terrorism is that¶ it effaces the imperialist interests that are served by the¶ discourse of terrorism by focusing on the emotional and¶ aesthetic connotation of terror instead of examining the¶ geopolitical context of its production. Such a problem is also¶ identified in some of the recent studies of terrorism in¶ literature and culture, which start by referring to the French¶ Revolution, and the way in which the experience of terror in¶ late eighteenth-century France was reflected in aesthetic¶ theories of the sublime. In a discussion of Kantian and¶ Burkean theories of the sublime, for example, Terry Eagleton¶ asserts that ‘sublime eruptions like the French Revolution¶ could be admired as long as they were aestheticized,¶ contemplated from a secure distance’ (47). Similarly, Gene Ray¶ in Terror and the Sublime in Art and Critical Theory has¶ argued that the rethinking of the sublime as trauma after the¶ events of Auschwitz and 11 September 2001 can only be¶ understood as a problem (7).¶ This vicarious experience of terrorism as a spectacle,¶ which evokes shock and fear, is also something that has¶ preoccupied theorists such as Jean Baudrillard and Slavoj¶ Zizek in their commentaries on 9/11. For Baudrillard, the¶ spectacle of the World Trade Centre in flames after the attacks¶ of 9/11 produced a sensation of fear amongst the public,¶ which Baudrillard also deems to be a form of complicity¶ with the event itself. In Baudrillard’s account, the¶ phenomenon of the suicide bomber is synonymous with the¶ media spectacle of the terrorist attack; and the effect that this¶ spectacle evokes in the viewer. Moreover, Slavoj Zizek’s¶ comparison of the Middle East to the Desert of the Real in¶ the Wachowski brothers’ film Matrix (1999) in his essay¶ ‘Welcome to the Desert of the Real!’ seems to reinforce the¶ aestheticisation of terror described by Eagleton rather than¶ examining the geopolitical determinants of terrorism as a¶ discourse. Such responses to the terrorist attacks on America¶ of 11 September would seem to frame the event of terrorism¶ as an aesthetic phenomenon analogous to the category of¶ terror in aesthetic theories of the sublime in the writing of¶ Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant (Zizek).¶ Instead of simply treating

28 terror as a merely aesthetic or¶ philosophical category, this article begins by examining how¶ postcolonial theorists such as Paul Gilroy, Gayatri Spivak and¶ Luke Gibbons have interrogated the category of terror in¶ European aesthetic theories of the sublime from the¶ standpoint of the colonised; it then proceeds to consider how¶ the aesthetic connotation of terror is complicated by the¶ violent exercise of sovereign power in the European¶ colony. With reference to the work of Achille Mbembe and¶ Frantz Fanon, the article then assesses the claim that¶ terrorism / understood as political violence / constitutes thepolitical foundation of the European colony. Finally, the article¶ briefly considers how two novels from Israel/Palestine have¶ interrogated the imperialist agenda that the discourse of¶ terrorism serves.¶ The Oxford English Dictionary distinguishes between terror¶ as the emotional state of being frightened, which is often¶ attributed to a novel or tale of terror, and terrorism, or a¶ system of terror, in which either a government rules by¶ intimidation or a person or group adopts a policy of¶ intimidation intended to strike with terror those against whom¶ it is adopted. These latter two senses of terrorism are often¶ invoked to justify the relativist argument that ‘one person’s¶ terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter’. When it is¶ used in this way, ‘the term [terrorist] is vacuous, no more than¶ an epithet for a system one hates’ (Walter 5). What is more,¶ this free-floating liberal understanding of terrorism not only¶ denies the significance of legal and military force in defining¶ terrorism, but also ignores the more fundamental point that¶ terrorism /understood as political rule by intimidation and the¶ threat of violence / is the ground upon which political¶ sovereignty and freedom is defined in the colonial present.¶ The idea that terrorism is the ground of political¶ sovereignty in the European colony has an analogue in¶ European aesthetic theory. Indeed, the feeling of terror¶ associated with the aesthetic category of the sublime in the¶ writing of Burke and Kant is often predicated on the¶ construction of the non-European other as a figure of fear and¶ terror. By representing the anti-colonial insurgent as a figure¶ who must be civilised, European aesthetic theory denies the¶ political foundation of terror and violence upon which the¶ European colony was founded. The rethinking of the aesthetic¶ category of the sublime in postcolonial theory breaks this¶ aesthetic frame in which the colonial subject is contained. In¶ so doing, theorists such as Luke Gibbons, Paul Gilroy and¶ Gayatri Spivak have demonstrated that the unstable category¶ of terror in the work of Immanuel Kant and Edmund Burke is an¶ effect of the aesthetic structure of the sublime, which is¶ marked by the age of European colonialism in which it was¶ produced.¶ At the end of an article on terrorism and the sublime in¶ Lyotard, Kant, Hegel and Burke, Christine Battersby raises the¶ question of why Auschwitz is¶ so often evoked as the paradigm example of the¶ sublime in the scholarly literature on this subject, and¶ not, for example, The Middle Passage in which slaves¶ were transported from Africa to Britain, Europe and the¶ Americas or the genocide of the Aboriginal people in¶ Australia? (87)¶ Thinking within the conceptual schema of Lyotard’s reading of¶ the sublime in Kant, Burke and Hegel, Battersby concludes¶ that what ‘gets counted as sublime is that which ‘‘we’’¶ (Western) subjects find hardest to cover over or ‘‘screen’’ out¶ through fantasy imagery or metaphors that contain the horror¶ within manageable bounds’. In Battersby’s account it is the‘geography of Europe, America and the West’ that has ‘helped¶ shape the boundaries of what is / and what is not /¶ fundamentally disturbing to [western civilisation]’ (87).¶ As mentioned above, it is precisely this process of¶ screening out terrifying events in the history of European¶ colonialism in the conceptual space of western aesthetic¶ theory that has been addressed by postcolonial theorists such¶ as Paul Gilroy, Gayatri Spivak and Luke Gibbons. In The Black¶ Atlantic Paul Gilroy questions the Eurocentric narrative of¶ Enlightenment modernity, which regards the history of slavery¶ as the province of black people ‘rather than a part of the¶ ethical and intellectual heritage of the West as a whole’ (49).¶ As a counterpoint to this exclusion of transatlantic slavery,¶ Gilroy posits a black Atlantic counterculture that transfigures¶ the

29 signs and codes of European modernity in a pursuit of the¶ sublime, and which struggles ‘to repeat the unrepeatable’ and¶ ‘present the unpresentable’ (37/38). This counterculture is¶ prefigured in Gilroy’s discussion of Turner’s painting of the¶ slave ship and the terror of the middle passage. For Gilroy, the¶ slave ship functions as a powerful chronotope,2 which¶ exposes the geopolitical determinants of the aesthetic¶ category of the sublime.¶ In a different but related discussion, Gayatri Spivak has¶ developed a strategic misreading of Kant’s theory of the¶ sublime in A Critique of Judgement, to track what she calls the¶ foreclosure of the native informant. By aligning Kant’s notion¶ of the raw man with figures such as the Australian aborigine¶ and the man from Tierra del Fuego (figures who are mentioned¶ in a separate passage from the Third Critique), Spivak argues¶ that Kant’s assertion that the sublime is experienced¶ differently by the cultivated, bourgeois, masculine subject of¶ the European enlightenment and man in the raw mirrors what¶ she calls the axiomatics of imperialism.¶ The relationship between imperialism and the sublime is¶ also addressed by Luke Gibbons in his study of Edmund Burke¶ and colonial Ireland. For Gibbons, Burke’s identification of¶ terror and the body in pain as the most intense form of¶ aesthetic experience is bound up with Burke’s experience of¶ state oppression and the death penalty in Ireland and India. In¶ Gibbons’s argument, ‘one of the primary sources of the ‘‘fear’’¶ and ‘‘terror’’ that lies at the heart of the colonial sublime’ in¶ Burke’s thought is ‘the capacity of the servant to rise up¶ against intolerable abuses of state power’ (3/4). Gibbons cites¶ the violation of young women in India by officials serving¶ under Warren Hastings’s East India Company and the¶ execution of Father Nicholas Sheehy by the British military in¶ Ireland for his suspected involvement in the Whiteboy¶ uprisings, as two instances of state oppression. By doing so,¶ Gibbons stresses the political dimension of Burke’s aesthetic¶ theory of the sublime, and how ‘the sublime is present in all¶ its terrifying force’ when illegitimate political institutions ‘rule¶ by fear alone’ (7).¶ What Gilroy, Spivak and Gibbons identify in their versions¶ of the sublime is the various ways in which the histories of¶ European colonial violence and oppression inflect the¶ experience of terror associated with this aesthetic category.Whereas Gilroy and Spivak re-articulate the histories of¶ colonial violence, which are often screened out or foreclosed¶ in theories of the sublime, Gibbons’s attribution of terror to the¶ capacity of the servant to rebel against the terrorism of state¶ power crucially links the aesthetic category of the sublime in¶ Burke’s thought to the fear of anti-colonial resistance. In¶ different ways, each of these readings of the sublime expose¶ the geopolitical determinants of western aesthetic theory and¶ how the aesthetic category of terror framed the western¶ encounter with the non-west, and subsequent acts of¶ resistance to colonial power.¶ From the standpoint of the colonial subject, however,¶ terror was not merely an aesthetic experience or feeling, but a¶ brutal material and corporeal experience of sovereign power in¶ the raw. The rethinking of the aesthetic category of terror in¶ recent postcolonial theory gestures towards the violent¶ foundation of sovereign power in the European colony. What I¶ would like to do in the next section of this paper is to push this¶ gesture further to examine how terrorism / still understood as¶ political violence / constituted the political foundation of¶ colonial rule and shaped the forms of resistance that anticolonial¶ insurgency took.¶ In order to comprehend how terrorism became instituted¶ as the political foundation of the European colony, it is crucial¶ to consider how colonialism reconfigured the relationship¶ between sovereign power and governance. In his essay¶ ‘Necropolitics’ Achille Mbembe re-frames European critical¶ theories of sovereignty and biopolitics in the work of Hegel,¶ Bataille, Foucault and Agamben by tracing the history of¶ biopolitics and sovereignty in the colonial context.¶ Mbembe’s reading of Hegel is mediated partly through¶ Alexandre Koje`ve’s reading of Hegel in his Introduction to the¶ Reading of Hegel in ‘Idea of Death’, and Georges Bataille’s¶ critique of Koje`ve in his essay ‘Hegel, Death and Sacrifice’. Of¶ particular significance to Mbembe is Koje`ve’s argument that¶ what Hegel calls the labour of the negative

30 is the work that the¶ human subject does to become conscious of its own finitude¶ or death. In Koje`ve’s reading of Hegel, an active confrontation¶ with death is central to Hegel’s account of the Spirit’s¶ achievement of absolute knowledge and freedom. ‘And this is¶ why’, Koje`ve says, ‘when ‘‘pure’’ or ‘‘absolute’’ freedom is¶ realized on a social level [...] it must necessarily manifest¶ itself as a collective violent death or ‘‘Terror’’’ (‘Idea of Death’¶ 141).¶ For Georges Bataille, however, Koje`ve’s argument that the¶ human subject’s confrontation with death is central to Hegel’s¶ dialectical narrative of the Spirit’s quest for absolute¶ knowledge does not go far enough. In Bataille’s argument,¶ in order for man to reveal himself ultimately to himself,¶ he would have to die, but he would have to do it while¶ living */watching himself ceasing to be. In other¶ words, death itself would have to become selfconsciousness¶ of itself. (19)For Bataille, such a hypothetical situation is exemplified by the¶ act of human sacrifice, a subject to which I return at the end of¶ this article. Before doing so, however, I would like to consider¶ how Mbembe traces the history of biopolitics and sovereignty¶ in the colonial context.¶ For Mbembe, what Bataille’s critique of Hegel and Koje`ve¶ illustrates is the transgression of death as a limit. Whereas¶ Hegel and Koje`ve regard death as the endpoint of the narrative¶ of absolute knowledge and truth, Bataille anchors death in¶ the realm of absolute expenditure and excess. Bataille’s¶ argument is important for Mbembe because it reveals how¶ death and violence are also constitutive of sovereign power.¶ Such a model of sovereign power is exposed in Frantz Fanon’s¶ essay ‘Concerning Violence’, in which Fanon examined the¶ violent political formation of the European colony in more¶ detail. One of the crucial points that Fanon makes in this¶ essay is that the political relationship between the coloniser¶ and the colonised is based on a relationship of violence:¶ The colonial world is a world cut in two. The dividing¶ line, the frontiers are shown by barracks and police¶ stations. [...] In the capitalist countries a multitude of¶ moral teachers, counsellors and ‘bewilders’ are placed¶ between the exploited and those in power. In the¶ colonial countries, on the contrary, the policeman and¶ the soldier, by their immediate presence and their¶ frequent and direct action maintain contact with the¶ colonized and advise him by means of rifle butts¶ and napalm not to budge. It is obvious here that the¶ agents of government speak the language of pure¶ violence. (86)¶ In Fanon’s argument, the colonial world lacks a civil society¶ or any form of meaningful political relationship between the¶ ruler and the ruled. Since the European colony was spatially¶ defined in terms of an absolute racial division between the¶ settlers and the natives, the settlers refused to recognise the¶ political sovereignty or humanity of the natives. Such an¶ argument complicates the claims made by critics such as¶ Hannah Arendt and Christopher Miller that Fanon equates¶ politics and violence; for in the absence of a civil society the¶ political would seem to be constituted by violence (Arendt¶ 20/22; Miller 49/50, 62/63).¶ In ‘Necropolitics’ Mbembe develops Fanon’s observations¶ about the constitutive role of violence in the political¶ formation of the European colony in more detail. Drawing on¶ the work of Georgio Agamben and Michel Foucault, Mbembe¶ contends that the regime of biopolitical control operating in¶ European bourgeois civil society does not hold in the¶ European colony; instead biopolitical control is replaced¶ with necropolitical control, or the threat of violence and¶ ultimately death by the colonial ruler:¶ the sovereign right to kill is not subject to any rule in¶ the colonies. In the colonies, the sovereign might kill¶ at any time or in any manner. Colonial warfare is not¶ subject to legal and institutional rules. It is not a¶ legally codified activity. (Mbembe 25)¶ Following Foucault’s argument in Society Must Be Defended¶ (1975/76) that the function of racism is to regulate the¶ distribution of death, Mbembe argues that it is the right to¶ violence and killing that defines relations of power in the¶ European colony. In the light of this argument, Mbembe’s¶ claim that death is a form of agency for people who live under¶ colonial occupation helps to clarify the significance of¶ violent, anti- colonial insurgency as an assertion of political¶ sovereignty in the context of a colonial regime that

31 defines¶ politics in terms of the right to injure, torture and kill its¶ subjects with impunity.¶ What is crucial for Mbembe is that the use of sovereign¶ political violence defined the horizon for political resistance¶ within the European colony. This is clearly different from¶ saying that violent, anti-colonial resistance is a causal¶ response to particular acts of colonial terror or that counterinsurgency¶ is a response to violent, anti-colonial insurgency.¶ The problem with Mbembe’s theory is that it seems to suggest¶ that a violent struggle to the death is the only available form¶ of political resistance in the European colony. Indeed this is¶ particularly evident in Mbembe’s account of the Palestinian¶ suicide bomber, which I will now briefly examine.¶ Writing of the spatial enclosure, bulldozing and¶ militarisation of the occupied territories in Israel, Mbembe¶ argues that ‘late modern colonial occupation is a¶ concatenation of multiple powers: disciplinary, biopolitical¶ and necropolitical’ (27). It is in response to the political¶ logic of this colonial order that Mbembe offers a theory of the¶ martyr or suicide bomber. And to do this Mbembe pushes¶ Bataille and Hegel to their conceptual and geopolitical limits.¶ In a commentary on Bataille’s theory of sacrifice in his¶ essay ‘Hegel, Death and Sacrifice’, for instance, Mbembe¶ invokes Bataille’s observation that the human subject who¶ sacrifices his own life ‘voluntarily tricks himself’ at the moment¶ of death. Somewhat provocatively, Mbembe then proceeds¶ to draw an analogy between Bataille’s notion of violence and¶ trickery and the material conditions of the suicide bomber:¶ There is no doubt that in the case of the suicide¶ bomber the sacrifice consists of the spectacular¶ putting to death of the self, of becoming his or her own¶ victim (self-sacrifice). The self- sacrificed proceeds to¶ take power over his or her death and to approach it¶ head on. This power may be derived from the belief¶ that the destruction of one’s own body does not affect¶ the continuity of the being. The idea is that the being¶ exists outside of us. The self-sacrifice consists, here, in¶ the removal of a twofold prohibition: that of selfimmolation¶ (suicide) and that of murder. (38)¶ At this point, Mbembe seems to drop the analogy with¶ Bataille’s theory of sacrifice and picks up the thread of terror¶ as a defining feature of both slave and late-modern colonialregimes. This rather abrupt shift in Mbembe’s argument is¶ significant because it marks a discontinuity between¶ post-Hegelian theories of sovereignty and the permanent¶ condition of ‘being in pain’ for a colonised population who¶ may at times be driven to regard death ‘as a release from terror¶ and bondage’. Such a discontinuity suggests that theories¶ of sovereignty and death from Hegel to Bataille may not be¶ able to account for the singularity of the martyr in the¶ contemporary postcolonial world

I do not need to linger long, I think, to establish an intuitive relationship between the Israel-Palestine question and the politics of security as thought in competing terms like realism, cosmopolitanism, constructivism and post-structuralism, all circulated around various theories and divisions of sovereignty.13

2. The Human/Life The question of what and who counts as a life is central. Not only is this issue grappled generally with by a number of key thinkers who operate at the intersection of the colonial and the political: Agamben, Fanon, Foucault, Homi Bhaba, Anne Caldwell. In the specificity of the Israel-Palestine question we have entire thoughtful books dedicated to the application of the paradigm of the human to these questions: Judith Butler’s Frames of War and Parting Ways, Achille Mbembe’s provocative “necropolitics” thesis:

13 Essays like Sharon Weinblum’s “Beyond the Security vs. Liberty Paradigm” is just one such example.

32 these are just a few of a number of very thoughtful but also intensely debated theses on the subject. If we imagine that the debate about how American support for Israel is underwritten by a certain kind of economy of violence that recognizes the value of some lives and not of others, the political stakes of the topical resolutional question become clear. Some, like Saree Makdisi working from a template of Fanon’s, even seek to rehabilitate the reappropriate the human in the context of Palestinian sovereignty:

Said’s Fanon-inflected humanism must be affirmed to refuse to mirror the logic of coloniality: Makdisi 05 (Saree, Professor of Comparative Literature at UCLA, “Said, Palestine, and the Humanism of Liberation” in Critical Inquiry 31.2) This is not the place, however, to do anything more than remind readers¶ of the kind and the extent of discrimination faced by non-Jews in a state¶ that frequently indulges in debates over “who is a Jew”9 and in territories¶ militarily occupied by that state. The Israeli government has literalized and¶ actualized all the logics, apparatuses, discourses, and practices associated¶ with the worst, the ugliest, the most violent and draconian forms of European¶ racism, for decades on end, without the slightest regard for the bynow¶ pitiful, almost dying, appeals of the people whose lives it has smashed,¶ whose history it has annihilated, and whose future it has all but destroyed.¶ My point here is not simply to recount what Israel and Zionism have¶ done to the Palestinians but, rather, to recall that from the earliest days of¶ the Zionist project, in Israel and the occupied territories alike, the role allotted¶ to the Palestinians in the narrative of Zionism has been, at best, that¶ of inconvenience, obstacle, impediment, and, in sum, that of other to a¶ ruthlessly violent ethnotheological discourse of alterity in which there has¶ only ever been room for one self. As Said himself argued in these pages, it¶ is precisely in this sense that Zionism, with its “ideology of difference,” recapitulates¶ the binary structure basic to all modern imperialism, predicated¶ necessarily on opposition between a fully human self and a not-quite-human¶ other. And if the problem for all the great anti-imperial struggles of¶ the twentieth century was the question of how to articulate a logic of the¶ human—and, hence, a form of humanism—that does not merely recapitulate¶ or, worse, invert the rightfully discredited logic of imperialism and itsown brand of humanism, this problem has a particular urgency in the context¶ of Palestine. For, lurking in the wings, there have always been those¶ Palestinian responses to Zionism that call for an absolutism and hence a¶ violence commensurate with the baleful absolutism of Zionism itself.¶ For Said, the idea of Palestine was always something that transcended¶ the sort of mindless reactive violence expressed by those Palestinians—ever¶ a minority—who see no other choice than to play the role of Caliban to¶ Israel’s Prospero. Thus the idea of Palestine was always, in Said’s work, inseparable¶ from the larger humanist project on which he had embarked, a¶ humanist project that sought to rescue humanism itself from the larger¶ claims of European imperialism with which it had come into the world.We¶ must bear in mind here that in elaborating his form of humanism, Said had¶ absorbed the lesson offered by Frantz Fanon, whose great hope was for the¶ Third World to articulate a vision of the human that did not merely send¶ back to Europe a nauseating reflection of itself but, instead, involved embarking¶ on what he called a “new history of man.” “When I search for Man¶ in the technique and the style of Europe,” Fanon wrote, “that same Europe¶ where they [are] never done talking of Man, and where they never [stop]¶ proclaiming they [are] only anxious for the welfare of Man, [though] today¶ we know with what sufferings humanity has paid for every one of their triumphs¶ of the mind . . . , I see only a succession of negations of man, and¶ an avalanche of murders.” In calling for the Third World to set afoot what¶ he called “a new man,” however, Fanon did not intend the negation of Europe,¶ much less its destruction. On the contrary, he envisioned its salvation¶ and redemption in a new

33 concept of humanity premised on the dialectical¶ synthesis of those opposing forces into an altogether new form of life, something¶ quite distinct from either the old colonial logic of binary distinctions— separating,¶ as thesis from antithesis, white from black, north from¶ south, west from east, and human from inhuman—or the phantasmatic¶ search for a hybrid in-betweenness that might imagine itself to have slipped¶ unsullied and uncompromised through the rigid ontological barriers of colonial¶ power.¶ Said’s humanism drew on and spoke to the great oppositional legacy of¶ Fanon, Nietzsche, and Blake as much as the more narrowly conceived humanism¶ of Arnold and Eliot, with whom he has been sometimes reductively¶ associated because of his stubborn refusal to abandon a discourse of the¶ human even in the face of poststructuralist critique. “By humanism,” Said¶ wrote, “I mean first of all attempting to dissolve Blake’s mind-forg’d manacles¶ so as to be able to use one’s mind historically and rationally for the¶ purposes of reflective understanding. Moreover humanism is sustained by¶ a sense of community with other interpreters and other societies and periods: strictly speaking therefore there is no such thing as an isolated humanist.”¶ Humanism, Said added, is also “the only and I would go as far as¶ saying the final resistance we have against the inhuman practices and injustices¶ that have disfigured human history.” For Said, then, humanism involved¶ developing a logic of being-in-common, in which the task of¶ interpretation was never to be confined to books, music, and art but also¶ applied to life and to humanity itself. He conceived humanity as a collective,¶ absorptive, embracing, heterogeneous, and infinitely open- ended striving¶ rather than the violent, fractured, binary conception of humanity underlying¶ European imperialism, with its opposition of the human to the nonhuman¶ or subhuman and of self to other—the conception, in short, on¶ which Zionism stands. Indeed, in the context of the question of Palestine,¶ from which in Said’s case this kind of humanism emerged, humanism itself¶ can ultimately be understood only as a response to the logic of Zionism,¶ even if it is also more than that as well. In other words, the idea of Palestine¶ for which Said worked amounted to both an engagement with and a transcendence¶ of the distorting, violent, and, finally, quite inhuman logic of¶ Zionism.¶ For Said, however, this counterlogic of humanism was never simply an¶ exercise in idealist thought; rather, it is something that actually lives in the¶ Palestinian people. It manifests, for example, in the fact that to this day the¶ Palestinian people as a whole want and stand for something more than¶ merely a reflexively violent reaction to Zionism. They have not stopped talking¶ of alternative futures, of cooperation, of working together with Israel’s¶ Jews toward a happier and shared future, and hence of building on an understanding¶ of what it means to develop a human community with rather¶ than against other human beings. This talking continues despite all the suffering¶ inflicted on them for decades by an implacable enemy sworn to destroy¶ every trace of their collective existence.¶ No one expressed the idea of Palestine more eloquently than Said himself.¶ “Palestinians present themselves as interlocutors with the Israelis for¶ peace,” he wrote after the historic meeting in Algiers in 1988 in which the¶ Palestine National Council, the Palestinian parliament-in-exile of which¶ Said was then a member, offered to recognize Israel and work toward a¶ peaceful negotiation of the conflict (an offer that was to be secretly co-opted¶ and subverted by the negotiations entered into at Oslo). He continued,¶ We say to the Israelis, . . . live with us, but not on top of us. Your logic,¶ by which you forecast an endless siege, is doomed, the way all colonial¶ adventures are doomed. We know that Israelis possess a heritage of suffering,¶ and that the Holocaust looms large over their present thought.¶ But we Palestinians cannot be expected merely to submit to militaryrule and the denial of our human and political rights . . . . Therefore we¶ must together formulate the modes of existence, of mutuality and sharing,¶ those modes that can take us beyond fear and suffering into the future,¶ and an extraordinarily interesting and impressive future at that.¶ Thus, for Said, the idea of Palestine, and the larger humanism of liberation¶ that it represented for him, is affirmative and productive. Not an idealized¶ abstraction to

34 which reality should have to adjust itself, humanism¶ for Said is, as Marx put it, a “real movement which abolishes the present¶ state of things”10 and which is creative of new relationships, expressive of¶ the desire for the immanent generation of new identities, new forms of¶ knowledge, new forms of thought, new communities of expression and¶ of being—while never forgetting or ignoring the history of suffering from¶ which the idea of Palestine emerged. Spinozan in quality if not in name, the¶ ultimate horizon of the heterogeneous and infinitely open-ended striving¶ that Said called humanism is the production of new forms of life, life understood¶ in the Spinozan—or, for that matter, the Blakean—sense as indeterminate,¶ expansive, and existing precisely in the connections and affects¶ that tie human beings together.¶ If Said’s sense of humanism was in effect about a dissolution of the barriers¶ between public and private—hence, his tireless calls for intellectuals¶ to be more engaged with public concerns and less introspectively self- obsessed,¶ withdrawn from the public realm, and confined to the restrictive¶ boundaries of their disciplinary commitments—that is because what most¶ interested him was our capacity as human beings for determining and creating¶ new publics, new communities, new forms of life. This was the basis¶ of the critical and theoretical project that Said launched in Orientalismand,¶ indeed, even before Orientalism in Beginnings, which is a study of the concept¶ of potential. Much of his work was committed to elaborating such¶ forms of potential across various disciplines and media (from art andmusic¶ to politics and, of course, literature) and to contesting and reading against¶ the grain those forms of art and politics that, on the contrary, sought to¶ elaborate or to ally themselves with a logic of domination, occupation, and¶ power.

3. Biopolitics

Control over life is a big area of debate, and in some senses here categories two and three are indivisible. Suffice it to say in the question over how the Palestinian people live, die, work, and exist, there are substantial questions about the ways in which international politics--and Israeli and American policy--are the conditions of possibility (or impossibility) for many subjects living in this region. In this way the lived abject existence of the colonized actually comes to warrant their subjection, as referenced in the earlier above Morton evidence. Here Giorgio Agamben inveighs in discussing the biopolitical lives of refugees trapped outside the Israeli state14:

This space would not coincide with any homogeneous national territory, nor with their topographical sum, but would act on these territories, making holes in them and dividing them topologically like in a Leiden jar or in a Moebius strip, where exterior and interior are indeterminate. In this new space, the European cities, entering into a relationship of reciprocal extraterritoriality, would rediscover their ancient vocation as cities of the world. Today, in a sort of no-man's-land between Lebanon and Israel, there are four hundred and twenty-five Palestinians who were expelled by the state of Israel. According to Hannah Arendt's suggestion, these men constitute "the avant-garde of their people." But this does not necessarily or only mean that they might form the original nucleus of a future national state, which would probably resolve the Palestinian problem just as inadequately as Israel has resolved the Jewish question. Rather, the no-man's-land where they have found refuge has retroacted on the territory of the state of Israel, making holes in it and

14‘We refugees,’ http://www.egs.edu/faculty/giorgio-agamben/articles/we-refugees/

35 altering it in such a way that the image of that snow-covered hill has become more an internal part of that territory than any other region of Heretz Israel. It is only in a land where the spaces of states will have been perforated and topologically deformed, and the citizen will have learned to acknowledge the refugee that he himself is, that man's political survival today is imaginable.

