ddi – israel case neg

case
advantage
 1nc – israel good
turn – Israel good
Blackwill and Slocombe 11 (Robert D. Blackwill senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the
Council on Foreign Relations and Walter B. Slocombe is senior counsel in Caplin & Drysdale’s
Washington, DC, “ISRAEL A Strategic Asset for the United States”, NOVEMBER 3, 2011, !e
Washington Institute for Near East Policy,
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/pubs/Blackwill-
Slocombe_Report.pdf - BIB)

Israeli contributions to US national interests

In addition to and outside of the peace process, history provides numerous examples of specific Israeli actions that
have benefited US national interests.
During the Cold War, the most celebrated were Israel’s daring theft of Soviet radar from Egypt in 1969, Israel’s positive reply to
President Nixon’s request to fly reconnaissance missions and mobilize troops to help turn around Syria’s invasion of Jordan in 1970,
and Israel’s sharing of technical intelligence on numerous Soviet weapons systems captured during the 1967 and 1973 wars. More
recently, Israeli counterproliferation efforts – including bombing the Iraqi nuclear reactor in
1981 –have contributed substantially to US interests. And the 2007 attack on the North Korea – supplied Syrian reactor, never
formally acknowledged by Israel, ensured
that Bashar al-Assad’s progress toward a nuclear
weapon–and a very dangerous proliferation move by North Korea–was stopped at an
early stage.
On a number of occasions, Israel has also made difficult decisions not to act–policy choices sometimes made in discordance with its
own strictly national interests and perspectives–and that restraint has been important to US national interests. Such was the case
with Israel’s decision to accede to a US request not to retaliate against Iraqi Scud attacks during the first Gulf War, which American
officials feared would lead to Arab states withdrawing from the international coalition. Similarly, after a sometimes ugly dispute with
Washington, Israel
agreed to terminate the sale of problematic weapons and military
technology to China and deprive itself of both a major market for its world-class military
exports and a source of influence with Beijing.
Today, Israeli contributions to US national interests range across a broad spectrum.

For example:

• Through joint training and exercises as well as exchanges on military doctrine , the
United States has benefited in the areas of counter-terrorism cooperation, tactical
intelligence, and experience in urban warfare. The largest-ever US-Israel joint exercise is scheduled for spring
2012.

• Israeli technology promotes American interests. Increasingly, US homeland security and military agencies
are turning to Israeli technology to solve some of their most vexing technical problems. This support ranges from advice and
expertise on behavioral screening techniques for airport security to acquiring an Israeli-produced tactical radar system to enhance
force protection. Israel has been a world leader in the development of unmanned aerial
systems, for both intelligence collection and combat, and it has shared with the US
military the technology, the doctrine, and its experience regarding these systems. Israel is also a global pacesetter in
active measures for armored vehicle protection, defense against short-range rocket threats, and the
techniques and procedures of robotics, all of which it has shared with the United States.
• In the vital realm of missile
defense cooperation, the United States has a broad and multifaceted relationship with
Israel, its most sophisticated and experienced partner in this preeminent domain for the United States.
Israel’s national missile defenses–including the US deployment in Israel of an advanced X-band radar system and the more than 100
American military personnel who man it–will
be an integral part of a larger missile defense
architecture spanning Europe, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Persian Gulf that will
help protect US forces and allies throughout this vast area. For this reason, the director of the
Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency recently praised the specific contribution that Israel’s integrated, multi-layered command- and-
control network makes to the US military’s ability to defend against the Iranian missile
threat.
• While it is certainly true that Israel gains significantly from generous US financial assistance to its military–most of it spent in
America–Israel’s defense industries have certain unique competencies that benefit the
United States. One result is the growing importance to the US military of Israeli defense
goods, as the United States has taken advantage of access to unique Israeli capabilities
in key “niche” areas of military technology.
OVERALL, THE value of annual US purchases of Israeli defense articles has increased steadily over the past decade, from less than a
half billion dollars in the early 2000s to about $1.5 billion today. Among the Israeli-developed defense equipment used by the US
military are short-range unmanned aircraft systems that have seen service in Iraq and Afghanistan; targeting pods on hundreds of Air
Force, Navy, and Marine strike aircraft; a revolutionary helmet-mounted sight that is standard in nearly all frontline Air Force and
Navy fighter aircraft; lifesaving armor installed in thousands of MRAP armored vehicles used in Iraq and Afghanistan; and a gun
system for close-in defense of naval vessels against terrorist dinghies and small-boat swarms. Moreover ,
American and
Israeli companies are working together to jointly produce Israel’s Iron Dome–the
world’s first combat proven counter-rocket system.
• Counter-terrorism and intelligence cooperation is deep and extensive, with the United States
and Israel working to advance their common interest in defeating the terrorism of
Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaida and its affiliate groups by sharing information, supporting
preventive actions, deterring challenges, and coordinating overall strategy. Joint Special Forces
training and exercises, collaboration on shared targets, and close cooperation among the relevant US and
Israeli security agencies testify to the value of this relationship.
• More broadly, Israel is a full partner in intelligence operations that benefit both countries,
such as efforts to interdict the supply of parts to Iran’s nuclear program or to prevent
weapons smuggling in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. This intimate relationship reinforces overall US intelligence
efforts by providing Washington with access to Israel’s unique set of capabilities for collection and
assessments on key countries and issues in the region, since Israel is able to focus
resources and attention on certain targets of central importance to the United States .
Such was the case, for example, when Israel passed to the United States conclusive photographic evidence that Syria, with North
Korean assistance, had made enormous strides toward “going hot” with a plutonium-producing reactor. As Israel’s
strategic intelligence collection capabilities (e.g., satellite and unmanned aerial systems) mature and improve, this cooperation and
exchange of intelligence information and analysis will increasingly serve US national
interests.
• Given that Iran
and its allies in the greater Middle East represent clear and present
dangers to US interests, Israel’s military– the most powerful in the region–plays an important role in addressing those
threats posed especially by Syria, Hezbollah, and to some extent, Iran itself. The
ability of the Israeli armed forces
to deter the military ambitions of destabilizing regional actors promotes American
national interests because it presents our common enemies with an additional – and
potent – military capability to resist their aggression.
• Looking to the future, Israel’s world class expertise in two cutting-edge areas of national
security – cyber defense and national resilience planning and implementation – will
increasingly redound to the benefit of the United States. Israel is a primary place where the
United States can build an enduring partnership to try to secure the cyber commons , as
enunciated in the administration’s International Strategy for Cyberspace. With its world-class
information technology, R&D, and cyber security capabilities, Israel will be an ever more
important player in efforts to secure cyberspace and to protect critical US national
infrastructure from cyber attack.
Through the Israel-based activities of major US companies or the licensing in the United States of Israeli technologies, Israel’s
excellence in cyber security already benefits critical US infrastructure such as banking,
communications, utilities, transportation, and general Internet connectivity. And if security
concerns of both parties can be managed, Israel can become a major partner in efforts to exploit the
military applications of cyber power, in the same way that the two countries have established collaborative
relationships in intelligence and counter-terrorism.

Finally, drawing on its experience in building a flourishing economy and vibrant democracy despite
decades of conflict and terrorism, Israel has a role to play in helping the United States deepen its own internal
resilience in dealing with terrorist threats against the homeland and the impact of natural
disasters.
In a political context, it is important to note that Israel – unlike other Middle Eastern countries whose governments are partners
with the United States – is
already a stable democracy, which will not be swept aside by sudden
uprising or explosive revolution, a fact that may become more important in the turbulent period ahead.
Moreover, for all our periodic squabbles, Israel’s people and politicians have a deeply entrenched pro-American outlook that is
uniformly popular with the Israeli people. Thus, Israel’s support of US national interests is woven tightly into the fabric of Israeli
democratic political culture, a crucial characteristic that is currently not found in any other nation in the greater Middle East.

We do not argue that Israel’s assistance to the United States is more valuable to the United States than American support of Israel is
to Israel. Nor
do we deny that there are costs to the United States, in the Arab world and
elsewhere, for its support of Israel, as there are costs to US support of other beleaguered –and
sometime imperfect – friends, from West Berlin in the Cold War to Kuwait in 1990-91 to Taiwan today.
We are, however,
convinced that in a net assessment those real costs are markedly
outweighed by the many ways in which Israel bolsters US national interests and the benefits
that Israel provides to those interests.
 1nc – worse for palestine
the aff would be perceived as an imbalance – only a risk Israeli aggression
increases
Pearson 17 (Frederic S. Pearson Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Wayne State University,
Detroit, “Cultural factors in peace-making: the Israeli-Palestinian context”, 30 May 2017, Israel
Affairs, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13537121.2017.1306925 - BIB)

Further, given the Palestinian sensitivity and aversion to being consigned to perpetual
power inferiority vis-à-vis a Jewish state (recall the importance of power parity in settling Arab disputes), it
would appear necessary that any agreement requiring disarmament or arms control (an Israeli demand
regarding a future Palestinian state) be posed as a mutual and not a unilateral process , with third-
party security guarantees as well as developmental assistance programmes built in. Budd, for
example, has pointed out that such guarantees would be imperative and that unfortunately while the Oslo peace process of the
1990s focused productively on
the objective concerns of both sides, it did little to change the
cognitive structure, the historical myths and mindsets, i.e., the cultural constructs on
both sides.33 If, for example, a Palestinian state emerged in two parts – Gaza and the West
Bank – with only a road connecting them through Israeli territory, it could become
another symbol of Arab inferiority, vulnerability and humiliation. Third-party (American) security
guarantees played a critical part, along with significant ongoing financial assistance to both sides, in the Israeli–Egyptian 536 F. S.
PEARSON Camp David accords. It also appears that considerable mutual respect had been built between the Israeli and Egyptian
armed forces after the 1973 war, leading to a more durable, if not exactly cordial agreement that has withstood the test of time and
innumerable nearby crises, as for example in Gaza. As described in secret dispatches to Washington in 1973 by then US Ambassador
to Israel, Kenneth Keating, 1. While we have not had opportunity in past few days to learn private views of Israeli leadership on such
matters, those Israelis with whom we have spoken, including Israelimilitary officers, seem to be
experiencing some changes in attitude toward Arabs which is parallel to growing Egyptian self-confidence
vis-à-vis Israel ... For example, these Israelis are saying they must rethink their previous assumption
about Arab character, courage, ability to learn modern technology, and capacity for planning,
coordination, and keeping of secrets. They are impressed by Egyptian–Syrian strategy and war effort so far. 2.
This does not necessarily bode well for future Middle East peace efforts . Out of its newly
gained respect for Arab military prosess [sic], Israel may be still more concerned about seeking
enlarged borders than before. But changed Israeli attitude could, at least in one small respect, help: Israeli references
to Arabs ... in future ... omit note of condescension occasionally present in past.34 Friday 13 October 1973.
 1nc – fill-in

a. US arms sales are perceived as a larger extension of US attempts to

undermine Chinese influence
Efron et. al 19 (Shira Efron, Howard J. Shatz, Arthur Chan, Emily Haskel, Lyle J. Morris, Andrew
Scobell, “The Evolving Israel-China Relationship”, RAND corporation, published 2019,
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR2600/RR2641/RAND_RR26
41.pdf - BIB)

Finally, some policymakers in China might view China’s relationship with Israel as an
opportunity to make inroads with a key U.S. ally in the Middle East as part of a broader
strategy by China to undermine U.S. diplomacy and global alliance and partner networks.
China clearly understands the close alliance that exists between Israel and the United
States, to include closely monitoring U.S. arms sales to Israel and their implications for
China.39 China also perceives U.S. alliances in Asia, but also in other parts of the world, as inherently
antithetical to Chinese interests and in some cases seeks to actively undermine their value and
utility.40 Chinese scholars have devoted attention to the history and value of the U.S.-Israeli alliance over time, for example.41
Therefore, in all likelihood, China views its relationship with Israel as an extension of a larger
effort to undermine key alliance relationships with the United States and might look for
opportunities to forge closer ties with Israel at Washington’s expense.

There are limitations to Chinese influence in this regard. Given China’s desire to be perceived as a nonaligned and noninterventionist
partner in the region, and considering China’s strong trade and military ties with certain countries in the Middle East—some of
which have contentious relations with both the West and Israel—China could encounter roadblocks that will limit closer relations
with Israel. Although China seeks to deepen its ties with Israel, it is also aware of its limitations vis-
à-vis supplanting the role of the United States within Israeli foreign policy. 42 Despite this recognition of
its limitations, the Chinese reportedly have hinted to Israelis that the geostrategic situation
might well be different over the longer term—in 50 years, for example—and might turn more in
China’s favor.43 It is too early to say whether this statement reflects Chinese intentions in the region in the long run or
pushes Israel to change its policies.

b. china perceives israel as the core asset of US middle eastern influence

Gilsinan 19 (KATHY GILSINAN national secuirity and global affairs writer for The Atlantic, “The
U.S. Is Worried About China’s Investments—This Time in Israel”, JUL 11, 2019,
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/07/us-concerned-about-chinese-
investments-israel/593794/ - BIB)

U.S. national-security officials have for years warned developing nations about the dangers
of allowing Chinese
investment in their countries. But now the Defense Department is worried about China’s
investments in one of America’s closest allies, Israel. China’s ultimate aim, defense officials fear, is the
same as the one it has pursued in Africa, East Asia, and elsewhere: to chip away at America’s influence.

For the U.S., a Chinese incursion in Israel, which cooperates with Washington on some of the most
sensitive national-security issues—including Iran’s regional activities and the ongoing fight against the
Islamic State—is especially concerning.
China’s economic campaign is under way as it builds up its military across the board. Beijing
is, for the first time in the modern
era, beginning to project its military power outside its own region —most notably building its
first-ever overseas base in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa and adjacent to one of the world’s most important oil-transit
choke points, through the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. That base also happens to sit cheek by jowl with a U.S.
base of about 4,000 people; it is a key hub in the U.S. drone wars in Somalia and Yemen.
“While we are not asking Israel to avoid dealing with China entirely, we have open discussions with all our closest allies and partners
on the national security implications of Chinese investment,” said Michael Mulroy, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the
Middle East, in a written statement to The Atlantic.

Mulroy noted that within three years, a Chinese state-owned company is expected to operate part of
the Haifa port, near an Israeli naval base that serves as a frequent port of call for the
U.S. Navy’s Sixth Fleet. China’s investment in the port prompted a rare objection from the U.S. Navy to
Israeli counterparts when it was first disclosed last year. As Amos Harel, a correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz,
noted in the paper, “China is acquiring vast influence over essential infrastructures in Israel
and, indirectly, also a closer look at some of Israel’s military capabilities.”

c. [china middle east influence bad]

 1nc – lobbying – no solvency
lobbying circumvents the plan
Mearsheimer and Walt 06 (John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt, Dr. Mearsheimer is a
professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Dr. Walt is a
professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, “THE ISRAEL LOBBY
AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY”, MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOL. XIII, NO. 3, FALL 2006,
http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/IsraelLobby.pdf -BIB)

the loose coalition of individuals and

What Is the Lobby? We use "the lobby" as a convenient short-hand term for

organizations that actively work to shape U.S. foreign policy in a proIsrael direction. Our use
of this term is not meant to suggest that "the lobby" is a unified movement with a central leadership or that individuals within it do not disagree on
certain issues. The lobby is not a cabal or conspiracy, and its activities are essentially consistent with the interest-group tradition that has long governed

The core of the lobby consists of American Jews who make a significant
American political life.

effort in their daily lives to bend U.S. foreign policy so that it advances Israel's
interests.65 Their activities go beyond merely voting for candidates who are proIsrael to include writing
letters, contributing money and supporting pro-Israel organizations. But the lobby is not synonymous with American

Jews. Israel is not a salient issue for many of them, and many do not support the lobby's positions. In a 2004 survey, for example, roughly 36 percent
of Jewish-Americans said they were either "not very" or "not at all" emotionally attached to Israel.66 Moreover, some groups that work on Israel's

Many of
behalf — such as the "Christian Zionists" discussed below — are not Jewish. Jewish-Americans also differ on specific Israeli policies.

the key organizations in the lobby, like AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents of Major
Jewish Organizations, are run by hardliners who generally supported the expansionist
policies of Israel's Likud party, including its hostility to the Oslo peace process. The bulk of U.S. Jewry, on the other hand, is
more favorably disposed to making concessions to the Palestinians, and a few groups — such as Jewish Voice for Peace — strongly advocate such
steps.67 Despite these differences, the majority of organized groups in the American Jewish community favor steadfast U.S. support for Israel. Not

American Jewish leaders often consult with Israeli officials so that the former can
surprisingly,

maximize their influence in the United States. As one activist with a major Jewish organization wrote, "It is
routine for us to say: 'This is our policy on a certain issue, but we must check what the
Israelis think.' We as a community do it all the time." 68 There is also a strong norm against criticizing
Israeli policy, and Jewish-American leaders rarely support putting pressure on Israel . Thus,
Edgar Bronfman, Sr., the president of the World Jewish Congress, was accused of "perfidy" when he wrote a letter to President Bush in mid-2003 urging

