Israel’s Occupation Continues Because Economic and Political Elites Around the World Benefit From It

In June, Israelis and Palestinians marked the 48th anniversary of the Six Day War, and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip that began in its aftermath. President Obama has admitted that he doesn’t expect to see an end to the occupation by the time he leaves office in January 2017—it will likely crawl past its 50th anniversary later that year without a chance of ending.

Since 1967, Israel has violated numerous international laws with its settlement of the West Bank, regular disproportionate military incursions into Gaza and frequent extrajudicial killings. American-Israeli scholar and activist Jeff Halper, co-founder of The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, sought to discover the source of Israel’s seeming immunity. He focused on Israel’s arms trade, and argues that it was “parlaying its military prowess into political clout,” as he writes in a book entitled War Against The People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification. Halper spoke with In These Times recently about the book.

In your book War Against The People, you explore the cause of Israel’s international immunity, examining its exportation of arms and “Matrix of Control.” How does Israel get away with it?

The usual explanations didn’t really make sense to me. The pro-Israel lobby may have an impact in the States, but it certainly doesn’t run American foreign policy and doesn’t have anything to do with China, or India, or Nigeria, or other countries that have come to support Israel over the years. Christian Zionists like Sarah Palin don’t run the world. And that wouldn’t explain Europe and its support for Israel either. Guilt over the Holocaust? That might work in Germany, to some degree, but that doesn’t make any difference in the United States.

Henry Kissinger used to say that “countries don’t have friends, they have interests.” I was looking for the interest here, why the international community gives their uncritical support to Israel—even though what Israel’s doing in the Occupied Territories violates those countries’ own foreign policies. They’re all against the occupation, they’re all for a two-state solution, they’re all for international law and human rights. And yet….

[link to inthesetimes.com]