4. Coloniality

Many hold that the Israel-Palestine question is one of the paradigmatic examples of the logic of coloniality wherein a settler displaces a population and the political “reality” legitimates this dispossession as a natural function of the nature of the population at hand rather than a political enterprise. This evidence goes to great lengths to explain the robustness of this thesis in this case, and to rebut the Zionist claims of exceptionalism in the specific case of Israel’s emergence as a response to the Holocaust’s truth: Lloyd 12 (David, Professor at the University of Southern California, “Settler Colonialism and the State of Exception: The Example of Palestine/Israel” Settler Colonial Studies 2:1) Is this a singular condition, we may ask, making¶ Palestine/Israel an exception to the rule of nations, or one that¶ makes Palestine/Israel exemplary, exemplary of settler colonial¶ states or even exemplary of states of exception? Does this nexus of¶ settlement and displacement represent the lingering legacy of a past¶ whose specific characteristics have been abolished or forgotten¶ elsewhere? Or does it stand as the cusp of new formations whose¶ features threaten to become the general mode of the future? The¶ more pressure we place on these seemingly paradoxical or¶ incompatible questions, the more we will see that they are in a¶ peculiar sense determining of the question of Palestine, of its¶ framing as of its concrete issues. For the contradictory claims to¶ exemplarity and at the same time to exceptionality saturate the¶ discourse on Israel, and therefore on Palestine, to what one is¶ tempted to call an exceptional degree.¶ If the thinking of Israel/Palestine is already thus at once¶ divided and indivisible, so too are the distinctions between the exemplary and the exceptional. We may start by considering the¶ ways in which, in a quite colloquial sense, Israel/Palestine can be¶ framed as exemplary or unexceptional, and the ways in which such a¶ self-presentation is crucial to Israel’s claims to normality and¶ legitimacy. On the one hand, Israel presents itself as an exemplary¶ and therefore ‘normal’ state predicated on the no less normal desire¶ of a historical people for a homeland or a nation-state of their own –¶ of which there were many examples in Europe in particular at the¶ moment of Zionism’s foundations. Yet, at the same time, Israel is no¶ less an exemplary settler colony, typical of numerous settler colonies¶ of which, again, nineteenth-century Europe had spawned numerous¶ instances. There was, as Said pointed out, nothing exceptional in this¶ in the early days of the Zionist movement:¶ It is important to remember that in joining the general¶ Western enthusiasm for overseas territorial acquisition,¶ Zionism never spoke of itself unambiguously as a Jewish¶ liberation movement, but rather as Jewish movement for¶ colonial settlement in the Orient.5¶ There remained, therefore, a ‘deeply ingrained […] anomalous¶ imperialist perspective basic to Zionism’ even as it claimed – and¶ still claims – to represent an emancipatory project akin to the desire¶ for self- determination of other small, ethnic nations. Early Zionists,¶ indeed, despite the claim to have located ‘a land without people for a¶ people without land’, were far more willing to admit the colonial¶ dimension of Zionism and correspondingly the legitimate existence of¶ the Palestinians as a people than are Israel’s contemporary¶ defenders. A Jewish state, populated by settlers predominantly from¶ Europe, would, as

36 Herzl put it, ‘form a portion of a rampart of Europe¶ against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism’.¶ 6¶ The question then emerges as to whether we can then think of¶ Israel/Palestine, as Israel’s supporters ask us to, as an instance of a¶ conflict that is the effect of a normal nation state seeking to secure¶ its sovereignty against an external threat. ‘Any civilised nation would¶ have done the same’ is the appeal that is reiterated every time Israel¶ assaults Gaza or invades Lebanon on the grounds of a defensive counter-terrorist response. Such a claim requires the invocation of¶ the ‘state of necessity’ that Denise da Silva has recently explored as¶ founding the very reason of the emerging formations of the state, in a¶ formulation that at once spells the present danger it faces and¶ displaces the objects of its violence into the condition of a subjection¶ to nature or impulse that absents them from the community of the¶ civilised.7 It collapses, then, the claim to normality into a claim to¶ domination predicated on the distinction, Westphalian in kind,¶ between the civilised and those who are not understood as moral¶ actors and whose lands are therefore expropriable. Should we,¶ therefore, see the dynamics of the conflict as rather being typical of¶ the unfolding of a settler colonial regime and of its efforts to reduce –¶ in both senses – the indigenous population? If so, then one of the¶ paradoxes of the Israeli case is that the more fervently it presses its¶ exemplary status, the more evident becomes its anomalous condition¶ as a permanent state of exception.¶ It is the former model, which presents Israel not merely as a¶ ‘normal’ nation-state but specifically as belonging to the community¶ of European-style or ‘Westphalian’ nations, that is generally invoked¶ by Israel and its defenders. The claim is somewhat double-edged if¶ one considers the ideological origins of Zionism and the state it¶ eventually founded and profoundly marked. Zionism emerged among¶ the largely assimilated, predominantly secular Jewish communities¶ of Central Europe, of whom its founder Theodor Herzl was an entirely¶ typical representative. Accordingly, the foundations of Zionism are¶ imbued with the contradictory pulls of European nationalisms in¶ general, between an inwardly directed demand for self-determination¶ and an outwardly directed desire for expansion through the¶ colonisation of others considered inferior to Europeans – those lands¶ – and peoples – ‘free to be occupied’ of which Battistella speaks.¶ Herzl’s own trajectory, insisting on the equivalence of the European¶ Jews to other European nationalities and therefore on the right to¶ self- determination while at the same time negotiating with the¶ German Kaiser, British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain, and¶ the Ottoman sultan in turn for a land to colonise, embodies the terms¶ that would come to shape Zionism through and through.8 Zionism’s¶ conception of nationality lay in the ethnic but largely secular¶ nationalisms of Europe. Like its nineteenth-century European¶ forebears, Zionist nationalism was founded in the belief in the historical destiny of a given people to self- determination and¶ sovereignty. That belief, which, as Benedict Anderson most famously¶ argued, was not only ‘imagined’ but also inseparable from the¶ secularisation of the political sphere, was nonetheless accompanied¶ by a quasi-religious belief in a deep, almost mystical link between¶ people, land, and language, a belief that descended from the cultural¶ politics of Herder through the more virulent Germanic nationalism of¶ Fichte.9 Given that inheritance, European nationalisms have generally¶ harbored a deep prejudice against racial mixing that belies the¶ liberal, rights-based claims of the secular and democratic idea of the¶ state that is their Enlightenment legacy. In these respects, Zionism¶ and the Israeli state do indeed manifest the characteristics of a¶ typical European nationalist formation.¶ But Zionism, unlike the secular nationalisms it was modelled¶ on, was also imbued with traditions of messianism, a belief not only¶ in the historical destiny of the Jews both to return from the diaspora¶ to Zion but also in the association of that return with the return of the¶ Messiah and the inauguration of the end of times. As Jacqueline Rose¶ has shown, even a secularised version of such religious messianism¶ could not escape its vocabulary and – in most cases – its¶ connotations. Indeed, secular Zionism was

37 always haunted by the¶ traditions of messianic redemption, such that ‘we can fairly ask¶ whether the affinity between Zionism and messianism is too intimate¶ and powerful to have ever been anything other than partially – and¶ finally unsuccessfully – repressed’. In ways extreme enough to¶ distinguish its terms from the secular religiosity of all but the most¶ extreme European nationalisms, ‘the language of secular Zionism¶ bears the traces and scars of a messianic narrative that it barely¶ seeks, or fails, to repress’.¶ 10 Even the common enough reference to¶ the quite secular Herzl as a ‘Moses’ or Messiah of Zionism betrays¶ the interfusion of secular and religious claims. The end result was¶ inevitably an apocalyptic strain of divinely-sanctioned destructive¶ violence whose counterpart is the over-wrought conviction that every¶ conflict involves an existential threat that might spell not the end of¶ times but the end of Israel. At the same time, the messianic strain in¶ Zionism, which sanctions in the most unarguable terms the notion of¶ a ‘Jewish state for a Jewish people’, no less justifies – in both its¶ religious and its secularised versions – the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in order to make way for the ‘ingathering of Jews’ in¶ preparation for the Messiah’s return.11¶ The nice ambiguity of Rose’s phrase, ‘it barely seeks, or fails,¶ to repress’, points up the ways in which the ‘intimacy’ of secular¶ Zionism and religious messianism culminates in what is at first sight¶ an irresolvable contradiction between Israel’s normalisation and its¶ exceptionalism. As a state, Israel seeks on the one hand to be¶ accepted as one among the community of advanced democracies; on¶ the other, it demands to be excepted from the norms of international¶ law and human rights conventions on the basis of its peculiar destiny¶ as a state in which ethnic nationalism and religious prophecy are¶ enshrined and which is called on to defend. It is important to note¶ that this exceptional conjunction long predates the advent of the¶ Holocaust, itself an embarrassment to Zionists like Ben Gurion until¶ the 1960s and their recognition that the fate of European Jewry (who¶ had by and large not seen their future let alone their salvation in¶ emigration to Palestine) could be exploited to political effect. ‘A¶ Jewish state for a Jewish people’ was not a slogan or a project that¶ responded simply to the genocide of Europe’s Jews or was¶ determined by the need for a sanctuary that would ensure that the¶ Holocaust could happen ‘never again’. Its ethno-nationalist demand –¶ one that would in other contexts be dismissed as ‘identity politics’ –¶ was rooted in the contradictory formation of Zionism itself. It¶ produces what is an entirely irresolvable contradiction within the¶ normally accepted terms of the liberal, secular state. Individually,¶ Israelis and their supporters who want to be seen as liberal,¶ cosmopolitan, humane, nonetheless demand that we make an¶ exception for the practices and for the ideology on which their¶ exclusive privileges rest, and which are fundamental to the state¶ itself. Ultimately, the institutions of Israeli secular democracy rest¶ upon the most extreme claim to a divine or messianic exception no¶ longer allowed to any other state in the world.12

Potential negative ground

The following section is divided into three parts, each representing a potential area for negative ground. We have included a brief list of core positions, as well as citations to serve as evidence that these positions are supported by recent and qualified research.

1. Disadvantages

There are several possible disadvantages to curtailing the US relationship with Israel. First, dramatic changes to the US-Israel relationship are sure to engender backlash against Obama. The Israel lobby is

38 one of the most influential organizations in Washington D.C. and work tirelessly to protect US support for Israel: Petras 6 - retired Bartle Professor of Sociology at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York and adjunct professor at Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada (James, “The Power of Israel in the United States,” p. Google Book) 1) Chomsky claims that the Lobby is just another lobby in Washington yet he fails to observe that the Lobby has secured the biggest Congressional majorities in favor of allocating three times the annual foreign aid designated to all of Africa. Asia and Latin America to Israel (over 100 billion dollars over the past 40 years) The Lobby has 150 full time functionaries working for the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (A1PAC), accompanied by an army of lobbyists from all the major Jewish organizations (Anti-Defamation League, B'nai Brim. American Jewish Committee, etc.) and the nationwide, regional, and local Jewish Federations which hew closely to the line of the "majors", are active in policy and local opinion on Israel, and promote and finance legislative candidates on the basis of their adherence to the Lobby's party line. No other lobby combines the wealth, grassroots networks, media access, legislative muscle and single-minded purpose of the pro-Israel Lobby.

Second, the 2016 Congressional and Presidential election campaigns will focus heavily on the US posture towards the Middle East, with Israel being a primary concern for many voters. If Obama is seen as decidedly anti-Israel, this will give the GOP leverage to motivate their base and increase the likelihood for a GOP presidency: Koffler 15 – Reuters Staff (Keith, “The Republican road to the White House runs through Israel,” http://blogs.reuters.com/great- debate/2015/03/26/the-republican-road-to-the-white-house-runs-through-israel/) Turning out the base remains critical to the general election. As Obama proved in both his presidential races. Obama confounded the conventional wisdom, particularly in 2012, by running an unabashedly liberal campaign instead of making the supposedly mandatory tack to the middle. He did this by “community organizing” on a massive scale, running a relentless political machine that identified Democratic base voters and drew them in flocks to the polls. To replicate this in the 2016 general election, Republicans will need to motivate their conservative Christian base. And an extremely effective way to do this will be to talk up support for Israel. If relations with Israel continue to deteriorate and Obama moves to “re-assess” Washington’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian question, the importance of Israel as an election issue to those with an emotional attachment to the nation will only grow. And a Republican could ride that wave of emotion straight to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

It is likely that politics and elections will be read no matter the topic. However, the strength of the link is particularly strong for the Israel area given the political importance of the Israel lobby, the emotional attachment to Israel held by many in the US public and the ability for members of both political parties to use Israel policy as a fundraising lever in election campaigns. Furthermore, this topic provides potential for very specific links rather than simply “anti-Israel” actions are unpopular.15

15 The Matthew Duss article on page 14 of this essay explains a GOP presidential candidate’s, Marco Rubio, opposition to both pressuring Israel and withdrawing diplomatic support at the UN.

39 Third, the proposed controversy is designed to ensure the negative a strong link to the US-Israel relations disadvantage. The primary benefit of this topic area is that the affirmative can gain large advantages based on completely reorienting US policy towards Israel; thus, the negative should have a strong, unique link. Hopefully, the topic committee will ensure that large enough changes from the affirmative are required, so the debate is not about minor modifications to the relationship. Even if affirmatives are able to make smaller actions, the negative may still find quality link evidence to the disadvantage. For example, even though military assistance is a relatively small amount compared to the federal budget, and is just one part of the overall relationship, the negative will have a viable link argument: Lake 14 – staff @ The Daily Beast (Eli, “Some of Israel’s Top Defenders Say It’s Time to End U.S. Aid,” TDB, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/18/some-of-israel-s-top-defenders-say-it-s-time-to-end-u- s-aid.html) Michael Oren, who served as Israel’s ambassador to Washington until 2013, said it was a mistake to view the aid to Israel as something exceptional. While it’s true the aid to Israel represents more than half of the total U.S. annual budget for foreign military financing, Oren said that statistic can be misleading. He pointed to how the United States spends considerable money on stationing troops in, for example, Germany and on other defense obligations with NATO and non-NATO allies. “South Korea, Germany, and other allies receive military assistance but not in the form of aid,” he said in a phone interview from a Tel Aviv bomb shelter. “How much does it cost to keep the American army in Germany?” For Oren, the most important element of the U.S. aid is not the dollar figure but what it represents politically. “The aid has a meaning that exceeds its dollar amount,” he said. “Because Israel does not have a defense treaty with the United States, the aid is a message to the region about the nature of the U.S.-Israel alliance. I see the message as more important than the aid.”

Innovative negative strategies may focus on particular components of the overall relationship. For example, instead of arguing that the plan collapses the entire relationship, a negative could potentially argue that a particular plan would cause Israeli nationalism, or political backlash within Israel: Cooper 15 – analyst @ The Week (Ryan, “Why it's time for Obama to cut off America's subsidies to Israel,” The Week, http://theweek.com/articles/545294/why-time-obama-cut-americas-subsidies-israel) Withdrawing aid would be a symbolic act, and a powerful one at that, likely producing a screaming emergency in Israeli politics. Without an unquestioning American backstop, Israel would be almost as isolated diplomatically as Iran.

That political backlash provides the negative with a strong Israeli politics and election disad link Beinin 15 - Professor of History and Professor of Middle East History at Stanford University (Joel, Coexistence, Equality, and Universal Principles in Israel/Palestine: Regrouping in the Absence of a Two-State Solution, Tikkun Magazine, 30.2) The reason that it is, as Ellwood said, “hard for Israel’s friends to make the case that Israel is committed to peace,” is that the current Israeli government is not committed to peace, as most people understand the term. It rejects a two-state solution that in- cludes a territorially contiguous, economically viable Palestine state with significant sovereign powers and a capital in East Jerusalem. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s widely touted speech at Bar Ilan University in June 2009 did endorse a Palestinian state. But the restrictions he attached in that and subsequent statements render the commitment meaningless. For

40 example, during the 2013 election campaign he told Israel’s Channel 2 TV, “When they tell me to return to 1967 lines, I stand against it. When they tell me not to build in Jerusalem, I stand against it. . . . I have to stand firm on our vital interests even when it’s not popular, that is the prime minister’s job.” Netanyahu has also insisted that any agreement with the Palestinians allow the Israeli army to remain stationed in the Jordan Valley—effectively reducing a Palestinian “state” to a donut hole surrounded by Israel. Moreover, half of Netanyahu’s current coalition government firmly opposes a Palestinian state. If he made any substantial move toward establishing one, Naftali Bennet’s Jewish Home party and Avigdor Lieberman’s Israel is Our Home party would bolt the coalition. If that resulted in early elections, Netanyahu would likely be repudiated as leader by most of his Likud party, in which he almost single-handedly represents the “moderate” wing. Department of Politics and Government, Ben-Gurion University of the Ne- gev

Another specific version of the US-Israel relations disadvantage could argue that a plan undercuts US leverage to achieve specific foreign policy goals. This strategy could be much more strategic because the negative would not have to win that the entire alliance collapsed, and may have a unique angle against stock affirmative arguments like ‘alliance resilient.’ For example, cutting military assistance may undercut US diplomatic leverage needed to achieve peace in the region: Lake 14 – staff @ The Daily Beast (Eli, “Some of Israel’s Top Defenders Say It’s Time to End U.S. Aid,” TDB, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/18/some-of-israel-s-top-defenders-say-it-s-time-to-end-u- s-aid.html) Ironically, the United States may ultimately want to give Israel the military aid more than the Israelis want it themselves. Oren said Obama’s policy since 2009 has been “no daylight on the security field and daylight on the diplomatic field.” In practice, that policy meant that as Obama lavished the Jewish state with high-tech radars, missile defense batteries, and bunker buster bombs, he also asked Israel publicly to end settlement construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank as an inducement to bring the Palestinian Authority to the negotiating table. Put another way, the subsidy gives the United States leverage over the decision-making of an important ally. “Some of this is long-standing policy that can be traced back to Richard Nixon,” Oren said of Obama’s approach. “He believed the more you aided Israel militarily, the more flexible they would be diplomatically.”

The US-Israel relations disadvantage has a variety of possible impacts, including: Middle Eastern stability, anti-terror cooperation, Israeli burden-sharing, high-tech weapon development, Iranian deterrence, disaster response, and more.16 Moreover, there are possible impacts to Israel being forced to align with different powers (China, Russia, Turkey, etc.) if they view the US relationship as no longer tenable.

Finally, there will likely be disadvantages pertaining to the way that other allies respond may respond to a decline in US support for Israel. If other allies perceive US commitment to Israel declining, they may lose confidence in the US ability to maintain durable peace in their own region. Given the historically important nature of the US-Israel alliance, other allies may note the direction of US actions as increasingly isolationist, leading them to question their own relationship with the US: Solomon & Lee 13

16 see Michael Oren’s ‘The Ultimate Ally’, Foreign Policy

41 (Jay Solomon writes about foreign affairs and national security from 's Washington DC bureau. His coverage areas include international diplomacy, nuclear weapons proliferation, counter-terrorism and Middle East and Asian affairs. Carol Lee is a White House correspondent in the Washington bureau. She has covered the White House since 2008. Nov. 17, 2013, Wall Street Journal, “Strains With Israel Over Iran Snarl U.S. Goals in Mideast” http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304439804579204403646052482) "When the U.S. and Israel are at fundamental odds, it weakens U.S. power in the region and sends very bad signals to America's other allies," said Aaron David Miller, a former senior State Department official now at Washington's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "Israel has more in common now with Saudi Arabia. It exacerbates an already fractious region." The signs of rupture, analysts fear, will imperil Washington's ability to navigate other pressing security issues: Egypt's civic unrest, Syria's civil war and Mr. Kerry's drive to secure a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement.

In the case of countries like Japan or South Korea, this perception may result in increased military expenditure or even a decision to develop nuclear capabilities: Campbell 4 - Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of the Center for a New American Security (Kurt, ‘The Nuclear Tipping Point,’ p. 23) Certainly, the United States is not the only factor in the calculations countries make about their own security, but it is a major one. The policies and actions of the most powerful and influential country in the world affect every nation and have an impact on everything from global and regional security to economic stability, international norms and practices, and the sustainability of whatever global consensus exists. Much like the brilliant (or simply martinet) professor whose students write down his every sneeze or cough lest they miss something that will be on the final exam, U.S. actions are closely observed, noted, and interpreted by states around the world. American policy can, sometimes inadvertently, increase or decrease confidence substantially-a key component in any country's evaluation of whether--or when-a nuclear capability is required.

These disadvantages provide a comprehensive set of policy responses to affirmatives that curtail the US relationship with Israel. Importantly, not all of these disadvantages rely on the political circumstances of a particular weekend, which remedies a shortcoming of some other recent topics. Moreover, this list of disadvantages is not exhaustive. Each affirmative area will undoubtedly have negative literature dedicated to disadvantages and impact turns specific to that policy. Therefore, we feel comfortable saying that there is enough literature for the negative to create disadvantages that are generic enough to apply to most topical affirmatives, while providing ample ground for innovation and creativity.

2. Counterplans

Each topical affirmative will have applicable counterplans. For example, military assistance affirmatives will have to defeat counterplans that reform aid, apply geographic restrictions on where aid can be used and sanction Israel for violating laws that restrict how the aid can be used. Diplomatic support affirmatives will have to beat the ‘track two counterplan’ and other counterplans that modify the US diplomatic position without removing support. For affirmatives that pressure Israel, there will be counterplans that provide incentives or use alternative forms of pressure.

42 There are two counterplan genres that will likely apply more universally. First, the negative should have a counterplan that offers the plan in exchange for Israel (or other countries) taking a conditioned action. These counterplans test the forgone opportunity of unilaterally and unconditionally removing support for Israel. For plans that offer a quid pro quo (if the committee chooses this is included in topical action), the negative will be able to add conditions, provide the quid of the plan unconditionally, or offer a distinct quid for the plan’s quo. This genre of counterplan is applicable on many topics, but there is particularly solid solvency evidence for this area, because conditions are already commonplace in the relationship: Ruebner 12 – National Advocacy Director, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation (Josh, “U.S. Military Aid to Israel,” End the Occupation, http://aidtoisrael.org/downloads/Policy_Paper_print.pdf) Prior U.S. Conditioning, Withholding,∂ and Sanctioning of Aid to Israel As evidenced in the previous section, Congress and various∂ Administrations have worked in a bipartisan fashion∂ to sanction a broad array of countries that have misused∂ U.S. weapons in violation of U.S. law, and to promote∂ human rights as the objective of U.S. foreign policy and∂ the basis upon which to determine eligibility for U.S.∂ weapons. Not only have Latin American, Asian, African∂ and Middle Eastern countries faced these sanctions;∂ Congress and previous Administrations have also conditioned,∂ withheld, and sanctioned aid to Israel on several∂ occasions.∂ In 1952 the United States and Israel signed a Mutual∂ Defense Assistance Agreement, limiting the use of U.S.∂ military equipment to defensive purposes. In language∂ mirroring the Arms Export Control Act, it states that∂ “The Government of Israel assures the United States∂ Government that such equipment, materials or services∂ as may be acquired from the United States... are required∂ for and will be used,” inter alia,∂ “solely to maintain its internal∂ security” or “its legitimate selfdefense,”∂ and “that it will not∂ undertake any act of aggression∂ against any other state.”62∂ In October 1953 President∂ Dwight Eisenhower suspended∂ economic aid to Israel as requested∂ by the United Nations∂ Truce Supervision Organization after Israel refused to∂ stop work on its hydroelectric project on the upper Jordan∂ River. Aid was resumed only after Israel ended the∂ water project.63 In response to the joint Israeli-BritishFrench∂ October 1956 war against Egypt, the United∂ States again suspended all governmental aid to Israel.64∂ On November 1, President Eisenhower explained that∂ “We cannot—in the world any more than in our own∂ nation—subscribe to one law for the weak, another law∂ for the strong; one law for those opposing us, another∂ for those allied with us. There can only be one law—or∂ there shall be no peace.”65 Israel∂ was warned on November∂ 7 that if it did not withdraw∂ from Egyptian territory, there∂ would be a complete termination∂ of U.S. governmental and∂ private aid. Israeli Prime Minister∂ David Ben-Gurion announced the next day that∂ Israel would withdraw. Israel completed its withdrawal∂ in March 1957.66∂ Israel’s intransigence in diplomatic negotiations after the∂ 1973 war led President Gerald Ford to “reassess” U.S.-∂ Israeli relations. In March 1975, after Israel rejected a∂ plan to partially withdraw from Egyptian territory it∂ had occupied since the 1967 war, Ford sent the Israeli∂ government a letter stating: “I wish to express my profound∂ disappointment over Israel’s attitude in the course∂ of negotiations... Failure of the negotiations will have a∂ far-reaching impact on the region and on our relations.∂ I have given instructions for a reassessment of United∂ States policy in the region, including our relations with∂ Israel, with the aim of ensuring over-all American interests...∂ are protected. You will be notified of our decision.”67∂ The United States for six months refused to conclude∂ a new arms agreement with Israel until it agreed∂ to withdraw from parts of the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.∂ On four different occasions between 1978 and 1982,∂ the Secretary of State notified Congress that Israel “may”∂ have violated the provisions of AECA. In March 1978∂ Israel invaded Lebanon and used U.S.-made antipersonnel∂ cluster

43 bombs to kill civilians. President Jimmy∂ Carter instructed the State Department to prepare a∂ UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s actions∂ and informed Israeli Prime Minister Menachem∂ Begin that he was required by law to notify Congress∂ that U.S. weapons were being∂ used illegally, which could result∂ in the end of military aid to∂ Israel.68 Israel’s actions in Lebanon∂ brought scrutiny from the∂ Carter Administration again in∂ 1979 but no action was taken to∂ cut U.S. military aid because on both occasions Israel∂ assured the State Department that it would not misuse∂ U.S. cluster bombs again.69∂ President Ronald Reagan temporarily suspended the delivery∂ of F-16 aircraft to Israel after it bombed the Iraqi∂ nuclear reactor Osirak in 1981. The United States also∂ voted for UN Security Council Resolution 487 which∂ condemned the attack.70 On July 15, 1982, the Reagan∂ Administration determined that Israel “may” have∂ violated the Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement by∂ reportedly using U.S.-supplied anti-personnel cluster∂ munitions against civilian targets during its invasion of∂ Lebanon. In response to this finding, as well as Congressional∂ hearings on Israel’s war in Lebanon, the Reagan∂ Administration prohibited the export of cluster bombs∂ to Israel for six years. The ban was lifted in 1988 only∂ after Israel asserted that the cluster bombs would not be∂ used against civilian targets,71 a pledge which Israel subsequently∂ violated again during its 2006 war on Lebanon.∂ In 1991 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir requested∂ $10 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to help absorb Jewish∂ immigrants from the former Soviet Union. President∂ George H.W. Bush refused to fulfill this request∂ due to Shamir’s rejection of a U.S. stipulation that Israel∂ freeze all settlement activity in the Occupied Palestinian∂ Territories. The loan guarantees were later approved in∂ October 1992 after Yitzhak Rabin came into office and∂ his coalition approved a partial settlement construction∂ freeze.72 This loan guarantee package and its successor∂ program enacted in 2003 (Emergency Wartime Supplemental∂ Appropriations Act of 2003, P.L. 108-11) limit∂ funds from the loan guarantees “only to support activities∂ in the geographic areas which were subject to the administration∂ of the Government of Israel before June 5,∂ 1967.” Also, the amount of loan guarantees that could∂ be issued “shall be reduced by an amount equal to the∂ amount extended or estimated to have been extended∂ by the Government of Israel... for activities which the∂ President determines are inconsistent∂ with the objectives∂ and understandings reached between∂ the United States and the∂ Government of Israel regarding∂ the implementation of the loan∂ guarantee program,” a provision∂ which has been interpreted by∂ the president as the amount of∂ money Israel spends on settlements∂ in the Occupied Palestinian∂ Territories.73

One criticism of Obama’s approach to Israel-Palestine peace is that it has been too focused on carrots, and hasn’t demanded enough from Israel: Abunimah 9 -Palestinian American journalist who has been described as "the leading American proponent of a one-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict." (Ali, ‘Obama’s prizes for Israel are not “pressure”,’ http://electronicintifada.net/content/obamas-prizes- israel-are-not-pressure/8349) For months the focus has been on Obama’s demand that Israel agree to a complete cessation of settlement construction, including the subterfuge called “natural growth.” It was during a similar “freeze” in the early 1990s that Israel built thousands of settler housing units on occupied land. Arab optimism and Israeli anxiety were amplified as Obama and his Middle East Envoy George Mitchell said repeatedly that this time they wanted a total halt. Yet the firmness shows signs of erosion. Israeli press reports spoke of a “compromise” taking shape in which Israel would be allowed to complete thousands of already planned housing units. Although those reports were denied by the United States, several participants in the White

44 House meeting said Obama alluded to an unspecified compromise in the works. Anything short of a complete cessation of settlement construction will mark an achievement for Israel; what is important is not the number of units the United States may approve, but the principle that this administration, like its predecessors, will license Israel’s illegal colonization. Once that principle is established, Israel may present more faits accomplis and build at will. And even if Israel does agree to a verifiable cessation, the US has structured the matter as a quid pro quo in which Israel is not required to do anything without receiving a reward. The president has appealed to Arab states to normalize ties with Israel if it freezes settlements, including opening diplomatic missions and allowing overflights by El Al aircraft (recall that when en route to bomb Iraq’s nuclear reactor in 1981, Israeli warplanes reportedly falsely identified themselves as commercial aviation). Given how little leverage the Arab side has, it would be totally disarmed if it conceded any such gestures in exchange for so little. Israel’s settlements violate numerous UN Security Council resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention. It should no more be rewarded for ending settlement construction than Iraq should have been rewarded for withdrawing from Kuwait after Iraq invaded in 1990. While today US-occupied, war-torn Iraq is still paying Kuwait billions of dollars annually in compensation for a seven-month long occupation that ended almost two decades ago, the US is offering Israel prizes not for ending a 42-year-old occupation but merely for ceasing to commit some crimes. This can hardly be described as anything other than a net gain for Israel, especially since the settlement project is reaching its natural conclusion. There are already 500,000 settlers in the West Bank, who with their infrastructure consume more than 42 percent of the land. Nothing Obama has ever said indicates he will deviate from his predecessors’ policy of recognizing these facts and demanding that Palestinians agree to let Israel keep settlements already built. While all the attention is focused on the freeze, Israel maintains its siege of Gaza — despite Obama’s calls to loosen it — and continues to build the West Bank wall five years after the International Court of Justice ordered it torn down. The United States itself continues to undermine chances for intra-Palestinian reconciliation, and therefore credible negotiations, by fueling the smoldering civil war between US-backed Palestinian militias on the one hand and resistance factions led by Hamas on the other. On the outside Israelis may be crying about US “pressure” but on the inside they must be quietly smiling.

The second genre of counterplan available to the negative will be the international counterplan. In the context of the Middle East, there is sound solvency evidence for using a variety of actors: Russia, Turkey, Qatar and Egypt. Here is specific evidence advocating for EU mediation in the Israel-Palestine conflict: Pace 14 – PhD, Professor of IR (Michele, “The European Union’s governance practices and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” Paper to be presented at the ECSA-DK Annual Conference, Aarhus University, 25 and 26 September, 2014 (Panel D: EU’s External Relations and Foreign Policy) Other potential leverage opportunities for the EU in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are multilateral fora (which complement bilateral initiatives). In 1995, the Euro-Mediterranean Conference was held in Barcelona, during which the Barcelona Declaration was approved and the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) established. This regional initiative foresaw a political role for the EU and its partners in promoting political values including good governance and democracy. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is formally separated from the EMP framework. In practice, the EU’s role in the Middle East Peace Process (MEPP) cannot be disassociated from wider regional Mediterranean initiatives (including the ENP and UfM, see below) as it is strongly connected to these. In fact, the stalling of the MEPP has had a major impact on the EMP, hindering progress in the political basket. Since its launch in 2008, the

45 revamped Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean has also been hampered by the ongoing conflict. However, if we take Bang’s notion of governance, we may be able to appreciate the EU’s role in such multilateral fora through different lenses. As a hypermodern polity, the EU is a different kind of sovereign entity, which implicates openness, participation, accountability, effectiveness and coherence as a political system (EU Commission White Paper on Good Governance p. 10). The EU therefore presents itself as an alternative mediator in the IPC [Israel-Palestine Conflict] – one that facilitates extensive consultation and dialogue between the core actors involved in the conflict. And the EU’s multilateral fora are the context it provides for such engagement. In this way the EU goes through various measures to ensure that the location of such meetings is suitable for all parties to the conflict (for example Malta is considered as neutral ground). Moreover it attunes political institutions of conflict parties to a culture of consultation and dialogue which in turn commits parties to demonstrate accountability and teamwork in relation to the “other”.