It would be obscene at any

him to pressure Israel to curb construction of its controversial "security fence." 69 Critics declared, "

time for the president of the World Jewish Congress to lobby the president of the
United States to resist policies being promoted by the government of Israel." Similarly, when
Israel Policy Forum president Seymour Reich advised Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to pressure Israel to reopen a critical

border crossing in the Gaza Strip in November 2005, critics denounced his action as "irresponsible
behavior" and declared, "There is absolutely no room in the Jewish mainstream for
actively canvassing against the security-related policies . . . of Israel ." 70 Recoiling from these attacks,
Reich proclaimed, "The word pressure is not in my vocabulary when it comes to Israel ." Jewish-

Americans have formed an impressive array of organizations to influence American foreign

policy, of which AIPAC is the most powerful and well known. In 1997, Fortune magazine asked members of Congress and their staffs to list the
most powerful lobbies in Washington.71 AIPAC was ranked second behind the American Association
of Retired People (AARP) but ahead of heavyweight lobbies like the AFL-CIO and the National Rifle

Association (NRA). A National Journal study in March 2005 reached a similar conclusion, placing AIPAC in second place (tied with AARP) in
Washington's "muscle rankings." 72 The lobby also includes prominent Christian evangelicals like Gary Bauer,
Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, as well as Dick Armey and Tom DeLay, former majority leaders in the House of

Representatives. These "Christian Zionists" believe Israel's rebirth is part of Biblical prophecy, support its

expansionist agenda and think pressuring Israel is contrary to God's will.73 In addition, the lobby
also draws support from neoconservative gentiles such as John Bolton, the late Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley, former Secretary of Education
William Bennett, former UN Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick and columnist George Will. Sources of Power The United States has a divided government

many avenues for influencing the policy process. As a result, interest groups can shape
that offers

policy in many different ways: lobbying elected representatives and members of the
Executive Branch, making campaign contributions, voting in elections, molding public
opinion, etc.74 Furthermore, special-interest groups enjoy disproportionate power when they are committed to a particular issue and the bulk of
the population is indifferent. This is often the case in foreign affairs. Policy makers will tend to accommodate those

who care about the issue in question, even if their numbers are small , confident that the rest of the
population will not penalize them. The Israel lobby's power flows from its unmatched ability to play

this game of interest-group politics. In its basic operations, it is no different from the farm lobby, the
NRA, steel and textile-workers groups, and other ethnic lobbies. What sets the Israel
lobby apart is its extraordinary effectiveness . But there is nothing improper about American Jews and their Christian
allies attempting to sway U.S. policy towards Israel. To repeat: the lobby's activities are not the sort of conspiracy depicted in antisemitic tracts like the

groups that comprise the lobby are doing what

Protocols of the Elders of Zion. For the most part, the individuals and

other special-interest groups do, just much better. Moreover, pro-Arab interest groups are
weak to non-existent, which makes the lobby's task even easier.75
 1nc – culture – alt cause
culture is an accelerant of conflict that the aff can’t resolve
Ukashi 18 (Ran Ukashi a Ph.D. Candidate in the Faculty of Peace and Conflict Studies at the
University of Manitoba, focusing on Middle East politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and
international peacekeeping, “Zionism, Imperialism, and Indigeneity in Israel/Palestine: A Critical
Analysis”, 5-2018, Peace and Conflict Studies, https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1442&context=pcs - BIB)

In fact, Burton (1998) went so far as to suggest that such critical

identity-related issues are not subject to
bargaining or compromise along the lines that more material matters are, as there is an
implicit “need” to have one’s identity recognized and legitimated . While many scholars are critical
of this approach as being too deterministic and opaque (Rubenstein, 2001; Marker, 2003), there is certainly some merit in
recognizing that unmet needs can—albeit contextually—count as an independent variable worthy of consideration when analyzing
conflicts (Rubenstein, 2001). Thus,feelings of existential threat can lead to intractability or emerge
as the result of intractability. Either way, such intractability produces dichotomous “us
versus-them” thinking that is characteristic of identity-based conflicts (Kriesberg, 2003a). For our
purposes, social identity is understood to be socially constructed insofar as there has
historically been mobility between various elements of identity, including religious,
ethnic, racial, and other considerations depending on the context—although some elements of
ethnicity are more malleable than others (Kriesberg, 2003a). Identity-based conflicts, especially ethnic oriented
conflicts such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict result in competitive thinking, in which
social groups broadly share similar values, beliefs, and aspirations that seemingly—or
realistically—contradict those shared by a competing social group . While intractability is not
necessarily a permanent condition, it is unlikely to be alleviated unless some form of mutually beneficial congruence is established
between the competing social groups in question. It should be noted that possessing a set of identities is natural and necessary, and
is not a problem in and of itself; rather the denial of a particularly salient element of a collective
group’s identity is likely to result in social conflict that will almost certainly be
intractable until recognition of that element of identity is respected . That is, there needs to
be a legitimation of one’s identity vis-à-vis an adversarial social group that can lead to a
positive-sum set of social relations that hitherto is impossible to achieve (Marker, 2003). As Marker poignantly
illustrated regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict itself:
 1nc – FMF – alt cause
alt cause – US signed a 10-year deal granting foreign military financing that
fuels israel’s domestic defense industry
Plitnick 19 (Mitchell Plitnick Speaking to an audience at the annual summit of the far-right
Christians United for Israel, “U.S. Aid To Israel: What You Need To Know”, Lobe Log, APRIL 22,
2019, https://lobelog.com/u-s-aid-to-israel-what-you-need-to-know/ - BIB)
These new realities can and should lead to a serious discussion about U.S. aid to Israel. But this is not a simple question.
Advocates of cutting that aid, or of using it as leverage to pressure Israel, must
understand how this aid works, how big a challenge it represents for advocacy, and how to make a potentially
successful argument against it.

The Obama MOU

On September 14, 2016, U.S. and Israeli representatives signed a new Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that outlined the
terms of U.S. aid to Israel for fiscal years 2019-2028. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu toyed with the idea of waiting for the
next administration. Whether led by Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, it was likely to feature a president with a more positive
disposition toward the Israeli right wing and to Netanyahu personally than Obama had. In the end, however, Netanyahu decided
that, with Obama offering a significant increase in annual aid, it was better to take the deal on the table.

Obama’s MOU increased Foreign Military Financing (FMF) from $3 billion per year to $3.3
billion. It also guaranteed an additional $500 million per year for missile defense funding. The previous MOU, negotiated by
George W. Bush, required the president to request separate funding for missile defense every year.

Total aid rose from $3 billion to $3.8 billion annually, but it came with some new conditions. Over the course of the 10-year
agreement, a special exception allowing Israel to use up to 26.3 percent of FMF aid
money for “off shore procurement” (OSP) will phase out. OSP refers to materials bought from sources outside the United States.
Israel’s exception meant that it could spend 26.3 percent of the money it got with Israeli companies, granting the Israeli
weapons and technology industry a significant boost.
The old MOU, for instance, permitted Israel to use up to $400 million of the annual FMF grant to buy jet fuel. This
privilege was discontinued in FY ’19, meaning that Israel will have to purchase the fuel with its own funds. This reflects Obama’s
driving purpose behind these changes: to maximize the benefits to U.S. corporations by increasing the FMF funds that
return to the U.S. market.

Israel has a significant OSP program that allows it to use FMF funds for its
domestic industry
Rabinowitz ’16 (Gavin Rabinowitz is an Israeli journalist, “Former US defense official calls on
Trump to halt Israel’s sub program,” The Times of Israel,
11/22/16https://www.timesofisrael.com/former-us-defense-official-calls-on-trump-to-halt-
israels-sub-program/)

However, Zakheim argued that the only reason Israel can afford them is because US military
assistance frees up money from other defense needs.

“Remaining costs borne by Israel have in effect been subsidized by the US taxpayer by virtue of
the Offshore Procurement (OSP) program. This program, virtually unique to Israel, allows it to
apply American foreign military assistance funding to projects of its own,” he said.
Israel currently receives $3 billion annually from the US and that will increase to $3.8 billion per
year starting in 2018 and through 2028 under a package agreed in September.

The aid agreement is seen in Israel as key to helping it maintain its “qualitative military edge”
over potential threats, including from an emboldened Iran now flush with cash after many
nuclear-related sanctions were lifted during the past year in a deal signed with world powers.

For the US, Israel is cited as a rare island of stability in a region in turmoil, as well as an ally on
non-nuclear security issues in the region, including cyber warfare and efforts to rein in Islamist
terror groups.

The plan could be circumvented by congress through OSP – they can’t fiat an
end to FMF, just FMS
Conahan ’91 (Frank C. Conahan, Assistant Comptroller General, “Isreal: U.S. Military Aid Spent
In-Country,” United States General Accounting Office, National Security and International Affairs
Devision, 5/23/1991, https://www.gao.gov/assets/220/214192.pdf)

The offshore procurement program was established in fiscal year 1984 to fund Israel’s development of the
Lavi fighter aircraft. Although US. military aid to foreign recipients is generally required to be spent in
the United States, Congress can make exceptions through legislation, and the executive branch
can authorize the expenditure of these funds outside the United States on a case-by-case basis.
Both methods have been used to allow Israel to spend military aid on offshore procurements.
For fiscal years 1984-91, Congress earmarked almost $2.8 billion in Foreign Military Financing (formerly known as Foreign Military
Sales) funds for offshore procurements in Israel. The amount earmarked for these purchases increased from $260 million in 1984 to
$476 million in 1991. Since the cancellation of the Lavi program1 in 1987, the program’s purpose has been modified as follows:

“...That to the extent that the Government of Israel requests that funds be used for such purposes, grants made available for Israel
by this paragraph shall, as agreed by Israel and the United States, be available for advanced fighter aircraft programs or for other
advanced weapons systems [emphasis added], as follows: (1) up to $160,000,000 shall be available for research and development in
the United States; and (2) not less than $476,000,000 shall be available for the procurement in Israel of defense articles and defense
services, including research and development.“2 Under section 42(c) of the Arms Export Control Act, the
executive branch
can also approve the use of U.S. military aid for offshore procurement s if it determines that the acquisition
is not detrimental to the U.S. economy or the industrial mobilization base. As a result of section 42(c) rulings, Israel was granted $90
million for jet fuel and $75 million for unspecified purchases in addition to the amount authorized by Congress.3

The Defense Security Assistance Agency (DSAA) administers Foreign Military Financing funds and oversees all Israeli purchases with
these funds, including those outside the United States. Israel notifies the United States in advance of the purchases it plans to make
in-country, and Israel’s Ministry of Defense oversees in-country contracts and payments. DSAA requires that Israel provide
contractor certification of the value of foreign (non-US. and non-Israeli) components that are not eligible for U.S. financing.‘Israel
pays its contractors in local currency and is reimbursed by DsAA’for eligible costs in U.S. dollars, a “hard currency. !’
 1nc – skepticism – alt cause
can’t solve – skepticism on both sides of the divide actions would get
misinterpreted
Beauchamp 18 (Zack Beauchamp senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers global
politics and ideology, “How do the current Israeli and Palestinian governments approach the
conflict?”, May 14, 2018, Vox, https://www.vox.com/2018/11/20/18080092/israeli-palestinian-
conflict-current-governments - BIB)

But whilecampaigning during the 2015 Israeli election, which his party won fairly
resoundingly, Netanyahu announced that there would be no Palestinian state under
his watch. It’s a statement he’s tried to walk back, but one that’s consistent with his long-held belief that
Palestinians can’t be trusted to be peaceful neighbors.
Israel has real reasons to be skeptical of the Palestinian side. One
major one is the Hamas-Fatah split. Since
Hamas took control of Gaza, Israel has been concerned that any peace agreement with
the Palestinian Authority wouldn’t stick in Gaza, where it has no real control. That’s
especially worrying for the Israeli leadership given Hamas’s public commitment to
Israel’s destruction. Moreover, it’s not clear that Abbas could sell Palestinians on the
concessions he’d inevitably need to make in order to make a deal with Israel.
The two sides’ basic skepticism of each other’s willingness and ability to make peace is
the fundamental reason that the peace push led by US Secretary of State John Kerry fell apart in April
2014. Since then, the Palestinians have turned toward a pressure campaign designed to
isolate Israel internationally and put pressure on the Israeli leadership to make peace,
which has had little success.
 2nc xt – israel good
Israeli sponsorship key for democratic modelling and terror containment
Koplow 11 (Michael J. Koplow PhD candidate in the Government Department at Georgetown
University., “Value Judgment: Why Do Americans Support Israel?”, 26 May 2011, Security
Studies, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09636412.2011.572690?
needAccess=true - BIB)

The second component in the ideological case for supporting Israel is its status as a liberal
democracy. This factor is perhaps the strongest ideological tie that binds Israel to the
United States, since it places Israel firmly in the camp of Western nations while simultaneously standing as a glaring
contrast to the surrounding Arab states. The United States has throughout its history favored alliances with other
democracies, and Israel is no exception in this regard.99 Spreading democracy and democratic values
throughout the world has been American policy over the last century, and Israel fits neatly into this
plan.100 George Shultz remarked that “the birth of Israel also marked the entrance onto the world
stage of a new democracy. . . . Israel’s success as a thriving democracy helps sustain our
faith in the democratic way of life not only in America but throughout the world .”101 Israel’s
democratic character makes it easier for the United States to cooperate with it while maintaining a clear conscience,102 which is not
the case with other Middle Eastern countries, as the controversy over CIA renditions of suspected terrorists to allies such as Egypt
and Morocco has made abundantly clear. Finally, since September 11, 2001, the United States has a new, although unfortunate,
common bond with Israel in that both countries have suffered civilian casualties at
home as a result of terrorism. This has served to strengthen American affinity for Israel,
as there is a perception that the United States can now fully appreciate the inherent
sense of unease and danger that exists in everyday Israeli civilian life . The best example of this is
the concurrent resolution passed by both chambers of Congress in December 2001 denouncing Palestinian terrorist
attacks against Israeli civilians and expressing solidarity with Israel in the two countries’
joint fight against terrorism. Other similar expressions occur on a regular basis in newspaper editorials and politicians’
remarks.103
 1nc – Germany – no solvency
Germany and Israel have a special relationship- mean Germany continues to
sell arms to Israel no matter what
Deutsche Welle German 5-12-2015,( "A Special Case: The German-Israeli Security
Cooperation," No Publication, http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-
view/feature/5/163529/a-special-case%3A-german-arms-exports-to-israel.html) DIO
Ursula von der Leyen is currently in Israel on the occasion of the 50 year anniversary of the start of diplomatic relations between
Germany and Israel. The German defense minister will visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem and host a
reception for defense officials from both countries on the German frigate "Karlsruhe" in the port of Haifa.

On her two-day visit, von der Leyen

will also sit down with her Israeli counterpart Moshe Ya'alon to discuss
the countries' bilateral security cooperation and ways to strengthen it further. Germany and
Israel have a special relationship, not just since Angela Merkel announced in a 2008 speech that protecting Israel's
security was part of Germany's "raison d'être."

The special case of arms exports to Israel

Looking at the total amount of Euros, Israel was the largest third-country recipient of German
arms exports in the first half of 2014, according to the German government's armament export
interim report. Third countries are those that aren't EU- or NATO-members.

Israel leading this group is remarkable, because according to guidelines, Germany

is not supposed to export
weapons to a country that is at war or facing conflicts at its borders - conditions that definitely
apply to Israel, which fought a war with Gaza last summer and is in constant conflict with the
Palestinian territories.
But Israel is a special case for two reasons, explained Sylke Tempel, editor-in-chief of "Internationale Politik" (International Politics)
and the "Berlin Policy Journal," two publications of the German Council on Foreign Relations. According to the political analyst,
Germany sells weapons to Israel because of the history linking the two countries - and for
geopolitical reasons.
"It's the state that became a home for Holocaust survivors and the only state in the world that would welcome Jewish refugees
without any question, should Jews be persecuted again," Tempel told DW. "And Israel is the most pluralistic
democracy in the region. Sure, it's a democracy with flaws, but it is a democracy."

Contentious submarines

The reason that Israel tops the list of buyers for Germany's arms exports in the first half of 2014
is a deal for six submarines that both countries agreed on in 2005. Back then Germany agreed to
sell Israel six Dolphin submarines that would be tailored to Israel's military needs. Four have
already been delivered, with two yet to come.

The Dolphins are surrounded by controversy, because experts have raised the questions of
whether the submarines could be outfitted with nuclear warheads that Israel could use as a
deterrent to stave off aggressions from Iran.

"If there was proof for this, the German government would have to investigate," Christian
Mölling, expert for security and defense with the German Institute for International and Security
Affairs, told DW. "Because then it wouldn't just be an arms deal, it would be nuclear
proliferation. But I think because it's Israel and it's such a special case, some people on the
German side would be more likely to look the other way."

Learning the art of asymmetric warfare

The German forces profit from the close security partnership as well. The military leases
surveillance drones from the Israeli army, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). And soldiers from the
German Bundeswehr traveled to Israel to learn the ways of asymmetric warfare from their IDF
colleagues.

The Israelis have a lot more experience with fighting opponents who use non-traditional means
like road bombs and who hide among civilian populations. The German soldiers were able to put
this training to use in their deployment in Afghanistan, where they had to fight insurgents using
a similar approach.

