Earlier this month, Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) introduced a bill with potentially far-reaching and unprecedented implications for Israel’s ability to nix US weapons sales to the Middle East. H.R.8494, the Guaranteeing Israel’s QME Act of 2020, would mandate the president to consult the Israeli government “for information regarding Israel’s qualitative military edge” before the selling weapons to other Middle Eastern countries.
The United States has the dubious distinction of being the world’s leading arms dealer. It dominates the global trade in a historic fashion and nowhere is that domination more complete than in the Middle East.
Robert Vitalis’s new book, “Oilcraft” argues the US militarization of the Arabian Gulf is based on false ideas about controlling oil. But history shows this control is central to maintaining hegemony, which is the US goal.
The new book ‘Blood and Oil” is an alarming portrait of Mohammed Bin Salman, the unstable, murderous 35-year-old who rules the oil-producing kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
On Tuesday, September 15, Donald Trump will host a ceremonial signing of deals to normalize relations between Israel and the UAE and Israel and Bahrain. Activists will gather to protest these deals which are not about peace but about furthering Israel’s systems of occupation and apartheid. The protest will be led by a coalition of over 50 Palestinian rights organizations and groups, many of which are led by Palestinian Americans and Arab Americans.
Next week, Donald Trump will host a ceremonial signing of the Israel-United Arab Emirates deal to normalize relations between the two countries. The deal has been condemned by many for failing to secure even a single concession for Palestinians. But shortly after the deal was announced, another downside — and perhaps the U.S.’s primary motivation for pursuing the deal — came sharply into focus: tens of billions of dollars in UAE weapons sales.
The normalization of relations between the UAE and Israel, facilitated by the U.S., serves to prop up three repressive leaders — Trump, Netanyahu, and bin Zayed — and will cause further harm to Palestinians. It is both a shame and a sham.
The Palestinian Authority is facing its most serious existential threat yet: bowing down to Kushner or insisting on returning to a dead political paradigm that was constructed, then abandoned, by Washington.
The US blocked on Wednesday an attempt by United Nations member states to get the UN Security Council to formally condemn Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes in the occupied East Jeruslaem town of Sur Bahir earlier this week.
If the United States goes to war with Iran, you are unlikely to hear the word “oil” uttered by top Trump administration officials, but make no mistake: that three-letter word lies at the root of the present crisis, not to speak of the world’s long-term fate.