A version of these counterplan may not require fiating an international actor. Instead, a competitive counterplan may be able to fiat the US taking a backseat to the EU in negotiations, or asking the EU to change its posture in a way that promotes Israel-Palestine peace: O’Donnell 13 (Clara Marina O’Donnell, a nonresident fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) at the Brookings Institution and a senior fellow at the Centre for European Reform, passed away in London on January 16, 2014. She was 30 years old. Clara led CUSE’s research and programs on European security and defense issues, focusing on the transformations underway in European and U.S. military forces. August 7, 2013, Brookings Institution, “How the EU Can Help Kerry With Israeli and Palestinian Peace Talks” http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2013/08/07-eu-help-kerry-israel-palestine- peace-talks-odonnell) As soon as US Secretary of State John Kerry announced the resumption of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, the EU promised to do everything it could to support the new American initiative. The Middle East peace process has been a top EU priority for years. But Europeans are conscious that they lack the diplomatic clout to be a major player. Palestinians and Israelis think that EU member-states are too frequently divided among themselves. Many Israelis also argue that even though the EU and Israel have close ties, the Union does not give sufficient importance to their security concerns. Nevertheless, Europeans played a modest role in helping the US convince Israelis and Palestinians to sign up to new talks. And the EU can make further contributions to the peace process. In July, as Secretary Kerry negotiated assiduously with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to give peace talks another chance, the EU high representative for foreign affairs Catherine Ashton announced that the EU would no longer give grants and scholarships to companies and educational institutions based in Israeli settlements. In addition, a leaked letter from Ashton detailed EU plans to require products from settlements to be labelled as such when sold in the EU. The Union, which has long argued that Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, had been working on both initiatives for a while. But the timing of the announcement and the leaked letter helped in a small way to convince both President Abbas and Prime Minister Netanyahu to agree to peace talks. Of course, the Obama administration was the key driver behind Abbas and Netanyahu’s endorsements of new negotiations. But according to European officials, the Palestinian president felt emboldened by the fact that the EU was willing to put international pressure on Israel. Israel, for its part, is always worried about being isolated. Netanyahu asked Kerry to convince the EU to revisit the decisions on the

46 settlements. But Kerry told Netanyahu that he would not ask the EU to back down, and that unless Israel took part in peace talks, Tel Aviv risked similar action by other countries in the future. According to officials, the exchange between Kerry and Netanyahu weighed on the Israeli prime minister’s decision to support negotiations. The EU helped the Americans coax the parties to the negotiating table because it has some economic leverage over them. Israel has an association agreement with the EU, and so many of its exports to Europe benefit from preferential trade terms. The Union disburses research funds and scholarships to Israeli industry and universities. And the EU is the largest donor to the Palestinians. In recent years, the European Commission and member-states have together provided €500 million a year. Amongst other things, this money has helped Palestinians develop the institutions required to function as an independent state – though more Palestinian nation-building will be needed before a two-state solution can be viable. The EU’s economic weight could be of significant help to both Israelis and Palestinians if they reached a peace deal. European states could help stabilise the region through further aid and trade concessions. The EU is already reflecting on how it could deepen bilateral ties with Israel in response to the progress in the peace process, a move the Israeli authorities greatly welcome. Europe could also help the negotiations by making clear that if a deal was reached it would offer peacekeepers to prevent violence. Over the years, a number of European politicians have raised this possibility. Europeans already provide peacekeepers to UN monitoring missions along the Lebanese and Israeli border, and the Golan Heights. But if Europeans want their offer to be credible, they need to reassure Israelis and Palestinians that their peacekeepers would not be passive observers. Instead European troops would be given a mandate to use force if necessary to stop outbreaks of violence. EU states have sometimes imposed limitations on what troops or police forces can do when deployed, for a variety of reasons including minimising the risks to personnel. This was the case for example during an EU police monitoring mission along the border between Gaza and Egypt between 2005 and 2007. As a result, Israel never felt the mission was credible. Finally, and controversially, the EU can support the peace effort by helping to bring Hamas into the process. The militant group, regarded by the EU, US, Israel and many other countries as a terrorist organisation, has been in sole control of Gaza for six years. Hamas, which frequently clashes militarily with Israel, is popular among Palestinians in the West Bank as well as in Gaza. Without its endorsement President Abbas will be incapable of reaching a durable peace settlement with Israel. In recent years, Egypt, Qatar and several EU governments have grudgingly reached this conclusion. Qatar and Egypt – even under former President Hosni Mubarak – have tried unsuccessfully to reconcile the warring Palestinian factions. The EU has made clear that it would be willing to work with a Palestinian unity government which included Hamas, if President Abbas were comfortable with the deal and Hamas renounced violence. The need to include Hamas in a peace deal is also recognised by some Israeli officials, including former heads of Mossad – the Israeli national intelligence agency – and by some in the US government. During her last year in office, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asked her department to work out how to engage with the militant group. But the US government is unlikely to stop boycotting Hamas, given strong Congressional opposition to the organisation. If the talks between Netanyahu and Abbas develop into something meaningful, Secretary Kerry should make use of Europe’s willingness to engage with Hamas. With the consent of President Abbas and the Israeli government, the US should discreetly encourage the EU to make the public case for including Hamas in the peace negotiations.

47

Because of the EU’s integral involvement in most major negotiations, this counterplan genre will be applicable to most affirmatives on the ‘diplomacy’ side of the topic.

These generic counterplans are sufficient to guarantee the negative a core set of arguments that can universally apply across the topic area. Strategic negative teams can diversify these two genres by cycling out different conditions or researching new international actors to promote changes in Israel’s actions.

3. Kritiks

There is an immense amount of negative critical ground available on this topic. I will take for granted the germaneness of Orientalism and its variants, with a nod towards our dear friend Pinar Bilgin.17 Obviously in many cases the direction of the plan might very well be in the direction of reversing Orientalist tendencies, but one imagines any number of representational and political assumptions carried by the plans will be fertile link ground.

Against policy affs that try to advance a two-state solution there is an extensive amount of critical ground that critiques such a solution as improperly dichotomistic in addition to a number of “policy” claims about the workability and feasibility of any such arrangement. Michael J. Fischer observes in 2005 that the development of a new state will not guarantee anything like equal justice (and sounds notes relevant for critics of capitalism as well): Care for the ecologies and environment of Palestine--Israel is both a sine qua non for the future and a space that perhaps can be maintained as a demilitarized zone in this difficult, embattled, transition period. The Palestinian-Israeli agreement of February 2001 to keep the water infrastructure out of the cycle of violence is a hopeful beacon, (14) even while activist-scholars such as Jad Isaac keep the pressure on to recognize the compounding inequalities and injustices of that infrastructure. Demilitarized, of course, does not mean depoliticized, and the icons of ecology, more generally, operate in political narratives as potent symbols. Olive groves are a rallying point of Palestinian indignation and nationalism: As Jad Isaac and colleagues have noted, "In an attempt to protect their lands from Israel's self-proclaimed right to confiscate uncultivated lands, many Palestinians planted large areas of grazing land with olive, nut and fruit trees." (15) Much of the increased crop, Stuart Schoenfield notes (2005: 15), goes unsold, or is marketed only to supporters as a symbolic means of showing solidarity, a sharp contrast and nostalgic legacy of a commercial agrarian regime in the nineteenth century when olive oil and olive oil soap was a major commodity exported from Jabal Nablus (Doumani 1995: 14). Indeed, olive oil soap made in Nablus has been made for the last forty years from olive oil imported from Italy, caustic soda from Belgium, and salt from the Dead Sea. (16) These observations do not mitigate or condone the unnegotiated tearing out of thousands of old olive trees or the taking of olive grove land to construct the new "separation barrier" (fence or wall) on West Bank village land, but only to address the construction of narratives exclusively around the olive tree. Factories are likewise potent symbols of nineteenth-century-like class subordination, and twentieth-century-like colonial division of labor: these are crystallized today in the oppressive conditions of Palestinian labor for Israeli capital (even when Palestinian capital is also

17 Thinking past ‘western’ IR?, Third World Quarterly, 29,1

48 involved) in existing and planned industrial enclaves along the Green Line, themselves temporary and liable to be shifted to even cheaper labor markets in Asia. (17) For Israelis the symbol is computer technology through which it has forged a postindustrial economy and niche in global markets. These three types of economy--agrarian, industrial, postindustrial (with their differing social relations of class, law, and politics)--also have their ecological or environmental concomitants. Population pressure alone is a contributing force toward intensified land use: from some 350,000 people in the early nineteenth century, half a million at the beginning of the twentieth century, to some 10 million now, with doubling rates accelerating for the moment (McCarthy 1990). And while each mode of economy could provide richer material and meaningful lives than it currently does, few scenarios have been developed with realistic strategies to prevent renewed sharpened relations of domination for the impoverished villager or laborer in a more peaceful world when capital flows in again (as it did during the Oslo Agreement period) from abroad or is mobilized by local brokers, investors, landowners, and the like. Such scenarios should be triangular in contrast to one-eyed "olive narrative" and "two-eyed" factory narratives (two-eyed insofar as they draw upon either solidarity of workers across ethnic lines, or recognition of the use by capitalism to divide labor by creating and reinforcing ethnic inequalities).

Christopher Lee argues that in conflating statehood with personhood, advocates of a two state solution run into some of the limitations outlined in the mid-century work of Hannah Arendt who noted that linking persons to nations had a number of devastating drawbacks: This discussion of rights and the legal ambiguities of stateless people clearly resonate with the concerns of Said over the Palestinian cause as he himself acknowledged. Indeed, Aamir Mufti has gone further to propose a set of political and intellectual connections between the Jewish experience in Europe and how minority colonial and postcolonial communities have been treated and understood. In his words, "the cultural and critical legacies of the Jewish Question speak to debates and dilemmas that are distinctly postcolo-niai" (Mufti 2007, 4). More specifically, he suggests that "the commonality of powerlessness and 'minority' status among 'colonial natives,' Jews, and even women" is a modern phenomenon that has generated intellectual concern with a genealogy extending from Erich Auerbach, George Lukacs, and Theodor Adorno to Said (5, 13, 14). In short, the Jewish Question and the politics of culture addressed by this group of intellectuals both influenced the thinking and framing of postcolonial studies--especially in relation to Said and the Palestinian Question. Perhaps the final illustration of this influence was Said's own embrace of a one-state solution as a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Although he had focused a critical eye toward Arendt's association with Zionism, he also praised her support for a binational state in Palestine as mentioned earlier (Said 1995, 95; see also Raz-Krakotzkin 2001). In a late essay published in the New York Times toward the end of his life, Said made a political departure from the two-state negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to support a binational state-- essentially embracing an approach articulated earlier by Arendt. In his words, "during the interwar period, a small but important group of Jewish thinkers (Judah Magnes, Buber, Arendt and others) argued and agitated for a binational state. The logic of Zionism naturally overwhelmed their efforts, but the idea is alive today here and there among Jewish and Arab individuals frustrated with the evident insufficiencies and depredations of the present" (Said 1999). Given the decided limitations of the two-state solution-- materially, territorially, and ultimately politically--for the Palestinians, Said believed the one-state option as the only viable one to avoid future conflict and achieve the humane aspirations of people in the region. Yet this revival does not merely reflect the shifting contingencies of political need. It underscores the continued evolution of a political position against the discriminatory politics of the majority and for the

49 rights of minorities and the stateless, as once identified by Arendt. Whether this position will gain mainstream support in Israel, and elsewhere, remains to be seen.

There are also highly sophisticated critiques internal to the terms of the debate about Israel/Palestine and its relationship to critical literature bases. For example, where some scholars and critics identify the paradigm of biopolitics as crucial for apprehending what is happening in the situation, some critics take issue with biopolitics arguing its focus on life trades off with understanding that death is the central experience for those living under occupation: Ghanim 08 (Honaida, postdoctoral fellow in Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard, in Thinking Palestine ed. by Rohit Lentin, p. 67-68) I argue that in order to understand population management under¶ colonial occupation it is inadequate to use Foucault’s analytical notions¶ of biopower and biopolitics alone, concepts developed in the analysis of¶ population management in the modern European nation-state. Instead,¶ I suggest that biopower’s opposite – thanatopower – is the appropriate¶ conceptual frame for understanding the management of colonized¶ occupied spaces and subjugated populations. Thanatopower is the management¶ of death and destruction. Under colonial occupation, the lives¶ of subjects are expropriated. They are exposed to the continual threat of¶ death that becomes a permanent shadow accompanying them. Death is¶ just on hold, again and again, from moment to moment. It’s not¶ because of the conscience of the sovereign or his sleepless nights that¶ the subject’s death is constantly delayed. On the contrary, the delay is¶ clearly a product of economic calculation of cost and benefit, as well as¶ an effort at making the system efficient. In fact, the delay is a moment¶ when all power is drained: the power populates the moment of delay,¶ with clear and disguised signs of death threats, like a permanent shadow.¶ Because of this threat of death, granting life becomes a tremendous¶ ‘favour’ (Ghanim 2005).¶ In the modern nation-state the organization of power over life¶ deployed around the regulations of the body (disciplinary power) and¶ the regulations of populations (biopower), is reflected through the¶ inclusion of man’s natural life in the mechanisms and calculations of¶ power (Foucault 1978: 139; Agamben 1998: 119). From the seventeenth¶ century, the ‘old power’ of death that symbolized sovereign power was¶ gradually ‘supplanted by the administration of bodies and the calculated¶ management of life’ (Foucault 1978: 140). According to Michel Foucault,¶ in its old form, the power of the sovereign was the right to take life¶ and let live, which meant the right of the sovereign to decide life and¶ death (1978: 135–6). But since the classical age the West has undergone a¶ very profound transformation of this mechanism of power; the death,¶ that was based on the right of the ‘sovereign is now manifested as simply¶ the reverse of the right of the social body to ensure, maintain or develop¶ its life’ (136). What is at stake in the modern state is the ‘biological¶ existence of the population’ where power ‘is situated and exercised atthe level of life, the species, the race and the large-scale phenomenon of¶ population’ (136–7).¶ I want to argue that along with the transformation of power, from its¶ ancient form to its new modern form of ‘biopower’, a twofold process¶ was initiated: on the one hand, power was localized in the domain of¶ life, and directed towards the ‘investment’ in the ‘good race’, its public¶ health and efficiency, in improving its life quality and social security.¶ Therefore the war is no longer waged in the name of the sovereign who¶ must be defended, but in the name of the society that must be defended¶ (Foucault 1978: 2003). On the other hand and in ‘the name of the society¶ that must be defended’, regimes initiate slaughters and massacres against¶ their own populations ‘who represent a kind of biological danger’ (1978:¶ 138). In this sense the concentration camps become, according to¶ Agamben (1998: 117), the biopolitical

50 paradigm of the modern.¶ The problem that resulted from the use of the biopolitical paradigm¶ for understanding the regulation of the life of the ‘wanted’ and¶ ‘unwanted’ races is that it dismisses the phenomenological experience¶ of the destructive side of power from the viewpoint of its victims, and¶ prevents an understanding of the experience of the power used on both¶ sides by victims and oppressors.¶ From the viewpoint of power’s victims, the moment that power is¶ directed to destroying, eliminating and dismantling their group, the¶ decision about their life becomes a decision about their death. In other¶ words, this is the moment when (bio)power is transformed into¶ (thanato)power. In this sense, thanatopower is not an independent or¶ unique form of power, but is always already a supplement of biopower,¶ which is called to action at those delicate moments of passage from calculating¶ life to calculating death, from managing life to managing death,¶ and from the politicization of life to the politicization of death. At this¶ moment of transformation from the bio to the thanato, the old archetypal¶ form of power to ‘make die and let live’ reappears under the new¶ form of ‘giving death and bargaining living’, best reflected in our times¶ in the new form of military occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya,¶ and the colonial occupation of Palestine, the core of this chapter.¶ Under the colonial occupation of Palestine, the extreme form of¶ thanatopower is reflected in the active putting to death of Palestinian¶ activists and political leaders through targeted assassinations. But in its¶ more subtle form it is reflected in exposing the Palestinians to the¶ ongoing destructive power of the occupier through putting them undercontinual closures, ongoing curfews, arbitrary closing of main roads, the¶ destruction of cultivated fields, the confiscation of agricultural land,¶ bombing cities, using artillery fire in populated neighbourhoods,¶ operating bypass roads and separating the spaces of the Palestinians and¶ the Jewish settlers and, finally, conducting a siege policy that aims to¶ ‘put the Palestinians on a diet, but not make them die of hunger’.2

The same is true of affirmatives which invest in sovereign as the solution to the problem, occluding the micro-level annexes of power that operate beyond traditional state sovereignty: Parsons and Salter 08 (Nigel and Mark, “Israeli Biopolitics: Closure, Territoiralisation, and Governmentality in the Occupied Palestinian Territories” Geopolitics, 13) Foucault considered the concomitant evolution of industrial and institutional¶ techniques of modern governance through an investigation of how¶ productive, healthy, moral bodies were constructed, schooled, policed and¶ harnessed for labour and public order. Moving away from repression alone,¶ Foucault demands that we ask how power can be productive. Foucault’s¶ identification of a shift in the object of government from “territorial” to¶ “population” state is a key insight we wish to explore in closure.5¶ In a series¶ of lectures at the Collège de France, Foucault described three modalities of¶ power: sovereign, disciplinary, and biopolitical. Sovereign power “consists in¶ laying down a law and fixing a punishment for the person who breaks it.”6¶ Disciplinary power is “framed by mechanisms of surveillance and correction.”7¶ He continues, “Discipline functions to the extent that it isolates a¶ space . . . concentrates, focuses, and encloses.”8¶ Between the Green Line,¶ the separation barrier and the borders with Jordan and Egypt, as Weizman¶ has observed, Israel aspires to an incomparable level of surveillance and¶ control over a population not its own.9¶ Both sovereign and disciplinary¶ power can operate at the same time. It is our argument that previous work¶ on the Israeli-Palestinian issue has focused too heavily on the sovereign or¶ disciplinary aspects of the conflict (laws, decrees, incarceration, and surveillance).¶ This is not to discount the considerations of security policies and their¶ impact on Israeli and Palestinian populations. Rather, it is to acknowledgeFoucault’s exhortation that “power is war,

51 the continuation of war by other¶ means . . . politics is the continuation of war by other means.”10 Biopolitical¶ power is precisely not about prohibition or incarceration but in the management¶ of flows and norms. We examine here the need for a biopolitical¶ analysis that examines how the management of the population comes to be¶ abstracted and controlled. Biopolitical power tackles “the problems presented¶ to governmental practice by the phenomena characteristic of a group¶ of living human beings constituted as a population: health, sanitation, birthrate,¶ longevity, race . . .”.11 Foucault argues in particular that the use of¶ statistics, public institutions and biopolitical reasoning – in which the state¶ takes the population as the unit of its analysis and control – renders the power¶ of the state far more indirect. For example, the politics of the separation barrier¶ cannot be explained solely in terms of its foundation in Israeli decree or its¶ enclosure of territory. The barrier does not incarcerate the OPT; rather, it¶ radically constricts the flow of population (and goods). Palestinians can still¶ pass through the barrier – the issue is then not enclosure, but control of¶ porosity. Crucial to the workings of the barrier is the biopolitical control it¶ reinforces in other kinds of Israeli state power such as identification, residency,¶ and authorization.

Many of the existing roadmaps and frameworks for peace are also critiqued, like the Paris Protocol. This evidence which shots at the political failings of the agreement: Hanafi 12 (Sari, professor of Anthropology and Media Studies at University of Beirut, “Explaining spacio-cide in the Palestinian territory: Colonization, separation, and state of exception” Current Sociology 6.12) However, the Paris Protocol has failed to generate development in the Palestinian territories.¶ Some argue that it failed because of poor implementation, while others (such as¶ Abu-Sada, 2009: 415; Farsakh, 2009: 402) stress the structural flaws of the economic protocol and the fact that it was designed to Israel’s advantage. For the latter, its principal effect was to increase the integration of the Palestinian economy within the Israeli economy.¶ Israel’s obstacles to free trade and the free movement of labor during the second¶ Intifada reinforced a tendency that was already present during the Oslo years. Ever since, Israel has been using transfer of taxes as a means of pressuring the Palestinian National Authority. According to the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem’s special report¶ about the Paris Protocol: ‘The model established in the Protocol is known as a “customs union,” the primary characteristic of which is the absence of economic borders between members of the union. The practical effect of selecting this model was preservation of¶ the economic relations that had existed until then, i.e., a Palestinian economy integrated in and dependent on the Israeli economy.’9 The protocol ignored, stresses Abu-Sada¶ (2009), the unequal status of the two sides: one controlling the borders and the import– export facilities, the other a newly appointed national authority with little experience in economic and trade matters. The economic dependency has been institutionalized and¶ entrenched asymmetries between Israelis and Palestinians by different means:¶ First, it reduces production capacity, denying access to agricultural inputs such as fertilizers and limiting access to land and water resources. Second, the restrictions on movement severely impede trade within the Palestinian territories and the export of products from the territories to Israel and elsewhere. Third, Israel discriminates against Palestinian products, in addition to¶ taking advantage of the provisions of the Paris Protocol, which favors Israeli interests and¶ whose partial implementation aggravates the already terrible state of Palestinian agriculture.¶ Finally, the structural transformation of the Palestinian agricultural sector is hampered by the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture’s lack of control over the sector and the ministry’s continuing¶ struggle to survive due to the financial crisis of the Palestinian Authority, on the one hand and¶ the competition it faces from nongovernmental organizations,

52 on the other. At the same time,¶ Palestinian NGOs, which concentrate on emergency projects such as rehabilitating water¶ sources and reclaiming land to mitigate Israeli military actions, do not have the resources to engage in development projects. (Abu-Sada, 2009: 427)

The Oslo plan hardly fares any better: Parsons and Salter 08 (Nigel and Mark, “Israeli Biopolitics: Closure, Territoiralisation, and Governmentality in the Occupied Palestinian Territories” Geopolitics 13) For the PLO’s mainstream nationalist faction Fatah, the Oslo framework structured an odd political space in East Jerusalem: PA agencies could not operate, but residents were permitted to vote in legislative and presidential¶ elections (albeit without much encouragement), and the PLO allowed to establish a presence. It cohered around Faysal al-Husayni, a member of the PLO executive committee, the Fatah central committee, and president of the¶ Fatah higher committee for the West Bank. Fatah offices were physically centred on the Husayni family property at Orient House, from where was expedited a sort of unofficial foreign ministry. Institutionalisation extended to¶ the grassroots, Jerusalem constituting one of eighteen regional committees or¶ iqlim (five in the Gaza Strip, thirteen in the West Bank), each guided by a¶ leadership committee (lajnat qiyadiyya). On the initiative of Husayni’s¶ deputy, higher committee general secretary Marwan al-Barghuthi, iqlim¶elections were scheduled across the OPT and took place in Jerusalem in November 1998.64 The process of registering membership, holding ballots¶ and instituting democratic procedures was meant to advance Fatah’s transformation from a movement to political party. The idea was two-fold: first,¶ that a newly institutionalised party might better serve as a vehicle for carrying forward the Palestinian nationalist agenda; and second, consistent with¶ Oslo’s declared aim of conflict resolution, a party could best build support for the compromises necessary in a final status agreement with Israel. However,¶ the fundamental incompatibility of pursuing even moderated Palestinian nationalist goals and upholding a commitment to Oslo were revealed in the impact of biopolitical practices on the functioning of the iqlim. The borders of the Jerusalem governorate as determined by the PA¶ provide the basis for determining iqlim membership. But Israel’s extension of municipal borders, colonisation, the separation barrier and closure have rendered the governorate a notional entity at best. Elections for the leadership committee could not be held in the city because large numbers of¶ delegates lacked the blue ID and could not cross the checkpoints. Iqlim¶ general secretary Salah Zuhayqa recalled, “We moved it to Ramallah for better¶ media and public participation.”65 Of the seventeen members elected to¶ the leadership committee, seven did not hold the blue ID and found it¶ almost impossible to meet with colleagues as a unit. Israeli obstacles then¶ took a quantum leap in August 2001 with the military closure of Orient House. Together with the closure of the governor’s office, and the death of Husayni earlier in the year, Fatah’s political presence withered. Even leadership figures in possession of a blue ID, including two that we interviewed,¶ Jihad Abu Znayd and Salah Zuhayka, found themselves regularly under house arrest. Israeli restrictions on mobility rendered the Fatah iqlim in Jerusalem all but defunct. Closure denied them the wherewithal to articulate claims on Jerusalem, the right of return and prisoner release, or to protest settlement expansion and house demolition, along with the space to organise on Oslo’s account. Post-Arafat elections prompted mini-revivals in¶ organisation, but longer-term prospects were poor, in part due to a lack of political horizon: in the words of Muna Barbar, “We are always a final status issue.” The cadre base was also aging: Barbar put sixty percent of meeting¶ attendees at more than thirty years of age, with such youth as were present¶ relatively quiescent. Moreover, the iqlim could only work with the human¶ resources available to it: in the context of state

53 neglect, unemployment and¶ hopelessness (all exacerbated by closure), school drop-out rates and drug¶ use echoed the problems of Arab youth in Jaffa and Acre. Barbar concluded:¶ “I really fear for the Palestinian youth of Jerusalem.”66 In the meantime,¶ as Menachem Klein observed: “The settlers and the Israeli establishment take advantage of the vacuum that has existed in Palestinian Jerusalem since the spring of 2001 in order to penetrate Palestinian areas more deeply in Silwan, Shaikh Jarah [sic], Abu Dis, and Walajeh.”67 The experience of the iqlim is a microcosm of Oslo in general: the application of Israeli biopolitical controls over identity and movement systematically deinstitutionalised Fatah in Jerusalem in pursuit of a colonial agenda entirely at odds with the Palestinian nationalist programme.

For affirmatives that frame their advocacy as a necessary alternative to violent modes of resistance, there are many critiques loaded for bear to take a shot at their judgment of some political violence as being more legitimate than other forms: Hage 03 (Ghossan, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Sydney, “’Comes a Time We Are All Enthusiasm’”: Understanding Palestinian Suicide Bombers in Times of Exigophobia” in Public Culture 15.1) Indeed, as I was later informed by a mutual friend, my colleague felt that the¶ real issue was whether I “absolutely condemn” suicide bombers. Apparently it is crucial to “absolutely condemn” suicide bombers if you are going to talk about them, otherwise you become a morally suspicious person. This immediately¶ raised an issue for me. As I only mentioned suicide bombing in relation to what I¶ thought were the inhumane acts of violence Israel was perpetrating through its¶ reoccupation of the West Bank, I wondered why it is that suicide bombing cannot be talked about without being condemned first. After all, we can sit and analyze in a cool manner the formidably violent colonial invasion without feeling that “absolute” moral condemnation should be a precondition or even a substitute for uttering an opinion about it. To my mind, both the Israeli invasion and the suicide bombings constitute a kind of warped postmodern pastiche associating medievally violent political affects, early modern veneration of political entities such as “the nation,” and late-modern military technology. The fact that my colleague decided that only suicide bombing is necessarily a moral issue raised questions about the assumptions implicit in our categorization of violence and about their significance in shaping our political and analytical judgment. The polemic also raised¶ another question that pertained to the political nature of the “condemnation¶ imperative” and its significance for academic practices in the social sciences.¶ It is clearly the case that in the Western public sphere the condemnation imperative operates as a mode of censoring the attempts to provide a sociological explanation for why PSBs act the way they do. It is difficult to express any form¶ of understanding whatsoever, even when one is indeed also condemning the practices¶ of PSBs. Only unqualified condemnation will do. And if one tries to understand,¶ any accompanying condemnation is deemed suspicious. A number of¶public figures have expressed some form of “understanding” of suicide bombers (often linking their emergence to the absence of hope among Palestinian teenagers) only to be forced to apologize for voicing such views; the most publicized¶ cases were those of Ted Turner, former owner of CNN, and Cherie Blair,¶ wife of the British prime minister. There is a clear political risk in trying to explain suicide bombings.1¶ But leaving aside the political nature and the moral pros and cons of this censorship¶ in the public sphere, one would think that a university is still a place where people make a living out of understanding as opposed to condemning. I am certainly more comfortable with absolutely condemning the living conditions that make people into suicide bombers than with absolutely condemning suicide bombers as such. And I like to think that it is

54 the social scientist in me that makes¶ me feel this way. By raising the issue of absolute condemnation my colleague¶ seemed to be casting Ariel Sharon and George Bush’s shadow over the university¶ (“nothing ever justifies a suicide bombing”). In this climate, how might an aca-demic, located in the West, attempt to understand why suicide bombers do what they do?¶ Initially, I tried to formulate this question by separating the issues of condemnation and explanation. I began by asking: Can one talk about suicide bombers by leaving condemnation aside in order to concentrate on explanation, without this being seen as a form of “justification”? But I soon realized that I cannot ignore the specificity of my location in the West: How can I try to understand suicide bombing in the seclusion of academia without taking into consideration that such an understanding goes against certain political interests? What was needed was¶ an attempt to understand both suicide bombers and the public impulse for a categorical¶ condemnation.

There are of course any number of civil-society elements that resist the Occupation, including but not limited to public art projects, feminist performances, demands from the BDS crowd (boycott, divestments, and sanctions) that argue with varying intensities about the ethics and morality of macro- level political engagement of any kind both with Israel and in the politics of the Occupied Territories. Film theorist Dont Naaman opines at length about how the gendered frame affects what kind of violence gets represented, and how:

The phenomenon of Palestinian female suicide bombers ignited the cultural imagination in Western societies, which have produced a Suicide Bomber Barbie, a recent American independent film about a would‐be female suicide bomber, and artworks, to name just a few responses.15 This response highlights the gender discrepancies in reporting, editing, and exposure in mass media coverage. It is a common practice for Palestinian suicide bombers to leave videotapes of themselves, filmed against the Palestinian flag or the Dome of the Rock, holding a rifle.16 The text is somewhat scripted and incorporates a medley of religious and nationalistic language. In Arab media the tapes are aired repeatedly, and the suicide bomber is culturally classified as a shaheed.17 But in the West we rarely see the videos of the men, and even their names are often not disclosed. The case with the women is quite different, as their names are publicly emphasized and the videos aired; furthermore, they are contrasted with photos of the women from their previous lives, photos that emphasize the fact that they were young women engaged in traditional teenage habits and activities. In particular, pictures of Idris and Akhras in ordinary and secular settings were publicized and compared to pictures taken just before they headed out on their missions. Although the verbal text tries to explain the reasoning in psychological terms (revenge or sense of worthlessness, for example), the contrast of the images creates an unbridgeable gap whereby the Western viewer cannot reconcile the image of the young beautiful woman with her fundamentalist, terrorist dark side.18 The result is a demonization not only of these particular women but also of the society that could produce such monsters. In the context of mass media (especially but not only television outlets), the need for shows to sell advertisements (and ultimately products) make women a major target audience. However, as Dawn Heinecken points out, “it is crucial to note that television producers are less interested in creating shows that appeal to women than they are in building (or reinforcing) an identity for women that is favorable to what advertisers hope to sell” (2003, 15). The notion of an aggressive, violent, and discontented woman is contrary to advertisers’ desire to see a docile female becoming active only in the practice of consumption. In addition, what media are selling are not just physical products but a worldview that carries with it ideological ramifications: “Clearly, the media are the contemporary mediators of hegemony, the question being how, and to whose avail, particular ideological constructs of

55 femininity are produced in media content” (van Zoonen 1994, 24). As a result of such media dynamics, the hegemonic Western position cannot tolerate Palestinian female suicide bombers in the context either of Islamic terrorism or of their deviation from desired feminine behavior.