The fact that this training cooperation was even possible shows just how far the relationship
between Germany and Israel has come in the last 70 years.

"In 1965, 20 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, it was inconceivable that an Israeli
government would have let German soldiers enter the country who were old enough to have
fought in the Wehrmacht [the Nazi forces," Tempel said. "That cooperation on the security level
was possible at all is due to the improvement of political relations over time."

Valuable ship deal

And the close partnership continues to be profitable for both sides. On Monday, Germany and
Israel agreed on a deal that will see Germany sell four warships to its partner. The Corvettes will
cost a total of 430 million Euro ($479 million). According to a statement by the Israeli defense
ministry, Israel plans to use the small warships to defend its offshore energy assets, the gas
fields off the Israeli coast.

Berlin will fund 115 million Euro ($128 million) of the package. Defense expert Mölling said such
a subsidy isn't common and chalked it up to the special relationship between the two countries.

The German company ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems is supposed to deliver the ships within the
next five years.
 1nc – israel supports itself
Israel’s DIB is strong – means they don’t need US support
Frantzman 5-23-2019,
(Seth J. Frantzman, Seth Frantzman has been covering conflict in the Middle East since 2010 as a
researcher, analyst and correspondent for different publications) "Israel’s revolutionary defense
industry," The Jerusalem Post | JPost, https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Israels-revolutionary-
defense-industry-590370)DIO

Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest defense company and frequently ranks among the most
important in the world. In 2018, it was the 27th most important company in its defense field by
revenue globally. It is a key part of Israel’s hi-tech and groundbreaking defense technology
sector that has made Israel the eighth most important country in defense supplies.

In terms of what Israel excels at, weapons platforms such as air defense, improving
communications technology and unmanned aircraft systems, including electro-optical imaging,
Elbit is integral to the whole ethos of what makes Israel unique.

Elbit describes itself as an “international high technology company engaged in a wide range of
defense, homeland security and commercial programs around the world.”

It’s in the news frequently, most recently for a $30 million high-precision guided mortar sale in
Asia, and a new partnership with DA-Group to produce and market Elbit Systems’ Immune
Satellite Navigation System (iSNS).

This confronts the threat posed by GPS jamming, which has affected Finland and Scandinavian
countries.

Technology is a key part of war fighting today. The long-arc of the history of warfare has gone
through several technological revolutions, from developments like radar in the 1930s to the
Revolution in Military Affairs that theorized dominance based on technology. Today’s challenge
is even more sophisticated, harnessing every technology to make weapons more precise and
armies more aware.

To understand how Elbit is changing both the Israeli defense market and the world, the
Magazine spoke to Joseph Gaspar, Elbit Systems executive vice president and chief financial
officer.

THE DISCUSSION came in the wake of Elbit announcing $3.68b. in revenues for 2018. It also comes in the wake of a long and
important acquisition Elbit made of IMI Systems.

The world is changing in terms of its needs for military equipment. Many countries that suffer from antiquated weaponry want the technology that
Israel has that helps them upgrade things like bombs to turn those “dumb” munitions into smart bombs that are more precise. High-level defense
equipment is so expensive, like the US F-35, that countries want to be able to improve what they already have.

There are also tensions between Russia and NATO that drive defense spending, and the US pressure for NATO countries to increase their support for
the alliance.

The decline of ISIS hasn’t meant the end of the war on terror. Instead, the ISIS threat has spread throughout the Sahel in Africa and to south Asia, with
the attack in Sri Lanka and other networks. Iran is also on the march and raising tensions in the Middle East.

In every case it is technology of the kind Israel excels at, that is often needed to help check these adversaries.

Companies like Elbit want to balance their increasing importance in the US defense market, the largest defense spender in the world, with the rest of
the world. For instance, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute revealed in late April that global defense spending increased to $1.8
trillion in 2018, 2.6% more than in 2017.

The US and China are among the largest spenders, but India, Saudi Arabia, France, Russia, the UK and Germany are in the top 10 as well.
Israel doesn’t sell to all of these countries, but it sells to many important countries and developing countries.

After announcing $3.68 billion in revenues in 2018, can you describe a bit about Elbit’s acquisition of IMI in terms of how it will impact the company’s
approach going forward?

“I would say that it was a long process [acquiring IMI]. We were in negotiations with the [Israeli] government for over two years and finally it happened
in November last year [2018]. We have a basic strategy of growing the business organically and looking for acquisitions – which we did quite a lot over
the years in Israel and abroad. IMI is one more acquisition in Israel that we did to comply with what we think is very strategic for the company, which is
growth of our portfolio of technology, products and solutions to offer to customers in Israel and internationally.

“Our strategy in acquisition is to enlarge the portfolio and acquire strategic positions in countries and get better access to customers. IMI was
categorized in the first part of that. IMI was a government-owned operation with $500m. revenues, give or take, and it was a losing operation. The
government was subsidizing them and helping them in many ways, but they were not profitable. We started at the low level and had to bring them all
the way up to the level of profitability of Elbit. We have done that in the past.

“One example was ELISRA, an electronics warfare company from Bnei Brak. They had $350m. in revenues and were losing money when we acquired
them in 2007. Today, we have built a lot of synergy, and ELISRA is at the profitability rate of the whole organization. It took us several years, but we are
there.

“We have three major product lines at IMI: precision munitions; short-to-medium and long-range rockets; and defense systems for armored vehicles.
All of them are product areas that Elbit did not have offerings in prior to IMI. The
acquisition puts us in a new and stronger
position in the various markets where we are selling our solutions.“We see quite a lot of synergy
potential with the IMI capabilities that we will be able to offer our customers: integrated
solutions for ground-based armored vehicles, and integrated artillery solutions that include
guns, mortars, rockets and command and control centers. In the past, we were not really able to
offer to our customers a wholly integrated one-project solution, but with these capabilities from
IMI we are able to offer that one-stop shop for upgrade programs for armored vehicles,
including the guns and the protection systems for tanks and armored vehicles; artillery
solutions; and small 120 mm weaponry, including mortars; guns and rockets; medium, long
range and integrated artillery centers – all of this combined to provide integrated artillery
defense solutions.

“In addition, this enables us to provide to our customers with integrated intel and recon systems
that we had before, these are usually airborne on vehicles and other airborne platforms, but
once we have the capability from IMI we have precision guided munitions to close the loop
quickly once the target is detected and identified and can be hit with guided precision munition.

“As we all know the precision munition is important in these days in the modern world. We
cannot be part of any munition that has collateral damage or civilian damage accuracy and the
whole world is going toward this solution in time and location, this is extremely important and
IMI’s solutions are very effective.
“We see significant potential from our market presence. Elbit derives 20% of our revenues from
the Israeli market and 80% from international markets. IMI is the other way around: 17% from
international markets and over 80% from the Israeli market. So we identify a potential to expand
that business to the international market, leveraging our worldwide presence and good
relationship with customers internationally. We expect the IMI portfolio do derive 60% of its
revenues internationally within several years, without reducing its position in Israel.

“With the acquisition of IMI, we believe we are in a different category of defense companies.
We are now in the $4-5b. revenues range with a 10b. backlog of orders, which is higher than
before. With IMI, we will have a third of our business in Israel for the coming years and about a
quarter in Europe, US and Asia-Pacific each. So we have a diversified portfolio and nicely
balanced customer base, which minimizes business risk, as defense budgets may decline or grow
in some areas in world, but worldwide there is growth. Also, our broad portfolio of products and
solutions gives us a solid position. If I compare us to our peers in the US, who are on average
80% US-based and 20% international, we see a lower risk situation for Elbit .

“WE RESTRUCTURED the company after the acquisition to five business units in addition to our US operations.

“We split the land and C4I division into two. The Land Division, which includes IMI, will be focused on land solutions that include armored vehicles,
artillery and ammunition. The C4 and Cyber division is focused on command, control, communications, computers, radio and cyber business. “In
addition, we have the iSTAR Division, including the UAV and electro-optic business and the airborne and the EW business (ELISRA). In each business
division, we are well focused and consider ourselves as one of the three leading companies in the area from the point of view of products, technology
and customer base.

“From the operations point of view, IMI is very advanced technologically. They had very good people in some areas, but they were losing money. So
what we did – and we are only three months in the game – we significantly reduced the head count of the operations, by several hundred people, many
of them close to retirement. We accelerated that process a bit and we restructured the IMI business into strategic units along the lines above, such as
defense for armored vehicles, rockets and precision munitions.

“We will build a new and modern production facility in the Negev that will be essentially funded by Israeli government, this will help us reduce
production costs and increase profitability. We are also planning to integrate IMI into our ERP (enterprise resource planning) system. That will help
reduce inventory, improve cash flow and improve the operating aspect of the business in production and engineering.“We plan to strengthen
international marketing within IMI and help it with Elbit’s international worldwide marketing networks to enhance its position internationally and come
close to our 80% to 20% ratios in Elbit. We provided financial support to IMI, which for years was in a bad position financially with credit lines that hurt
them in delivering the goods and services.

“We will integrate them in our overall corporate procurement organization so they can take advantage of the scale of Elbit in the purchasing process.
“All of that has started to happen. It will take a bit of time until we see results, but we plan to bring IMI to profitability already in 2019. Trying to bring
them to the average level of Elbit is not a target we will be able to achieve in months – it could take a couple of years – but it will grow and we will
reach it. The growth from the international market business will help improve profitability.”

Can we discuss how this impacts the US market?“We consider the US market our second domestic market due to volume and importance. When we
are successful in US, we can be successful worldwide. We have approximately 1,700 employees in several locations there; the largest is in Fort Worth,
Texas. We also have production and engineering capabilities in New Hampshire and other places.

“We operate there under an SSA (special security agreement with the US Department of Defense), so we are considered as any other US operation or
company that can take upon itself classified programs. This is where we are. IMI was not very active in the US prior to the acquisition, although they
had some business there.

“Recently, IMI was successful with the US army, to adopt to their Bradley platform the armored vehicle defense system of IMI (IRON FIST). This is the
first major program. We expect in the next few months to get a contract and be able to supply systems for evaluations. Hopefully, they will perform
well and that opens a path for the future for IMI in the US.

“In 2018, we continued to supply helmets for pilots of the F-35 and other fighter aircrafts. We
won a new position on the F-35, the central display unit in the cockpit. Lockheed Martin
selected us and that is a significant win for future F-35 production. We are involved in other
things that we can’t release information about, but in the next several months we will be able to
deliver that to the market. Our products are in the cockpits of fighters and helicopters, including
mission computers, displays, maps and a lot of equipment that goes on the major fighting
aircraft and platforms.

“We are well positioned on the F-16 and F-18 for the US Air Force and Navy and we have
positions on the F-15, the V-22, the Apache, Black Hawks and Bradley’s. So we feel very
comfortable in the US; business is good and growing there. We are also the prime contractor on the IFT, the
electronic wall between Arizona and Mexico, we are the prime contractor providing towers along the border and on those towers a lot of sensors,
radar, night vision, day vision and these are coupled to command and control centers. So when they detect an intrusion they analyze it and give
guidance to the forces to check it and do what they do. We are a prime contractor. It costs several hundreds of millions [of dollars] to set it up. The
customer is happy; we are waiting for further decisions on this active issue.”

What is next in other markets, such as Europe and Asia?

“In the European market, we see growth in defense budgets, driven by several factors, such as the perceived challenge from the east or immigration
from Africa and the Middle East, which creates challenges to internal security. All of this creates a good business environment for solutions that we
have in defense electronics, border control and upgrades for systems, including recon and intel systems, cyber solutions, and so on. They are
appreciated by many of the European countries.“We are well-positioned in the UK; Elbit operates five subsidiaries employing hundreds of people,
acting locally and doing interesting work. That is a big market for us. We have customers in Italy, Belgium, Austria, Romania, Germany and Switzerland,
plus some Scandinavian countries as well. One of biggest UAS programs is with Switzerland and one we had in the past was [with] the WatchKeeper
and the following in the UK. That market has grown to 22-23% of our revenues.

“Defense budgets are growing in many countries in Asia-Pacific as well, including in South Korea. Some countries in the Far East sense challenges with
what the Chinese are operating and they are buying equipment. We have a major subsidiary in Australia and have provided command and control
solutions and night vision equipment for ground forces.

“Other growing markets include India, which has a huge defense market with growing needs, without addressing specifics.

“Generally speaking, we are facing a positive environment with an increasing need for internal
and external security. The one continent that it is a little on the low side is Latin America. It used
to account for over 10% of our revenues but now is down to 5-6%. Still, our position there is
good, in Brazil, for example, and we hope the region will return to growth.

“In Israel, our position is even stronger with IMI and we get our share of the cake.”
 2nc xt – worse for Palestine
ending arms sales emboldens Israeli aggression – their evidence
Erakat 16 ( – Noura, human rights lawyer, assistant professor at George Mason and founder
and editor of “Jadaliyya.” “U.S. Should Stop Funding Israel, or Let Others Broker Peace,”
https://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 - BIB)
Cessation of American military aid to Israel will create at least two possibilities in the long run. On the one hand, it
can restrain Israel, thereby creating more opportunities for a political resolution to the conflict. On the other hand, it could
have the opposite effect and motivate Israel to pursue more maximalist policies,
thereby increasing the cost of its transgressions. This will likely induce the international
community to effectively intervene à la the South African model.

media backlash creates colonial anti-palestinian sentiment – their evidence

Madar 14 (Chase Madar, 2-10-2014, "Why Bankrolling Israel Prevents Peace in the Middle East,"
Nation, https://www.thenation.com/article/washingtons-military-aid-israel/) BIB
American policy elites are unable or unwilling to talk about Washington’s destructive role in this situation. There is plenty of
discussion about a one-state versus a two-state solution, constant
disapproval of Palestinian violence,
occasional mild criticism (“not helpful”) of the Israeli settlements, and lately, a lively debate about the
global boycott, divestment, and sanction movement (BDS) led by Palestinian civil society to pressure Israel into a “just and lasting”
peace. But
when it comes to what Americans are most responsible for—all that lavish military aid
and diplomatic cover for one side only —what you get is either euphemism or an evasive silence.

In general, the American media tends to treat our arming of Israel as part of the natural
order of the universe, as beyond question as the force of gravity. Even the “quality” media shies away
from any discussion of Washington’s real role in fueling the Israel-Palestine conflict . Last
month, for instance, The New York Times ran an article about a prospective “post-American”
Middle East without any mention of Washington’s aid to Israel, or for that matter to Egypt, or the
Fifth Fleet parked in Bahrain.

You might think that the progressive hosts of MSNBC’s news programs would be all over the story of what American taxpayers are
subsidizing, but thetopic barely flickers across the chat shows of Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes
and others. Given this across-the-board selective reticence, American coverage of Israel and Palestine,
and particularly of American military aid to Israel, resembles the Agatha Christie novel in which the first-
person narrator, observing and commenting on the action in calm semi-detachment, turns
out to be the murderer.
 2nc xt – fill-in
turns case – chinese hegemonic intentions are misinterpreted and leave
Palestine behind
Irving 09 (Sarah Irving worked with the International Solidarity Movement in the West Bank,
THE ELECTRONIC INTIFADA, 26 October 2009, https://electronicintifada.net/content/what-does-
chinas-ascendance-mean-palestine/8506 - BIB)

China’s official press has also highlighted its aid to Palestine , with official press agencies calling its
economic and humanitarian aid “an important expression of China’s support for the
Middle East peace process.” Such statements, however, have often been disingenuous about the scale of China’s
donations. According to Dr. Miyagi, it gave just $11 million of the $7.4 billion pledged by the international
community at the 2007 International Donors’ Conference for Palestine.