It is difficult to undersell the large negative literature critical base on this topic. At the same time, an affirmative that generates a defense of their chosen mechanism to undermine the Israeli position will have more than a fighting chance against any and all of these critiques because there is an extensive scholarly debate about what the best path forward with respect to the Israel-Palestine question is.

Finally, there is another large critique, drawn from the body of literature structured around the racial question of Anti-semitism. Robert Wistrich and Alan Dershowitz among others take historical views of the treatment of the Jewish people and argue routinely that the disproportionate attention paid to the Israel-Palestine struggle--not to mention those who side with Palestine--suggest something about the general level of racism faced by Jewish people. This is a robust generic K that can be read in most debates.

Direction for wording papers

There are two approaches the community can take for wording the Israel topic: list or no list. We believe that whichever is chosen, it is incredibly important that the final wording allows for topical affirmatives to: pressure Israel, remove diplomatic support for Israel and decrease military assistance to Israel. We are open to the option that better wordings and additional areas may be found in the topic-writing process, but these three areas should be what the community knows will be included if they vote for this controversy.

1. Agent options

This area allows a variety of available agent options, some better than others. The most clear, and defensible, option is ‘The United States federal government.’ The US federal government is a huge variable Israel considers when taking actions towards Palestine, Iran, China and other actors. Although this actor is oft repeated in the collegiate debate community, that’s for a reason: there is a dedicated and continuously developing literature based devoted to examining the actions that the federal government should or should not take. Hopefully, we can be reflexive enough to recognize that debating the federal government doesn’t mean that we must accept, in our political existence, that the federal government should remain the locus of power in the Middle East. Based on the arguments provided in the critical sections of this essay, the Israel controversy is a great avenue for criticizing passive acceptance of both Israel and the US federal government.

Another option is passive voice. This may read: Support for Israel should be curtailed, or Security and/or diplomatic support should for Israel should be curtailed.

The passive voice option does not guarantee many of the arguments described in the ‘potential negative ground’ section, because a topical affirmative could potentially use the EU or not defend the

56 electoral/political ramifications of a decrease in support. Moreover, the authors of this paper did not find much support for a passive voice topic.

A final option is ‘The United States,’ repeating the experiment from this year, in an attempt to include more domestic actors than just the federal government. We believe that ‘The United States’ is not tenable because there is extremely limited state/local-based foreign policy, and even less explicitly devoted to Israel.

2. Non-list option A non-list topic wording would resemble the following: The United States federal government should substantially curtail (diminish/decrease/restrain/restrict) its relationship (partnership/bilateral ties/support for/alliance) with Israel.

A. Verb option: Substantially curtail Because of the nature of this topic, we do not believe the verb choice is as critical as in years past – the more important/difficult part will be establishing the object. As long as the verb is synonymous with decrease, the authors would support its replacement.

West’s Law defines ‘curtail’ as: (West’s Law 1966, Corpus juris secundum: a complete restatement of the entire American law as developed by all reported cases) The world curtail is define as meaning to cut off the end; hence to shorten, abridge; diminish, lessen, reduce.

And, although some legal scholars have distinguished between ‘curtailment’ and ‘abolishment,’ a topical affirmative likely will be able to completely end the US-Israel relationship FASB 85 (Financial Accounting Standards Board, EMPLOYERS' ACCOUNTING FOR SETTLEMENTS AND CURTAILMENTS OF DEFINED BENEFIT PENSION PLANS AND FOR TERMINATION BENEFITS (ISSUED 12/85), Lexis) Statement 87 continues the past practice of delaying the recognition in net periodic pension cost of (a) gains and losses from experience different from that assumed, (b) the effects of changes in assumptions, and (c) the cost of retroactive plan amendments. However, this Statement requires immediate recognition of certain previously unrecognized amounts when certain transactions or events occur. It prescribes the method for determining the amount to be recognized in earnings when a pension obligation is settled or a plan is curtailed. Settlement is defined as an irrevocable action that relieves the employer (or the plan) of primary responsibility for an obligation and elminates significant risks related to the obligation and the assets used to effect the settlement. A curtailment is defined as a significant reduction in, or an elimination of, defined benefit accruals for present employees' future services.

Alternatives may include: decrease, restrain, restrict or diminish.

57 No one loves substantially, but including it (or some other modifier) is an absolute necessity. To ensure negative ground and address negative uniqueness concerns, affs should be required to make a significant departure from our current posture to Israel. Only a modifier like ‘substantially’ or ‘nearly all’ ensures the affirmative is restricted to the type of actions recommended in this paper.

B1. Direct object option one: Relationship Relationship can be defined as the status of bilateral cooperation between the US and Israel. The evidence below outlines the areas of bilateral cooperation – military, security, diplomatic, and trade.

Readers who think this topic is too small should read this evidence thoroughly – it provides a diversity of areas of US-Israel cooperation that the aff can decrease. A short list of examples includes: military aid, arms sales, joint exercises, energy cooperation, security guarantees, issues concerning Palestine, FTAs, and non-proliferation: Zanotti 15 – specialist in Middle Eastern affairs @ the Congressional Research Service Jim, “Israel: Background and U.S. Relations” [https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33476.pdf] February 27 // ¶ On May 14, 1948, the United States became the first country to extend de facto recognition to the state of Israel. Over the years, despite occasional policy differences, the United States and Israel have maintained close bilateral ties based on common democratic values, religious affinities, and security interests. Relations have evolved through legislation; memoranda of understanding; economic, scientific, and military agreements; and trade. Congress provides military assistance to Israel and has enacted other legislation in explicit support of its security. Many analysts view these forms of support as pillars of a regional security order—largely based on varying types and levels of U.S. arms sales to Israel and Arab countries—that have discouraged the outbreak of major Arab-Israeli interstate conflict for more than 40 years. 106¶ ¶ Israeli officials closely monitor U.S. actions and consult with U.S. counterparts in apparent efforts to gauge and influence the nature and scope of future U.S. engagement on and commitment to regional issues that implicate Israel’s security. In consequence of possible Israeli concerns about these issues and about potential changes in levels of U.S. interest and influence in the region, Israeli leaders and their supporters may actively try to persuade U.S. decision makers both that ¶ • Israel’s security and the broader stability of the region continue to be critically important for U.S. interests; and ¶ • Israel has substantial and multifaceted worth as a U.S. ally beyond temporary geopolitical considerations and shared ideals and values. 107¶ ¶ These efforts would seek to perpetuate and bolster the already strong popular and official U.S. commitment to Israel’s security, in light of the following quotation from an unnamed former American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC ) official: “[T]he U.S. has its own foreign policy, and, while it is extremely friendly to Israel, it will only go so far.” 108¶ ¶ Israel-sponsored efforts to emphasize its importance to the United States also may aim to minimize possible demands by U.S. policymakers for Israel to compensate the United States for bearing certain military, political, or economic costs as a result of supporting Israel amid regional challenges. 109 Expectations among some U.S. officials could include greater Israeli deference to and coordination with the United States on regional diplomacy and military action. This could fuel or intensify U.S.-Israel disagreement over the type and level of support that the United States might provide to address threats Israel perceives, or how Israel might continue its traditional prerogative of “defending itself, by itself” while also receiving external assistance. ¶ ¶ ¶ Aligning U.S. and Israeli policies has presented challenges on some key matters of concern. Many reports indicate that President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu have differed on a number of issues, especially relating to Iran’s nuclear program and to the Palestinians, since they both took office in 2009. Some instances have occurred in which officials from the two countries have criticized policies or actions by their bilateral counterparts. Mutual criticism in recent months has occasionally surfaced in association with the unsuccessful end of the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian talks in April 2014, the Israel-Gaza conflict in the summer of 2014 (including U.S. attempts to broker a cease-fire), and announcements by Israel related to Jewish settlements or communities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. 110¶ ¶ The Obama Administration and some Members of Congress have raised concerns and fueled public debate about the timing and nature of Netanyahu’s upcoming March 3 address before a joint meeting of Congress, and the circumstances which led to its scheduling. 111 The speech will presumably implicitly or explicitly refer to points of divergence between President Obama and Netanyahu on the Iranian nuclear issue (see “Iran” above). President Obama does not plan to meet Netanyahu, citing the proximity of his visit to Israel’s March 17 elections.¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ Observers debate how deep-seated and long-lasting various U.S.-Israel differences might be, and whether U.S. policy questions regarding support for Israel might increasingly be contested along partisan lines. In a February 2015 interview, National Security Advisor Susan Rice said that the scheduling of Netanyahu’s planned congressional address has injected the U.S.-Israel relationship with “a degree of partisanship, which is not only unfortunate, I think it’s destructive of the fabric of the relationship.” 112 Israeli leaders appear to have some concerns about the U.S. commitment to regional issues implicating Israel’s security, but at the same time overall bilateral cooperation has continued and even increased by many measures on a number of issues such as security, trade, and energy. In the same interview, Rice also said that Israel is the closest U.S. ally in the region and that the Administration wants the bilateral relationship to be “unquestionably strong, immutable, regardless of political seasons in either country and regardless of which party is in control in either country.” 113 Security Cooperation ¶ Background¶ ¶ Strong bilateral relations have fueled and reinforced significant U.S.-Israel cooperation on defense, including military aid, arms sales, joint exercises, and information sharing. It has also included periodic U.S.-Israel governmental and industrial cooperation in developing military technology.

¶ ¶ U.S. military aid has helped transform Israel’s armed forces into one of the most technologically sophisticated militaries in the world. This aid for Israel has been designed to maintain Israel’s “qualitative military edge” (QME) over neighboring militaries, since Israel must rely on better equipment and training to compensate for a manpower deficit in any potential regional conflict. U.S. military aid, a portion of which may be spent on procurement from Israeli defense companies, also has helped Israel build a domestic defense industry, and Israel in turn ranks as

58 one of the top 10 exporters of arms worldwide. ¶ ¶ On November 30, 1981, the United States and Israel signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) establishing a framework for consultation and cooperation to enhance the national security of both countries. In 1983, the two sides formed a Joint Political Military Group (JPMG) to implement provisions of the MOU. Joint air and sea military exercises began in 1984, and the United States has constructed facilities to stockpile military equipment in Israel. In 1987, Israel was designated a “major non-NATO ally” by the Reagan Administration, and in 1996, under the terms of Section 517 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, Congress codified this status, affording Israel preferential treatment in bidding for U.S. defense contracts and expanding its access to weapons systems at lower prices. In 2001, an annual interagency strategic dialogue, including representatives of diplomatic, defense, and intelligence establishments, was created to discuss long-term issues. This dialogue was halted in 2003 over bilateral tensions related to Israeli arms sales to China (see “Israeli Arms Sales to Other Countries” below), but resumed in 2005.¶ ¶ On May 6, 1986, Israel and the United States signed an MOU—the contents of which are classified—for Israeli participation in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI/“Star Wars”), under which U.S.-Israel co-development of the Arrow ball istic missile defense system has proceeded, as discussed below. In 1998, another U.S.-Israel MOU referred to growing regional threats from ballistic missiles. This MOU said that “In the event of such a threat, the United States Government would consult promptly with the Government of Israel with respect to what support, diplomatic or otherwise, or assistance, it can lend to Israel.” Security cooperation extends to cooperation in countering terrorism. The Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 (P.L. 110-53, enacted on August 3, 2007) recognizes Israel as a potential research partner for the Department of Homeland Security.¶ ¶ Recent U.S. Legislation¶ ¶ Congress has recently passed two items of legislation with several provisions encouraging continued and expanded U.S.-Israel cooperation in a number of areas.¶ ¶ The U.S.-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act (P.L. 112-150), which was enacted in July 2012, contains nonbinding “sense of Congress” language focusing largely on several possible avenues of cooperation discussed below. These include providing Excess Defense Articles; boosting operational, intelligence, and political-military coordination; expediting specific types of arms sales (such as F-35 fighter aircraft, refueling tankers, and “bunker buster” munitions); and additional aid for U.S.-Israel cooperative missile defense programs. ¶ The U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act (P.L. 113-296) was enacted in December 2014, after having been revised from earlier 2013 House and Sena te versions. It designated Israel as a “major strategic partner” of the United States—a designation whose meaning has not been further defined in U.S. law or by the executive branch. The act contains various other provisions encouraging continued and expanded U.S.-Israel coop eration in a number of areas, such as those ¶ • extending the war reserves stockpile authority 115 for Israel through FY2015;¶ • requiring an executive branch report to Congress on the “feasibility and advisability of expanding United States-Israeli cooperation on cyber issues”;¶ • seeking to have the executive branch give Israel the same Strategic Trade Authorization (STA) licensing exception for certain munitions and dual-use items that 36 other countries currently have; 116¶ • authorizing cooperative research pilot programs between Israel and the Department of Homeland Security; and¶ • amending the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (42 U.S.C. §17337(a)) in a number of ways to facilitate U.S.-Israel energy cooperation, including by adding verbiage stating that “United States-Israel energy cooperation and the development of natural resources by Israel are in the strategic interest of the United States.”¶ P.L. 113-296 further states that Israel should be designated a U.S. visa waiver program country when it satisfies—and as long as it continues to satisfy—the requirements for inclusion. 117¶ Preserving Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge (QME)¶ Since the late 1970s, successive Administrations have argued that U.S. arms sales are an important mechanism for addressing the security concerns of Israel and other regional countries. During this period, some Members of Congress have argued that sales of sophisticated weaponry to Arab countries may erode Israel’s QME over its neighbors. However, successive Administrations have maintained that Arab count ries are too dependent on U.S. training, spare parts, and support to be in a position to use sophisticated U.S.-made arms against the United States, Israel, or any other U.S. ally in a sust ained campaign. Arab critics routinely charge that Israeli officials exaggerate the threat they pose. Ironically, the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, though it has partially aligned Israeli and Sunni Arab interests in deterring a shared rival, may be exacerbating Israeli fears of a deteriorated QME, as Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states dramatically increase defense procurements from U.S. and other foreign suppliers.¶ In 2008, Congress enacted legislation requiring that any proposed U.S. arms sale to “any country in the Middle East other than Israel” must include a notification to Congress with a “determination that the sale or export of such would not adversely affect Israel’s qualitative military edge over military threats to Israel.” 118 In parallel with this legal requirement, U.S. and Israeli officials continually signal their shar ed understanding of the U.S. commitment to maintaining Israel’s QME. However, the codified definition focuses on preventing arms sales to potential regional Israeli adversaries based on a calculation of conventional military threats. It is unclear whether calls for revisiting this definition or rethinking its implementation may arise in light of the evolving nature of potential regional threats to Israel’s security. ¶ What might constitute a legally defined adverse effect to QME is not clarified in U.S. legislation. After the passage of the 2008 legislation, a bilateral QME working group was created allowing Israel to argue its case against proposed U.S. arms sales in the region. 119 Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote that, in 2010, the Obama Administration addressed concerns that Israel’s leaders had about the possible effect on QME of a large U.S. sale of F-15 aircraft to Saudi Arabia by agreeing to sell Israel additional F-35 aircraft. 120¶ The U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act (P.L. 113-296) enacted in December 2014 requires more frequent QME assessments and executive-legislative consultations. It also requires that future QME determinations include evaluations of how potential arms sales would change the regional balance and interact with Israeli military capabilities, while also identifying measures Israel may need to take in response to the potential sales, and assurances the United States has made to Israel or has been requested to make by Israel in connection with the potential sales. In February 2015, the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee sent letters to the Secretaries of Defense and State acknowledging the U.S. commitment to Israel’s QME while urging them to expeditiously address Jordanian requests for arms and equipment related to coalition efforts against the Islamic State organization. 121¶ However, absent legislative clarification, the legality of future U.S. arms sales to other regional aid recipients, partners, or allies—including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq— could become increasingly subject to challenge both by Israeli officials feeling heightened sensitivity to regional threats and by sympathetic U.S. policymakers. ¶ U.S. Security Guarantees? ¶ Although the United States and Israel do not have a mutual defense treaty or agreement that provides formal U.S. security guarantees, 122 successive Administrations have either stated or implied that the United States would help provide for Israel’s defense in the context of discussing specific threats, such as from Iran. 123 Both houses of Congress routinely intr oduce and pass resolutions supporting Israel’s right to defend itself and U.S. efforts to bolster Israel’s capacity for self-defense. Some resolutions have included language that could imply support for more active U.S. measures to defend Israel. For example, H.Res. 523 and H.Con.Res. 21, both of which overwhelmingly passed the House (in 2005 and 2007, respectively) and addressed a possible Iranian threat, also both reasserted the “commitment of the United States to defend the right of Israel to exist as a free and democratic state.” 124 Additionally, S.Res. 65, which the Senate passed in May 2013, reasserted a U.S. commitment to “ensuring the existence, survival, and security” of Israel and stated that the United States should provide “diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence” if Israel is “compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against

59 Iran’s nuclear weapons program.” ¶ A former Israeli deputy national security advisor has written about potential benefits and drawbacks for Israel of more formal U.S. security guarantees for Israel, including a possible “nuclear umbrella.” A 2006 article that this former official co-authored on a potential Iranian threat said: ¶ Such an arrangement would seem to be a “no-brainer” for Israel. Yet Jerusalem might in fact be quite reluctant to conclude one. This, for three primary reasons, each deeply entrenched in Israel’s national security thinking. First, it would fear a loss of freedom of action, due to the contractual requirement to consult on the means of addressing the threat. Second, it would be concerned lest the US demand that Israel divulge and even forego its independent capabilities. And third, it might worry that the US would not live up to its nuclear commitments, much as NATO allies feared during the Cold War. 125¶ Perhaps at least partly due to some of the reasons this former Israeli official outlines, U.S. Administrations and Congress have supported Israel ’s ability to defend itself by embracing and even codifying the concept of helping maintain Israel’s QME over regional threats, as discussed above.¶ U.S. Aid and Arms Sales to Israel¶ Specific figures and comprehensive detail regarding various aspects of U.S. aid and arms sales to Israel are discussed in CRS Report RL33222, U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel , by Jeremy M. Sharp.¶ This includes information on conditions that generally allow Israel to use its military aid earlier and more flexibly than other countries. ¶ Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. Since 1976, Israel has generally been the largest annual recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, but has been occasionally supplanted since 2004 by Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 1985, the United States has provided approximately $3 billion in grants annually to Israel. In the past, Israel received significant economic assistance, but now almost all U. S. bilateral aid to Israel is in the form of Foreign Military Financing (FMF). U.S. FMF to Israel represents approximately one half of total FMF and 20% of Israel’s defense budget. 126 The remaining four years of a 10-year bilateral memorandum of understanding commit the United States to $3.1 billion annually from FY2015 to FY2018, subject to congressional appropriations. Israel uses approximately 75% of its FMF to purchase arms from the United States, in addition to receiving U.S. Excess Defense Articles (EDA). In February 2015, Israel announced that it had a reached agreement with U.S.-based company Lockheed Martin to purchase 14 F-35 (Lightning II) next-generation fighter aircraft, which would add to the 19 it agreed to purchase in 2010. The 2015 agreement includes an option to purchase an additional 17. 127¶ In late July 2014, during the Israel-Gaza conflict, a reported U.S. sale to Israel of 120 mm tank rounds and 40 mm illumination rounds for grenade launchers from the War Reserves Stock Allies-Israel (WRSA-I) program 128 reportedly led Obama Administration officials to temporarily delay at least one arms transfer to Israel—of Hellfire missiles—because of issues apparently related to centralization of U.S. interagency decision making. 129¶ The United States also generally provides some annual American Schools and Hospitals Abroad (ASHA) funding and funding to Israel for migration assistance. Loan guarantees, arguably a form of indirect aid, also remain available to Israel through FY2015 under the U.S.-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act (P.L. 112-150).¶ Iron Dome and Missile Defense Cooperation¶ Congress routinely provides hundreds of millions of dollars in additional annual assistance for Israel’s Iron Dome anti-rocket system 130 and joint U.S.-Israel missile defense programs such as Arrow and David’s Sling. During the summer 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, Secretary of Defense Hagel sent a letter to congressional leaders advising them that—due to the conflict—Israel had requested $225 million in funding for Iron Dome on top of the $350.972 million already being contemplated by Congress for FY2015, and asking for Congress to support this request and to exempt it from requirements related to U.S. co-production. 131 This funding request was granted by Congress in August via the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Resolution, 2014 (P.L. 113-145). Various media outlets in July 2014 picked up a security blog’s claim 132 that hackers with alleged links to China may have sought to breach three Israeli defense companies’ computer networks in connection with Iron Dome and the Arrow III program, though two of the supposedly targeted defense companies reportedly indicated that no such incidents had compromised sensitive information. 133¶ For more information on Iron Dome, see CRS Report IN10158, Israel’s Iron Dome Anti-Rocket System: U.S. Assistance and Coproduction , by Jeremy M. Sharp. Israeli-Palestinian Issues For historical background on these issues, see CRS Report RL34074, The Palestinians: Background and U.S. Relations , by Jim Zanotti.¶ Peace Process Diplomacy and International Involvement¶ Overview¶ The internationally mandated land-for-peace framework that has undergirded U.S. policy since the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war presupposes broad Arab acceptance of any final-status Israeli- Palestinian agreement, and, more fundamentally, Arab acceptance of Israel. Israelis insist that their security needs must be met for them to be willing to relinquish West Bank land in a negotiated two-state solution with the Palestinians. However, in light of Arab political change since 2011, Israeli leaders appear to have become concerned that they might be less able to count on future positive ties even with states such as Egypt and Jordan, given uncertainty regarding the mid- to long-term stability of their regimes. 134 This assessment has likely led Israel to perceive greater risks in a potential land-for-peace deal, perhaps due to a calculation that continued possession of territory may be a more reliable guaran tor of security than an agreement with one or more Arab entities.¶ For their part, Palestinian leaders and Arab state rulers may find it harder to move toward formal peace with Israel if they become more accountable to public opinion focused on Israel and its indicia of control in the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem. Formally, the Arab League remains committed to “land for peace,” as reflected in the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. 135¶ The United States, together with the other memb ers of the international Quartet (the European Union, the United Nations Secretary-General’s office, and Russia), continues to advocate for Israeli-Palestinian talks aimed at a peace deal under the framework initially established by the Oslo agreements of the 1990s. During the first two years of President Obama’s and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s time in office, attempts by the United States to get Israel to freeze settlement construction beyond the 1949-1967 armistice line (known as the “Green Line”) were only partially successful (see “Settlements” below) and did not lead to a meaningful resumption of negotiations. 136¶ During the next two years, PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas opted to pursue initiatives outside of the negotiating process at the United Nations and U.N.-related agencies. These initiatives were aimed at increasing the international legitimacy of Palestinian claims of statehood in the West Bank and Gaza. On November 29, 2012, the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) adopted Resolution 67/19, changing the permanent observer status of the PLO (recognized as “Palestine” within the U.N. system) from an “entity” to a “nonmember state.” 137 This took place a year after the PLO gained admission in November 2011 to the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). 138 As discussed above, Abbas has resumed international initiatives— including some relating to the International Criminal Court (ICC) (see “International Initiatives and the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement” above)—following a round of U.S.-brokered Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that began in July 2013 and unraveled in the spring of 2014. These initiatives may be intended at least partly to improve the Palestinians’ negotiating position by placing political and economic pressure on Israel. ¶ In response to Palestinian actions regarding the ICC, Israel has withheld the transfer of tax and customs revenues due the PA since January 2015. 139 Continuing to withhold these revenues could endanger the PA’s financial stability. While the Obama Administration and Congress have strongly criticized Palestinian ICC-related initiatives and might at least temporarily delay U.S. aid for the PA in response, the Administration has indicated opposition to Israel’s withholding of transfer revenues from the PA. 140¶ Outstanding Issues¶ Media reports indicate that substantive differences divide Israelis and Palestinians on core issues of dispute. Abbas is reportedly unwilling to explicit ly recognize Israel as “the nation-state of the Jewish people” because of the potential repercussions for Palestinian refugees’ claim to a right of return and for Israeli Arabs’ rights. 141 Other Arab foreign ministers reportedly informed Secretary of State John Kerry that they will “not accept Israel as a Jewish state nor compromise on Palestinian sovereignty in Jerusalem.” 142 Prime Minister Netanyahu has repeatedly raised the issue of Jewish refugees from predominantly Muslim Middle Eastern countries, though it is unclear to what extent Israel plans to insist that the issue be considered alongside that of Palestinian refugees. 143¶ Additionally, despite efforts in 2013 by Kerry and a team of U.S. experts headed by retired Marine General John R. Allen to bridge the divide between the two sides on security arrangements in the Jordan Valley border area of the West Bank, reports asserted that neither side embraced the proposals. The PLO rejects an indefinite Israeli military presence within what they assert would be sovereign Palestinian territory, 144 while Israel may not be willing to agree to phase out its presence 145 —largely owing to recent historical instances in which Israeli military withdrawal from southern Lebanon (2000) and the Gaza Strip (2005) led to the entrenchment of adversarial Islamist militants armed with rockets that have hit Israeli population centers and remain capable of doing so. Contention has also persisted between the parties over possible land swaps and mutual allegations of incitement and provocation. 146¶ The Path Ahead A number of questions surround the future of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, including • How will recent conflict, diplomatic confrontation, and ongoing tensions among Israelis and Palestinians affect prospects for future negotiations and a two-state solution? • Can the PA government formed in June 2014 via consensus between Fatah and Hamas last, 147 and if it does, can it help the PLO become a more credible representative of its Palestinian constituency with Israel and other international actors? • Will the United States put forward parameters or a framework on core issues of conflict meant to advance the process, and if so, when? How will the United States address unilateral efforts by Israelis and Palestinians, as well as efforts by international actors or organizations, to affect political and security-related outcomes? Jerusalem Israel annexed East Jerusalem (which includ es the walled Old City, with its Temple Mount/Haram al Sharif [“Mount/Haram”] and Western Wall, and most of the surrounding “historic basin”) and some of its immediate West Bank vicinity in 1967—shortly after occupying these areas militarily in the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war. In doing so, Israel joined these newly occupied areas, 148 which featured a predominantly Arab population, to the predominantly Jewish western part of the city it had controlled since 1948. Israel proclaimed this entire area to be Israel’s eternal, undivided capital. 149 Polls indicate that a large majority of Israelis believe that a united Jerusalem is their capital and support Jewish residential construction of neighborhoods (the Israeli term) or settlements (the general internati onally used term) within that part of Jerusalem that is east of the Green Line and within the Israeli-drawn municipal borders. Israel’s annexation of areas

60 beyond the Green Line is generally not internationally recognized.¶ Successive U.S. Administrations of both political parties since