To expect larger aid contributions — or more action — likely misinterprets China’s

intentions as a global power. Although China’s increasing international stature has been the subject of considerable
speculation, specialists on its foreign policy insist that it has few ambitions towards the kind
of global interventionist role that the US has played as a superpower. While China has
massive economic clout as a state, the everyday wealth of its people is still just a
fraction of that of most Americans or Europeans. Rather, according to Dr. Miyagi, China’s priority has
become the maintenance of a stable world order which will supply it with uninterrupted
raw materials and energy, and continue to buy its products.
If there are actors hoping that China might offer an alternative to US hegemony and pushing
the international community into a more just position on Palestine, it is not likely to happen soon
— if ever. As Dr. Miyagi points out, Palestine occupies a symbolic position for both China as a former
revolutionary state and for China’s Arab economic partners. However, Palestine itself has no oil and only a
tiny consumer market to offer. While China may provide balance to the US’s constant pro-
Israel positions at the UN and other international arenas, the days of its unequivocal support for Palestinian
rights are, it seems, long gone.

link xt – US legislation on military aid deters an Israel-China relationship

Efron et. al 19 (Shira Efron, Howard J. Shatz, Arthur Chan, Emily Haskel, Lyle J. Morris, Andrew
Scobell, “The Evolving Israel-China Relationship”, RAND corporation, published 2019,
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR2600/RR2641/RAND_RR26
41.pdf - BIB)

The United States insisted that Israel cut off the HARPY deal. In addition, it demanded the resignation
of senior MOD officials and an agreement—or “understandings,” according to Israelis—that all defense
transfers and dual-use exports to China be subject to U.S. approval . These additional consultation
mechanisms between the U.S. Department of State and the Israeli MOD “put an end to China-Israel
defense technology relations.”35 The HARPY incident gave rise to Israel’s 2007 Export Control Law, which
expanded the requirements for export licenses and placed.36 According to former
Israeli officials, this compromise was needed, although restrictions on arms sales and
the export of dual-use technology unprecedented in the way it undermined Israel’s independent
decisionmaking vis-à-vis senior personnel (appointments within the MOD) and foreign and economic relations with a third
country.37

These incidents highlight the influence of the United States in Israeli foreign affairs and the
balancing act Israel continues to play between great powers as it navigates its relations with China. Israel could
benefit economically and strategically from a closer relationship with China , but its
dependence on the United States for military equipment, aid, and international
support gives Israel little room to maneuver because Washington views Beijing as a potential adversary.

link xt – the US is the sole deterrent to cooperation on arms sales between

israel and china
Abrams 18 (Ellito Abrams Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies, “What’s Behind Israel’s
Growing Ties With China?”, Council on Foreign Relations, June 21, 2018,
https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/whats-behind-israels-growing-ties-china - BIB)

Political and Military Relations

Netanyahu has repeatedly expressed his hope that broader economic relations with
China would translate to more alignment at the United Nations. This has happened in the case
of India, whose trade with Israel has surged in the last two decades . Following this uptick in trade,
India, on several occasions in recent years, abandoned its previous pattern of voting with Arab states
against Israel in the UN system. However, China has not changed its voting pattern, and it aligns against Israel whenever
there is a vote in the UN bodies.

Israel’s growing relationship with India

also includes significant arms sales, but that is not true with
China. While Chinese navy ships have docked in Israel, arms sales and military cooperation are limited
due to U.S. pressure.
In 2004, the George W. Bush administration demanded that Israel renege on its pledge to upgrade the Harpy missile system, which
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) had sold to China in 1994 for about $55 million. U.S. officials cited security
concerns and claimed the missile system contained American technology. Israeli officials denied the allegations, and
IAI followed through on contractual commitments to China.

As a result, the United States suspended Israel from the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) project—which led to what is now known as the F-
35 stealth fighter—and demanded the resignation of General Amos Yaron, the Israeli Defense Ministry’s director general. Israel did
return to the JSF a few months later but at considerable cost: The Defense Ministry had to establish a department for overseeing
defense exports, and the director general did in fact retire. The
U.S.-Israel military relationship includes
exercises, intelligence sharing, and $3.8 billion in U.S. military aid, and the United States
remains in a powerful position to curtail Israeli military sales to China.
internal link xt – Israel provides access to critical tech key to outpacing china
Zheng 19 (Sarah Zheng, “Israel’s hi-tech firms are wary of Chinese investment, but the money
keeps rolling in”, South China Morning Post, 3 April, 2019,
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3004561/israels-hi-tech-firms-are-wary-
chinese-investment-money-keeps - BIB)

“Many Israeli
companies have unique technologies but they are very small and lack
resources, so it’s kind of a good cooperation. In the past, Israeli firms tended to look to the West
for funding, but now many of them look to China.”
While much of the cooperation came in the form of direct investment, Levi said a growing number of Israeli firms were heading to
China to form joint ventures, raising intellectual property rights issues.

As Washington and Beijing continue to fight a tech war, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Israel’s
Channel 13 recently that countries needed to be “wide-eyed and awake” to the risk posed by
China, or face potential repercussions such as reduced intelligence sharing with the US.
During a closed-door meeting at Tel Aviv University in January, Nadav Argaman, head of Israel’s security agency Shin Bet, called for
the establishment of an oversight mechanism on Chinese investments, local broadcaster Channel 10 reported. As examples, he
cited the operation by a state-owned Chinese company of parts of Haifa port, the largest
of Israel’s three major seaports, and a Chinese construction company building a light rail system in Tel Aviv.
“Chinese influence in Israel is particularly dangerous in terms of strategic
infrastructure and investments in larger companies ,” he was quoted as saying.
In January, Daniel Shapir, a former US ambassador to Israel, said in an interview with local business newspaper Calcalist that
Israeli start-ups would face “real repercussions” when trying to take their technologies
to the US market if they had a significant Chinese investor component.
Nonetheless, Israeli investors remain largely bullish on the future of tech cooperation with China. Ehud Levy, co-founder and general
partner at Canaan Partners Israel, which focuses on early-stage tech investments, said it
was increasingly difficult for
Chinese investors to put their money in the US because of CFIUS restrictions, so they were
turning to Israel, and the world’s “second Silicon Valley”.
While there had been board discussions about whether Israeli companies should accept Chinese investors, deals still went through if
the Chinese source was deemed reputable, he said.

“There is a discussion, there is kind of a buzz about it,” he said. “I’m not concerned. I think it’s a kind of short-term bug that will not
affect things in the long-term because there is an intrinsic economic value, and there is good synergy between
Israeli innovation and the needs in China.”
Yang said he did not think the Israeli government would even agree to a CFIUS-like mechanism as it would hurt start-ups’ funding
options and their ability to enter the Chinese market.
 2nc xt – lobbying – no solvency
Plan fails – organizations lobby Congress to maintain support for israel
Mearsheimer and Walt 06 (John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt, Dr. Mearsheimer is a
professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. Dr. Walt is a
professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, “THE ISRAEL LOBBY
AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY”, MIDDLE EAST POLICY, VOL. XIII, NO. 3, FALL
2006, http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/IsraelLobby.pdf -BIB)
Strategies for Success The lobby pursues two broad strategies to promote U.S. support for Israel. First, it wields significant
influence in Washington, pressuring both Congress and the Executive Branch to support Israel down the line. Whatever an individual
lawmaker or policy maker's own views, the lobby tries to make supporting Israel the "smart" political choice . Second, the
lobby strives to ensure that public discourse about Israel portrays it in a positive light, by
repeating myths about Israel and its founding and by publicizing Israel's side in the policy
debates of the day. The goal is to prevent critical commentary about Israel from getting a fair hearing in the political arena.
Controlling the debate is essential to guaranteeing U.S. support, because a candid discussion of
U.S.-Israeli relations might lead Americans to favor a different policy. Influencing Congress A key pillar of
the lobby's effectiveness is its influence in the U.S. Congress, where Israel is virtually immune from criticism .
This is in itself a remarkable situation, because Congress almost never shies away from contentious
issues. Whether the issue is abortion, affirmative action, health care or welfare, there is certain to be a lively debate on Capitol
Hill. Where Israel is concerned, however, potential critics fall silent; there is hardly any debate at all. One reason for the
lobby's success with Congress is that some key members are "Christian Zionists" like Dick Armey,
who said in September 2002, "My number-one priority in foreign policy is to protect Israel." 76 One would
think that the number-one priority for any congressman would be to "protect America," but that is not what Armey said. There
are also Jewish senators and congressmen who work to make U.S. foreign policy support Israel's
interests. Pro-Israel congressional staffers are another source of the lobby's power. As Morris Amitay,
a former head of AIPAC, once noted, "There are a lot of guys at the working level up here [on Capitol Hill] … who happen to be
Jewish, who are willing … to look at certain issues in terms of their Jewishness …. These are all guys who are in a position to make the
decision in these areas for those senators …. You can get an awful lot done just at the staff level." 77 It is AIPAC itself, however,
that forms the core of the lobby's influence in Congress .78 AIPAC's success is due to its ability to reward
legislators and congressional candidates who support its agenda and to punish those who
challenge it. Money is critical to U.S. elections (as the recent scandal over lobbyist Jack Abramoff's various shady dealings
reminds us), and AIPAC makes sure that its friends get financial support from the myriad proIsrael
political action committees. Those seen as hostile to Israel, on the other hand, can be sure that
AIPAC will direct campaign contributions to their political opponents. AIPAC also organizes
letter-writing campaigns and encourages newspaper editors to endorse pro-Israel candidates.
There is no doubt about the potency of these tactics. To take but one example, in 1984, AIPAC helped defeat Senator
Charles Percy from Illinois, who, according to one prominent lobby figure, had "displayed insensitivity and
even hostility to our concerns." Thomas Dine, the head of AIPAC at the time, explained what happened: "All the Jews in
America, from coast to coast, gathered to oust Percy. And the American politicians — those who hold public positions now, and
those who aspire — got the message." 79 Other U.S. politicians who have felt AIPAC's wrath include former representatives Paul
Findley (R-IL), Pete McCloskey (R-CA), Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), and James Moran (DVA), just to name a few.80 One could also
include Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY), whose support for Palestinian statehood and public embrace of Suha Arafat (wife of
Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat) provoked strong criticism from groups in the lobby. Not surprisingly,
Clinton became an ardent defender of Israel once she began running for office herself.81 AIPAC prizes its reputation as a formidable
adversary, of course, because this discourages anyone from questioning its agenda. AIPAC's
influence on Capitol Hill
goes even further, however. According to Douglas Bloomfield, a former AIPAC staff member, "It is
common for members of Congress and their staffs to turn to AIPAC first when they need
information, before calling the Library of Congress, the Congressional Research Service,
committee staff or administration experts." 82 More important, he notes that AIPAC is "often called upon to draft
speeches, work on legislation, advise on tactics, perform research, collect co-sponsors and marshal votes." The bottom line is that
AIPAC, which bills itself as "America's Pro-Israel Lobby," has an unchallenged hold on the U.S. Congress. 83 Open
debate about U.S. policy towards Israel does not occur there, even though that policy has important consequences for the entire
world. Thus, one of the three main branches of the U.S. government is firmly committed to supporting Israel. As former Senator
Ernest Hollings (D-SC) noted as he was leaving office, "You can't have an Israeli policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here."
84 Small wonder that former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once told an American audience, "When people ask me how they
can help Israel, I tell them — help AIPAC." His successor, Ehud Olmert, agrees, remarking, "Thank God we have AIPAC, the greatest
supporter and friend we have in the whole world." 85 Influencing the Executive The
lobby also has significant leverage
over the Executive Branch. That power derives in part from the influence Jewish voters have on
presidential elections. Despite their small numbers in the population (less than 3 percent), Jewish-Americans make
large campaign donations to candidates from both parties. The Washington Post once estimated
that Democratic presidential candidates "depend on Jewish supporters to supply as much as 60
percent of the money." 86 Furthermore, Jewish voters have high turn-out rates and are concentrated in key states like
California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. This increases their weight in determining electoral outcomes.
Because they matter in close elections, presidential candidates try not to antagonize Jewish voters. Key
organizations in the
lobby also directly target the administration in power. For example, pro-Israel forces make sure
that critics of the Jewish state do not get important foreign-policy appointments. Jimmy Carter
wanted to make George Ball his first secretary of state, but he knew that Ball was perceived as
critical of Israel and that the lobby would oppose the appointment. 87 This litmus test encourages any
aspiring policy maker to become an overt supporter of Israel (or at the very least, to refrain from criticizing U.S. support for Israel).
Thus, public critics of Israeli policy have become an endangered species in the U.S. foreign policy establishment. These constraints
still operate today. When
2004 presidential candidate Howard Dean called for the United States to
take a more "even-handed role" in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Senator Joseph Lieberman accused
him of selling Israel down the river and said his statement was "irresponsible." 88 Virtually all of the
top Democrats in the House of Representatives signed a hard-hitting letter to Dean criticizing his
comments, and The Chicago Jewish Star reported that "anonymous attackers … are clogging the
e-mail inboxes of Jewish leaders around the country, warning — without much evidence — that
Dean would somehow be bad for Israel." 89 This worry was absurd, however, because Dean is in fact quite hawkish
on Israel.90 His campaign co-chair was a former AIPAC president, and Dean said his own views on the Middle East more closely
reflected those of AIPAC than of the more moderate Americans for Peace Now. Dean
had merely suggested that to
"bring the sides together," Washington should act as an honest broker. This is hardly a radical
idea, but it is anathema to the lobby, which does not tolerate the idea of even-handedness
when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict. The lobby's goals are also served when pro-Israel
individuals occupy important positions in the Executive Branch. During the Clinton
administration, for example, Middle East policy was largely shaped by officials with close ties to
Israel or to prominent pro-Israel organizations — including Martin Indyk, the former deputy director of research at
AIPAC and cofounder of the pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP); Dennis Ross, who joined WINEP after
leaving government in 2001; and Aaron Miller, who has lived in Israel and often visits there.91 These men were among President
Clinton's closest advisors at the Camp David summit in July 2000. Although all three supported the Oslo peace process and favored
creation of a Palestinian state, they did so only within the limits of what would be acceptable to Israel.92 In particular, the
American delegation took most of its cues from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, coordinated
negotiating positions with Israel in advance, and did not offer its own independent proposals for
settling the conflict. Not surprisingly, Palestinian negotiators complained that 45 MEARSHEIMER AND
WALT: THE ISRAEL LOBBY they
were "negotiating with two Israeli teams — one displaying an Israeli flag,
and one an American flag." 93 The situation is even more pronounced in the Bush administration, whose ranks have
included fervently pro-Israel individuals like Elliot Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, I. Lewis ("Scooter") Libby, Richard Perle, Paul
Wolfowitz and David Wurmser. As we shall see, these officials consistently pushed for policies favored by Israel and backed by
organizations in the lobby.
 2nc xt – culture – alt cause
the conflict is rooted in deep cultural ties that no single policy can remedy.
Pearson 17 (Frederic S. Pearson Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Wayne State University,
Detroit, “Cultural factors in peace-making: the Israeli-Palestinian context”, 30 May 2017, Israel
Affairs, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13537121.2017.1306925 - BIB)

Cultural perspectives and conflict

As with other cultures and groups,
Arab and Israeli conflict patterns have both rational and non-
rational components. Non-rational or emotive factors, such as fear and loathing, or
imperatives of upholding honour, fulfilling ancient narratives and myths, and
overcoming or avenging historical traumas, can be seen as less amenable to negotiation than
concrete issues such as prisoner exchanges or the division of resources, and may challenge hopes for
reconciliation. Among so-called rational or pragmatic interests are financial concerns, security
provisions, political, individual and group (including family) empowerment. Indeed, some concrete
issues, such as division of land, take on spiritual and mythical as well as historic
meanings for various groups or subgroups and retard mutual accord. Thus issues of territory, so pertinent to most
wars5 have elements of both emotion and pragmatics because territory is so highly
symbolic of both group identity and security interests, as well as economic and
resource concerns. However, both rational and non-rational factors can be and have been successfully negotiated and must
be acknowledged and treated in conflict resolution processes. Such factors influencing negotiation outcomes are common for nearly
all world cultures, but what may distinguish some cultures from others are the cognitive lenses through which they see and interpret
these motives, symbols and interests, as well as opponents’ actions. We have learned that historic experience and prevailing norms
and philosophical principles play a large role in such interpretations. It is, of course, an oversimplification to label any large group as
one ‘culture’, or perhaps worse, ‘civilization’.6 Among Arabs, for example, are many regional and sectarian subcultures – the
Bedouin, Berber, Druze; the villager, nomad, or city dweller; the North African, Levantine, or Southwest Asian – along with religious
variations between Sunni, Shi’a, Alawi, Zaidis, Christian Chaldean, Orthodox, Maronite, Coptic, etc. Tribal, clan
and ancestral
customs and practices can mean a great deal in settling local feuds and in laying
conditions for mutual accommodation and coexistence. Yet so can overarching commonalities among all
or most of the subcultures themselves, commonalities such as the importance of honour, ‘face’, status, and justice/ injustice

interpretations. Similarly, Jews, while united by many cultural characteristics and memes , also
diverge among and within ethnic (Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Beta Israeli Amharic, etc.), secular and religious (sects of Chasidic,
Reconstructionist, Conservative, Neolog, Haredi, etc.) groupings. Social practices may differ slightly or markedly between these
communities and it is sometimes difficult for one subgroup to fully accept the validity of another
– as when Orthodox authorities refuse to accept Reform marriage, worship, or conversion rites. Yet both Arabs and Jews may unite
across many of these lines to oppose ‘outsiders’
framing
 1nc – a2: set col framing
a “settler colonial” paradigm is a form of cognitive denial that severs cultural
and historical connections to Israel and refutes the notion of Jews as a
legitimate people.
Mansdorf 10 (Dr. Irwin J. Mansdorf a clinical psychologist and a fellow at the Jerusalem
Center for Public Affairs. He directs the Center's Israel-Arab studies program, “Is Israel a Colonial
State? The Political Psychology of Palestinian Nomenclature”, March 7, 2010,
http://jcpa.org/article/is-israel-a-colonial-state-the-political-psychology-of-palestinian-
nomenclature/ - BIB)

Language and Perception: “Settler-Colonialism”

Despite the essentially parallel processes of independence from colonial and

protectorate influence over the first half of the twentieth century, only one of the national movements at the time and
only one of the resulting states, namely Israel, is accused of being “colonial. ” The accusation of colonialism
against Israel is not without difficulty. Since the traditional definition of colonialists
exploiting the native population and resources does not broadly apply to Jews and Zionism,
how then, to continue the narrative of Israeli colonialism? The answer was the application of
another type of colonialism, that of the “settler-colonialist,” to the Zionist enterprise.31
This term, however, can assume validity only if it is assumed that the “settlers” have no
indigenous roots and rights in the area. As such, this is yet another use of language to
shape perceptions and another example of psychological manipulation for political
purposes. Unlike any other “settler-colonial” state in history, Israel stands alone in that there is no
identifiable foreign power that can be identified as the colonial entity . It goes without saying that
the notion of “settler” also dismisses any historical or biblical connection of Jews to the
area. Hence, the importance of denial of Jewish rights, history, and claims to the area.
The notion of Israeli
colonialism, however, is so established in certain academic and political
circles that its colonial identity is never questioned, and “settlers” are automatically
considered agents of a colonial effort.32
Lest there be any confusion about what a “settler” is, despite the impression of some that the term
applies only to those Israelis who have established communities in disputed territory after 1967, those who use the
terminology “settler-colonialist” against Israel clearly mean the entire Zionist enterprise,
including the original territory of the State of Israel in 1948.33 In fact, many contemporary Palestinian
activists blithely and routinely assume, in their writing, that all Israelis are colonialists and all of
“historic” Palestine has been occupied (e.g., Qumsiyeh,34 Abunimah35).
Reestablishing Accuracy: Cognitive Dissonance and Confirmation Bias
The “colonial
Israel” charge is thus rooted in an ideological and cognitive denial of any
Jewish connection to Palestine and the ancient Land of Israel. This can be either through a belief that the
connection is weak because of the passage of time,36 or, as has been the case in Arab circles and in some
revisionist Israeli ones,37 by flatly denying Jewish roots in the area.