1948 have maintained that the fate of Jerusalem is to be decided by negotiations and have discouraged the parties from taking actions that could prejudice the final outcome of those negotiations. The Palestinians envisage East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. However, the House of Representatives passed H.Con.Res. 60 in June 1997, and the Senate passed S.Con.Res. 21 in May 1997. Both resolutions called on the Clinton Administration to affirm that Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of Israel. ¶ A related issue is the possible future relocation of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Proponents argue that Israel is the only country where a U.S. embassy is not in the capital identified by the host country, that Israel’s claim to West Jerusalem—proposed site of an embassy—is unquestioned, and/or that Palestinians must be disabused of their hope for a capital in Jerusalem. Opponents say such a move would undermine prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace and U.S. credibility with Palestinians and in the Muslim world, and could prejudge the final status of the city. The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 (P.L. 104-45) provided for the embassy’s relocation by May 31, 1999, but granted the President authority, in the national security interest, to suspend limitations on State Department expenditures that would be imposed if the embassy did not open. Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama have consistently suspended these spending limitations, and the embassy’s status has remained unchanged. ¶ The Foreign Relations Authorization Act for FY2003 (P.L. 107-228) urged the President to begin relocating the U.S. embassy “immediately.” The act also sought to (1) prohibit the use of appropriated funds for the operation of U.S. diplomatic facilities in Jerusalem unless such facilities were overseen by the U.S. ambassador to Israel; and (2) allow Israel to be recorded as the place of birth of U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem. When signing the act into law, President George W. Bush wrote in an accompanying “signing statement” that the various provisions on Jerusalem would, “if construed as mandatory ... impermissibly interfere with the president’s constitutional authority to conduct the nation’s foreign affairs.” The State Department declared, “our view of Jerusalem is unchanged. Jerusalem is a permanent status issue to be negotiated between the parties.” ¶ The case of Zivotofsky v. Kerry , which was argued before the Supreme Court in November 2014, could decide or have implications for Congress’s constitutional authority on questions relating to the status of Jerusalem and could influence its future ability to direct the executive branch in its conduct of foreign affairs more broadly. The case involves a U.S. citizen who was born in Jerusalem, and whose parents are suing on his behalf to have the State Department reflect Israel as his birthplace on his passport pursuant to P.L. 107-228. The Supreme Court’s review of the case focuses on a July 2013 ruling by the U.S. C ourt of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which found that the “President’s power to recognize foreign nations is exclusive and trumps Congress’s authority to regulate passports.” 159¶ Over successive Congresses, including the 114 th , various Members have periodically introduced substantially similar versions of a Jerusalem Embassy and Recognition Act (e.g., H.R. 114 and S. 117) or thematically related bills or resolutions. Such bills and resolutions seek the embassy’s relocation and would remove or advocate for the removal of the President’s authority to suspend the State Department expenditure limitations cited above. Settlements Israel has approximately 135 residential communities (known internationally and by significant segments of Israeli society as “settlements”), approximately 100 additional settlement outposts unauthorized under Israeli law, and other military and civilian land-use sites in the West Bank. In addition, depending on how one defines what constitutes a separate neighborhood or settlement in East Jerusalem, Israeli authorities and Jewish Israeli citizens have established roughly 14 main residential areas there. 160 Approximately 340,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements, with nearly 200,000 more in East Jerusalem. 161 All of these residential communities are located in areas that Palestinians assert are rightfully part of their envisioned future state. The first West Bank settlements were constructed following the 1967 war, and were initially justified as directly associated with Israel’s military occupation. Major West Bank residential settlement building began in the late 1970s with the advent of the pr o-settler Gush Emunim (“Bloc of the Faithful”) movement and the 1977 electoral victory of Menachem Begin and the Likud Party. Existing settlements were expanded and new ones establis hed throughout the 1990s and 2000s despite the advent of the Madrid-Oslo peace process with the Palestinians. Israelis who defend the settlements’ legitimacy generally use some combination of legal, historical, strategic, nationalistic, or religious justifications. 162¶ ¶ The international community generally considers Israeli construction on territory beyond the Green Line to be illegal. 163 Israel retains military control over the West Bank and has largely completed a separation barrier 164 that roughly tracks the Green Line but departs from it in a number of areas, presumably to maintain convenient access to Israel for certain West Bank settlements. The barrier is intended to separate Israelis and Palestinians and prevent terrorists from entering Israel. Palestinians object to the barrier being built on their territory because it cuts Palestinians off from East Jerusalem and, in some places, bisects their landholdings and communities. It also is seen by many as an Israeli device to unilaterally determine borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state.¶ ¶ U.S. policy on settlements has varied since 1967. Until the 1980s, multiple Administrations either stated or implied that settlements were “contrary to international law,” with President Carter’s Secretary of State stating explicitly that settlements were “illegal” in 1980. 165 President Reagan later stated that settlements were “not illegal,” but “ill-advised” and “unnecessarily provocative.” Since then, the executive branch has generally refrained from pronouncements on the settlements’ legality. 166 A common U.S. stance has been that settlements are an “obstacle to peace.” A former U.S. official has written that U.S. Administrations are “not entirely sure what to do with the fact that Israeli prime ministers of all political stripes have continued Israeli settlement building on the West Bank and construction in parts of east Jerusalem that we’d like to see become the capital of a Palestinian state.” 167 Loan guarantees to Israel currently authorized by U.S. law are subject to possible reduction by an amount equal to the amount Israel spends on settlements in the occupied territories. The executive branch made its most recent reduction in FY2005. 168¶ ¶ An April 2004 letter from President George W. Bush to then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon explicitly acknowledged that “in light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations (sic) centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949.” Partly because of such statements from U.S. policymakers, Arab criti cs routinely charge that U.S. support of Israel indirectly supports settlement activity. ¶ Like other Administrations, the Obama Administration has faced challenges in approaching this issue. In the context of its initial attempts to restart the peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, the Administration called for Israel to totally freeze all settlement activity, including in East Jerusalem. In his speech in Cairo in May 2009, President Obama said, “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.” 169 PLO leaders followed suit and made a settlement freeze a precondition for their return to the peace talks. Israel responded with a partial 10-month moratorium, but tentative efforts to restart negotiations did not take hold during that time. In February 2011, the United States vetoed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that would have characterized Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as illegal. All other 14 members of the Council, including the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, voted for the draft resolution. Susan Rice, then the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, clarified that the Administration still opposed settlement construction as illegitimate and at cross-purposes with peace efforts, 170 and this remains stated U.S. policy. 171 On December 5, 2014, 48 Members of Congress signed a letter to President Obama asking for immediate clarification of some recent media reports. 172 The initial report—on which the others appear to have been based—suggested that the Administration had held a classified meeting to discuss the possibility of taking steps against Israel in response to residential construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. 173¶ Given the structure of Israeli society and politics, it may be difficult to impose an external restraint on settlement activity. Settlers affect the political and diplomatic calculus through the following means: 1. influence over key voting blocs in Israel’s coalition-based parliamentary system (although they do not all share the same ideology or interests, settlers constitute about 6% of the Israeli population); 2. renegade actions to foment public protest and even violence; and 3. what they represent for some symbolically, emotionally, and even spiritually as guardians of the last frontier for a country whose founding and initial survival depended on pioneering spirit in the face of adversity. The Netanyahu government’s periodic announcements of new plans for settlement construction, possible consideration of legalizing some settlement outposts, approval of subsidies and loans for some settlers, and repeated insistence that outside actors will not dictate Israeli policy on this subject appears to demonstrate the government’s sensitivity to these domestic concerns. The Israeli anti-settlement advocacy group Peace Now reported in February 2015 that there was a nearly 40% increase in construction starts on residential units in West Bank settlements during the 16- month period (June 2013-September 2014) follow ing the previous 15-month period (March 2012-May 2013), and that 26% of these starts took place in areas east of the route of the separation barrier. 174¶ Some Israelis caution that the demand to provide security to settlers and their infrastructure and transportation links to Israel could perpetuate Israeli military control in the West Bank even if other rationales for maintaining such control eventually recede. Protecting settlers is made more difficult and manpower-intensive by some settlers’ altercations with Palestinian West Bank residents and willingness to defy Israeli military authorities. The government complied in 2012 with rulings by Israel’s Supreme Court requiring it to dismantle two outposts. It sought to placate settler opposition to dismantlement by relocating the displaced outpost residents within the boundaries of settlements permitted under Israeli law. 175¶ Sensitive Defense Technology and Intelligence Issues¶ Arms sales, information sharing, and co-development of technology between the United States and Israel raises questions about what Israel migh t do with capabilities or information it acquires. The sale of U.S. defense articles or services to Israel and all other foreign countries is authorized subject to the provisions of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) (see §40A of P.L. 90-629, as amended) 176 and the regulations promulgated to implement it. Section 3 of the AECA stipulates that in order to remain eligible to purchase U.S. defense articles, training, and services, foreign governments must agree not to use purchased items and/or training for purposes other than those permitted by the act, or to transfer them to third-party countries (except under certain specifically enunciated conditions), without the prior consent of the President. Israeli Arms Sales to Other Countries Israel is a major arms exporter—with India, China, and Russia among its customers or past customers. 177 The United States and Israel have regularly discussed Israel’s sale of sensitive security equipment and technology to various countries, especially China. 178 In 2003, Israel’s agreement to upgrade radar-seeking Harpy Killer drones that it sold to China in 1999 dismayed the Department of Defense (DOD). DOD retaliated by suspending its joint strategic dialogue with Israel and its technological cooperation with the Is rael Air Force on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft and several other programs, among other measures.¶ On August 17, 2005, DOD and the Israeli Ministry of Defense issued a joint press statement reporting that they had signed an understanding “designed to remedy problems of the past that seriously affected the technology security relationship and to restore confidence in the technology security area.” 179 Thereafter, the U.S.-Israel joint strategic dialogue resumed. Sources have reported that this understanding has given the United States de facto veto power over Israeli third- party arms sales that the United

61 States deems harmful to its national security interests. 180 In December 2013, the then head of Israel’s Defense Export Control Agency (DECA), Meir Shalit, resigned after a joint U.S.-Israel investigation concluded that an Israeli miniature cooling system that can be used for missiles, and that had been licensed for sale to a French company, had been retransferred to China. 181 In the months prior to this development, the Israeli state comptroller had reportedly published a report indicating that DECA was inadequately enforcing proper defense export controls. 182¶ With regard to Israel-India defense industrial cooperation, in February 2014, DefenseNews cited representatives from Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation in stating that the two countries plan to collaborate on an integrated anti-missile system. 183 In a recent tender for anti-tank missiles, India reportedly chose Israel’s offer over a rival U.S. offer. 184¶ End-Use Monitoring¶ Sales of U.S. defense articles and services to Israel are made subject to the terms of both the AECA and the July 23, 1952, Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement between the United States and Israel (TIAS 2675). The 1952 agreement states: ¶ The Government of Israel assures the United States Government that such equipment, materials, or services as may be acquired from the United States ... are required for and will be used solely to maintain its internal security, its legitimate self-defense ... and that it will not undertake any act of aggression against any other state.¶ Past Administrations have acknowledged that some Israeli uses of U.S. defense articles may have gone beyond the requirements under the AECA and the 1952 agreement that Israel use such articles for self-defense and internal security purposes. These past Administrations have transmitted reports to Congress stating that “substantial violations” of agreements between the United States and Israel regarding arms sales “may have occurred.” The most recent report of this type was transmitted in January 2007 in relation to concerns about Israel’s use of U.S.-supplied cluster munitions during military operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon during 2006. 185 Other examples include findings issued in 1978, 1979, and 1982 with regard to Israel’s military operations in Lebanon and Israel’s air strike on Iraq’s nuclear reactor complex at Osirak in 1981. The Reagan Administration suspended the delivery of cluster munitions to Israel from 1982 to 1988 based on concerns about their use in Lebanon. The Reagan Administration also briefly delayed a scheduled shipment of F-15 and F-16 airc raft to Israel following Israel’s 1981 strike on Iraq. If Israel takes future action with U.S. defense articles to preempt perceived security threats, allegations of AECA violations could follow, depending on specific circumstances. 186¶ Espionage and Espionage-Related Cases ¶ In the past 30 years, there have been at least three cases in which U.S. government employees were convicted of disclosing classified information to Israel or of conspiracy to act as an Israeli agent. Reports indicate that concerns regarding possible Israeli espionage persist among U.S. officials. During the 113 th Congress, a version of the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act (S. 462) contemplated possibly exempting Israel from two general requirements related to the visa waiver program. In connection with congressional deliberations related to S. 462, the intelligence community and officials from the State and Homeland Security departments reportedly communicated concerns to Members and committees of Congress that easing the requirements for Israel to enter the visa waiver program could make the United States more vulnerable to Israeli espionage, particularly industrial espionage. In response to these reported concerns, Israeli officials have flatly denied that Israel conducts espionage in the United States. 187¶ The most prominent espionage case is that of Jonathan Pollard, who pled guilty in 1986 with his then wife Anne to selling classified documents to Israel. Israel granted Pollard—who is serving a life sentence in U.S. federal prison—citizenship in 1996 and, in 1998, acknowledged that Pollard had been its agent. Prime Minister Netanyahu and several of his predecessors have unsuccessfully petitioned various Presidents to pardon Pollard. 188 In April 2014, some reports indicated that the United States might be willing to release Pollard as part of an arrangement to extend or restart Israeli-Palestinian talks. The prospect of Pollard’s release under these circumstances generated mixed reactions from Members of Congress, including opposition from the chairs of both intelligence committees, among strong views on the case within U.S. government circles and society at large. 189 Israel’s Nuclear Status and Nonproliferation 190 Consensus among media and expert reports is that Israel possesses an arsenal of 80 to 200 nuclear weapons. 191 The United States has countenanced Israel’s nuclear ambiguity since 1969, when Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and U.S. President Richard Nixon reportedly reached an accord whereby both sides agreed never to acknowledge Israel’s nuclear arsenal in public. 192¶ Israel’s ambiguous nuclear status is viewed by some members of the international community as an obstacle to advancing nonproliferation objectives. The 1995 Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference adopted a resolution that called for “all States in the Middle East to take practical steps” toward establishing “an effectivel y verifiable Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, chemical and biological, and their delivery systems.” The Obama Administration has stated its support for the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East. Israel is not an NPT state, nor has it ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), though it signed the CWC in 1993. ¶ Recent events concerning Iran and Syria have re-focused international attention on Israel’s presumed but undeclared nuclear and chemical weapons arsenals. 193 Media reports in late 2013 indicated that Israeli officials may have discreetly discussed with Arab and Iranian representatives the possibility of participating in a committee to discuss demilitarizing weapons of mass destruction throughout the region. 194 Bilateral Trade Issues The United States is Israel’s largest single-country trading partner, 195 and—according to data from the U.S. International Trade Commission—Israel is the United States’s 24 th -largest trading partner. 196 The two countries concluded a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in 1985, and all customs duties between the two trading partners have since been eliminated. The FTA includes provisions that protect both countries’ more sensitive agricultural sub-sectors with nontariff barriers, including import bans, quotas, and fees. Israeli exports to the United States have grown since the FTA became effective. Qualified Industrial Zones (QIZs) in Jordan and Egypt are considered part of the U.S.-Israel free trade area. In 2013, Isr ael imported approximately $15 billion in goods from and exported $23 billion in goods to the United States. 197 The United States and Israel have launched several programs to stimulate Israeli industrial and scientific research, for which Congress has authorized and appropriated funds on several occasions. 198

62 Here is more evidence – US-Israel relations include assistance, bilateral economic relations, engagement in international organizations, and bilateral representation: Department of State 14 “U.S. Relations With Israel” [http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/3581.htm] March 10 // U.S.-ISRAEL RELATIONS The United States was the first country to recognize Israel as a state in 1948. Since then, Israel has become, and remains, America’s most reliable partner in the Middle East. Israel and the United States are bound closely by historic and cultural ties as well as by mutual interests.¶ Israel's founding was preceded by more than 50 years of efforts to establish a sovereign state as a homeland for the Jewish people. The1917 Balfour Declaration asserted the British Government's support for the creation “in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” Following the end of World War I (1914-1918), the League of Nations entrusted Great Britain with the Mandate for Palestine. Immediately after the end of British mandate on May 14, 1948, the State of Israel was proclaimed, and the U.S. recognized Israel that same day. Arabs in the Mandatory and neighboring Arab states rejected a 1947 UN partition plan that would have divided the Mandatory into separate Jewish and Arab states, and the area has seen periods of invasions and armed conflict since 1948.¶ The United States is committed to realizing the vision of a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: an independent, viable and contiguous Palestinian state as the homeland of the Palestinian people, alongside the Jewish State of Israel. In July 2013 the Israelis and the Palestinians began negotiations on a final status agreement between the parties. U.S. Assistance to Israel The U.S.-Israel bilateral relationship is strong, anchored by over $3 billion in Foreign Military Financing annually. In addition to financial support, the U.S. participates in a high level of exchanges with Israel, to include joint military exercises, military research, and weapons development. Through the Joint Counterterrorism Group and a semi-annual Strategic Dialogue, the U.S. and Israel have enhanced their cooperation in fighting terrorism. Bilateral Economic Relations The United States is Israel's largest single trading partner. The top five U.S. exports to Israel are: diamonds, machinery, agricultural products, aircraft, and optic and medical instruments. The top five U.S. imports from Israel are: diamonds, pharmaceutical products, machinery, optic and medical instruments, and agricultural products. U.S. direct investment in Israel is primarily in the manufacturing sector, as is Israeli investment in the United States. The United States and Israel have had a free trade agreement since 1985, serving as the foundation for expanding trade and investment between the two countries by reducing barriers and promoting regulatory transparency. To facilitate economic cooperation, the two countries convene a Joint Economic Development Group each year to discuss economic conditions in both countries and possible economic reforms for the coming year.¶ The U.S. and Israel also coordinate scientific and cultural exchanges through the Binational Science Foundation, the Binational Agricultural Research and Development Foundation, and the U.S.-Israeli Education Foundation. Israel's Membership in International Organizations Israel and the United States belong to a number of the same international organizations, including the United Nations, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and World Trade Organization. Israel also is a Partner for Cooperation with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and an observer to the Organization of American States. Bilateral Representation

63 The U.S. Ambassador to Israel is Daniel B. Shapiro; other principal embassy officials are listed in the Department's Key Officers List. Israel proclaimed Jerusalem as its capital in 1950. The United States, like nearly all other countries, maintains its embassy in Tel Aviv.¶ Israel maintains an embassy in the United States at 3514 International Drive NW, Washington DC, 20008 (tel. 202-364-5500). More information about Israel is available from the Department of State and other sources, some of which are listed here:¶ Department of State Israel Country Page¶ Department of State Key Officers List¶ CIA World Factbook Israel Page¶ U.S. Embassy: Israel¶ History of U.S. Relations With Israel¶ Human Rights Reports¶ International Religious Freedom Reports¶ Trafficking in Persons Reports¶ Narcotics Control Reports¶ Investment Climate Statements¶ Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Countries Page¶ U.S. Census Bureau Foreign Trade Statistics¶ Export.gov International Offices Page¶ Library of Congress Country Studies¶ Travel and Business Information

B2. Direct object option two: Bilateral ties A second option is ‘bilateral ties.’ Bilateral ties are economic, political, and cultural ties between two states - does not include third parties: Commonwealth Network 15 “Bilateral and Multilateral Co-operation” [http://www.commonwealthofnations.org/sectors/government/bilateral_and_multilateral_co_operation/] // Formalised relations of Commonwealth countries, including economic, political and cultural, run along bilateral or multilateral lines – ‘bilateral’ referring to ties between two states and ‘multilateral’ referring to relationships of more than two states, often within an intergovernmental organisation such as the UN.

The use of ‘bilateral ties’ could resolve concerns about affs that decrease relations through indirect engagement, as discussed in the previous section (i.e. Palestine aid, Iran appeasement, etc).

B3. Direct object option three: Alliance After our research, we don’t believe the topic committee should use this option.

Alliance/alliance commitments: The US and Israel are allies, but we don’t have a formal alliance with them. Whether or not ‘alliance’ necessitates a formal agreement is up for debate, but we don’t think that’s a productive T debate (because if the neg is right, that would mean there are zero topical affs…) The Christian Science Monitor 12 “War talk on Iran forces the issue: Is Israel a formal US ally?” [http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2012/0302/War-talk-on-Iran-forces-the- issue-Is-Israel-a-formal-US-ally] March 2 // According to polls, Americans remain wary of supporting the idea of either Israel or the United States – or both together – attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.¶ Perhaps one reason for this hesitancy is the fact that Israel, in a historic choice to rely on itself for defense, has never become an official US ally.¶ America has no treaty obligation to come to Israel’s defense as it does with many countries in Europe and Asia. This little-known fact may loom large in a meeting Monday between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.¶ The two men have long differed on how to deal with Iran, especially as a preemptive attack raises more difficult questions than for a traditional war raises. A lack of a formal Israeli-US defense alliance makes it difficult to reconcile their current differences, despite the long friendship and close military cooperation between the two countries.¶ The Israeli leader, who enjoys

64 wide popularity in the US, has been pressing Mr. Obama to openly threaten Iran with a military strike. And he wants the US to accept Israel’s lower threshold for launching an attack, which would be at the point of Iran simply developing a capability to make an atomic bomb. The pro-Israel lobby in Congress, too, is pushing a bill that would endorse this Israeli view.¶ In sharp contrast, Obama appears to prefer a different “red line” for an attack on Iran – at the point when Iran actually assembles a bomb. And he prefers to let tighter sanctions and diplomacy play out longer.¶ His position reflects not only a view that the US is not as vulnerable to Iranian missiles as Israel but also the president’s overall strategy to have the US intervene less often militarily in global affairs while it restores its economy.¶ And Obama prefers regional problems to be solved primarily by a region’s players, with the US only in a supporting role. (His personal relations with Mr. Netanyahu are also difficult because the president has not been able to persuade Israel to help create a Palestinian state by compromising on the building of Jewish settlements.)¶ Netanyahu complicates this dispute over Iran by sending contradictory signals on Israel’s basic military doctrine.¶ Last month, he reiterated a longstanding Israeli stance by saying, “When it comes to our fate, we must rely only on ourselves.” To many Jews, this view reflects the lesson of the Holocaust – that they cannot rely on others to save them. Yet Israel also knows it may not have the military means to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities unless the US is involved. And it could also lack the defensive capability to withstand an Iranian counterattack.¶ In 1981, Israel was able to destroy Iraq’s nuclear capability in an aerial attack, and in 2007, it destroyed a Syrian nuclear facility – both without US help. But it has also long relied on billions of dollars in US military aid as well as American military technology, such as missile defenses. The two militaries often hold joint exercises, and Israel is a “partner” in a NATO outreach program called Mediterranean Dialogue.¶ US and Israeli officials often refer to each other’s country as an “ally.” But the US also uses that term for many countries with whom it has no formal defense treaty. Ever since the 1930s, for example, the US has implicitly been an ally of Saudi Arabia’s monarchy in return for access to Saudi oil.

We ask the community to keep in mind that a fear of big topics may not be entirely grounded in reality (nor is an Israel only non-list topic likely to be unpredictably unreasonably large). It is, because of generic negative ground, better to go big than artificially limit a controversy in a way that excludes key areas of the literature base (such as the amnesty on the immigration topic).

C. Possible concerns

Directly related to the ‘list or no list’ question is: should the topic require that the plan be directly applied to Israel, or are affirmatives that indirectly decrease support for Israel also to be considered topical? A conceptual problem with a non-list resolution is that because the US can’t just decrease relations with Israel (the US would do an act that would in turn decrease relations). An example from the ‘pressure on China’ topic is noteworthy. Most affirmatives on that topic directly pressured the government of China (through sanctions, for example). However, a couple of teams read affirmatives that pressured Europe to maintain its arms embargo on China, arguing that this was still an example of ‘economic pressure’ ‘on’ China. The negative had a viable topicality argument that ‘on’ required direct pressure, but the affirmative had (some) success arguing that indirect pressure was still ‘on’ China. This type of third- party affirmative was not as widespread on the ‘constructive engagement’ and ‘democracy assistance’ topics; because, those terms required a direct form of engagement.

65 If indirect affirmatives are allowed, an affirmative could give aid to Palestine, appease Iran, or pass a domestic policy that is unpopular with Israel (such as Zivotofsky). Although these affirmatives would be more unpredictable, they are not unlimited and because of the fear of losing on topicality these affirmatives may actually link more to the Israel relations DA (an advantage to effects topicality for the negative that Dr. Harris often preaches). Whether indirect engagement affs should be of concern is up for debate. The authors believe that some of these affirmatives are thematically sound and in line with the intent of this topic, especially those that diplomatically support Palestine. The history of the US-Israeli relationship is inundated with debates about policies that are seemingly unrelated to Israel and what their impacts on the relationship may be. However, some line would need to be drawn: it is not our intent to include, for example, an affirmative that breaks the US alliance with Japan and argues that this also reduces support for Israel because they would perceive the plan as a signal of weakness, nor an affirmative that issued a blanket No First Use policy and argued that this would result in a lessening of our relationship with Israel.

If a list topic is chosen, this concern is minimized because the areas will more directly limit the type of affirmative that can be read, and the topic limiter wouldn’t hinge only on the term ‘curtail.’ It is our suspicion that, given recent voting trends, a list topic would be preferred in a final vote. So, this might be much to-do about nothing.

3. List option

As said in the introduction of this section, if the community decides on a list approach, we firmly believe the following affs must be topical: pressuring Israel, removing diplomatic support for Israel, and decreasing military assistance to Israel.

A list resolution could look something like this:

The United States federal government should substantially curtail its relationship with Israel by increasing pressure on Israel, removing diplomatic support for Israel, and/or decreasing military assistance to Israel.

For the stem (The United States federal government should substantially curtail its relationship with Israel), the work in the non-list section applies. The ‘direct vs indirect engagement’ debate is not as big of a concern because the list areas create a limit on what topical affs can do. The authors believe ‘curtail its relationship’ would be appropriate.

A. Pressure

When we say the topic should include pressuring Israel, we mean that topical affs should threaten Israel in order to change Israel’s behavior. For wording purposes, ‘pressure’ may be too broad because it includes the negative action of unconditionally reducing support for Israel in the hopes that they alter their policy as a result. That said, the diplomacy sections could be combined if the committee finds that this definition of pressure (both conditional and unconditional) is widely agreed upon. Walt 9 - Professor of Int’l Affairs @ Harvard

66 Stephen M., “Can the United States put pressure on Israel?: A user’s guide” [http://foreignpolicy.com/2009/04/10/can-the-united-states-put-pressure-on-israel-a-users-guide/] // To advance its own interests, therefore, the United States will have to pursue a more even-handed policy than it has in the past, and put strong pressure on both sides to come to an agreement. Instead of the current “special relationship” — where the U.S. gives Israel generous and nearly-unconditional support — the United States and Israel would have a more normal relationship, akin to U.S. relations with other democracies (where public criticism and overt pressure sometimes occurs). While still committed to Israel’s security, the United States would use the leverage at its disposal to make a two- state solution a reality.¶ This idea appears to be gaining ground. Several weeks ago, a bipartisan panel of distinguished foreign policy experts headed by Henry Siegman and Brent Scowcroft issued a thoughtful report calling for the Obama administration to “engage in prompt, sustained, and determined efforts to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict.” Success, they noted, “will require a careful blend of persuasion, inducement, reward, and pressure…” Last week, the Economist called for the United States to reduce its aid to Israel if the Netanyahu government continues to reject a two-state solution. The Boston Globe offered a similar view earlier this week, advising Obama to tell Netanyahu “to take the steps necessary for peace or risk compromising Israel’s special relationship with America.” A few days ago, Ha’aretz reported that the Obama Administration was preparing Congressional leaders for a possible confrontation with the Netanyahu government.¶ These developments got me thinking: what might a more even-handed posture look like in practice? We already know what it means for the United States to put pressure on the Palestinians, because Washington has done that repeatedly — and sometimes effectively — over the past several decades. During the 1970s, for example, the United States supported King Hussein’s violent crackdown on the PLO cadres who were threatening his rule in Jordan. During the 1980s, the United States refused to recognize the PLO until it accepted Israel’s right to exist. After the outbreak of the Second Intifada, the Bush administration refused to deal with Yasser Arafat and pushed hard for his replacement. After Arafat’s death, we insisted on democratic elections for a new Palestinian assembly and then rejected the results when Hamas won. The United States has also gone after charitable organizations with ties to Hamas and backed Israel’s recent campaign in Gaza. In short, the United States has rarely hesitated to use its leverage to try to shape Palestinian behavior, even if some of these efforts — such as the inept attempt to foment a Fatah coup against Hamas in 2007 — have backfired.¶ But what about pressure on Israel? The United States has only rarely put (mild) pressure on Israel in recent decades (and never for very long), even when the Israeli government was engaged in actions (such as building settlements) that the U.S. government opposed. The question is: if the Netanyahu/Lieberman government remains intransigent, what should Obama do? Are there usable sources of leverage that the United States could employ to nudge Israel away from the vision of “Greater Israel” and towards a genuine two-state solution? Here are a few ideas. 1. Cut the aid package? If you add it all up, Israel gets over $3 billion in U.S. economic and military aid each year, which works out to about $500 per Israeli citizen. There’s a lot of potential leverage here, but it’s probably not the best stick to use, at least not at first. Trying to trim or cut the aid package will trigger an open and undoubtedly ugly confrontation in Congress (where the influence of AIPAC and other hard- line groups in the Israel lobby is greatest). So that’s not where I’d start. Instead, I’d consider a few other options, such as: 2. Change the Rhetoric. The Obama administration could begin by using different language to describe certain Israeli policies. While reaffirming America’s commitment to Israel’s existence as a Jewish- majority state, it could stop referring to settlement construction as “unhelpful,” a word that makes U.S.

67 diplomats sound timid and mealy-mouthed. Instead, we could start describing the settlements as “illegal” or as “violations of international law.” The UN Charter forbids acquisition of territory by force and the Fourth Geneva Convention bars states from transfering their populations (even if voluntarily) to areas under belligerent occupation. This is why earlier U.S. administrations described the settlements as illegal, and why the rest of the world has long regarded them in the same way. U.S. officials could even describe Israel’s occupation as “contrary to democracy,” “unwise,” “cruel,” or “unjust.” Altering the rhetoric would send a clear signal to the Israeli government and its citizens that their government’s opposition to a two-state solution was jeopardizing the special relationship. 3. Support a U.N. Resolution Condemning the Occupation. Since 1972, the United States has vetoed forty-three U.N. Security Council resolutions that were critical of Israel (a number greater than the sum of all vetoes cast by the other permanent members). If the Obama administration wanted to send a clear signal that it was unhappy with Israel’s actions, it could sponsor a resolution condemning the occupation and calling for a two-state solution. Taking an active role in drafting such a measure would also ensure that it said exactly what we wanted, and avoided criticisms that we didn’t want included. 4. Downgrade existing arrangements for “strategic cooperation.” There are now a number of institutionalized arrangements for security cooperation between the Pentagon and the Israel Defense Forces and between U.S. and Israeli intelligence. The Obama administration could postpone or suspend some of these meetings, or start sending lower-grade representatives to them. There is in fact a precedent for this step: after negotiating the original agreements for a “strategic partnership,” the Reagan administration suspended them following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Today, such a step would surely get the attention of Israel’s security establishment. 5. Reduce U.S. purchases of Israeli military equipment. In addition to providing Israel with military assistance (some of which is then used to purchase U.S. arms), the Pentagon also buys millions of dollars of weaponry and other services from Israel’s own defense industry. Obama could instruct Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to slow or decrease these purchases, which would send an unmistakable signal that it was no longer “business-as-usual.” Given the battering Israel’s economy has taken in the current global recession, this step would get noticed too. 6. Get tough with private organizations that support settlement activity. As David Ignatius recently noted in , many private donations to charitable organizations operating in Israel are tax-deductible in the United States, including private donations that support settlement activity. This makes no sense: it means the American taxpayer is indirectly subsidizing activities that are contrary to stated U.S. policy and that actually threaten Israel’s long-term future. Just as the United States has gone after charitable contributions flowing to terrorist organizations, the U.S. Treasury could crack down on charitable organizations (including those of some prominent Christian Zionists) that are supporting these illegal activities. 7. Place more limits on U.S. loan guarantees. The United States has provided billions of dollars of loan guarantees to Israel on several occasions, which enabled Israel to borrow money from commercial banks at lower interest rates. Back in 1992, the first Bush administration held up nearly $10 billion in guarantees until Israel agreed to halt settlement construction and attend the Madrid peace conference, and the dispute helped undermine the hard-line Likud government of Yitzhak Shamir and bring Yitzhak Rabin to power, which in turn made the historic Oslo Agreement possible. 8. Encourage other U.S. allies to use their influence too. In the past, the United States has often pressed other states to upgrade their own ties with Israel. If pressure is needed, however, the United States could

68 try a different tack. For example, we could quietly encourage the EU not to upgrade its relations with Israel until it had agreed to end the occupation.

1. Compellence

We believe ‘compellence’ would make a good wording choice. Compellence is the offer of a conditional threat or reward to convince Israel to meet a demand. Slantchev 5 – political science professor @ UC San Diego Branislav L., “Introduction to International Relations Lecture 8: Deterrence and Compellence” [http://slantchev.ucsd.edu/courses/ps12/08-deterrence-and-compellence.pdf]

Compellence aims to persuade the opponent to change his behavior. We make a demand of action, then initiate our own, and continue doing it until the opponent ceases. We can distinguish three categories of compellence. We persuade opponent (i) to stop short of goal; (ii) to undo the action (i.e. withdraw from land); or (iii) change his policy by changing government. Success of compellence is easy to see because it entails the reversal or halt of ongoing behavior. Again, this may happen for other reasons but it is hard to avoid the impression of doing it under duress. Compellence is active: it seeks to change the status quo. Also, like offense, it takes the initiative and engages the opponent until the latter relents.¶

Recall that a commitment is essentially a pledge to take some action in the future. It may be a threat if this action involves hurting the opponent, or it may be a promise if it involves rewarding him. Threats and promises are conditional strategic moves that can be used either for deterrence or compellence, depend- ing on what they are supposed to achieve. A threat is a pledge to impose costs if the opponent acts contrary to one’s wishes. A promise is a pledge to provide benefits to the opponent if he acts in accordance with one’s wishes. Both threats and promises are intended to influence the expectations of the opponent and cause him to change his behavior. Both threats and promises are costly to the one making them although threats are costly if the player fails to influence the opponent, and promises are costly if the player succeeds. ¶ In principle, both threats and promises can be used for either deterrence or compellence. Suppose we wish to compel the North Koreans to abandon their nuclear program: we could threaten a punishment (cut off economic aid, limited strikes on the power plants) if they fail to comply, or promise a reward (invest in the country, build other plants) if they dismantle the program. Similarly, if we wish to deter them from pursuing such a program, we could try either a punishment or a reward. Although both could be used, in practice deterrence is best achieved with a threat, and compellence with a promise.

Compellence is unique from the other two options because it allows for either a reward or punishment. Coercive diplomacy requires issuing a threat, but can also include a reward for compliance. Negative incentives are only negative.

2. Coercive diplomacy

Another wording option would be increasing coercive diplomacy.

Coercive diplomacy is a strategy that aims to influence Israel’s actions by combining the threat of force or other punishment Levy 8

69 Jack S., “Deterrence and Coercive Diplomacy: The Contributions of Alexander George” [http://fas- polisci.rutgers.edu/levy/Levy%20-%20Deterrence%20&%20Coercive%20Diplomacy.pdf] //

In George’s view, the strategy of coercive diplomacy is an age-old instrument of statecraft that had never been systematized. His aim was to articulate a policy- relevant theory of coercive diplomacy in which threats, persuasion, positive inducements, and accommodation were integrated into a crisis bargaining strategy that provided political leaders with an alternative to war or to strictly coercive military strategies. 5¶ In contrast to either war or the “quick, decisive military strategy,” which George described as a military strategy that aimed to negate adversary capabilities to contest what is at stake, coercive diplomacy is a political-diplomatic strategy that aims to influence an adversary’s will or incentive structure. 6 It is a strategy that combines threats of force, and, if necessary, the limited and selective use of force in discrete and controlled increments, 7 in a bargaining strategy that includes positive inducements. The aim is to induce an adversary to comply with one’s demands, or to negotiate the most favorable compromise possible, while simulta- neously managing the crisis to prevent unwanted military escalation. 8¶ Coercive diplomacy also differs from deterrence. Deterrence invokes threats to dissuade an adversary from initiating an undesired action, while coercive diplomacy is a response to an action that has already been taken. 9 George distin- guished coercive diplomacy from compellence, which Schelling

(1966) defined as one of two forms of coercion (the other being deterrence), in two ways. First George emphasized more strongly than did Schelling that coercive diplomacy (and deterrence as well) can include positive inducements and accommodation as well as coercive threats. This is an important contribution, and one that led to subse- quent efforts to incorporate assurances into analyses of influence strategies

(Davis, 2000; Lebow & Stein, 1987; Stein, 1991). Second, George differentiated between defensive and offensive uses of coercive threats. He defined coercive diplomacy as a “defensive strategy that is employed to deal with the efforts of an adversary to change a status quo situation in his own favor,” by persuading the adversary to stop what it is doing or to undo what it has done (George & Simons, 1994, p.

8; George, 1991a, p. 6).¶ George specified a number of “variants” of coercive diplomacy, defined in terms of tactics (George & Simons, 1994, p. 18). The starkest variant is the full- fledged ultimatum , which includes a demand, a time limit for compliance, and potent and credible threat of punishment for noncompliance. If the strategy involves an implicit rather than explicit form of any of these elements, it is a tacit ultimatum . George defined a try-and-see approach as one in which a demand is made without an explicit threat or time limit, and a gradual turning of the screw as involving the threat of a gradual rather than step-level increase in coercive pres- sure. These variants enhance the flexibility of the strategy of coercive diplomacy.

One large concern with coercive diplomacy is that it is considered to be a distinct strategy from deterrence. Coercive diplomacy is a response to an action that has already taken place, while deterrence is intended to prevent a future action.

Coercive diplomacy requires threatening Israel with some form of punishment, but it can also include a positive reward for compliance. Military action (i.e. invading Israel) isn’t topical.

Jentleson 6 – political science/public policy professor @ Duke ¶ Bruce, “Coercive Diplomacy: Scope and Limits in the Contemporary World” [http://stanleyfoundation.org/publications/pab/pab06CoerDip.pdf]

December //¶

70 While the dust has not yet fully settled, the success achieved in the Libya case through the balance struck between coercion and diplomacy offers a striking contrast with Iraq, where military force was wielded too quickly with too little diplomacy. It is in this context that this Policy Analysis Brief focuses on coercive diplomacy and the scope, limits, and requi- sites for its effectiveness as a foreign policy strategy in the contemporary world. The first section provides an analytic framework for defining coercive diplomacy, reviewing its track record, and delineating the parameters for success. The second section provides a brief review of the Libya case. The third presents policy recommendations both as a general strategic framework and applied to major current cases such as Iran and North Korea.¶ Analytic Framework:

Definition, Track Record, and Parameters for Success¶ As the term implies, this is a diplomatic strategy with a degree of limited coercion. Carrots may be included, but, by definition, so too are sticks. The sticks can include eco- nomic sanctions as well as military force. While definitional precision is difficult, the key contrasts are with classical diplomacy, in which coercion is merely a remote contingency and the emphasis is on dialogue and peaceful means, and war or other uses of “brute force” to “take what you want,” to borrow from Thomas Schelling’s seminal Arms and Influence. Coercive diplomacy applies pressure in a manner and magnitude that “seeks to persuade an opponent to cease aggression rather than bludgeon him into stopping…just enough force of an appropriate kind to demonstrate resolution and to give credibility to the threat that greater force will be used if necessary.”

Here is more evidence differentiating coercive diplomacy from other potential mechanisms. Orcutt 4 – masters in security studies @ the Naval Postgraduate School Daniel J., “Carrot, Stick, or Sledgehammer: US Policy Options for North Korean Nuclear Weapons” [http://www.usafa.edu/df/inss/OCP/OCP56.pdf] August // Coercive Diplomacy . George limited his study of coercion to what he termed defensive strategies and differentiated them from other non-military strategies. He described defensive coercion as, “efforts to persuade an opponent to stop or reverse an action.” 64 Defensive coercion differs from offensive uses of coercion, which he referred to as blackmail strate gies and defined as, “efforts to persuade a victim to give up something of value without putting up resistance.” 65 Since North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons violated the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the 1991 Joint North South declaration for a nuclear free Korean Peninsula, and the 1994 Agreed Framework, it is possible to view coercive diplomacy as defensive since the policy goal would be to stop the action of nuclear weapons development. A counter argument would be that coercive diplomacy at this time would be offensive in nature because it seeks to force North Ko rea to surrender something of extreme value, their nuclear weapon s. Regardless of the nuances, coercive policy application strives to first halt, then reverse North Korea’s nuclear weapon’s developmen t, an action that it values dearly and that the United States wants it to surrender.¶ George also differentiated defensive coercion from four other non-military strategies: drawing a line, buying time to explore a negotiated settlement, retaliation and reprisals, and engaging in a test of capabilities. In drawing a line, one party simply warns their opponent that any further action will provoke a strong response. The buying time strategy is self-explanatory and can be used if a defender is operating from a position of disadvantage or believes that their opponent’s dissatisfaction has some merit. George described reprisals as carefully measured responses that match, but do not exceed, the adversary’s actions. 66 Finally, he used the US airlift response to the ground-based Russian blockade of Berlin following the Second World War as an example of testing capabilities as a response to an adversary’s action. ¶ George preferred not to use Thomas Schelling’s term, compellance, because it was often used as an over-arching term to describe diplomatic strategies that included offensive and defensive

71 coercion and occasionally deterrence. 67 Deterrence is strategy to prevent an adversary from taking an action and thus different from coercion that seeks to stop or reverse an opponent’s action. With respect to how lofty an objective coercive diplomacy can hope to achieve, George used three levels: stop an action, reverse past accomplishments, and cease hostile behavior by forcing governmental or regime change. Current Bush administration policy seeks a second-level objectiv e, the surrender of nuclear weapons, but stops short of the third level, North Korean regime change. Obviously, the higher the policy goal, the higher the required level of effort. In addition, how dearly an adversary values what they have accomplished will increase the level of coercive effort and ultimately decrease the probability of success.¶ Turning Theory into Policy. George listed two requirements for coercive diplomacy to succeed. First, coercion requires a credible and potent enough threat to convince an adversary that it should acquiesce to their opponen t’s demands. Second, coercive diplomacy assumes a “rational” opponent. George explained three limitations of his abstract model of coercion. First, the model only identifies the general logic of coercion and does not include what is necessary to convert it into policy. Second, an operationalized model is required to give it a predictive capability. Last, it is not a stand-alone strategy, and it is essential to incorporate it into a broader strategy. George recommended four tasks to design a coercive policy recommendation:¶ • Fill in the four key variables: a demand, level of urgency, a threat, and potential incentives; ¶ • Identify a preferred variant (l evel) of coercion: Classic Ultimatum, Tacit Ultimatum, Turn the Screw, or Try & See; ¶ • Replace the purely rational actor theory with an empirically derived behavioral model; ¶ • Take into account the contextual variables of the given situation.¶ The first task consists of four critical decision points. First, leaders must decide what to demand of an adversary. Second, policy makers must decide if they wish to create a sense of urgency for compliance and if so, how. Third, strategists must develop a credible and potent threat of punishment commensurate with operational capabilities as well as how much they are demanding of an adversary. Finally, diplomats must decide whether to offer any incentives (carrots) fo r compliance or the speed of reply. This section discusses turning theory in to specific policy for North Korea Also, both the Perry Report and Richard Armitage’s suggestions on dealing with North Korea contain specific policy recommendations.

Coercive diplomacy strategies have been successfully deployed towards Israel in the past. Lasensky, ’99 - senior researcher at the U.S. Institute of Peace from 2004 to 2011 Scott B. Lasenksy, Middle East Review of International Affairs, Council on Foreign Relations, June 1, 1999, “Friendly Restraint: U.S.-Israel Relations During the Gulf War Crisis of 1990-199” http://www.cfr.org/middle-east-and-north-africa/friendly-restraint-us-israel-relations-during-gulf-war- crisis-1990-199/p4870

Throughout the 1990-1991 Gulf Crisis, Israel was never far from the minds of top U.S. decisionmakers. From the standpoint of U.S. policymaking, U.S.-Israel relations, and Middle East international relations, the U.S. handling of Israel's role in the war over Kuwait remains a very interesting case study.¶ "[As for] the problem of keeping Israel out of the war, there were few things the President and his top aides worried about more," explained one White House advisor in retrospect. (3) The U.S. decision to side-line and restrain Israel was successful due to a balanced strategy of positive and negative inducements. It was carefully crafted and executed by President George Bush and his most senior advisors. (4)¶ U.S. policy was derived from the assumption that Israeli involvement in the conflict might increase Arab support for Iraq and even lead to some Arab states leaving the coalition. At the same time, Israel was ambiguous on whether it wanted to become involved directly in the war. As the introductory quotations show, at times

72 the United States may have overestimated Israel's desire to act. Ironically, while Israeli ambiguity did earn the country some material benefits, it ultimately backfired and placed severe limits on Jerusalem's range of policy options.¶ Although outside observers may consider that the issue of Israeli involvement was resolved at the outset, in fact, U.S. policymakers viewed developments as a sequence of influence encounters. There was not a single "moment of truth" engagement, but rather of series of diplomatic exchanges in which the United States and Israel would debate the strategic and political merits of restraint. Particularly after fighting began in January 1991, U.S. officials operated under the assumption that all Israeli decisions on restraint were reversible.¶ America's restraint policy rested on an integrated strategy of positive and negative political, security, and economic inducements. While there was wide consensus among Bush and his advisors on the need to restrain Israel, serious disagreements did develop at the operational level. Personal world views and bureaucratic politics had a demonstrable impact on implementation. Though the strategic and political assumptions on which U.S. policymakers based their decisions were ultimately never tested, the restraint policy on its own terms proved an unmitigated success.¶ This study examines both policy formulation and implementation. It begins by defining the key decisions taken by U.S. policymakers. Then, it assesses how and why decisionmakers developed the restraint policy. What were their priorities? What factors did they ignore? What were their fundamental assumptions? Next, it describes how the restraint policy was operationalized and the factors influencing implementation. Finally, it identifies three points that most contributed to the success of American policy.(5) This study also represents an attempt to bridge the fields of diplomatic history and international relations, two disciplines that have increasingly (and unfortunately) grown apart in recent years.¶ TWO MOMENT OF TRUTH DECISIONS¶ Well before Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's 2 August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Iraq and Israel had been locked in their own tense standoff. In 1981, Israeli jets bombed the Iraqi nuclear facility at Osirak. At the time, Iraq was fighting a war with Iran, and Baghdad did not retaliate against Israel.¶ When the Iraq-Iran war ended in 1988, however, it did not take long for Saddam to threaten Israel as well as Kuwait. By spring 1990, Baghdad was threatening Israel explicitly. "We will make the fire eat up half of Israel," Saddam pledged, alluding to Iraq's proven chemical weapons capability.(6) Also, Saddam's deployment of Scud missiles in western Iraq was well known to officials in both Israel and the United States. Therefore, following Iraq's early August invasion of Kuwait and President Bush's subsequent decision to deploy U.S. troops to the region, there was "an instant realization" in Washington that Israel's involvement could somehow escalate and widen the incipient U.S.-Iraq confrontation.(7)¶ While the United States built an international coalition against Iraq, policymakers in Washington wanted Israel to maintain a low-profile. In the early months of the crisis, U.S. officials feared that Israel, as mandated by its traditional strategic doctrine, would take preemptive action against Iraq.(8)¶ A senior Israeli military official told his U.S. counterparts that two factors would affect Israel's response to the Iraqi threat: how the United States responded, and the extent of the threat posed to Israel.(9) During this first phase of the restraint policy (Fall 1990) the preeminent U.S. concern was to prevent Israel from taking preemptive action. While Israel kept its ultimate plans ambiguous, Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir did pledge to President Bush in December that Israel would not take such a step.(10)¶ America's restraint policy toward Israel entered its second phase in early 1991. As the 15 January deadline approached, war became increasingly likely. When asked if U.S. military action would lead Saddam to attack Israel, Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz replied, "yes, absolutely yes."(11) The Bush administration decided that in the event of hostilities, Israel must not become a co-belligerent, even if it was attacked by Iraq. The Administration's decision was based on strategic concerns about the stability of the U.S.-led coalition, and a desire to avoid actions that could escalate or widen the conflict.

73 The United States sought to achieve its objectives through a strategy of coercive diplomacy, combining positive and negative inducements.(12)

Here are some examples of what a policy of coercive diplomacy towards Israel could entail: Lasensky, ’99 - senior researcher at the U.S. Institute of Peace from 2004 to 2011 Scott B. Lasenksy, Middle East Review of International Affairs, Council on Foreign Relations, June 1, 1999, “Friendly Restraint: U.S.-Israel Relations During the Gulf War Crisis of 1990-199” http://www.cfr.org/middle-east-and-north-africa/friendly-restraint-us-israel-relations-during-gulf-war- crisis-1990-199/p4870

During the war, America's strategy of coercive diplomacy relied on five positive inducements and one negative measure:¶ First, "Hammer Rick", the secure communications link, was used both for quick consultations and to provide early warning of Scud attacks.¶ Second, President Bush sent Eagleberger and Wolfowitz back to Israel for a second visit. The "hand-holding" mission was intended to demonstrate solidarity and also to maintain pressure on Israeli leaders not to retaliate.(36)¶ Third, U.S.-operated Patriot anti-missile batteries were rushed to Israel. The United States also sent emergency military supplies, pre-positioned additional material and encouraged Germany and the Netherlands to be more forthcoming with financial assistance to Israel.¶ Fourth, the U.S. sought to compensate Israel for its losses with several hundred million dollars in increased financial aid, on top of the annual $3 billion aid outlay.¶ Fifth, and most important, U.S.-led coalition forces carried out dozens, perhaps hundreds of Scud-hunting missions over western Iraq.(37) Bush told Shamir that in light of the coalition's Scud- hunting missions, there was nothing Israel could do that the United States was not able to do with less risk to the integrity of the coalition. These positive inducements were intended to help 'enlarge Shamir's space' and provide him with sound justification for not retaliating.(38)¶ The sixth instrument U.S. policymakers used in their strategy of coercive diplomacy was negative. Washington continued to withhold key operational intelligence information the Israelis needed to carry out their retaliatory plans. Without such information, Israel would not be certain its planes could identify and avoid coalition forces. The United States also refused Israel's offer for close operational coordination between Israeli military planners and U.S. forces in the Gulf.(39)¶ Just as in the pre-war stage, the key U.S. objective was to gain an Israeli commitment to consult with Washington before taking any military action.(40) U.S. policymakers used this commitment to consult as a trip-wire mechanism that offered an additional opportunity to convince Israel not to retaliate. Once consulted, the United States argued that Israel would be no more effective at Scud-hunting than U.S.-led coalition forces.(41)¶ Furthermore, the United States made the point that Israeli actions would complicate Arab participation in the coalition.(42) In addition, U.S. policy relied on Bush's personal appeals to Shamir for Israeli restraint. Throughout the war, the White House used a carefully crafted public formula whereby Washington acknowledged Israel's right to self-defense, but strongly encouraged Israeli leaders not to exercise that right.(43)

The drawback of this choice is that it may allow positive actions towards Israel. That is not in line with the goals of this paper.

3. Negative incentives

74 Negative incentives are the threat of punishment intended to alter behavior - can include reciprocal measures, financial penalties, and trade restrictions. Barrett and Stavins 3 Scott and Robert, “Increasing Participation and Compliance in International Climate Change Agreements” [http://www.hks.harvard.edu/m-rcbg/eephu/barrett_stavins.pdf] September // Potential negative incentives 21 include reciprocal measures, financial penalties, and trade restrictions. But before turning to specific types of negative incentives, it is helpful to highlight the fundamental difference between domestic contexts – where various types of negative incentives are frequently employed – and the domain of international cooperation. Domestic policies are enforced by national governments; indeed, it can be said that national governments exist and are given their unique powers of coercion so that they can supply public goods and correct for market failures. National sovereignty means that, by contrast, international agreements cannot be enforced by a world government.

Such agreements must be enforced by their parties – the respective national governments.¶ The difference between the two contexts is well illustrated by comparing the Kyoto Protocol with Title IV of the U.S. Clean Air Act amendments of 1990, intended to reduce acid rain in the United States (and Canada) by 50 percent. Both regimes establish targets and timetables for emission reductions; both allow emissions trading; but in terms of enforcement, the two policies could not be more different. The Title IV penalty for excess emissions was set at $2,000 per ton, in contrast to marginal abatement costs on the order of $200 per ton (Schmalensee et al. 1998). Furthermore, it is a felony to violate Title IV; viola- tors may be sent to prison. Hence, there is a significant incentive to comply, and – not surprisingly – compliance is virtually perfect (Stavins 1998). In contrast, the Kyoto Protocol explicitly prohibits compliance measures entailing “binding consequences.”¶ Enforcement requires punishments (negative incentives), but can also be encour- aged through positive incentives. It has sometimes been argued that positive incentives can suffice, but threats of punishment are inevitably required to achieve cooperation. 22¶ Negative incentives must be credible, and must be seen to be credible, if they are to be effective; otherwise a threatened punishment is unlikely to influence behavior (Schelling 1960). Unfortunately, credibility is difficult to establish, because in many situations, countries that punish non-cooperating countries will harm themselves in the process. To be credible, countries that threaten to punish must be better off when they carry out the threat than when they do not, given the behavior of the deviant state.¶ To influence behavior, the threatened punishment must also be sufficiently severe. That is, the deviant state must be significantly worse off when it deviates and is punished than when it participates and complies. Making punishments both credible and severe is especially difficult because the more severe the pun- ishment, the more harm it inflicts on the enforcing countries, making the punishment less credible. 23¶ We should underscore what makes enforcement of a climate mitigation agree- ment so difficult. For trade agreements, enforcement is not a great problem because trade is a bilateral activity. The country harmed by a trade violation can recipro- cate. Climate change mitigation, however, is a global public good. If a country fails to supply the good, another country can punish it, but in contrast to the trade situation, this enforcement has wider implications. First, enforcement by this country is itself a public good, and so is subject to under-provision for the usual reasons. Second, if the enforcement involves a reciprocal response (a reduc- tion in mitigation), then other cooperating countries will also be harmed by the enforcement.¶ The first category of negative incentives we consider are reciprocal measures. In theory, reciprocity is at the heart of many potential incentives for participa- tion in an international environmental agreement, since in the absence of centralized enforcement, what can deter participants from polluting is the prospect that others will pollute in retaliation. For such reciprocity to function, a number of condi-

75 tions must be satisfied: there must be a limited number of parties; there must be a positive probability that they will meet again; cheating must be detected; and parties must be patient. The number of parties to an agreement is especially impor- tant for international cooperation (Barrett 1999), because the larger the number of cooperating countries, the less credible is the threat by them collectively to punish deviations. But climate change mitigation is a global public good, and cannot be segmented into a vast number of bilateral relations, as can a multilat- eral trade agreement.¶ A second category of negative incentives are financial penalties and self- punishment. The Kyoto negotiations held in 1997 deferred discussion of sanc- tions for non-compliance, and when the subject was eventually addressed in subsequent Conferences of the Parties, the focus was not on reciprocity, but on how non-complying countries might be required to make up for excess emis- sions in subsequent compliance periods. At the extended Sixth Conference of the Parties (COP-6), held in Bonn in July 2001, countries agreed to apply a penalty ratio for non-compliance of 1.3. This means that if an Annex I party were to emit, for example, 100 tons more than allowed in the first compliance period (2008–2012), then the party’s emission cap for the next compliance period (possibly 2013–2017) would be reduced by 130 tons – 100 tons to offset the excess plus an additional 30 tons as a penalty for non-compliance.¶ This proposal may have been attractive to many countries, because it does not require sacrifices by other parties. However, it is precisely for this reason that the proposal can be expected to fail to affect behavior. Put differently, the enforce- ment provisions must themselves be enforced, and the Kyoto Protocol makes no allowance for this need. Three problems undermine this approach. First, the pun- ishment is forever delayed. If a country fails to meet its obligations in the second control period, including the penalty for not complying in the first control period, it is punished by having to pay a penalty (to be determined by a future amend- ment) in the third control period, and so on. A punishment that is forever delayed cannot be expected to influence behavior. Second, the magnitude of the punish- ment depends not just on the agreed penalty rate, but on future emission limits. But a country must agree to its future emission limit; otherwise it will choose not to participate. Hence, if a country fails to comply in the first compliance period, it need only negotiate a relatively lax emission cap for the next compliance period. 24 Finally, the proposal ignores the reality that compliance and participation must be considered jointly. The easiest way of avoiding the penalties in the proposed scheme is simply not to participate in the treaty, either by not ratifying it or by withdrawing from it at a subsequent date.¶ Had the agreement required that non-complying countries pay financial penal- ties instead of emission penalties – as proposed earlier in the negotiation process – the effect would have been the same. The essential question is who would enforce the payment of financial penalties. Ultimately, enforcement requires that the other Kyoto Protocol parties take actions against non-complying countries, but such actions would be self-damaging and so may not be credible.¶ A third and final type of negative incentive for compliance is a trade restric- tion, promoted by Aldy, Orszag, and Stiglitz (2001), Nordhaus (1998), and others. 25 These can serve three purposes. They can dampen or even eliminate leakage; they can help shift production towards the cooperating countries; and they can promote greater participation in a treaty. For an example of the challenge that exists, suppose that the Kyoto Protocol were fully implemented and that emissions trading were perfect, so that marginal costs were identical among all of the treaty’s parties. For simplicity, we can further assume that non-cooperating countries do nothing to reduce their emissions. To make the example concrete, let us assume that the Kyoto constraints imply a shadow price of $25 per ton of carbon (C), and that marginal abatement costs among non-parties are zero. Then leakage can be neutralized by means of a $25/ton C border tax adjustment (BTA). At the border of every cooperating country, the carbon emissions released in the manufacture of every traded good are

76 calculated, irrespective of the point of production. All imports are subject to a $25/ton C tariff. All exports are subject to a $25/ton C export subsidy.

B. Diplomatic Support At the very least, the final wording should allow for topical affirmatives to remove US support of Israel in international forums and negotiations with Palestine. Other diplomacy affirmatives discussed in the literature include blocking Arab state efforts to subject Israel to IAEA inspections, and US embassy location/siting.

We do not think it is necessary or wise to add a sublist to this area - so the resolution should not read ‘remove diplomatic support for Israel in Palestine negotiations, UN votes, and IAEA inspections.’ Alternatively ‘reduce diplomatic support’ is likely sufficient.

1. Diplomatic support

Our initial findings lead us to believe ‘diplomatic support’ is a strong wording option. Diplomatic support can be defined as “non-material support that protects Israel’s interest” – examples include blocking UN resolutions that are critical of Israel, taking Israel’s side in negotiations, and shielding Israel from treaty obligations Mearsheimer and Walt 6 - Professor of Political Science @ U Chicago, Professor of International Affairs @ Harvard John and Stephen, “The Israel Lobby” [http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby] // For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.¶ Instead, the thrust of US policy in the region derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the ‘Israel Lobby’. Other special-interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that US interests and those of the other country – in this case, Israel – are essentially identical.¶ Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing that given to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military assistance since 1976, and is the largest recipient in total since World War Two, to the tune of well over $140 billion (in 2004 dollars). Israel receives about $3 billion in direct assistance each year, roughly one-fifth of the foreign aid budget, and worth about $500 a year for every Israeli. This largesse is especially striking since Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to that of South Korea or Spain.¶ Other recipients get their money in quarterly installments, but Israel receives its entire appropriation at the beginning of each fiscal year and can thus earn interest on it. Most recipients of aid given for military purposes are required to spend all of it in the

77 US, but Israel is allowed to use roughly 25 per cent of its allocation to subsidise its own defence industry. It is the only recipient that does not have to account for how the aid is spent, which makes it virtually impossible to prevent the money from being used for purposes the US opposes, such as building settlements on the West Bank. Moreover, the US has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems, and given it access to such top-drawer weaponry as Blackhawk helicopters and F-16 jets. Finally, the US gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its Nato allies and has turned a blind eye to Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.¶ Washington also provides Israel with consistent diplomatic support. Since 1982, the US has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It blocks the efforts of Arab states to put Israel’s nuclear arsenal on the IAEA’s agenda. The US comes to the rescue in wartime and takes Israel’s side when negotiating peace. The Nixon administration protected it from the threat of Soviet intervention and resupplied it during the October War. Washington was deeply involved in the negotiations that ended that war, as well as in the lengthy ‘step-by-step’ process that followed, just as it played a key role in the negotiations that preceded and followed the 1993 Oslo Accords. In each case there was occasional friction between US and Israeli officials, but the US consistently supported the Israeli position. One American participant at Camp David in 2000 later said: ‘Far too often, we functioned … as Israel’s lawyer.’ Finally, the Bush administration’s ambition to transform the Middle East is at least partly aimed at improving Israel’s strategic situation.

Diplomatic support includes statements of concern/support, protecting countries in international forums, and public campaigns of support: Kumar 7 – senior Research Fellow at the Department of Political Science in Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, Punjab Suneel, “Sikh Ethnic Uprising in India and Involvement of Foreign Powers” [http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/publication/faultlines/volume18/Article%204.pdf]

Foreign powers have also provided the secessionists/or ethnic rebels with politico-diplomatic support, including statements of concern support in international governmental organizations (IGOs), diplomatic pressure, publicity campaigns for ethnic rebels’ causes, and diplomatic recognition. 9 However, such involvement, especially of sma ll states and regional powers, has been influenced by numerous factors, such as world public opinion, super powers’ response, character of the ethnic conflicts at that time, and whether othe r actors are involved or not. 10 However, foreign powers have not created a conflict where none existed; the causes that gave a secessionist colour to these ethnic uprisings, were internal.

Nevertheless, foreign powers have helped them to grow in strength.

2. Diplomatic cover

Although pundits and policy wonks frequently use the phrase ‘diplomatic cover’ to describe US shielding of controversial Israeli actions, a pseudo thorough search indicates that it is not a well-defined term of art. No official US documents define the term, and ‘diplomatic support’ would encompass the same mechanisms as ‘diplomatic cover’ does.

The most common discussion of ‘diplomatic cover’ is the use of US UN vetoes to protect Israel’s interests Bosco 14 – assistant professor @ American University's School of International Service

78 David, “The Security Council Intifada” [http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/12/18/the-security-council- intifada-palestine-united-nations/] December 18 // The Council can point to a few limited successes on the Middle East conflict. The United States and the Soviet Union collaborated on resolutions that helped end the 1967 and 1973 wars and provided a rough blueprint for peace negotiations, including the famous “land for peace” formulation. After the Cold War, the Security Council facilitated Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in the late 1990s. But for the most part, the elite diplomatic body has been a bit player in the Holy Land. It has not played an important role in peace negotiations or in responding to the first and second intifadas. Most fundamentally, it has never summoned the collective political will to impose a solution on the parties.¶ There are several reasons for the Council’s recurrent impotence on the Middle East. Most important, the veto-wielding United States has had no desire to see the 15-member body any more involved than it is. Beginning in the late 1960s, the United States emerged as a staunch military and diplomatic ally of Israel. That alignment has put Washington out of step with even close Council allies, such as France and Britain, when it comes to the region. With the vote count almost always grim, generations of U.S. diplomats have preferred to minimize the Council’s involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. U.S. diplomats on the Security Council have spent most of their time in a defensive crouch: since 1970, the United States has vetoed dozens of resolutions that it deemed too critical of Israel.¶ But there is another, less frequently discussed reason for the Council’s record of marginalization: The rest of the membership has limited appetite for sustained diplomatic involvement in the conflict. Leaving aside a few diplomatic gambits, Britain, France, Russia, and China have been content to watch from the sidelines, chastising the Israelis and the Palestinians and clucking regretfully about what they consider Washington’s disastrously one-sided position.¶ It’s doubtful that the new initiative at the Security Council represents a major change in that dynamic. But the draft resolution does put the Obama administration and U.S. Amb. Samantha Power in a difficult position. American acquiescence to any resolution pressuring Israel would further sour the increasingly rocky U.S-Israeli relationship just a few months before an important Israeli election. Israel relies on the American veto to provide diplomatic cover, and the removal of that protection would likely be a shock to the Israeli body politic. As a story in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz noted, a diplomatic crisis at the Security Council could “push Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, due to pressure from his right-leaning electorate, into more extreme retaliatory measures against the Palestinian Authority.”