Cognitive dissonance is the phenomenon whereby established beliefs are challenged by new, conflicting information that arouses a
challenge to those core beliefs. Confirmation bias, on the other hand, is the term applied to seeking evidence that validates prior
attitudes and beliefs. When
confronted with dissonance, some may alter their beliefs to
conform to the new information, but many, especially those that are ideologically invested with
and committed to a particular view, continue in their established attitudes by adding
justifications or interpretations that support or “confirm” the original cognition.
Just as committed Zionists would not accept a colonial narrative , presenting facts and
arguments in response to accusations against Israel would not change attitudes for anti-
Zionists, even when their core beliefs or attitudes feeding that position are challenged. In practice, ideologues seem to
respond to challenges through “confirmation bias,” seeking information consistent with
their ideology that supports their core beliefs when dissonance is aroused.38 Attempting to change attitudes,
thus, would appear to have a chance for success only when these attempts target those
who are not predispositioned or biased towards particular political ideologies and when
the information is accurate, not tendentious, and based on solid data.

The mechanism of dissonance reduction that is most central to the

“settler-colonialist” argument is the
notion that Jews do not constitute a national entity and thus cannot possibly have
legitimate rights to what was known as Palestine. For those who are familiar with Jewish history and
traditions, such as the specifics of the Jewish legal system applicable only in Israel or the
role of the “Land of Israel” in Jewish liturgy, the speciousness of these notions is self-evident. For
many others, however, this is either not recognized or not relevant .39 Challenging these beliefs
involves two overlapping mechanisms: First, a firm recognition of the reality of Jewish
roots and historical sovereignty in the area, and second, an acknowledgment that the
modern reconstitution of Jewish nationalism was achieved through a legitimate
process consistent with international law and the right to self-determination . Both tenets
are taboo and are not even subject to discussion for many anti-Zionist ideologues.
Ideology, when unyielding and unbending, will be resistant to any cognitive
dissonance.40 That is why, despite the historical record, the core notion of Israel as a
“settler-colonialist” nation will continue to resonate in circles where nationalism is
frowned upon, where religious history is irrelevant, where post-modern ideologies are
entrenched and philosophically embraced, and where the notion of Jews as a people
is not recognized.

the 1ac co-opts narratives of indigeneity that creates competing claims of

nativity which perpetuates conflict
Ukashi 18 (Ran Ukashi a Ph.D. Candidate in the Faculty of Peace and Conflict Studies at the
University of Manitoba, focusing on Middle East politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and
international peacekeeping, “Zionism, Imperialism, and Indigeneity in Israel/Palestine: A Critical
Analysis”, 5-2018, Peace and Conflict Studies, https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1442&context=pcs - BIB)

The Erasure of Memory: Denying Jewish Indigeneity

At its most basic, an “Indigenous people,” is one that has inhabited a given territory prior to any contact with foreign settlers or
colonizers with a different way of life (Yahel, Kark, & Frantzman, 2012). According to the United Nations Permanent Forum on
Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), a loose set of criteria are provided that apply to a diverse set of
Indigenous peoples, in an equally diverse set of contexts, of which some—but not necessarily all—of the following criteria
must be met: Self-identification as [I]ndigenous [P]eoples at the individual level and accepted by the community as their
member; Historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies; Strong link to
territories and surrounding natural resources; Distinct social, economic or political
systems; Distinct language, culture and beliefs; Form non-dominant groups of society; Resolve to
maintain and reproduce their ancestral environments and systems as distinctive peoples and
communities. (United Nations, n.d., para. 3) Naturally, this definition makes no judgment on the existence of a multiplicity of
Indigenous peoples within a given space; it merely demonstrates the generally agreed-upon criteria that pertains to Indigenous
Peoples across the world. It is apparent then that many Palestinian Arabs consider this definition to apply
to themselves, but deny its reciprocal application to the Jews, ergo invalidating any claims
to Jewish self-determination. However, official Palestinian Authority media frequently denies Jewish indigeneity in
the territory of historic Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel)/Palestine. Such pronouncements are mainstream within
Palestinian political discourse. For instance, on May 14, 2011, Abdallah AlIfranji, an advisor to Palestinian president
Mahmoud Abbas, relayed words on behalf of the President, where he remarked: National reconciliation [between Hamas and Fatah]
is required in order to face Israel and Netanyahu. We say to him [Netanyahu], when he claims – that they [Jews] have a historical
right dating back to 3,000 years BCE – we say that the nation of Palestine upon the land of Canaan had a 7,000-year history BCE. This
is the truth, which must be understood and we have to note it, in order to say: “Netanyahu, you are incidental in history. We are the
people of history. We are the owners of history.” (Palestinian Media Watch, 2011, para. 2) To
buttress such
arguments, Palestinian Arabs must expound genealogical claims to Peoples who predate
the Jewish presence in the land. The premise of such assertions—albeit with little evidence (Bukay, 2012)—involves, for
instance, a claim of descent to the Jebusites of ancient Canaan, the original inhabitants of Jerusalem according to the Old Testament,
in an effort to invalidate later Jewish claims to the city (Wenkel, 2007). In other cases, Palestinians have
orchestrated ritual observances to the ancient god, Baal, as a purported demonstration of their Canaanite heritage (Breger, 1997).
By denying Jewish indigeneity and inventing a supersessionist Palestinian Arab indigeneity, the Palestinian political
narrative has engaged in a form of cultural appropriation as a tool by which to
delegitimize the Zionist enterprise in its totality, and sever Jewish connection to the land
(Bukay, 2012). As Bukay asserted, “[t]his fictitious history, which ignores all historical documentation
and established historical methods, is based on systematic distortions of both ancient
and modern history with the aim of denying Israel’s right to exist” (p. 23). Without prejudicing any
claims of some Palestinian Arabs on the subject of indigeneity, Jewish attachment to the land predates any
documented Arab presence by millennia. In fact, and again, without prejudicing any justifiable Palestinian claims
to national sovereignty or indigeneity of their own, as Yahel et al. (2012) reminded, “ Jews are the only nation that
can claim an uninterrupted presence on the land from biblical times to date —for a
significant amount of the time as its rulers” (p. 8). By extension of this fact, the Jews have ties to the land prior to
the emergence of any imperial powers in the modern era: The Land of Israel has a dual history, marked both by
constant waves of immigration and invasion by various peoples and uninterrupted Jewish presence in the land from time
immemorial. The Jews have always considered the Land of Israel their national homeland, have lived in it as a
sovereign nation in historical times, maintained at least a toehold there despite
persecution, and returned to it time and again after being exiled. This spiritual relationship
is also expressed in both Jewish daily prayers and Israel’s Declaration of Independence .
(Yahel et al., 2012, p. 14) Of note, some Arab groups may have migrated to, and settled in, the land
following the return of Jews from exile in 538 B.C.E. It is well known that beginning in the seventh century, with
the expansion of various Islamic empires into the Levant, including Palestine, came a variety of ethnic groups, including Arabs, but all
under the aegis of Islamic imperial rule from that point forward until the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (Yahel et al., 2012). This
history could reasonably provide descendants of those Arabs with sufficient claims to
national rights— including Indigenous rights—but not at the expense of the Jewish
rights to the same. At issue is not the supplanting of the rights of one party over the other—there can be more
than one Indigenous population within a given territory—but rather the denial of Jewish indigeneity
altogether. Nor does such an acknowledgment privilege one group to have dominion over
another—an important, but altogether separate discussion. Acknowledging this history, one would have to take great pains to
divest the Jewish People from their rightful Indigenous heritage in the land. To do so would
demand a loosening of the threshold required to make a reasonable claim to
indigeneity, which would actually serve to strengthen the Jewish claim versus its competitors
(albeit, without prejudicing those claims that could meet the threshold) (Yahel et al., 2012). Thus, the view of the Jewish People as a
distinct nation bound to the land of Eretz Yisrael Palestine, both physically and spiritually, is a well established, millennia-old trait.
Important, however, is the fact that such rhetorical distortions serve to exacerbate the current
intractability of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. According to Kriesberg (2003b), the
intractability, or persistence of a social conflict is influenced by various factors, including the belief or perception that
the goals of one group (i.e., Zionism) contradicts the goals of another (i.e., Palestinian
Arab nationalism). Such conflicts are typified by persistently destructive relationships despite efforts to positively transform them by
members of both sides of the conflict, as well as third party mediators. Moreover, while not always the case, it is common for
intractable conflicts to be inherited and perpetuated intergenerationally, which tends to further ossify the
conflict and make it more difficult to de-escalate so as to pursue some form of mutually acceptable
peaceful outcome. Accordingly, the reason such conflicts tend to be intractable is precisely because they centre around issues of
identity—involving both the perceptions social groups in conflict have of themselves and their real, or perceived, enemies. This
perception informs how they relate to each other, how they believe the conflict should be resolved, and how best to achieve that
end. In essence, such conflicts are more typically zero-sum than conflicts over mere material
concerns in that the idea of compromise is often seen as a price that is too high to pay
and comes at the expense of a core element of group identity —often to the point of
feeling that the existence of one’s group identity hinges on the collective ability to resist
compromise. As Kriesberg wrote: Members of one or more sides in every conflict have grievances, some of which contribute
to intractability. This is the case when members of one side feel grossly wronged by the
oppression and injustices imposed by the other side, or feel that their very existence is
threatened. Such feelings tend to be found in conflicts that are intractable . (Kriesberg, 2003b,
para. 15)
 2nc xt – a2: set col framing
a settler colonial framing alienates historical connections and exacerbates
conflict
Ukashi 18 (Ran Ukashi a Ph.D. Candidate in the Faculty of Peace and Conflict Studies at the
University of Manitoba, focusing on Middle East politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and
international peacekeeping, “Zionism, Imperialism, and Indigeneity in Israel/Palestine: A Critical
Analysis”, 5-2018, Peace and Conflict Studies, https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1442&context=pcs - BIB)

Zionism is an unprecedented form of (re)colonization, as it is the only historical instance in which an

Indigenous People have returned to their homeland through a deliberate effort to
reacquaint themselves with their patrimony, revive their language, and re-establish
their society (Bareli, 2001). No other colonial venture can claim an Indigenous connection
to the land which it colonizes, setting Zionism apart from archetypical settler colonial
undertakings. Efforts to de-indigenize the Jewish People and equate Zionism as a wholly
settler colonial project in the pejorative sense fail to make a convincing case, given this historical
connection. Moreover, the available PACS literature
makes it clear that the denial
of Jewish Indigenous identity is more likely to exacerbate an
already intractable conflict rather than foster fruitful reconciliation efforts
between Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. That being said, the legacy of British (and Ottoman) imperialism in
contemporary Israel/Palestine is both a blessing and a curse depending on one’s position within the forces of history. Two
nations with different—yet valid—claims to the same land continue to struggle over
recognition, territory, and self-determination . This discussion sought not to explore the many (in)justices of
this conflict for both communities, or offer any (il)legitimate prescriptions for contemporary peace or redress. Rather, the
narrative sought to demonstrate the futility in suggesting that Palestinian Arabs enjoy
sole claims to indigeneity in the land, at the expense of the Jewish People, and the
subsequent synonymization of Zionism with settler colonialism, based on this very premise. Despite
the complexity and emotions involved in this iconic conflict, it is apparent that by any measure in which
Palestinian Arabs can express legitimate indigeneity to the land, so too can the Jewish
People.

solutions to the conflict require a priori recognition of jewish indigeneity and an

understanding of what drives identity-based conflicts
Ukashi 18 (Ran Ukashi a Ph.D. Candidate in the Faculty of Peace and Conflict Studies at the
University of Manitoba, focusing on Middle East politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and
international peacekeeping, “Zionism, Imperialism, and Indigeneity in Israel/Palestine: A Critical
Analysis”, 5-2018, Peace and Conflict Studies, https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1442&context=pcs - BIB)
For example, the Palestinian conflict involves the unmet needs of identity and security.
Countless Palestinians feel that their legitimate identity is being denied them, both personally
and nationally. Numerous Israelis feel that they have no security individually because of
suicide bombings, nationally because their state is not recognized by many of their close
neighbors, and culturally because anti-Semitism is growing worldwide . Israeli and Palestinian
unmet needs directly and deeply affect all the other issues associated with this conflict .
Consequently, if a resolution is to be found, the needs of Palestinian identity and Israeli
security must be addressed and satisfied on all levels. (Marker, 2003, para. 4) As such, for there to be a
realistic chance for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to end, there must be a mutual recognition that both
Jews and Palestinian Arabs have national rights, in order to transform how each community
perceives the other, and to build the requisite trust necessary to create peace on the ground. In
fact, such mutual recognition is critical in ensuring that positive relationships based on trust can arise
between both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, in order to begin the process of reconciliation in some form
(Kriesberg, 2003a). While this certainly includes an acceptance of Palestinian identity and rights,
it also includes a priori a recognition of Jewish indigeneity—as a core and inalienable element of
Jewish peoplehood and identity—to the same territory that Palestinians claim as a homeland. It should be noted that the
recognition of Jewish indigeneity in Eretz Yisrael/Palestine does not preclude any agreement which would
result in national self-determination for both Jews and Palestinian Arabs in the land, but
rather to demonstrate that merely claiming that Jews are not Indigenous to the territory
further exacerbates the conflict. The same can be said for those claiming Palestinian
Arabs have no rights to self-determination. The discussion here does not surround what a policy outcome
would look like but deals only with official Palestinian governmental denial of Jewish indigeneity as a
contributing factor to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict . Given an understanding of what
drives identity-based conflicts, such as the IsraeliPalestinian conflict, it is necessary to
turn attention to an exploration of Zionism and Palestinian Arab nationalism in historical
context. In doing so, I preface the subsequent discussion of postcolonialist critiques of Zionism, which mirror
those levied by official Palestinian Authority political communications, and develop an
understanding of how Zionism differs significantly from archetypical settler colonial
societies around the world.
Kritik
 1nc
Their use of the phrase “settler colonialism” in the 1AC frames the Jew’s as
having no ties to Israel – that’s antisemetic and Eurocentric - especially proven
by the fact that the small fonts of their card have different discourse than the
tag, showing the affs attempt to mask their violence.
Ukashi 18
(Ran Ukashi a Ph.D. Candidate in the Faculty of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of
Manitoba, focusing on Middle East politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and international
peacekeeping, “Zionism, Imperialism, and Indigeneity in Israel/Palestine: A Critical Analysis”, 5-
2018, Peace and Conflict Studies, https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1442&context=pcs - BIB)

Postcolonialism and Its Discontents

Thus far, it can be established that a rejection

of Jewish indigeneity to the land requires the employment
of fallacious history with the rhetoric of decolonization . This involves the use of politicized communications to
link the phenomenon of Zionism with historical European settler colonialism through a post-
colonialist and postmodernist lens (Bukay, 2012). This is achieved through the reductive ascription of complex social ills
to the legacies of imperialism and colonialism (Salzman, 2007), working retroactively to illustrate a predetermined causal linkage.
Therefore, without focusing on the positive or negative consequences of history, the question becomes whether Zionism is a form of
Indigenous self-determination for the Jewish People, or an illegitimate settler colonial project involving the disenfranchising of an
Indigenous population for the benefit of an alien population. Given the ideological diversity within “Zionism” (Jewish Virtual Library,
n.d.a) at its most basic, a distilled definition of Zionism
involves the commitment to the (re)establishment of
a Jewish national home in the Jewish People’s historic homeland (Eretz Yisrael/Palestine) in one fashion or
another (Jewish Virtual Library, n.d.b). The different ideas surrounding how this type of national polity should emerge is beyond the
scope of our discussion, but essentially it
was an emancipation movement emerging out of the European
nationalistic milieu of the late 19th century (Bareli, 2001), aiming to assert Jewish sovereignty and
the creation of a Jewish body politic in at least part of the ancient lands of Israel. However, critics of
Zionism consider it to be nothing more than a form of British facilitated colonial exploitation and
dispossession by foreigners to the land, in order to establish a polity that asserts its dominance over an
Indigenous population (Bareli, 2001). Viewed as such, Zionism, then, is inherently illegitimate. However, as such critics
are largely informed by settler colonial theories , a historically contextualized response is
required to separate fact from fiction with “…neither moral judgmentalism nor apologetics on behalf of Israeli
interests” (Bareli, 2001, p. 103), or presumably for that matter, Palestinian Arab interests. What then, is “settler colonialism?”
Greenstein provided a comprehensive definition, which is instructive: 15 [Settler colonialism] identifies a cluster of societies in which
colonial rule – the overseas extension of Europe-based states – was combined with large-scale immigration of metropolitan settlers.
Politically, it focuses on particularly resilient forms of domination that serve the interests of settlers who made a new home for
themselves in overseas territories. Facing resistance from indigenous people to their subjugation, settler societies were shaped
historically by ongoing conflict. This has provided them with common features and a sense of shared destiny, based on the similar
challenges they faced. Solidarity between those at the losing end – indigenous groups, slaves and other people marginalized through
this form of colonial rule – is the other part of the process. (Greenstein, 2017, p. 1) Thus, one can see that settler colonialism
as a phenomenon is quite malleable, and applicable to many scenarios and can take on many forms (Greenstein, 2017).
However, the one thing that all cases of settler colonialism have in common is , according to Greenstein,
“the distinction between indigenous people and settlers (including their descendants)” (p. 3). Greenstein argued
that while Jews can certainly, to an extent, be viewed as Indigenous to the territory, as “…if not as individuals
then as a collective – The Jewish People – that maintained unique identity and link to the country over
millennia, regardless of specific time and space configurations” (Greenstein, 2017, p. 3). However, he seemingly qualified Jewish
indigeneity to those residing within Palestine prior to Zionist (re)colonization. Speaking with regard to the consequences of the 1948
Arab-Israeli War following partition, Greenstein wrote: It involved the displacement of indigenous people by recently-arrived settler
immigrants: a vast majority of local Jews by 1948 had moved to Palestine in the previous three decades, and new immigrants from
Eastern Europe and the Middle East doubled their numbers within the next four years. In the other cases [wars between equally
indigenous parties to a conflict] those involved were equally indigenous to the scene as they had co-existed in the same territory for
centuries. (Greenstein, 2017, p. 10) That is, Greenstein appeared to dismiss the notion that those Jews who immigrated in the recent
decades prior to the 1947 partition of Palestine could claim indigeneity to the land, and seems to privilege
Arab indigeneity by virtue of longstanding residence, while failing to apply the same standard to
those Arabs who recently migrated to Palestine as well. Thus, for this critique to sustain itself, it
is essential for Jewish notions of indigeneity to be dismissed or 16 minimized, insofar as an
indeterminate number of Jews in Palestine prior to partition had not lived among the Arab
population “for centuries.” This perspective privileges longstanding association with a land—as is undoubtedly the case
with many Palestinian Arabs—over the Jewish Indigenous connection, without identifying a reason, nor a threshold
for these criteria. This therefore problematizes Greenstein’s approach, as no time threshold is established to
constitute a “legitimate” length of time by which to claim indigeneity , or have indigeneity extinguish.
Moreover, this application of indigeneity is arbitrarily applied to only one set of Jews within a
specific set of criteria, while not applying to the collective Jewish People , as per the commonly accepted
application of the concept elucidated via UNPFII. Other critiques focus on different elements of the Zionist enterprise. According to
Wolfe (2006), both settler colonialism and genocide are linked in a “logic of elimination,” whereby
genocide can be—but is not necessarily—a component of settler colonial processes. In other words, settler colonialism seeks
an “elimination” of sorts, but is not invariably genocidal in its outcome (Wolfe, 2006). The primary
motive of settler populations is to gain access to territory by eliminating native societies, either
physically, or culturally through assimilation, and supplant it with a foreign society , a process which
can take many forms (Wolfe, 2006). Wolfe applied this concept to Zionist colonization in Palestine, claiming that the process of
colonization involved efforts to disenfranchise not only Palestinian Arab labour, but also to fashion an exclusively Jewish state, from
“…the negative process of excluding Palestine’s Indigenous owners” (Wolfe, 2006, p. 390 ).
Implicit, of course, is the
suggestion that Jews— Zionist or not—are not Indigenous to the territory. Wolfe stated his contention bluntly,
and applied to Israel (even defined by pre-1967 borders) the same condition he applied to all settler colonial societies that: […]
settler colonialism is an inclusive, land-centred project that coordinates a comprehensive range of agencies, from the metropolitan
centre to the frontier encampment, with a view of eliminating Indigenous societies. Its operations are not dependent on the
presence or absence of formal state institutions or functionaries. (Wolfe, 2006, p. 393) 17 Yet in his conflation
of Israel’s
founding with settler colonialism, Wolfe engaged in emotive polemics describing Israel’s “…
chronic addiction to territorial expansion ” (Wolfe, 2006, p. 401) and implicitly denied Jewish indigeneity
to the territory by suggesting that the Zionist enterprise had driven “…so many of its original
inhabitants into the sand” (p. 401). Of importance here is that aside from a critique of particular Israeli
policies—which may or may not be legitimate—the denial of Jewish indigeneity is taken for
granted, which then paves the way for a simplistic and erroneous equation between Zionism
and settler colonialism. Lloyd goes further by considering Zionism to be an “…exemplary settler colonial project” (Lloyd,
2012, p. 59), arguing that Zionism necessitated—and continues to necessitate— the “functional
absence” of “native people” in Palestine (p. 61), effectively downplaying Jewish indigeneity to the
land, and privileging Palestinian Arab indigeneity. Furthermore, Lloyd cited the existence of Zionist Eurocentricism
and desires among them to emulate European nationstates, which will be addressed in more detail below, as evidence of Zionist
imperialism, and as a typical manifestation of settler colonies around the world. Lloyd stated: Accordingly, the foundations of
Zionism are imbued with the contradictory pulls of European nationalisms in general, between an inwardly directed demand for
selfdetermination and an outwardly directed desire for expansion through the colonisation of others considered inferior to
Europeans...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.
Zionism’s conception of a 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. (Lloyd, 2012, pp. 63-64) Thus, Lloyd equated Zionism with European settler colonialism by virtue of the existence of
similar worldviews between some Zionists and Western European nations. Importantly, Lloyd suggested that Zionist settler
colonialism is characterized, as all settler colonialism is, on the appropriation of Indigenous land, “...rather than the political and
economic subordination of the 18 Indigenous population, the monopolisation of its resources, or the control of its markets” (Lloyd,
2012, p. 66). However, as Penslar (2001) lucidly illustrated, this
characterization requires the obfuscation of the
underlying motivations behind Zionism as an Indigenous revival of the Jewish People in their
historic homeland: Zionism was a product of the age of imperialism; its adherents shared a
number of common sensibilities with European advocates of colonial expansion in the Middle
East. Yet the movement was not, in and of itself, a form of colonial practice . Due to myriad historical and
ideological factors, Zionism sought to realize itself in the Middle East, in an area chosen not for its strategic value, natural resources
or productive capabilities, but solely
because of the Jews’ historic, religious and cultural ties to the area
known to them as the Land of Israel. (Penslar, 2001, p. 96) As can be deduced, many settler colonial models apply
malleable criteria to accommodate a critique of Zionism. Shimoni argued that postcolonialist theory is often used as a tool through
which to weaponize critique, by associating anything with “colonialism”—rightly or wrongly, and often without sufficient critical
inquiry—to be beyond the pale (Shimoni, 2007). Steinberg suggested that such lenses utilize selective bias to
determine a priori “oppressors” and “oppressed” groups, and allow for ideological positions to
disproportionately value subjective interpretations of events in order to produce notionally valid
results (Steinberg, 2007). Given our discussion of Jewish indigeneity and its subsequent rejection by many Palestinian Arabs, as
well as a discussion of postcolonialist attempts to correlate Zionism with settler colonialism, we turn to an elaboration of Zionism
itself to demonstrate the incongruence between the two concepts.

There is a clear difference between “settler colonialism” and “settlerism”.

“Settler colonialism” implies a foreign settler is “exploiting the land” – distinct
from the Jews who are coming back to their homeland.
Ukashi 18 (Ran Ukashi a Ph.D. Candidate in the Faculty of Peace and Conflict Studies at the
University of Manitoba, focusing on Middle East politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and
international peacekeeping, “Zionism, Imperialism, and Indigeneity in Israel/Palestine: A Critical
Analysis”, 5-2018, Peace and Conflict Studies, https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1442&context=pcs) DIO

Zionism Versus Settler Colonialism

First and foremost, Zionism was indeed (re)colonialist to the extent that it was a movement of primarily—but not exclusively—Jews
of European extraction to Palestine. The intent was to settle the land and encourage Jewish newcomers to compete for land and
labor with both the Palestinian Arab residents and Arab economic migrants beginning in the 1880s and continuing onward until the
1947 partition of Palestine (and beyond) (Bareli, 2001). During this period, both Jews and Palestinian Arabs competed for recognition
with the British imperial 19 authorities, in what amounted to a “civil war” between two separate nationalistic communities (Bareli,
2001). Unlike
“settler societies” elsewhere, Jews did not view themselves as foreign to the land,
but as Indigenous returnees seeking national independence (Troen, 2007). For this fundamental
reason, Palestine was chosen over alternative locations (Goff et al., 1998; Gans, 2007). While certainly
influenced by European thought, the Zionists invoked the cultural distinctness of the Jewish People, a difference recognized by
Europeans historically through the “othering” and persecution of European Jews for centuries (Bareli, 2001). Jews, according to
Shimoni, were perceived as the “...quintessential Oriental Other” (Shimoni, 2007, p. 860) in the myriad of societies they inhabited
throughout history. Over time, they had, to varying extents, internalized the ideals of their host societies, engaged in self-hatred and
the internalization of stereotypes, and desired to mimic dominant cultural norms (Shimoni, 2007). Zionism was perceived by many of
its adherents as the way to assert a more confident identity and (re)construct the “New Jew” through a re-association with the
symbolism and connection of the land of Eretz Yisrael/Palestine. This
particularly involved the pursuit of Jewish
resilience, and self-sufficiency for the Jews that were undoubtedly influenced by European
thought, but nevertheless distinct from European nationalism (Shimoni, 2007). For postcolonialist
critiques of Zionism—irrespective of its positive and negative consequences—the matter of
Jewish indigeneity to the land is denied, ignored, or dismissed as irrelevant. Such critiques
consign Zionism to a political, historic, and socioeconomic vacuum, by conflating Zionist
(re)colonization with true cases of settler colonialism elsewhere, thereby making Zionism appear
as not only possessing a parasitic quality, but also an arbitrary and predatory approach towards
the Palestinian Arabs. Such arguments disenfranchise Jews, while privileging Palestinian Arabs,
of their Indigenous patrimony, while ignoring the “othering” that has also transpired on the side
of Arab nationalists in general, and Palestinian Arab nationalists, in particular. Speaking to this trend in
postcolonialist analysis of Zionism, Shimoni asserted that, […] nothing is said of the degradations deriving from
the traditional dhimmi status of Jews as a tolerated but subordinate and oft-humiliated religious
minority within the realm of Islam; not to speak of consequent self-righteous indignation at any expressions of Jewish
assertiveness, and the pathological shame-and-honour syndrome which precludes any thought of Jewish sovereignty within any part
whatsoever of the claimed geo- 20 political realm of Islam. Moreover, as unquestionably sound scholarship has shown, Arab
representations of Jews have increasingly projected unmistakably anti-Semitic motifs, avidly
adopted from Christian Europe. (Shimoni, 2007, p. 863) However, as alluded to elsewhere, this is not to suggest that Eurocentricism
did not exist among many Zionists. Many did in fact believe that their way of life was superior to that of Palestine’s Arab inhabitants,
which was all but an inescapable legacy of the European environment in which the early Zionists found themselves (Bareli, 2001).
However, there were those Zionists who valorized—often romanticizing and idealizing—“the Orient,” causing intraZionist discord
over what manifestation Zionism should take on (Shimoni, 2007). Among such Zionists were those who claimed that the Jews and
Arabs were essentially distant family, with some maintaining—albeit with scant evidence—that some Palestinian Arabs were indeed
descendants of ancient Hebrews, as a way to demonstrate their fealty to the land and the region (Penslar, 2001). David Ben-Gurion
himself made this assertion, which had the de facto effect of linking Jewish indigenity to any claims made by the Palestinian Arab
population, and vice versa (Pearl, 2008). Others viewed the Palestinian Arabs as a corporate group (Muir, 2008) and called for social
integration with Palestinian Arabs, and for Jews to learn Arabic in their schools (Karsh, 2008), all the while recognizing that the land
had enough room for both national groups (Gans, 2007). It would seem then that among prominent Zionist thinkers—at least
rhetorically—there was no conflict in admitting that Jews were not Palestine’s sole Indigenous inheritors. According to Penslar,
Zionism’s mission civilisatrice was directed primarily at other Jews, with the aim of having the
Jewish People shed off the yoke of Europe and transform themselves economically and
politically through the (re)invention of an Indigenous folk culture in their historic homeland.
There was no colonial attempt to force affiliation with Judaism or Zionist ideals upon the
Palestinian Arab population, unlike other European colonial projects in North America, Africa,
and Asia (Penslar, 2001). The “New Jew” was to use Hebrew as a living national language—a
language always Indigenous to the region, most palpably in Eretz Yisrael /Palestine (Bareli, 2001)—in
direct opposition to those who sought other languages as the Jewish lingua franca (Troen, 2007). Importantly, Zionists
invested capital in, rather than extracting resources from, Palestine for the benefit of a colonial
metropole, demonstrating that Jewish (re)colonization was not 21 carried out for economic or
merely “Eurocentric” purposes. In fact, local economic conditions became attractive (for all) only following the
considerable influx of Jewish capital to Palestine from abroad (Bareli, 2001). Ultimately, however, the conflict was that of two
competing nationalisms. Both the Zionists and the Palestinian Arabs sought to curry favour with the British imperial powers, and
argue their respective positions. The majority of mainstream Zionists indeed sought to peacefully (to the extent possible) establish a
Jewish majority in Palestine, all while recognizing that there would always be—and rightfully so—a permanent Arab minority within
a Jewish State (Karsh, 2008). Jewish indigeneity as a basis for Zionist aspirations did not preclude the
same rights for the Palestinian Arab population, despite the reverse being true by a significant
proportion of the Palestinian Arab community (Shimoni, 2007). In this respect, we see at the very least that the
opposition to Zionism in Palestine was not over its effect, but rather its intent. Moreover, today’s postcolonial attempts at
critiquing Zionism tend to critique both Zionism’s intent and effect, and demonstrating the
congruence between Zionism and settler colonialism, which is a far different exercise than what
informed the original reasoning by Palestinian Arabs themselves surrounding their rejection of
Zionism. A further characteristic of postcolonial discourse on Zionism is the failure to
contextualize Zionism within its historical environment. The enterprise itself began in the late 19th century
within the Ottoman Empire, and continued under British imperial rule following the Ottoman surrender. In
such a political
environment, Jews had limited authority over their own affairs, as imperial law determined the
limits of the Zionist enterprise in all spheres of life (Penslar, 2001). Moreover, unlike in other
imperial contexts, Jews were not provided free lands and indentured labour in service of a
foreign imperial enterprise, but instead had to purchase land and hire labor through their own
means (Golan, 2001). However, as reiterated elsewhere, investment in Palestine was the norm, rather than the reverse, as Troen
(2007) clearly illustrated: Jewish colonization during its first forty years took place in the Ottoman Empire and was not part of the
process of imperial expansion in search of power and markets. It was not a consequence of industrialization and financial interests.
Indeed, as numerous scholars have noted, Jewish settlement was so unprofitable that it has been judged to be economically
irrational. (Troen, 2007, p. 881; italic emphasis added) 22 This meant that Zionist (re)colonization of Palestine required the
buttressing of Jewish self-sufficiency in agriculture and commerce, to augment a unique societal foundation for further growth. At
times, although certainly not always, this process resulted in exclusionary policies in relation to Arab labor, whereby Arabs lost
employment prospects as Zionists encouraged and pressured Jewish employers to hire only Jewish employees (Cohen, 2011). Yet
the behavior was carried out to ensure Jewish self-sufficiency without any imperial aegis (Shimoni, 2007). That is, Zionism was meant
to produce Jewish national continuity, self-sufficiency, and independence within Eretz Yisrael/Palestine, alone, with no loyalty to any
other country. As Shimoni put it, “those postcolonialist studies which ignore this intrinsic truth are guilty of the...privileging of
consequences over intentions” (Shimoni, 2007, p. 866).