Israel uses our diplomatic cover to prevent Palestine statehood recognition: Spetalnick 15 Matt, “Netanyahu row casts doubt on Obama pledge to 'have Israel's back'” [http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/20/us-usa-israel-idUSKBN0MG2L620150320] March 20 // Following Obama’s warning that the United States would “reassess” its relationship with Israel, the administration is not only reconsidering the diplomatic cover it has long given Israel at the United Nations but is also looking at a range of other possibilities to put pressure on its historically close ally,

U.S. officials said.¶ Those could include becoming less active in protecting Israel in international forums and finding new ways to reinforce the message of U.S. opposition to Jewish settlement expansion.¶ As internal discussions proceeded on Friday, the White House appeared in no rush to lower the temperature in the worst U.S.-Israeli crisis in decades, sparked by Netanyahu’s campaign declaration that there would be no Palestinian state on his watch.¶ The White House made clear for a second straight day that it had little faith in Netanyahu’s effort to backtrack since winning Tuesday's election and insist he was in favor

79 of a two-state solution, long a cornerstone of U.S. Middle East policy.¶ There was no sign of any imminent move to turn the administration’s heated rhetoric against Netanyahu into a tangible shift in policy.¶ As a result, some analysts questioned whether Washington was merely posturing to put the Israeli leader on the defensive at a time when an end-of-March deadline looms in U.S.-led nuclear diplomacy with Iran that Netanyahu vehemently opposes.¶ “The administration is putting everything on the table except security assistance – and this will allow Netanyahu time to walk back his comments more credibly,” said Daniel Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Israel. “I would also not expect any decisions before the situation with respect to the Iran negotiations becomes clearer.”¶ U.S. officials privately were mindful of the risk that the diplomatic storm could drive a deeper wedge between the administration and the influential U.S. pro-Israel camp and cause problems for Obama’s fellow Democrats as the 2016 presidential campaign approaches.¶ One U.S. official voiced skepticism that the administration would shift its stance toward Israel in any substantive way, arguing that despite White House annoyance at Netanyahu, there would likely be too high a domestic political cost to pay for alienating pro-Israel

Americans.¶ “I just don’t believe in the reassessment,” said this official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of U.S. relations with Israel.¶ But Dennis Ross, Obama’s former top

Middle East adviser, said the White House pressure had other motives as well.¶ “There’s an effort to apply leverage to the Israelis to get the prime minister to move on some things when he has a new government formed,” Ross said, citing a U.S. wish to see Israel release frozen Palestinian tax funds and take other goodwill gestures.¶ RECONSIDERING U.S. SHIELD AT UN¶ Among the most serious risks for Israel would be a shift in Washington’s posture at the United Nations.¶ The United States has long stood in the way of Palestinian efforts to get a U.N. resolution recognizing its statehood, including threatening to use its veto, and has protected Israel from efforts to isolate it internationally. But European governments incensed by Netanyahu’s campaign comments against Palestinian statehood, could join in another push for such a resolution.

The US also provides diplomatic cover for Israel not signing onto/complying with international treaties – the NPT is one of them Cohen and Miller 10 – senior fellow @ Center for Nonproliferation Studies and research associate in the Science, Technoogy, and Society Program @ MIT Avner and Marvin, “Bringing Israel's Bomb Out of the Basement: Has Nuclear Ambiguity Outlived Its Shelf Life?” Foreign Affairs Vol. 89, No. 5 (September/October 2010), pp. 30-44 // In July 1969, Kissinger wrote to Nixon, "Our interest is in preventing Israel's possession of nuclear weapons. But since we cannot -- and may not want to try [to] -- control the state of Israel's nuclear program and since Israel may already have nuclear weapons, the one objective we might achieve is to persuade them to keep what they have secret." The recently declassified Kissinger memo goes on to argue that "this would meet our objective because the international implications of an Israeli program are not triggered until it becomes public knowledge." On September 26, 1969, Nixon and Meir reached a new agreement at the White House. Israel committed itself not to test its atomic weapons, advertise its possession of them, or threaten any other state with its newfound nuclear capability -- an arrangement that the United States was willing to tolerate. Washington, in turn, would end its visits to Dimona and stop pressuring Israel to sign the NPT. Over time, U.S. tolerance has evolved into a policy of shielding Israel's nuclear capabilities from international scrutiny.¶ Nixon's rationale for becoming Israel's partner in opacity probably included both considerations of realpolitik and sympathy for the small Jewish state's need to

80 have an existential insurance policy. Israel had already crossed the nuclear threshold, and it could be counted on as a democratic ally of the United States in its Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union. Nixon also apparently trusted Meir as a responsible custodian of Israel's nuclear weapons. But as the Nixon-Meir accord enters its fifth decade, it is fair to ask whether this secret deal is still the best way for

Israel to conduct its nuclear affairs. And if not, what are the alternatives?¶ AMBIGUITY'S HALF-LIFE¶ In Israel, opacity is viewed almost universally as the most prudent response -- indeed, the only possible response -- Israel could have fashioned to its nuclear dilemma. ¶ Despite Israel's victory in its War of Independence, in 1948, Ben-Gurion was haunted by the nightmare that the Arab states, acting together, could overwhelm Israel's conventional forces. Thus, under his leadership, Israel seized the opportunity to acquire a nuclear deterrent starting in the 1950s. However, nuclear weapons were viewed as "a last resort," in case Israel's conventional forces failed, and Ben-Gurion was not prepared politically to openly declare Israel a nuclear state.¶ Today, opacity continues to have almost universal support among members of the Israeli security establishment, who contend that as long as Israel maintains its regional nuclear monopoly, opacity should continue to guide the country's nuclear affairs. Short of the imminence of a new nuclear state in the region, they believe, Israel must do everything possible to maintain the policy and practice of opacity. Indeed, as the Iranian nuclear threat has grown more ominous, the commitment to opacity appears to have been strengthened -- most recently in a 2004 review of Israel's national security strategy headed by Dan Meridor, now the deputy prime minister in charge of intelligence and atomic energy.¶ Senior Israeli officials insist -- always off the record -- that the policy of opacity is not a dogma and its continuity is not an article of faith. However, each review of the policy to date has concluded that there is no viable alternative to opacity and that a public acknowledgment of Israel's nuclear status would pose a major national security risk. Israel therefore enjoys remarkable and unparalleled freedom of action in the nuclear sphere. After a stormy decade in which Israel's nuclear program was a continuous source of irritation and friction between the United States and Israel, the 1969 deal made the United States a silent partner in Israel's policy of opacity. Ever since, Washington has provided Israel with significant diplomatic cover vis-a-vis the NPT regime. Over time, most other countries have followed the United States' lead, accepting Israel's opaque nuclear posture and treating Israel's nuclear program as an exceptional case.¶

C. Military/Security ties

1. Military Assistance

The definition of military assistance is not as agreed upon as one might initially think The Int'l Consortium of Investigative Journalists 14 “A citizen’s guide to understanding U.S. foreign military aid” [http://www.publicintegrity.org/2007/05/22/5772/citizen-s-guide-understanding-us-foreign-military-aid] May 19 // There is no single, accepted definition of the terms “foreign aid” or even “foreign military aid” or “military assistance.” For a government as large as that of the United States, it’s virtually impossible to track all of the various federal agencies’ programs across countries and sectors to arrive at a single number that captures the true amount of U.S. taxpayer dollars going to foreign governments, or even just their militaries.¶ For the “Collateral Damage” investigative study, the Center for Public Integrity created a database that tracks a subset of those financial flows: taxpayer-funded programs or assistance that

81 contribute to a nation’s offensive military capabilities. The database does not include certain large nuclear non-proliferation programs or expenditures such as Foreign Military Sales or Direct Commercial Sales, which are not supported directly with taxpayer dollars. The database is also limited to tracking funds appropriated to either the Defense Department or the State Department. For this report, these are the criteria for “foreign military assistance” or “foreign military aid.”¶ Funds appropriated to the State Department and Defense Department represent the vast majority of unclassified military aid and assistance. This report does not attempt to track smaller overseas programs where funding is appropriated to the Justice Department, Drug Enforcement Agency, or Department of Homeland Security. The public does not have any way of tracking classified programs administered by the U.S. intelligence community. These classified programs likely command large amounts of funding, especially after the 9/11 attacks, and oversight is limited to members of congressional intelligence committees. Programs included in the Center’s database: Coalition Support Funds (CSF): created after 9/11 to reimburse key allied countries for providing assistance to the U.S. in the global war on terror. Regional Defense Counterterrorism Fellowship Program (CTFP): created after 9/11 to give the Defense Department its own funding to train and educate foreign military officers in counterterrorism techniques. In practice, CTFP has evolved into a program very similar to IMET (see definition below). Department of Defense Counterdrug Funding: assists foreign militaries and security forces to combat drug trafficking around the world; also known as Section 1004 appropriations. Economic Support Fund (ESF): provides grants to foreign governments to support economic stability. ESF is often used for non-military purposes, but the grants are commonly viewed as a way to help offset military expenditures. They have historically been earmarked for key security allies of the United States. Israel and Egypt are the two largest recipients of ESF. Foreign Military Financing (FMF): finances foreign governments’ acquisition of U.S. military articles, services and training. International Military Education and Training (IMET): educates foreign military personnel on issues ranging from democracy and human rights to technical military techniques and training on U.S. weapons systems. International Narcotics and Law Enforcement/Andean Counterdrug Initiative (ACI): the primary State Department funding effort for countering drugs, including the large Colombian initiatives. Military Assistance Program (MAP): provides military material and services to foreign countries; the U.S. government is not reimbursed. MAP includes “emergency drawdowns,” which are emergency transfers authorized by the president for weapons, ammunition, parts and military equipment to foreign governments. Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, De-mining and Related Activities (NADR): supports de-mining, anti- terrorism, and nonproliferation training and assistance. Peacekeeping Operations (PKO): supports programs that improve foreign militaries’ peacekeeping capabilities.

Despite their being some level of ambiguity to the term, it is possible to craft a meaningful definition of ‘military assistance.’ Topical affs would decrease the transfer of equipment, funds, training, or leadership - this interpretation excludes commercial transactions Mott 99 William H., “Military Assistance: An Operational Perspective” Greenwood Publishing Group,

82 pg 17 (Google eBook) // Military assistance involves providing equipment, funds, training, or leadership to the military forces of a recipient nation. While donors and recipients have had many reasons for establishing a relationship based on military assistance, it is probably indisputable - and integral to the definition used here - that the essence of military assistance is its role in their foreign policy and military strategies. It is clear that granting an export license to a domestic firm for the commercial sale of military items to a foreign government also involves provision of military items to foreign military forces. Thus, any useful definition of military assistance as policy must include an essential provision that the transfer must be intended and used by the donor government as an instrument of foreign policy or national military strategy. Such a two-part definition excludes purely commercial arms sales, except insofar as a donor government improves the terms of a sales contract for the buyer beyond current market terms. Whether a particular transfer of military items meets these two criteria can only be determined through analyzing the terms of transfer, and ultimately determining who pays and how much.

In the context of Israel, military assistance is often functionally defined as financial or material assistance related to defense issues – includes financing Israel procurement and defense programs, and material support from the US, including weapons systems sharing and use of US supplies. This evidence clearly delineates between defense issues and other issues such as migration and economic recovery that some journalists may conflate as security concerns. Ward 15 Brandon, “U.S. foreign aid to Israel: 2014 congressional report” [http://journalistsresource.org/studies/international/conflicts/u-s-foreign-aid-to-israel-2014-congressional- report#] March 2 // Still, if the past is any judge, U.S.-Israel relations will recover. Since it was founded in 1948, Israel has become the largest single recipient of U.S foreign assistance — a total of $121 billion, almost all of which has been in the form of military assistance. A 2014 report by the Congressional Research Service, “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel,” highlights this historical support for Israel, as well as the current appropriations of defense funding and the key areas of military collaboration. (The report is an update of the 2012 edition, available here.) The 2014 report’s findings include: ● In 2007 the Bush Administration established a 10-year, $30 billion Israeli military aid package for fiscal years 2009 through 2018. The Obama Administration budgets have held true to this commitment, with $3.1 billion allocated for FY2014 and the same amount requested for FY2015. ● This FY2015 foreign military financing (FMF) level would constitute roughly 55% of the United States’ total FMF funding worldwide and would finance 23% to 25% of the overall Israeli defense budget — percentages that clearly demonstrate the U.S. commitment to Israeli security and Israel’s dependence on U.S. support. ● Since 2008 Congress has required the executive branch to submit biennial reports on “maintaining Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge (QME) over neighboring militaries.” The report states that “the rationale for QME is that Israel must rely on better equipment and training to compensate for being much smaller geographically and in terms of population than its potential adversaries.” ● In addition to the $3.1 billion in FY2015 funding, the Obama Administration also requested $96.8 million for joint US-Israeli programs and $175.9 million for Iron Dome, Israel’s short-range anti-

83 rocket system. This funding is provided in regular U.S. defense authorization and appropriations bills and does not formally constitute direct bilateral aid. ● The Iron Dome system has cumulatively received more than $704 million in U.S. financial support, with an additional $235.3 million appropriated in the FY2014 appropriations act and the $175.9 requested for FY2015. The U.S. has also assisted with the development of Israel’s David’s Sling long-range missile defense system, and since 1990, has contributed $2.365 billion to the Arrow Anti- Missile System, just under half of the program’s total cost. ● Up to 26.3% ($815.3 million in FY2014) of U.S. FMF to Israel may be used for procurement from Israeli defense companies, enabling Israel to build a domestic defense industry that ranks in the top 10 of arms suppliers worldwide. No other recipient of U.S. military assistance is granted this benefit. ● U.S. support isn’t limited to monetary gestures either. In 2008, the U.S. began the deployment of the X-Band Radar system on Israeli soil; an operation that remains U.S. owned and is staffed by U.S. troops. Not only is the X-Band system “far more capable of detecting incoming missiles than Israel’s natively produced radar system, but the United States has linked the X-Band to its global network of satellites in the U.S. Defense Support System.” ● The U.S. Defense Department also stores military supplies on Israeli bases in preparation for combat, and if needed, Israeli forces can request use of these supplies from the U.S. government in times of emergency, as happened in the 2006 conflict with Hezbollah. The value of the U.S. materiel stored in Israel increased to $800 million in 2010, with Congressional approval for up to $1.2 billion. ● The United States and Israel announced in 2010 that Israel will use $2.75 billion in FMF grants to purchase 19 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. Originally expected to be delivered in 2015, the aircraft are now projected for a 2016-2017 delivery date. An advanced but extremely expensive aircraft, the F-35 has experienced technical and budgetary troubles for more than a decade. The United States also provides Israel with financial assistance not related to defense. This includes: ● Since 1973 Israel has received annual grants from the State Department’s Migration and Refugee Assistance program to assist with the resettlement of migrants in Israel. Funding levels, which were at $60 million annually as recently as 2003, have decreased in recent years, with FY2014 at $15 million and the Obama Administration requesting $10 million for FY2015. ● In 2003 Israel received $9 billion in loan guarantees over three years for economic recovery. The law authorizing the guarantees stated that they could only be used within Israel’s borders prior to June 5, 1967. The U.S. Department of State later reduced the FY2003 loans by nearly $290 million because Israel continued the construction of settlements in the occupied territories and other actions. In FY2005 the available funds were cut by nearly $800 million, and Israel has not borrowed any funds since that year. ● In 2012 Congress passed and the president signed a bill extending the loan-guarantee program until September 2015. “As of 2014, Israel is still authorized to issue up to $3.8 billion in U.S.-backed bonds. In general, Israel may view U.S. loan guarantees as a ‘last resort’ option, which its treasury could use if unguaranteed local and international bond issuances become too expensive.”

2. Security Assistance/Cooperation

Security assistance/cooperation is arguably broader than military assistance. The DoD defines security cooperation as “combined exercises, appointment of attaches and liaison officers, military education and training exchanges, arms sales, over flight privileges , basing agreements, visits of senior defense

84 officials, and counter-proliferation programs.” Security assistance is a subset of security cooperation and

“refers specifically to military training and equipment that is granted, sold or leased to foreign nations to further US foreign policy” Bartles 10 – FMSO-JRIC Analyst *graph recreated because of copy and paste failures Charles K., “Understanding Security Cooperation: A Comparison of the US and Russian System’s of Security Cooperation” [http://fmso.leavenworth.army.mil/documents/understanding-security- cooperation.pdf] September //

US Definition : Security Assistance is a component of a broader concept of Security Cooperation .

Security Cooperation covers a variety of interactions including : combined exercises, appointment of attaches and liaison officers, military education and training exchanges, arms sales, over flight privileges , basing agreements, visits of senior defense officials, and counter - proliferation programs. The term Security Assistance refers specifically to military training and equipment that is granted, so ld or leased to foreign nations to further US foreign policy. 2 ¶ Russian Definition : Russia uses a term similar to the US Security Assistance definition . The Russian term for Security Assistance is

Military - Technical Cooperation (MTC). Mikhail Dmitriyev, former director of the Federal Service for

Military and Te chnical Cooperation defines Military - Technical Cooperation as: In principle, military and technical cooperation is a system of interstate relations which involves supplying foreign countries with military weapons, equipment and technology, providing military and technical services, and investing in the field. At the s ame time, arms trade and the entire military and technical cooperation system is a Russian foreign policy instrument designed to mark Russia's presence in a region and influence a region's balance of forces.¶ There is little difference between the US Definition of Security Assistanc e and the

Russian definition of Military - Technical Cooperation. The terms “ Security Assistance ” and “ Military -

Technical Cooperation ” are practically identical, and are defined as any military/security related activity that involves training, te chnology transfer, military financing, equipment servicing , and nonproliferation .¶

Objectives of US/Russian Security Assistance Programs¶ Security A ssistance programs are not altruistic plans designed for one nation to simply augment the security of another. Security Assistance almost always serves to the advantage of both giver and receiver. For example i n Central Asia, receiving nations have gained high rents for basing privileges, skill sets, access to equipment and spare parts. Giving nations have received basing privileges, income from military sales and overflight privileges. Both the

United States and Russia have reported th eir respective Security Assistance goals .¶ US Goals¶ 1) To ensure that our military forces can continue to enjoy technological advantages over potential adversaries.

2) To help allies and friends deter or defend themselves against aggression, while pr omoting interoperability with US forces when combined operations are required. 3) To promote regional stabili ty in areas critical to U.S. interests, while preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their missile delivery systems. 4) To promote peaceful conflict resolution and arms control and human rights . 5) To enhance the ability of the U S defense industrial base to meet defense requirements and maintain long - term military technological superiority at lower costs. 4¶ Security Assistance goals of

Russia¶ 1) S trengthen Russia’s military - political positions in various regions of the world , whic h in turn, helps to promote Russia n dominance 2) R aise hard currency to address Russia’s multiple economic needs, defense conversion projects, defense production, destruction and disposal of weapons, and restructuring of the defense industries . 3) M aintain Russia’s export potential regarding conventional weapons and military hardware at a level equ ivalent or greater then the United States. 4) D evelop a scientific and experimental basis for the defense industries, at multiple scientific research and developm ent institutions

85 throughout Russia 5) P rovide social support for the person ne l of industrial plants, institutions, and organizations that develop and produce weapons, military and special hardware, and other items . 5¶ The objectives of Security Assistance for the United States and Russia are remarkably similar. Both states actively promote Se curity Assistance to d evelop alliances, promote interoperability (mutual doctrine), and support their respective Military - Industrial Complex. 6¶ US Structure¶ US Security assistance is provided under three main laws , the Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) of 1961, the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) of 1976, and the annual appropriations acts for Foreign Operations, Export Financing and

Related Programs. Additional Security Assistance guidance is found in Executive Order 11958 . This Executive Order allocates authority and responsibility for Security Assistance principally to the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of State. The Secretary of Defense fur ther delegates authority ( DoD

Directive 5105.65 ) to the Undersecretary of Defense, Polic y (USD(P)) and to the Director of the D efense

S ecurity C ooperation A gency (DSCA). 7¶ The US considers almost any US activity that supports a foreign defense establishment as Security Assistance . Thirteen of the most common programs are shown in figure 1¶ Major Types of Security Assistance Programs

Type of Security Assistance Program Administered by

Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Department of Defense

Foreign Military Department of Construction Services Defense (FMCS)

Foreign Military Sales Credit (FMSCR) Department of Defense

Leases Department of Defense

Military Assistance Program (MAP) Department of Defense

International Military Education and Training Department of (IMET) Defense

Drawdown Department of Defense

Economic Support Fund Department of State

Peace Keeping Operations (PKO) Department of State

International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement (INCLE) Department of State

86 Nonproliferation, Anti-Terrorism, Demining, and Related Programs Department of State (NADR)

Commercial Export Sales Licensed Under the Arms Export Control Act Department of State (AECA) of 1976, as amended (reference (c))

Export Control and Related Border Security Assistance (EXBS) Department of State Figure 1.

Although a majority of Security Assistance programs are administered by the Department of Defense, ultimately all are controlled under the auspice of the Department of State . The US views Security

Assistance as a part of the larger framework for US foreign assistance. 9

In the context of the controversy literature base, security assistance/cooperation is often considered to be broader than just military aid. The section of this evidence was included under the discussion of the ‘relationship’ stem, but provides a good description of topical security assistance/cooperation affirmatives. Zanotti 15 – specialist in Middle Eastern affairs @ the Congressional Research Service Jim, “Israel: Background and U.S. Relations” [https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33476.pdf] February 27 //

Security Cooperation ¶ Background ¶ Strong bilateral relations have fueled and reinforced significant U.S.-Israel cooperation on defense, including military aid, arms sales, joint exercises, and information sharing. It has also included periodic U.S.-Israel governmental and industrial cooperation in developing military technology. ¶ ¶ U.S. military aid has helped transform Israel’s armed forces into one of the most technologically sophisticated militaries in the world. This aid for Israel has been designed to maintain Israel’s “qualitative military edge” (QME) over neighboring militaries, since Israel must rely on better equipment and training to compensate for a manpower deficit in any potential regional conflict.

U.S. military aid, a portion of which may be spent on procurement from Israeli defense companies, also has helped Israel build a domestic defense industry, and Israel in turn ranks as one of the top 10 exporters of arms worldwide. ¶ ¶ On November 30, 1981, the United States and Israel signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) establishing a framework for consultation and cooperation to enhance the national security of both countries. In 1983, the two sides formed a Joint Political Military Group (JPMG) to implement provisions of the MOU. Joint air and sea military exercises began in 1984, and the United

States has constructed facilities to stockpile military equipment in Israel. In 1987, Israel was designated a

“major non-NATO ally” by the Reagan Administration, and in 1996, under the terms of Section 517 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, Congress codified this status, affording Israel preferential treatment in bidding for U.S. defense contracts and expanding its access to weapons systems at lower prices. In 2001, an annual interagency strategic dialogue, including representatives of diplomatic, defense, and intelligence establishments, was created to discuss long-term issues. This dialogue was halted in 2003 over bilateral tensions related to Israeli arms sales to China (see “Israeli Arms Sales to

Other Countries” below), but resumed in 2005.¶ ¶ On May 6, 1986, Israel and the United States signed an

MOU—the contents of which are classified—for Israeli participation in the Strategic Defense Initiative

(SDI/“Star Wars”), under which U.S.-Israel co-development of the Arrow ball istic missile defense

87 system has proceeded, as discussed below. In 1998, another U.S.-Israel MOU referred to growing regional threats from ballistic missiles. This MOU said that “In the event of such a threat, the United

States Government would consult promptly with the Government of Israel with respect to what support, diplomatic or otherwise, or assistance, it can lend to Israel.” Security cooperation extends to cooperation in countering terrorism. The Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007 (P.L.

110-53, enacted on August 3, 2007) recognizes Israel as a potential research partner for the Department of Homeland Security.¶ ¶ Recent U.S. Legislation¶ ¶ Congress has recently passed two items of legislation with several provisions encouraging continued and expanded U.S.-Israel cooperation in a number of areas.¶ ¶ The U.S.-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act (P.L. 112-150), which was enacted in July

2012, contains nonbinding “sense of Congress” language focusing largely on several possible avenues of cooperation discussed below. These include providing Excess Defense Articles; boosting operational, intelligence, and political-military coordination; expediting specific types of arms sales (such as F-35 fighter aircraft, refueling tankers, and “bunker buster” munitions); and additional aid for U.S.-Israel cooperative missile defense programs. ¶ The U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act (P.L. 113-296) was enacted in December 2014, after having been revised from earlier 2013 House and Sena te versions. It designated Israel as a “major strategic partner” of the United States—a designation whose meaning has not been further defined in U.S. law or by the executive branch. The act contains various other provisions encouraging continued and expanded U.S.-Israel cooperation in a number of areas, such as those ¶ • extending the war reserves stockpile authority 115 for Israel through FY2015;¶ • requiring an executive branch report to Congress on the “feasibility and advisability of expanding United States-Israeli cooperation on cyber issues”;¶ • seeking to have the executive branch give Israel the same Strategic Trade Authorization (STA) licensing exception for certain munitions and dual-use items that 36 other countries currently have; 116¶ • authorizing cooperative research pilot programs between Israel and the Department of Homeland Security; and¶ • amending the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (42 U.S.C. §17337(a)) in a number of ways to facilitate U.S.-Israel energy cooperation, including by adding verbiage stating that “United States-Israel energy cooperation and the development of natural resources by Israel are in the strategic interest of the United States.”¶ P.L. 113-296 further states that Israel should be designated a U.S. visa waiver program country when it satisfies—and as long as it continues to satisfy— the requirements for inclusion. 117¶ Preserving Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge (QME)¶ Since the late 1970s, successive Administrations have argued that U.S. arms sales are an important mechanism for addressing the security concerns of Israel and other regional countries. During this period, some Members of Congress have argued that sales of sophisticated weaponry to Arab countries may erode Israel’s QME over its neighbors. However, successive Administrations have maintained that Arab count ries are too dependent on U.S. training, spare parts, and support to be in a position to use sophisticated U.S.-made arms against the United States, Israel, or any other U.S. ally in a sust ained campaign. Arab critics routinely charge that Israeli officials exaggerate the threat they pose. Ironically, the threat of a nuclear- armed Iran, though it has partially aligned Israeli and Sunni Arab interests in deterring a shared rival, may be exacerbating Israeli fears of a deteriorated QME, as Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states dramatically increase defense procurements from U.S. and other foreign suppliers.¶ In 2008, Congress enacted legislation requiring that any proposed U.S. arms sale to “any country in the Middle East other than Israel” must include a notification to Congress with a “determination that the sale or export of such would not adversely affect Israel’s qualitative military edge over military threats to Israel.” 118 In parallel with this legal requirement, U.S. and Israeli officials continually signal their shar ed understanding of the U.S. commitment to maintaining Israel’s QME. However, the codified definition focuses on preventing arms

88 sales to potential regional Israeli adversaries based on a calculation of conventional military threats. It is unclear whether calls for revisiting this definition or rethinking its implementation may arise in light of the evolving nature of potential regional threats to Israel’s security. ¶ What might constitute a legally defined adverse effect to QME is not clarified in U.S. legislation. After the passage of the 2008 legislation, a bilateral QME working group was created allowing Israel to argue its case against proposed

U.S. arms sales in the region. 119 Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote that, in 2010, the Obama Administration addressed concerns that Israel’s leaders had about the possible effect on QME of a large U.S. sale of F-15 aircraft to Saudi Arabia by agreeing to sell Israel additional F-35 aircraft. 120¶ The U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act (P.L. 113-296) enacted in December 2014 requires more frequent QME assessments and executive-legislative consultations. It also requires that future QME determinations include evaluations of how potential arms sales would change the regional balance and interact with Israeli military capabilities, while also identifying measures Israel may need to take in response to the potential sales, and assurances the United States has made to Israel or has been requested to make by Israel in connection with the potential sales. In February 2015, the members of the Senate Armed Services Committee sent letters to the Secretaries of Defense and State acknowledging the U.S. commitment to Israel’s QME while urging them to expeditiously address Jordanian requests for arms and equipment related to coalition efforts against the Islamic State organization. 121¶ However, absent legislative clarification, the legality of future U.S. arms sales to other regional aid recipients, partners, or allies— including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq— could become increasingly subject to challenge both by Israeli officials feeling heightened sensitivity to regional threats and by sympathetic

U.S. policymakers. ¶ U.S. Security Guarantees? ¶ Although the United States and Israel do not have a mutual defense treaty or agreement that provides formal U.S. security guarantees, 122 successive Administrations have either stated or implied that the United States would help provide for Israel’s defense in the context of discussing specific threats, such as from Iran. 123 Both houses of Congress routinely intr oduce and pass resolutions supporting Israel’s right to defend itself and U.S. efforts to bolster Israel’s capacity for self-defense. Some resolutions have included language that could imply support for more active U.S. measures to defend Israel. For example, H.Res. 523 and H.Con.Res. 21, both of which overwhelmingly passed the House (in 2005 and 2007, respectively) and addressed a possible Iranian threat, also both reasserted the “commitment of the United States to defend the right of Israel to exist as a free and democratic state.” 124 Additionally, S.Res. 65, which the Senate passed in May 2013, reasserted a U.S. commitment to “ensuring the existence, survival, and security” of Israel and stated that the United States should provide “diplomatic, military, and economic support to the Government of Israel in its defense of its territory, people, and existence” if Israel is “compelled to take military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran’s nuclear weapons program.” ¶ A former Israeli deputy national security advisor has written about potential benefits and drawbacks for Israel of more formal U.S. security guarantees for Israel, including a possible “nuclear umbrella.” A 2006 article that this former official co- authored on a potential Iranian threat said: ¶ Such an arrangement would seem to be a “no-brainer” for Israel. Yet Jerusalem might in fact be quite reluctant to conclude one. This, for three primary reasons, each deeply entrenched in Israel’s national security thinking. First, it would fear a loss of freedom of action, due to the contractual requirement to consult on the means of addressing the threat. Second, it would be concerned lest the US demand that Israel divulge and even forego its independent capabilities. And third, it might worry that the US would not live up to its nuclear commitments, much as NATO allies feared during the Cold War. 125¶ Perhaps at least partly due to some of the reasons this former Israeli official outlines, U.S. Administrations and Congress have supported Israel ’s ability to defend itself by

89 embracing and even codifying the concept of helping maintain Israel’s QME over regional threats, as discussed above.¶ U.S. Aid and Arms Sales to Israel¶ Specific figures and comprehensive detail regarding various aspects of U.S. aid and arms sales to Israel are discussed in CRS Report RL33222, U.S. Foreign

Aid to Israel , by Jeremy M. Sharp.¶ This includes information on conditions that generally allow Israel to use its military aid earlier and more flexibly than other countries. ¶ Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. Since 1976, Israel has generally been the largest annual recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, but has been occasionally supplanted since 2004 by Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 1985, the United States has provided approximately $3 billion in grants annually to

Israel. In the past, Israel received significant economic assistance, but now almost all U. S. bilateral aid to Israel is in the form of Foreign Military Financing (FMF). U.S. FMF to Israel represents approximately one half of total FMF and 20% of Israel’s defense budget. 126 The remaining four years of a 10-year bilateral memorandum of understanding commit the United States to $3.1 billion annually from FY2015 to FY2018, subject to congressional appropriations. Israel uses approximately 75% of its FMF to purchase arms from the United States, in addition to receiving U.S. Excess Defense Articles (EDA). In February 2015, Israel announced that it had a reached agreement with U.S.-based company Lockheed Martin to purchase 14 F-35 (Lightning II) next-generation fighter aircraft, which would add to the 19 it agreed to purchase in 2010. The 2015 agreement includes an option to purchase an additional 17. 127¶ In late July 2014, during the Israel-Gaza conflict, a reported U.S. sale to Israel of 120 mm tank rounds and 40 mm illumination rounds for grenade launchers from the War Reserves Stock Allies-Israel (WRSA-I) program 128 reportedly led Obama Administration officials to temporarily delay at least one arms transfer to Israel—of Hellfire missiles—because of issues apparently related to centralization of U.S. interagency decision making. 129¶ The United States also generally provides some annual American Schools and Hospitals Abroad (ASHA) funding and funding to Israel for migration assistance. Loan guarantees, arguably a form of indirect aid, also remain available to Israel through FY2015 under the U.S.-Israel

Enhanced Security Cooperation Act (P.L. 112-150).¶ Iron Dome and Missile Defense Cooperation¶ Congress routinely provides hundreds of millions of dollars in additional annual assistance for Israel’s

Iron Dome anti-rocket system 130 and joint U.S.-Israel missile defense programs such as Arrow and David’s Sling. During the summer 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, Secretary of Defense Hagel sent a letter to congressional leaders advising them that—due to the conflict—Israel had requested $225 million in funding for Iron Dome on top of the $350.972 million already being contemplated by Congress for

FY2015, and asking for Congress to support this request and to exempt it from requirements related to

U.S. co-production. 131 This funding request was granted by Congress in August via the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Resolution, 2014 (P.L. 113-145). Various media outlets in July 2014 picked up a security blog’s claim 132 that hackers with alleged links to China may have sought to breach three Israeli defense companies’ computer networks in connection with Iron Dome and the Arrow III program, though two of the supposedly targeted defense companies reportedly indicated that no such incidents had compromised sensitive information. 133¶ For more information on Iron Dome, see CRS Report IN10158,

Israel’s Iron Dome Anti-Rocket System: U.S. Assistance and Coproduction , by Jeremy M. Sharp

D. Alternative areas to explore

90 1. Sanctions We analyzed a number of potential wording options in our efforts to find an appropriate phrase that both forces the affirmative to defend meaningful policy changes while allowing cases to access strong solvency evidence. “Pressure” and its variants remains the term that comes closest to our vision of a topic, but there are other terms that we believe should be considered, either as wording options or plan mechanisms that function as a subset of various forms of pressure. One such option is “sanctions”. Although one will not find very many solvency advocates who use the term “sanctions” to describe recommended American policy changes toward Israel, several recommended actions referenced above could be fairly categorized as examples of “sanctions.” This section provides an initial assessment of the meaning and scope of sanctions as a term of art describing policies utilized by states and multilateral institutions to induce changes in the conduct by other states.