The alt is to reject the 1AC for using harmful discourse in the debate space. We
advocate Israeli and Palestinian policies can be questioned without the term
“settler colonialism”.
Ukashi 18 (Ran Ukashi a Ph.D. Candidate in the Faculty of Peace and Conflict Studies at the
University of Manitoba, focusing on Middle East politics, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and
international peacekeeping, “Zionism, Imperialism, and Indigeneity in Israel/Palestine: A Critical
Analysis”, 5-2018, Peace and Conflict Studies, https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1442&context=pcs) DIO

It is possible, however, to conceive of Zionism as being simultaneously an Indigenous project of

Jewish national reconstitution in Eretz Yisrael/Palestine and a settler colonial enterprise, insofar as people point to the
effect of Zionism rather than its intent (as mentioned above). Through this perspective, analysts could point out particular Israeli
policies which are detrimental to Palestinian national interests, rights, needs, and desires. However, such
critiques would
merit appropriate consideration in the context of a critique of Israeli policies, along the lines of
critique levied against any other country—no more and no less. Zionism itself could not be
considered the fulcrum upon which any and all social ills evident within the IsraeliPalestinian
conflict hinge. There are myriad reasons for the state of affairs that contemporarily plague Israelis and Palestinians. Thus, it is
necessary to reiterate that Jewish indigeneity and subsequent self-determination is not in
question, just as Palestinian national rights are not in question. However, individual Israeli and
Palestinian policies can certainly be questioned, without drawing inaccurate parallels to settler
colonialism, or extinguishing the rights of any one group.
conditions CP
conditions
 1nc
The United States federal government should maintain arms sales to the State
of Israel on the explicit condition that Israel ceases to commit atrocities in the
Gaza strip.
U.S. arms sales to Israel are critical leverage which can be used to advance U.S.
interests—stopping sales completely decks leverage
Schenker, David 08 [Assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, M.A., University of
Michigan; Certificate, Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA), American University in Cairo; B.A.,
University of Vermont]. “Review of Arms Transfers to Israel: The Strategic Logic behind
American Military Assistance.” Middle East Forum, Middle East Forum, 2008, Summer,
www.meforum.org/1938/arms-transfers-to-israel.//AC

Rodman's study of U.S. arms transfers to Israel provides important insight into this critical and
oft-misunderstood element of the strategic relationship. Relying on extensive U.S. archival
research, the book details the evolution of this relationship from Israel's early reliance on
Western European equipment through the start of U.S. arms sales during the Johnson era to the
end of the Reagan administration.

Rodman's thesis is that arms sales have provided Washington with critical leverage over
Israel, enabling the United States to "wring concessions out of Israel in order to advance
American national interests," particularly during Middle East wars. For Israel's part, according to
Rodman, weapons purchases from the United States constitute an acceptable sacrifice
of autonomy for security. The slender volume is a quick and absorbing read and is full of well-
footnoted examples illustrating the complicated dynamics of U.S. and Israeli decision-making
related to weapons sales.

The argument is convincing. Rodman points out that U.S. efforts to influence other Israeli
policies via this lever, such as its pursuit of a nuclear weapons program, have proved decidedly
less effective except during Middle East wars, when, as Rodman argues, U.S. influence on Israeli
policy has been dramatic. In 1967, pressure from Washington forced Israeli restraint in
the face of Egyptian provocations, such as the closure of the Straits of Tiran. When the
United States recognized the futility of diplomacy, Rodman says, Washington gave the Jewish
state a tacit "green light" to embark on war. The same held true, Rodman points out, during the
1969-70 War of Attrition when Israel was compelled to stop its bombing raids against Egypt
after Washington threatened to withhold the military aid and diplomatic support necessary for
the raids to continue.

In perhaps the most striking example, in 1973 U.S. pressure appears to have dissuaded the
government of Israel from taking preemptive military action against Syria and Egypt.
"Caught between the Israel Defense Forces General Staff and the Nixon administration,"
Rodman says, "the Meir government chose to follow the position of Israel's patron rather than
the advice of its own military experts." After the outbreak of hostilities, the Meir government
accepted the Nixon administration's cease-fire proposal because, Rodman writes, Israel had no
alternative but to "trade the postwar concessions desired by the United States for
continued American [military] support."
As Rodman deftly points out, Israel's conduct during the 1967-1973 period is "not
comprehensible unless it is examined in the context of the American-Israeli patron-client
relationship." Arms Transfers to Israel provides a comprehensive picture of the origins and
development of the U.S.-Israeli military assistance relationship. In doing so, although not
intentionally, Rodman's study goes a long way toward dispelling the now fashionable myth that
the strategic relationship with Israel is driven primarily by domestic U.S. politics.
 --Israel – Palestinian Human Rights
Leveraging to stop mistreating Palestinian chilren
Bill Van Esveld, 11-14-2017, Associate Director, MENA, Children's Rights Division, "US Military
Aid to Israel – from Another Perspective," Human Rights Watch,
https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/11/14/us-military-aid-israel-another-perspective//ER

the Israeli military applies harsh rules to Palestinian children and tries them in
In the West Bank,

military courts, which have a near-100 percent conviction rate. Settler children living in
the same territory are instead subject to Israel’s civil laws and courts .
With US funds providing 18.5 percent of Israel’s annual defense budget, the US has the
leverage to change those practices, if only it would use it. And there’s no getting away from the
risk that US military aid – US$127.4 billion over the decades – may be underwriting
unlawful Israeli practices.
If Israeli soldiers suspect a Palestinian child of throwing a rock at a settler’s car, they
may, under the rules they apply, raid his home in the middle of the night, drag him out
of bed, and keep him awake for hours for interrogation without allowing him to call a
parent to say where he is. Interrogators often pressure the child to sign the record of his interrogation, written in Hebrew, which
most Palestinian children do not understand. And the rules permit security officials to hold him for up to four days without taking him before a judge.

But if an Israeli child living in a West Bank settlement throws a rock at a Palestinian car,
he is legally protected from being interrogated at night by Israeli police, and can have a
parent present at the interrogation. The police must notify Israel’s Public Defense Office of the arrest and cannot interrogate
the child before the office responds, unlike in the case of a Palestinian child. Israeli authorities can hold him for at most 24 hours before taking him
before a judge.

This discriminatory system is violently enforced. The majority of Palestinian children

arrested by Israeli forces say that they are subjected to abuse , according to Military Court Watch, a rights
group – often blindfolded with their hands tied painfully, physically abused, threatened, deprived of sleep, and strip searched. Children as young as 11
have described to me how Israeli police or soldiers put them in chokeholds, and kicked, threatened, and left them outside for hours in cold weather.
Children said they urinated on themselves in fear during their arrest, and had nightmares about their detention later.

Defense for Children International Palestine, a rights group, interviewed 429 children detained between 2012 and 2015, and found that three-quarters
of them suffered physical violence. Two Israeli rights groups, B’Tselem and HaMoked, recently concluded that even in East Jerusalem, where Israeli laws
rather than military laws apply, ill-treatment is “the primary mode of conduct adopted by the State of Israel for dealing with boys who are suspected of
stone throwing.” Police subjected one boy to a 12-hour interrogation during which they said they would not give him food or water or allow him to go
to the bathroom unless he confessed, the rights groups reported.

Nothing short of serious pressure is likely to end abuses that a 2013 UNICEF report
found to be “widespread, systematic and institutionalized.” Israel half-heartedly implemented a few reforms,
like a “pilot” program in 2014 of issuing summonses instead of terrifying nighttime arrests. But Israel limited the program to two West Bank areas and
repeatedly suspended it, citing “the security escalation.” Most summonses were delivered to children during night raids by armed forces – causing the
same fear that the program was supposed to avoid.
Pretty decent conditions card about the Palestinian children
Peter Beinart, 5-20-2019, a Senior Columnist at The Forward and Professor of Journalism and
Political Science at the City University of New York. "It’s Time to End America’s Blank Check
Military Aid to Israel," Forward, https://forward.com/opinion/424591/its-time-to-end-americas-
blank-check-military-aid-to-israel//ER
Last month, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declared that American aid to Israel is “something that can be discussed” in Washington. Her

America’s policy of giving Israel billions in aid without expecting

comments made news precisely because

any policy changes in return hasn’t actually been discussed — or at least questioned —
in either party in more than a quarter-century. That needs to change.
To understand why, ask yourself this question: Why did Israelis last month re-elect a prime minister who opposes a Palestinian state and — by
championing settlement growth and vowing to annex parts of the West Bank — is working to make one impossible?

There are several common answers. One is historical: Over the last two decades the second intifada and rocket fire from the Gaza Strip have created an
enduring right-wing majority among Israeli Jews. A second answer is demographic: Netanyahu’s center-left rivals lean heavily on the votes of secular
Ashkenazi Jews, whose share of the Israeli population is shrinking. Netanyahu relies more on Orthodox Jews, whose share is rising.

Israelis re-elected
There’s truth to both these explanations. But there’s a third, which American politicians and pundits rarely acknowledge:

Netanyahu because he showed them he could undermine the two-state solution with
international impunity. Indeed, he made that accomplishment a central theme of his campaign.
Again and again in recent years, Netanyahu has mocked political rivals who warned that his policies toward the Palestinians were making Israel a global
pariah. In a speech to supporters in 2017 he quoted former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who predicted in 2011 that, “Israel’s delegitimization is on the
horizon.” To which Netanyahu responded, “Nonsense… Israel is enjoying an unparalleled diplomatic spring.”

In a campaign ad this year, Netanyahu juxtaposed an ominous 2013 quote from former foreign minister Tzipi Livni — “The prime minister of Israel is
leading the State of Israel to severe isolation” — with images of him alongside Donald Trump and other world leaders. In another ad, he showed
himself in the Oval Office telling a dejected-looking Barack Obama that Israel will never return to the 1967 lines.

It can deny
Netanyahu’s message, as Hagai El-Ad of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has noted, was that Israel can have it all:

Palestinians basic rights and enjoy international favor at the same time. Even presidents
like Obama, who disapprove of Israel’s actions, don’t penalize Israel for them. They fold.
’s not just Trump who has enabled his assault on the two-state solution.
Netanyahu was right. It

Obama did too. For eight years as president, Obama warned that Israeli policies in the
West Bank were endangering Palestinian rights, American interests and Israel’s future as
a democratic and Jewish state.
, during those eight years, Obama never used American aid to Israel as a lever to
And yet

change the policies he decried. Obama watched Netanyahu rebuff him again and again. He watched as Netanyahu in 2011
travelled to the White House to publicly repudiate his vision of a Palestinian state near the 1967 lines.

He watched as Netanyahu in 2014 “flatly refused” to give Secretary of State John Kerry “the slightest hint about the scale of the territorial concessions”

He watched as Netanyahu used settlement growth to

he was willing to make to the Palestinians.

“sabotage,” in the words of one American official, Kerry’s efforts at brokering a two-
state deal.
Then, after all that — and after Netanyahu’s fervent lobbying against the Iran nuclear agreement — Obama in 2016
rewarded him with the largest military aid package in Israeli history.
“America is a thing you can move very easily,” Netanyahu once boasted to settlers. Obama and Trump have both illustrated the point.
The American government’s capitulation — under both Democrats and Republicans — is the unspoken elephant in the room when Americans discuss

It is impossible to understand the looming death of the two-

Israel’s embrace of permanent occupation.

state solution without understanding that, for more than a twenty-five years, no
American president has made Israel pay a price for undermining it. During that time, the notion that an
American president might refuse to subsidize policies that brutalize Palestinians, harm America’s image, and threaten Israeli democracy, has become
almost inconceivable. It’s time for a new generation of American progressives — especially progressive Jews — to make it conceivable again.

One reason conditioning aid has become inconceivable is that any American president who proposed it would be labeled anti-Israel, if not anti-Semitic.
But by that standard, these epithets should be affixed to most of the presidents of the mid to late twentieth century.

During the cold war, as Nathan Thrall details in his indispensable book, The Only Language They Understand, presidents we now routinely think of as
pro-Israel routinely used American aid to influence Israeli policy.

When Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, after attacking Egypt alongside Britain and France in 1956, mused about annexing Egyptian territory,
Dwight Eisenhower threatened to end all US aid unless Israeli troops withdrew immediately.

In 1975, when Israel refused Henry Kissinger’s demand for a partial withdrawal from the Sinai desert, which it had conquered in 1967, Gerald Ford
vowed a “reassessment” of “our relations with Israel,” and refused any new military or economic assistance until the withdrawal was done.

When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1977, Jimmy Carter told Menachem Begin that Israel’s use of American armored personnel carriers violated the Arms
Export Control Act, which prevented American weaponry from being used for offensive operations. Unless Israel left Lebanon immediately, Carter
warned, future arms sales “will have to be terminated.”

In 1982, when the Reagan administration determined that Israel’s use of cluster bombs in Lebanon may have violated America’s Mutual Defense
Assistance Agreement with the Jewish state, Reagan banned new sales of the bombs to Israel for six years. In 1991, George H.W. Bush initially refused
to give Israel the $10 billion in loan guarantees it requested to resettle Soviet immigrants until it froze settlement growth in the West Bank.

This history not only undercuts the claim that conditioning American aid reflects hostility to Israel, it also undercuts the claim that conditioning aid
doesn’t work. In recent years, former diplomats like Dennis Ross, and establishment American Jewish leaders like Malcolm Hoenlein, have insisted that
only American reassurance, not American pressure, produces Israeli concessions.

But during the cold war, American pressure produced Israeli concessions again and
again. When Eisenhower threatened American aid in 1956, Israeli troops began leaving
Egypt within 36 hours. Ford’s threat to halt new arms sales forced a partial Israeli
withdrawal from the Sinai in 1975 and Carter’s threat forced Israel’s withdrawal from
Lebanon in 1977. The following year, Carter again threatened aid during the Camp David talks that led to Israel leaving the Sinai
completely. And although Bush failed to restrain settlement growth, his initial refusal to provide loan guarantees, according to the Oxford historian Avi
Shlaim, “forced” Israel to participate in the 1991 Madrid Conference, where for the first time it publicly negotiated with a delegation of Palestinians.

Of course, American pressure was rarely the sole reason for Israel’s actions. Had Egyptian President Anwar Sadat not offered peace, it’s unlikely Israel
would have fully left the Sinai. Had Palestinians not launched the first intifada, which raised the price of Israel’s occupation, and had the PLO not
recognized Israel’s existence, it’s unlikely Israel would have signed the 1993 Oslo Accords. Had Saudi Arabia not unveiled the Arab Peace Initiative in
2002, Ariel Sharon may not have withdrawn Israeli settlers from Gaza in a bid to undercut the Saudi effort three years later.

Palestinian and Arab behavior matters. And it matters who leads Israel. But Israelis are more likely to elect rejectionists to lead them — and
rejectionists are more likely to remain rejectionists once in office — when they know their rejectionism will not harm Israel’s most important alliance.

Netanyahu’s decade-long political dominance in Israel, and his decade-long defiance in Washington, would simply not have been possible under the old
rules. Which is why progressives need to bring back those old rules — or at least a modified version of them — if they truly want Israel to change
course.

To condition American aid on Israeli behavior would not single Israel out. In theory, the
Foreign Assistance Act, as amended in the late 1990s, prohibits the United States from
providing aid or training to any foreign military units that have committed “gross
violations of internationally recognized human rights.”
Congress also places additional human rights conditions on American aid to numerous
specific governments, including Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, Columbia, El Salvador, Egypt, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Pakistan and
Sri Lanka. Before Trump ended American assistance to the Palestinian Authority, its aid was

among the most heavily conditioned of all.

What distinguishes American aid to Israel is precisely its exemption from the rules and limitations that govern assistance to other nations. While the
United States phased outeconomic assistance to the Jewish state a decade ago, Israel receives far more military aid than any country where the United
States is not currently at war. Outside of active American combat zones like Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, the United States gives most of its military aid
through something called Foreign Military Financing: a line of credit through which governments can buy American weapons. In Trump’s 2019 budget
request, 61 percent of that foreign military financing goes to Israel. Israel also receives its financing in a more advantageous way than other countries.
Every other foreign government receives a set amount of money per year, which it can spend on American weapons. Seth Binder of the Project on
Middle East Democracy compares it to a debit card: You can only spend what America has already given you. Israel, by contrast, enjoys something
called “cash-flow financing.” Binder compares it to a credit card: Israel can buy American weapons merely by committing to spend money America will
give it in the future. Under the Memorandum of Understanding Obama announced in 2016, Israel is due to receive $3.8 billion per year until 2028. And
because of cash-flow financing Israel can spend some of that future money now. That helps it buy expensive items — as it did in 2017 when it
purchased 17 F-35 fighters at close to $100 million per plane — which would be hard to afford using America’s aid for only one particular year.

The United States also gives Israel its aid right away. While most other nations can access American aid only when they agree upon an arms purchase,
Israel is given a lump sum at the beginning of every fiscal year. Since Israel doesn’t spend all that money right away, it puts the rest in the bank, where it
accrues interest, which makes the amount it actually receives in American aid even higher than the official $3.8 billion figure.