“Pressure” will almost certainly permit the affirmative to enact sanctions. The term “sanctions” itself may be too limiting to use alone in the resolutional slate, since there are very narrow interpretations that would potentially exclude many of the stronger affirmative plan mechanisms discussed earlier in this paper. Although sanctions are often thought of in purely economic terms, they cover a wide range of potential penalties that are either imposed upon or threatened against a target state, including economic, political (diplomatic), and cultural measures. Margaret P. Doxey, “Sanctions,” THE OXFORD COMPANION TO POLITICS OF THE WORLD 2nd Ed., ed. J.Krieger, 2004, Oxford Reference. Sanctions in relations between states are penalties threatened or imposed on a target as a consequence of its anticipated or actual failure to observe international standards or obligations. They are intended to influence the target's foreign or domestic policy and may be applied unilaterally by individual governments or multilaterally by governments acting in informal concert or within the framework of international organizations. Sanctions may also be initiated by state, provincial, or municipal authorities and promoted by non-governmental organizations and other citizen-based groups. The target is usually a government, but may also be an entity seeking governmental status. A wide range of possible measures can be applied. Economic sanctions include import and export embargoes and prohibiting aid, investment, and transportation links. Target assets can be frozen and transfers of funds blocked. Political sanctions reduce diplomatic links and deny representation and membership in international organizations. Cultural sanctions limit scientific, educational, and sports contacts.

Broadly viewed, “sanctions” fit within the context of our envisioned topic. Richard N. Haass, currently the head of the Council on Foreign Relations and a career diplomat, defines them as penalties designed to alter the target government’s behavior: Richard N. Haass, diplomat and scholar, “Economic Sanctions: Too Much of a Bad Thing,” POLICY BRIEF n. 34, Brookings Institution, 6—98, http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/1998/06/sanctions- haass, accessed 4-23-15. NOTE: article is critical of sanctions as a foreign policy instrument Sanctions—defined as mostly economic but also political and military penalties introduced to alter political and/or military behavior—are employed by the United States to discourage the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, bolster human rights, end terrorism, thwart drug trafficking, discourage armed aggression, promote market access, protect the environment, and replace governments.

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Griffiths and O’Callaghan concur, arguing that sanctions are designed to induce behavior changes and are not intended to be punitive: Martin Griffiths and Terry O’Callaghan, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: KEY CONCEPTS, 2002, New York: Routledge, p. 286. Sanctions are meant to bring about a change of behaviour – they are not supposed to represent a form of punishment or retribution. When sanctions were imposed on Iraq to induce its withdrawal from occupied Kuwait, sceptics pointed out that many other invasions and occupations had not resulted in sanctions. Israel, Morocco, Turkey, and Indonesia, for example, all avoided sanctions when they invaded neighbours and occupied territory, even though they had been censured by the Security Council and called upon to withdraw

Sanctions are important diplomatic tools, and although they may seem punitive by nature, they can also be conceptualized as part of a broader bargaining framework designed to encourage changes in state behavior by changing the cost/benefit calculation associated with pursuing a particular policy. David Cortright, “Sanctions, Economic,” THE OXFORD INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PEACE, ed. N.J.Young, 2010, Oxford Reference. An alternative to the punitive use of sanctions is the bargaining model. In this approach, sanctions are considered a form of persuasion, a tool for encouraging targeted regimes to reevaluate the costs and benefits of their policy options. Economic statecraft is employed to impose costs for defiance and benefits for compliance. Pressures are eased as well as imposed. Partial or full compliance is met by reciprocal steps, such as easing or lifting sanctions. This approach places sanctions within the broader context of diplomacy. It combines positive and negative measures in a strategy of persuasion, not punishment. It views the implementation of sanctions not as a policy unto itself, but as part of a continuum of policy instruments, both positive and negative, designed to encourage political compromise and bring about a negotiated settlement. The impact of sanctions is determined not by an objective measure of economic pain but by the subjective response of targeted political leaders, often expressed as a willingness to negotiate. Sanctions work when the desire for avoiding or lifting coercive pressure serves as an inducement for compliance and negotiation. Incentives and sanctions are often employed together and, in combination, form the very essence of diplomacy. Economic tools of persuasion and pressure have the potential to serve as effective means of resolving international conflict and promoting peaceful political relations. Empirical studies have found that positive incentives are more successful than negative sanctions and that the combination of incentives and sanctions is more effective than the use of either incentives or sanctions alone. It is the combination of sticks and carrots, sanctions and incentives, that is most effective in shaping the policy preferences of targeted regimes.

We should note that this evidence draws a distinction between sanctions and (positive) incentives. Scholars differ on whether there is any value in distinguishing between “negative” and “positive” inducements.18

18 Some additional potential sources include: DICTIONARY OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES, “Sanctions,” ed. C.Calhoun, 2002, Oxford Reference.

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Other definitions support the interpretation that sanctions are by nature punitive in nature. The following World Encyclopedia entry supports this understanding, and also notes that sanctions can entail very harsh measures. WORLD ENCYCLOPEDIA, “Sanctions,” 2014, Oxford Reference. Sanctions Punitive action taken by one or more states against another that can include the cessation of trade, severing of diplomatic relations, the use of a blockade, and the breaking of cultural and sporting contacts.

Another typology is found in the previously cited New Oxford Companion to Law, which suggests that there are historically three broad categories of sanctions (economic, diplomatic, military, with examples), and suggests that “smart” sanctions are emerging as a fourth category: Markus Gehring, “Sanctions in International Law,” THE NEW OXFORD COMPANION TO LAW, ed. P.Cane & J.Conaghan, 2009, Oxford Reference. Sanctions in general can take many forms—diplomatic, economic, or even military. The most common are economic sanctions. For example, the UN Security Council may adopt a weapons or even a trade embargo against a state that endangers peace and security. Countries may also suspend cooperation with a third country or cease development aid as a form of economic sanction. The World Trade Organization (‘WTO’) has a specific mechanism for trade sanctions. These can only be authorized after the dispute settlement procedure has been followed and the WTO member which ultimately lost its case has failed to implement the decision. Such trade sanctions, called ‘suspension of concessions’, are often adopted as punitive tariffs or even import bans. Diplomatic sanctions are usually enacted as declarations against personae non gratae, ie persons declared not welcome to enter the territory of another state. They can also take the form of expulsion from the territory, or even the cutting of consular or diplomatic ties and suspension of official visits and conferences. Official boycotts of sport and cultural events also fall in this category. The legal use of such measures has long been established in customary international law and more recently in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Even the full suspension of diplomatic or consular relations does not mean that the legal relationship established through a treaty ceases to exist, unless such relations are necessary for the application of the Treaty.

Kimberly Ann Elliott, Center for Global Development, “Carrots and Sticks: The Role of Economic Incentives in American Foreign Policy,” Paper for the Tobin Project National Security Conference, 2010, http://www.tobinproject.org/sites/tobinproject.org/files/assets/Elliott_Carrots%26Sticks.pdf, accessed 4-24-15. M. Shane Smith, Graduate Student, Political Science, University of Colorado, Boulder and Research Assistant, Conflict Research Consortium, “Incentives,” Beyond Intractability, 4—04, http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/incentives, accessed 4-24-15. Byungwon Woo, Department of Political Science, Oakland University and Daniel Verdier, Department of Political Science, Ohio State University, “Sanctions, Rewards and Regime Types,” no date (citations as late as 2007), p. 2-3, https://polisci.osu.edu/sites/polisci.osu.edu/files/Sanctions,%20rewards%20and%20regime%20type.pdf, accessed 4- 24-15. Whether a reward conditioned changing a particular policy constitutes “pressure” will likely be an important question in many topicality debates.

93 There is also a range of military sanctions, from weapons embargoes, ie declarations that certain goods or weapons cannot be sold to certain countries, to suspension of military cooperation. Finally, even military intervention authorized by the Security Council can be seen as a form of military sanction. Recently a new category of sanctions has been created. So‐called ‘smart sanctions’ attempt to target the actors responsible for breaches of obligations rather than the general population, which often suffers from the imposition of sanctions, or neighbouring countries, which are often indirectly affected by economic sanctions. As such, flight and travel bans, individual restrictions of entry and, especially, financial sanctions have become more common. In response to the development of such targeted sanctions, it may be possible (through the UN regime on the financing of terrorism) for private persons who find their names and other details on a list of individuals or organizations suspected of financing terrorism, legally to challenge sanctions on the ground that they have been wrongly identified as contributing financially or otherwise to terrorism.

Economic sanctions generally entail restrictions on imports/exports or financial transactions: A DICTIONARY OF BUSINESS AND MANAGEMENT, “Economic Sanctions,” 5th Ed., ed. J.Law, 2009, Oxford Reference. Action taken by one country or group of countries to harm the economic interest of another country or group of countries, usually to bring about pressure for social or political change. Sanctions normally take the form of restrictions on imports or exports, or on financial transactions. They may be applied to specific items or they may be comprehensive trade bans. There is considerable disagreement over their effectiveness. Critics point out that they are easily evaded and often inflict more pain on those they are designed to help than on the governments they are meant to influence. They can also harm the country that imposes sanctions, through the loss of export markets or raw material supplies. In addition the target country may impose retaliatory sanctions. See also embargo.

Another definition suggests that economic sanctions are the withdrawal of customary economic relations. The following quote also suggests that several potential plan mechanisms, including a reduction in aid, could be considered “smart” versions of economic sanctions: Jonathan Masters, deputy editor, “What Are Economic Sanctions,” CFR BACKGROUNDERS, Council on Foreign Relations, 4—8—15, http://www.cfr.org/sanctions/economic-sanctions/p36259, accessed 4- 22-15. Governments and multinational bodies impose economic sanctions to try to alter the strategic decisions of state and non-state actors that threaten their interests or violate international norms of behavior. Critics say sanctions are often poorly conceived and rarely successful in changing a target’s conduct, while supporters contend they have become more effective in recent years and remain an essential foreign policy tool. Sanctions have become the defining feature of the Western response to several geopolitical challenges, including Iran’s nuclear program and Russia’s intervention in Ukraine. What are economic sanctions? Economic sanctions are defined as the withdrawal of customary trade and financial relations for foreign and security policy purposes. They may be comprehensive, prohibiting commercial activity with regard to an entire country, like the longstanding U.S. embargo of Cuba, or they may be targeted, blocking transactions of and with particular businesses, groups, or individuals. Since 9/11, there has been a pronounced shift toward targeted or so-called “smart” sanctions, which aim to minimize the suffering of innocent civilians. Sanctions take a variety of forms, including travel bans,

94 asset freezes, arms embargoes, capital restraints, foreign aid reductions, and trade restrictions. (General export controls, which are not reactive by nature, are often excluded from sanctions discussions.)

Economic sanctions are designed to achieve a wide variety of ends. This card from Cortwright lists some potential objectives of previous sanctions, while distinguishing the use of economic sanctions from military action or “mere diplomatic remonstrance.” David Cortright, “Sanctions, Economic,” THE OXFORD INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PEACE, ed. N.J.Young, 2010, Oxford Reference. Economic sanctions have become an increasingly common tool of international policy making. Sanctions have been utilized to achieve a broad range of foreign policy purposes: to promote democracy and human rights, to condemn or prevent military aggression, to curb terrorism and weapons proliferation, and to encourage military demobilization and postconflict reconstruction. The use of sanctions gives governments an option for responding forcefully to international security threats or human rights abuse without incurring the costs and risks of war. They are a more forceful alternative to mere diplomatic remonstrance. In the toolkit of international policy making, sanctions stand as on a continuum with war and words as the two ends of the spectrum.

Sanctions regimes have tended to become narrower in the last two decades. Variously described as “targeted” or “smart” sanctions, many contemporary policies try to focus on the individuals and materials responsible for the conduct that the sanctioning body finds objectionable. David Cortright, “Sanctions, Economic,” THE OXFORD INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PEACE, ed. N.J.Young, 2010, Oxford Reference. Since the 1990s, the dominant trend has been away from general trade sanctions that cause humanitarian hardships toward the use of targeted and selective measures. Targeted sanctions (also known as “smart sanctions”) apply pressure on decision-making elites, while seeking to avoid unintended consequences for third parties and vulnerable populations. Targeted sanctions are designed to deny wrongdoers the resources that are needed to carry out objectionable policies. Targeted measures are applied not only against states but also against designated officials and entities, as well as against nonstate actors. Targeted sanctions include the following: • Arms embargoes, which ban the supply of weapons, military-related dual-use technology, and other forms of military assistance • Financial sanctions, which freeze the assets of and block financial transactions with designated individuals and entities or which subject specific banks to restrictions • Travel sanctions, which ban the travel of designated individuals or prohibit travel on designated airlines or to targeted regimes • Commodity sanctions, which prohibit imports or exports of commodities such as diamonds, oil, timber, and coltan, and • Diplomatic sanctions, which deny participation in international events or organizations or withdraw the diplomatic privileges of designated individuals or regimes. The increased imposition of targeted sanctions has resulted in greater reliance on lists of designated individuals and entities. Names placed on such lists are subject to financial assets freezes and travel bans. The most extensive use of the listing process has been in the case of Security Council sanctions against al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Hundreds of individuals and entities have been designated as members or supporters of those banned organizations. Target lists have generated controversy because of the lack of

95 due process in designating names for such lists and the absence of adequate legal procedures for removing wrongly designated individuals and entities. Court challenges in Europe have produced judicial rulings critical of listing and delisting procedures.

A concern that resolution framers should consider is that some narrowing interpretations of sanctions claim that they must be multilateral in nature, complicating the ability of a U.S.-focused resolution to access sanctions as an affirmative plan mechanism. For example, an entry in the New Oxford Companion to Law argues that sanctions most appropriately framed as multilateral actions in response to an illegal act by the target government, and that sanctions originate within the United Nations: Markus Gehring, “Sanctions in International Law,” THE NEW OXFORD COMPANION TO LAW, ed. P.Cane & J.Conaghan, 2009, Oxford Reference. The lack of enforcement of international law is sometimes perceived as its greatest failure. This view neglects the myriad of enforcement possibilities though countermeasures and sanctions. A countermeasure is any legal reaction by a single state to a previous violation of an international obligation owed to that state. Sanctions, on the other hand, are multilateral reactions to a violation of an obligation owed to the international community as a whole or as help for the injured state. In common parlance, unilateral countermeasures are increasingly, but inaccurately, referred to as sanctions. International organizations, especially the United Nations, often adopt sanctions. However, other general and specific collaborations of states have occurred for the purposes of adopting sanctions or making them more efficient. The main legal requirement is that sanctions, just like countermeasures, have to be proportionate to the illegal act. As such, depending on the circumstances, it may be disproportionate to sanction a treaty violation with the complete suspension of diplomatic relations with that country. The UN administers most sanctions today. Historically, only exclusion from the UN for the violation of Charter principles and suspension of voting rights could properly be considered sanctions. By contrast, it was not clear if other enforcement measures (taken under Chapter VII of the UN Charter) were sanctions, ie reactions to wrongful acts, or whether they could be adopted if the Security Council considered a situation to constitute a threat to peace and security without any violation of an international obligation. Regardless of how this debate is decided (and many commentators would probably not insist that the Security Council would have to identify the specific breach of an obligation in order to adopt Chapter VII measures) these measures are commonly known as sanctions.

There are some good arguments for why unilateral actions should be considered “sanctions.” First, the above evidence concedes that common usage covers such measures, boosting literature-based justifications for unilateral measures. Second, several experts include unilateral penalties in their analysis of sanctions. David Cortright, who in other work has engaged in extensive work defining sanctions and assessing their effectiveness, notes that sanctions can be either unilateral or multilateral in nature (note that this evidence also talks about sanctions in the context of “pressure”): David Cortright, “Sanctions, Economic,” THE OXFORD INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PEACE, ed. N.J.Young, 2010, Oxford Reference. Although economic sanctions are often considered an alternative to war, some governments have employed them as a prelude to military conflict. Policy makers may impose sanctions as part of a checklist of actions that build mounting pressure against a regime, as a means of exhausting nonmilitary options and satisfying the “last resort” argument for going to war. This was the case with U.S. policy toward Iraq in 1990–1991 and again in 2002–2003. Governments and international organizations

96 imposing sanctions may have multiple and sometimes contending objectives that make conflict resolution efforts more difficult. Sanctions can be unilateral—imposed by a single government—or multilateral—imposed by a regional organization such as the European Union or by the United Nations Security Council. The United States has imposed unilateral sanctions frequently, most prominently against Cuba, which has been under a comprehensive U.S. trade embargo since the early 1960s. Unilateral measures are rarely effective, however, because the targeted regime can trade with suppliers in other countries and obtain the goods and services denied by the unilateral actor. With the growth of international trade and increasing globalization in recent decades, the effectiveness of unilateral sanctions has declined further. Multilateral measures are more likely to be effective, provided they have full international support and are effectively monitored and enforced.

Griffiths and O’Callaghan concur, although they also question the effectiveness of unilateral sanctions: Martin Griffiths and Terry O’Callaghan, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: KEY CONCEPTS, 2002, New York: Routledge, p. 285. Sanctions can be imposed unilaterally or multilaterally. Unilateral sanctions always have some impact, both on the state that imposes them and on the target country. In recent years US sanctions have clearly weakened the economies of Cuba and Iraq, slowed investment in Libya and Iran, and hurt Pakistan, which used to receive substantial US economic and military assistance. But it is also important to contemplate the side effects of unilateral sanctions. These consequences transcend lost exports, profits, and jobs. In the case of Cuba, US sanctions may have made it easier for the Castro regime to maintain control over the Cuban economy and society. There and elsewhere (including Iraq), American sanctions have been used to justify repression and excuse incompetence. Indeed, sanctions may have had the perverse effect of weakening civilian rule in Pakistan and increasing its focus on nuclear weaponry

2. Economics/Trade

When we started the topic-writing process, we started from the assumption that the resolution should include ‘economic assistance’ ‘trade’ or some other non-military form of financial assistance. However, upon research, we concluded that would not produce a viable topic because US economic assistance is limited and bilateral ‘Economic Support Funds’ were phased out in FY2008: Sharp 14 - Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs @ Congressional Research Service (Jeremy, “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel,” CRS Report RL33222, April 11, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf) For many years, U.S. economic aid helped subsidize a lackluster Israeli economy, but since the rapid expansion of Israel’s high-tech sector and overall economy in the 1990s (sparked partially by U.S.-Israeli scientific cooperation), Israel has been considered a fully industrialized nation. Consequently, Israel and the United States agreed to gradually phase out economic grant aid to Israel. In FY2008, Israel stopped receiving bilateral Economic Support Fund (ESF) grants. It had been a large-scale recipient of grant ESF assistance since 1971.

Answers to likely criticisms

1. Too timely?

97 A predictable objection to a topic about the Middle East might be that the situation is too unpredictable and fluid to debate for a whole year. Indeed, this was a common criticism of the 2011-2012 democracy assistance topic. Although this criticism makes sense in the context of debating countries in the midst of political transitions, it doesn’t really apply to the US-Israel relationship, which has had robust bipartisan backing in the United States for decades. Fortunately, we think an Israel topic captures all the benefits of debating a dynamic region while guaranteeing that affirmatives will make significant breaks from status quo policy.

Despite Obama’s comments indicating he would “reassess” the relationship, there is little chance of a radical change in US-Israel policy in the near-term: Miller, 3-23-‘15 Aaron David Miller is a vice president at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars and most recently the author of “The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President.” Mar 23, 2015, Wall Street Journal, “Is a U.S.-Israeli ‘Reassessment’ More Obama Rhetoric?” http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/03/23/is-a-u-s-israeli-reassessment-more-obama-rhetoric/ Amid the worst patch in the modern history of the U.S.-Israel relationship, the Obama administration has decided to “reassess.” What should we expect?¶ Often the Obama administration has trouble following through on its commitments. Just a few examples of the gap between its words and actions: In 2009, the administration called for a comprehensive freeze on Israeli settlement activity. The Netanyahu government ignored this, and the U.S. did nothing to impose a cost or consequence. In 2010, the administration came out firmly against Israel’s announcement–made while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting–that it would build more units in Jerusalem. Again, Washington did nothing to back up its tough talk. In 2012 President Barack Obama drew a “red line” at Syrian use of chemical weapons. It famously went unenforced.¶ This time, we’re told, is different. The talk has been ratcheted up. In the context of U.S.-Israeli relations, the term reassessment has been used only once before: in 1975, when President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger threatened to reassess bilateral ties if Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin refused to accept the second Sinai disengagement agreement Washington was brokering with Egypt. Mr. Kissinger later told me that was largely political theater, but the threat and several large inducements to Israel resulted in a deal.¶ A transformative reset is unlikely in the near future given the magnitude of the issues dividing Washington and Jerusalem: namely, the peace process and Iran. The Obama administration was angered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to marshal congressional opposition to a U.S. deal on Iran’s nuclear program, and frustrated that he was recently reelected.¶ But what exactly is the U.S. president to do? Steps to sanction Israel, cut military assistance to it, or encourage the Palestinians to pursue their campaign in global forums such as the International Criminal Court are highly unlikely. It is possible that the U.S. could support U.N. resolutions condemning Israeli settlement activity and occupation; more likely is that Washington would abstain rather than vetoing resolutions. The U.S. might push the Europeans to sanction Israel. It could also freeze out Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. and refuse to meet with other Israeli officials, including the prime minister.¶ But however unhappy the president is with Mr. Netanyahu, Israel is still a close U.S. ally in a volatile region where Washington has few friends. Most U.S. allies, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, don’t pretend to share U.S. values, and their interests collide with Washington’s on many issues, including Iran and democratization.

98 Some claim that the administration’s comments open up the possibility that some forms of diplomatic support may be altered, but concede that other forms of support are safe: Crowley, 3-18-‘15 Michael Crowley is POLITICO’s senior foreign affairs correspondent, covering foreign policy and national security with a Washington focus, 3/18/15, Politico, “Israel's shield no more?” http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/israels-america-united-116203.html While saying it was “premature” to discuss Washington’s policy response, the official wouldn’t rule out a modified American posture at the United Nations, where the U.S. has long fended off resolutions criticizing Israeli settlement activity and demanding its withdrawal from Palestinian territories.¶ “We are signaling that if the Israeli government’s position is no longer to pursue a Palestinian state, we’re going to have to broaden the spectrum of options we pursue going forward,” the official said.¶ There is no virtually no chance that the U.S. will trim its financial or military support for Israel. But some analysts believe that going forward, Netanyahu may be vulnerable in international forums where the U.S. has long been a bulwark against criticism of Israel and its presence in Palestinian territories.¶ “I do think the administration is going to look very closely at the possibility of either joining, or at least not blocking an internationally backed move at the U.N. to restate the parameters for ending the conflict,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the left-leaning pro-Israel group J Street.¶ Netanyahu’s campaign statements “make it a lot easier for the administration to justify going down a more international route,” Ben-Ami added.

Luckily, there is solid evidence being written that even diplomatic support will not be meaningfully altered in the status quo, and that the overwhelming trend is towards strong relations with Israel: Richter & Lauter, 3-18-‘15 Paul Richter covers the State Department and foreign policy for the Los Angeles Times out of its Washington, D.C., bureau, David Lauter is the Los Angeles Times’ Washington bureau chief, Los Angeles Times, 3-18-15, “U.S. support for Israel at the U.N. is in jeopardy, White House says” http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-us-israel-20150318-story.html#page=1 At the same time, most of America’s support for Israel has strong bipartisan backing, which is not likely to change. The United States provides Israel $3.1 billion in annual military aid, vital intelligence support and works to assure that Israel has better military gear than any of its regional adversaries.¶ The administration will also continue to defend Israel diplomatically on many fronts, as it has even during the recent weeks of strife, officials emphasized. In Wednesday's statements, for example, Psaki reiterated that the U.S. would continue to try to block Palestinian efforts to join the International Criminal Court.¶ Some Netanyahu allies are predicting that the new government and the United States will cooperate to some extent in trying to stabilize the conflict with the Palestinians at a moment when the Palestinian Authority is near collapse.

Obama won’t meaningfully curtail diplomatic support now because of domestic political concerns: Shackle, 3-26-‘15 Samira Shackle, assistant editor of the New Humanist, freelance journalist who reports on religious and social affairs, 26 March 2015, Middle East Monitor, “Without concrete action, a US 'reassessment' of relations with Israel will mean nothing” https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/middle-east/17714- without-concrete-action-a-us-reassessment-of-relations-with-israel-will-mean-nothing

99 Up until this latest spat, the US would have automatically vetoed a proposed UN Security Council resolution that would impose a two-year deadline on Israel to withdraw from the occupied Palestinian territories. Now, perhaps, that will not happen. The withdrawal of the umbrella veto of UN resolutions critical of Israel would allow the US to register its displeasure with Netanyahu, although it would be a largely symbolic act that is unlikely to have much of an impact on Israeli policy.¶ And it is still a big "if" whether this will actually happen. Despite increasingly sharp words being exchanged between the US administration and Israel, America hasn't actually done much to make its point hit home. There is a precedent for such action, though. In 1992, when the then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir refused to stop building settlements in the West Bank, US President George H W Bush rescinded a $10 billion loan guarantee. Shamir was not re-elected; nor, by the way, was Bush Senior. Even further back, when Israel was delaying over disengaging its forces from the occupied Sinai Peninsula in the 1970s, President Gerald Ford postponed the delivery of weapons to Tel Aviv and deferred consideration of economic aid. This pressure brought Israel back to negotiations and laid the ground for Israeli troops to withdraw from Egypt.¶ In contrast, Obama has gone out of his way to stress that US military aid to Israel is unshakeable. This aid has gone up to a record $3.1 billion per year under his administration, despite the enmity between the two leaders and the fact that Netanyahu has repeatedly frustrated US policy goals and undermined the president himself.¶ Of course, domestic US politics have a big part to play. Obama and the Democratic Party are concerned about losing the support of Jewish voters. In the intensely partisan atmosphere of Washington, there is no doubt that any concrete action against Israel would be picked up gleefully by the Republicans as a way to hammer the president.¶ Obama is also in a weak position as Congress is dominated by the Grand Old Party, which is likely to support even more military aid to Israel. Yet there are things that the president can do: delay weapons getting to Israel, pause military training, or halt the charitable funding for Israeli settlements from American organisations. The "reassessment" of the US-Israel relationship that Obama has called for is necessary, but without some concrete steps, it will mean and come to nothing.

Therefore, we find Israel to be a topic area that is timely without being too timely. Israel policy will undoubtedly be discussed by the media, guaranteeing room for argumentative innovation and dynamic debates about current events. However, because of inertia and the institutionalization of US-Israel ties, it is unlikely that major changes to the relationship will occur, ensuring that affirmatives will have to make substantial departures from status quo policy as opposed to minor changes that are in the direction of current trends. There is a clear and unique disadvantage to the topic – that pressuring or curtailing support of Israel undermines this “special relationship.” For these reasons, the authors find this criticism to be unpersuasive.

2. Too small?

Surely, some will view an ‘Israel only topic’ as too small; however, by expanding the mechanism beyond just reducing assistance to include diplomatic support and the positive action of pressure, our proposal allows for a diversity of advantages, while still preserving strong internal links to a predictable set of impact areas. And, even if there is some validity to this criticism, we prefer a topic that has a limited number of very sound advantages over a larger topic that has lots of advantages that no topical plan could really solve (similar to the problem teams faced on the democracy assistance topic). In addition, a topic exclusively focused on Israel has the advantage of providing unified negative ground, whereas topics that

100 include other countries or regions lack good negative ground that applies across topic areas (what these authors view as a fair criticism of the other proposed area that includes Israel).

3. The Middle East, again?

One potential objection to this topic area is that the NDT/CEDA debate community has debated a number of topics focused on U.S. policy in the region over the last several years, most recently the “Democracy Assistance” topic in 2011/2012 and the “Constructive Engagement” topic in 2007/2008, suggesting that the topic might be “stale” or that students may already have sufficient familiarity with the issues raised by an Israel topic. We believe that selecting this topic area remains warranted, for several reasons. Initially, most students (other than fifth year seniors) will not have debated either of these previous topics. Perceptions of topic ripeness sometimes seem framed around the experience of long-standing members of the debate community, and it may be helpful to remember an Israel-focused topic will raise issues that will be new to the vast majority of current debaters. Further, U.S. policy towards Israel is both enormously important to our country’s overall strategy in the region, and it has not been a part of a college debate resolution since Bill Clinton’s first term. The preceding analysis in the paper argues strongly that U.S. interactions with Israel shape profoundly all of our relations with regional and extra- regional actors, suggesting that students would benefit significantly from learning about “the Middle East” in the context of American interactions with Israel (and Palestine). Previous topics have touched upon Israel policy, but we have not debated it in any real depth. Finally, the importance of the Middle East to American interests, and the region’s interconnections with a huge number of global challenges, suggest that it is worthwhile subject of debate. We seem to continue to return here for the same reasons that our nation’s leadership does (as evidenced by the Obama administration’s halting efforts to implement an “Asia Pivot”)--the future of the region has profound implications for advancing the cause of human security, the stability and credibility of many global institutions, and issues of war and peace.

Contributors Dr. Brett Bricker Melanie Campbell Dr. David Cram Helwich Ciera Foreman Dr. Paul Johnson Jacob Justice Will Katz Brian Rubaie Peg Wefald Kellor Yde