Finally, Israel is the only nation that can spend part of its aid buying weapons from its own manufacturers, not those in the United States. In that way,
Israel has used American assistance to fund its defense industry, which now ranks as the 8th largestarms exporter in the world. The ten-year deal
Obama signed in 2016 phases out this “offshore procurement” in 2028. Israel, however, is still allowed to spend at least 20 percent of its aid on Israeli
weaponry through 2024, and smaller percentages after that: A total of more than $5.6 billion.

t’s not inherently anti-Israel to condition American aid, and

But even observers who acknowledge that i

that such conditionality has proven effective at changing Israeli behavior in the past , might
still resist doing so for one simple and understandable reason: Security. Israel faces genuine threats, both from hostile governments like Iran and
violent groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. American aid helps protect Israel from them.

Americans should care about keeping Israelis safe. That means continuing to give Israel the roughly $500 million per year the US currently provides for

there are ways to condition aid that

missile defense and guaranteeing Israel’s military edge over its regional foes. But

don’t weaken Israeli security. They actually enhance it.

Democrats should consider a range of
What follows does not exhaust the possibilities. In the years to come,

proposals that balance their commitment to Israeli security with their commitment to
Palestinian rights. But it’s worth detailing two types of conditionality in particular. The
first involves specific Israeli practices that the United States should refuse to fund
because they serve no legitimate security goal and produce immense suffering.
One such practice is the detention of Palestinian children. In the West Bank, Israel
maintains two legal systems: a civil system that guarantees robust legal protections to
its Jewish citizens and a military system that guarantees far fewer rights to its
Palestinian non-citizens. Under this system of military law, the Israeli army routinely arrests Palestinian children.
Defense of Children International-Palestine interviewed more than 400
Between 2012 and 2015,

Palestinian children — almost one-third of them under the age of 16 — that Israel had
arrested in the West Bank. It found that many were arrested in the middle of the night.
Most were blindfolded, strip-searched and had their hands bound. In the vast majority
of cases, neither they nor their parents were told why they were being arrested.
A majority reported being physically abused during their arrests and a quarter reported physical abuse while being interrogated in detention. While in
detention — which can last from 24 to 96 hours, depending on a child’s age — almost all were interrogated in the absence of their parents or a lawyer.

Which helps explain why the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has reported that, “ill-
treatment of children who come in contact with the military detention system appears
to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized. ” This harrowing B’Tselem video, which shows soldiers in
March arresting a nine-year old at school despite his teacher’s desperate pleas, shows what that looks like up close.
 --Israel – Relations NB

Reaffirming ties through arms sales is key- key to prevent fill in and leverage
any power
Johannes Lang, 4-17-2019,( Lang is a student and writer at HPR "No Solution but a Two-State
Solution," Harvard Political Review, https://harvardpolitics.com/columns-old/two-state-
solution/)//ellalaur

America’s Responsibility

Independence for the West Bank would ideally be coupled with a lasting solution for
Gaza. According to the United Nations, 38 percent of Gazans live in poverty and 54
percent are food-insecure while electricity continues to be a  rare commodity. Israel,
Egypt, and the de facto Hamas government are, to varying extents, all responsible for the
blockade that has led many people to call Gaza “the world’s largest open-air prison.” In a form
of collective punishment, Israel refuses to abandon its blockade over Gaza as long it is
ruled by a terrorist government intent on destroying its state. While Hamas  deliberately
targetsIsraeli civilians and has been accused of using human shields, Israel continues to
accept many civilian deaths as collateral damage in its military operations. According to
the United Nations, 194 Palestinians have been killed and 29,000 wounded since the beginning
of the 2018 Gaza Border Protests.

Still, the United States and its allies have refused to criticize Israel’s use of excessive military
violence. Israel, which gets more U.S. foreign aid than any other country, has requested a
record-high $3.8 billion in 2019. In the past, American presidents have successfully used
their leverage to force Israel to withdraw from occupied territories in Lebanon and the
Sinai while repeatedly pushing for peace negotiations. This time, the United States
needs to up the ante.
Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestine

At the same time, the United States must reaffirm its fundamental support for Israel’s
right to exist — a durable solution should add Palestine to the map but not weaken
Israel. Aside from Egypt and Jordan, no Arab country recognizes Israel’s right to exist.
Their double standards for Israel’s actions and those of ruthless dictators in Syria or Saudi Arabia
reveal a vicious nationalism that prevents them from accepting a large Jewish presence in the
Middle East. The United States should use its clout with its Arab allies to facilitate Israel’s
regional integration as part of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Building trust with the Palestinians will be difficult but essential for any negotiations . The
Trump administration’s funding cut for the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA
and its announcement of the embassy move to Jerusalem has added insult to injury of decades
of pro-Israeli bias. The United States should support courageous groups of Palestinian peace
activists while calling out the dangerous tendency of sizable sectors of the Palestinian
population to condone terrorist attacks against innocent Israeli civilians. Lastly, the United
States should help provide a new “Marshall Plan” for a newly independent Palestinian
state. Currently, the unemployment rate in the Palestinian territories is the  highest in
the world. Former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995,
once said, “peace [can’t] become viable unless the man on the street in Gaza and
Jericho sees that peace gives new hope to his daily life.”
Israelis and Palestinians remain doomed to live on the same tiny piece of land. As famous Israeli
author Amos Oz explained, both need an “unhappy compromise” to learn to “unhappily
coexist.” Hatred and fear will likely fester for a long time. If policymakers can come together
to stop the occupation, blockades, terrorism, and war, however, the idea of peace will
eventually gain traction among both Israelis and Palestinians. America’s special
relationship with Israel affords it a special responsibility to work towards lasting peace in
the Middle East — to revive the two-state solution before it is too late.

Arms Sales are k2 U.S.-Israel Relations

Thomas 17 (Analyst in Middle Eastern Affairs- https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/R44984.pdf)
Israel has an active and growing indigenous arms industry, the development of which has been
subsidized in part by U.S. support. Since FY1984, Israel has been allowed to spend a portion of
its U.S. Foreign Military Financing (FMF) assistance on arms produced by Israeli manufacturers
(known as Off-Shore Procurement, or OSP).38 Israel is unique in this regard—no other FMF
recipient can use any of the FMF for domestic procurement. Although breaking out the exact
role of U.S. OSP funding in the development of the Israeli arms industry is difficult, Israel’s
defense contractors have become competitive with other global leaders: from 2008 to 2015,
Israel signed agreements to supply $12.8 billion worth of arms to other nations, the 10th highest
figure in the world and not far behind such traditional suppliers as the United Kingdom and Italy.
By one measurement, military exports from Israel grew by 14% in 2016, with Israel selling a
diverse array of military systems and equipment to a number of countries, most prominently
India.39 Yaakov Lappin, “Israeli F-35s to be declared operational in December,” IHS Jane’s
Defence Weekly, June 22, 2017. 37 Ilan Ben Zion, “Final plane in billion-dollar deal with Italy
lands in Israel,” Times of Israel, July 21, 2016. The deal with Italy involves a reciprocal aerospace
technology purchase (including satellites and surveillance planes) by Italy from Israel. 38 See, for
example, Department of Defense Office of the Inspector General Report No. 97-028, “Israeli Use
of Offshore Procurement Funds,” November 22, 1996, at
http://www.dodig.mil/audit/reports/fy97/97-028.pdf. Under the terms of the MOU for U.S.
military aid to Israel for FY2009-FY2018, that level was set at 26.3%, which is around $815
million of its FMF allocation of $3.1 billion. However, OSP will be phased out by FY2028 (with the
phase-out beginning in FY2024) under the terms of the new MOU signed in September 2016.
The September 2016 MOU reduces funding for OSP from $815 million in FY2019 to $450 million
in FY2025 to $0 in FY2028.) Total value of all Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA)
Foreign Military Sales (FMS) notifications since 2010: $9.6 billion Planned and potential
procurements: 50 F-35s (U.S.), potentially F-15s (U.S.); 111 APCs (Israel); 4 submarines
(Germany), 4 corvettes (Germany/Israel)
 --Israel Says Yes

Israel caves to leverage—Trump has political capital with them

Philip H. Gordon, 2-28-2019, Mary and David Boies Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy,
"Rethinking U.S. Policy Toward the Palestinians," Council on Foreign Relations,
https://www.cfr.org/report/rethinking-us-policy-toward-palestinians//ER
To avoid such dire outcomes, the Trump administration should rethink its current course. It should forego introducing a comprehensive peace plan
that, under current circumstances, has almost no chance of success and instead take steps toward improving conditions on the ground and preserving
prospects for more ambitious agreements. These steps include restoring previous levels of financial assistance for refugees and humanitarian projects

, using U.S. leverage with Israel to improve daily life and freedom of
in the West Bank and Gaza

movement for Palestinians, including by constraining settlement expansion, committing

to the goal of a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem to balance the move of
the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv, amending recent congressional legislation—the Anti-
Terrorism Clarification Act (ATCA)—with a waiver so that assistance to the PA can be
preserved, and taking steps to improve Palestinian economic growth.
Trump’s Counterproductive New Approach

For most of his first year in office, Trump avoided initiatives that could upset prospects for peace and maintained a serious dialogue with the Palestinian
leadership. But this generally balanced approach changed dramatically in December 2017 with the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s
capital and to move the U.S. embassy there—without getting anything from Israel in return. Trump argued that this unilateral move—one that was
opposed by 128 countries in the United Nations—took the issue of Jerusalem “off the table.” In fact, it placed the issue front and center as an obstacle
to agreement not just for Palestinians but for the Arab leaders Trump had been counting on to support the plan. After Trump announced the move,
Palestinian leaders broke off contacts with Trump officials; those contacts have yet to resume.

The Trump administration’s next major step was to cut financial assistance to the Palestinians. In August 2018, the administration announced plans to
eliminate all fiscal year (FY) 2017 assistance to the West Bank and Gaza, amounting to some $231 million. The targets included U.S.-funded projects—
such as schools, hospitals, and water and sewage projects that serve thousands of Palestinians—many of which will now be abandoned. The
administration also cut $10 million in funding for reconciliation programs that bring together individuals of different ethnic, religious, and political
backgrounds from areas of conflict. As a result, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has suspended projects in the West Bank and
Gaza, and plans to lay off local staff.

The refugee issue cannot simply be defined away.

A month later, the administration announced it would reprogram all U.S. humanitarian contributions previously allocated to UNRWA, which provides
support to some five million Palestinian refugees and their descendants. As the world’s leading donor to UNRWA, the United States had been providing
around $359 million (roughly 25 percent of the agency’s overall 2017 budget). The Trump administration maintains that this move will save money and
force other countries to pay the bills and that denying assistance to the descendants of refugees will undermine their political claims. But the refugee
issue cannot simply be defined away, and long-term substitute funding has, unsurprisingly, proven difficult to secure: UNRWA now needs more than $1
billion to maintain 2018 levels of assistance, a situation its director calls “the most severe financial challenge” in the agency’s history.

The administration has also been shutting down mechanisms for dialogue and cooperation with Palestinians. In September 2018, Trump announced he
was closing the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office in DC. He followed that move by announcing the closure of the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem—
which has for decades been the conduit for U.S.-Palestinian relations—placing its functions under the authority of the U.S. ambassador to Israel.
Justified by the administration in terms of improving “efficiency,” in reality the move means treating Palestinians of the West Bank bureaucratically and
symbolically as part of a greater Israel and reinforcing the Israeli perspective in diplomatic reporting to Washington.

In October 2018, Trump signed ATCA, a law that subjects all recipients of nonmilitary financial assistance to potential lawsuits by U.S. citizens; it went
into effect on February 1, 2019. While many members of Congress supported ATCA with good intentions, the law had the consequence of forcing the
Palestinian Authority to reject all remaining U.S. assistance to avoid billions of dollars in potential legal liabilities. The result—an end to all U.S. security
assistance to the PA—has left even Israeli security officials deeply concerned. The position of U.S. security coordinator, a three-star U.S. general who
since 2005 has overseen the training of Palestinian security forces for critical counter-terrorism and counter-narcotics work, will assume a cooperation-
only mission.

According to the Trump administration, these moves are designed to make clear to Palestinians that they need to accept new realities and agree to the
U.S. peace plan. As the president’s top advisor on the issue, Jared Kushner, explains, “All we’re doing is dealing with things as we see them and not
being scared out of doing the right thing. I think, as a result, you have a much higher chance of actually achieving a real peace.” Kushner has also said
that he believes the Palestinian leadership is refusing talks with the United States about the peace plan because “they are scared we will release our
peace plan and that the Palestinian people will actually like it,” apparently assuming that the Palestinian people are more ready for compromise with
Israel than their leadership. Trump has himself been even blunter about using U.S. humanitarian aid as leverage, telling the Palestinians publicly that
“we’re not paying until you make a deal. If you don’t make a deal we’re not paying.”

Instead of compelling Palestinians to accept a deal, the new measures are having the opposite effect.

Instead of compelling Palestinians to accept a deal, however, the new measures are having the opposite effect. With the end of U.S. assistance and with
U.S. alignment with Israeli positions on crucial political issues, Palestinian leaders have cut off political contact with Trump officials. Two-thirds of
Palestinians now oppose the resumption of contact with U.S. negotiators and 88 percent view the United States as biased toward Israel. The clearest
product of the administration’s approach has not been Palestinians bowing to U.S. demands but seeking—and to a degree gaining—support for greater
international recognition of Palestinian statehood and for diplomatic and economic pressure on Israel.

Policy Recommendations

The Trump administration’s new approach toward the Palestinians does not well serve the interests of the United States or the people of the region. A
better course of action would include the following steps:

Put off the announcement of a plan for comprehensive peace until prospects for success are more propitious. Under current circumstances, there is
little chance that peace negotiations will get started and virtually no chance such talks would succeed. The majority of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s current cabinet does not even support a two-state solution and PA President Mahmoud Abbas is too weak and unpopular to sell an
agreement even if he agreed to one. Under these conditions, if past is prologue, the most likely result of a U.S. peace initiative will be immediate
Palestinian rejection, followed by qualified Israeli support, which would only further poison the atmosphere between Palestinians on the one hand and
Israelis and Americans on the other. The outcome of the April 9 Israeli elections could or could not provide an opening, but launching a comprehensive
peace plan before both sides are ready to negotiate seriously with each other would do more harm than good.

Worsened conditions could lead to civil unrest.

Restore financial assistance, including to UNRWA, to pre-FY2017 levels. There is little sign that cuts in U.S. assistance to the Palestinians will force them
to the negotiating table and every sign that the cuts will have serious humanitarian consequences. Aid organizations assess the cuts will affect critical
services: emergency food aid, health care for anemia and malnutrition, access to clean water, rehabilitation services for cerebral palsy, and breast
cancer treatment. Worsened conditions could lead to civil unrest and drive increasing numbers of Palestinians toward groups and individuals that
advocate for violence to achieve their political aims.

Announce the U.S. policy goal of a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem. U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was consistent
with long-standing U.S. ambitions and, in many ways, simply recognized a practical reality. And the Trump administration constructively made clear that
Jerusalem’s borders and issues of sovereignty would still be up for negotiation. Still, by taking Israel’s side on such a sensitive issue and not even
recognizing the Palestinian aspiration to statehood with a Palestinian capital in Jerusalem, the administration deeply alienated not just Palestinians but
Arab leaders, who have reiterated they will only support Trump’s plan or normalize relations with Israel if this issue is addressed. The administration
could mitigate the damage of its unilateral move by announcing that the creation of a Palestinian state with a capital in East Jerusalem is also a U.S.
policy goal.

Amend the Anti-Terrorism Clarification Act to permit assistance to Palestinians. The Trump administration should ask Congress to amend this law to
allow the restoration of assistance to Palestinians—at a minimum for PA security forces. Failure to do so will severely undermine the PA’s ability to fight
terrorism and drug trafficking on the West Bank, ironically making more likely the very types of attacks the act is designed to deter.

Use U.S. leverage with the new Israeli government to curb settlement expansion, close
illegal outposts, improve Palestinian freedom of movement, and prevent annexation of
territory. Trump has built up significant political capital with Israel by supporting Israeli
positions on core issues such as Jerusalem and refugees and by taking a tough approach
to Iran. President Trump should use some of that capital to apply diplomatic pressure on
the Israeli government to improve the quality of Palestinian daily life, including by
curbing settlement activity. Such pressure could come in the form of willingness to criticize Israel publicly in international bodies and
to support enhanced Palestinian representation in such bodies. If the issue of settlements is not addressed, over

the long run, it will further undermine Israeli democracy and the prospects for Trump’s
“ultimate deal.”

Israel will comply

Arad 18 (https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/arms-export-policy-israel/ )
Within the context of its security dialogue with the US, Israel must relay its strong opposition to the release of the F-35 fifth-generation fighter jet to the Arab states. Israel must
retain its regional exclusivity of this platform since its regional aerial superiority depends, to a large degree, on the technological advantages that the F-35 fighter affords it. In
 areas of cooperation in arms exports need to be earnestly explored with regard to those
addition,

systems for which Israeli-US collaboration provides mutual benefits in securing arms deals. Air
defense systems seem to be the prime candidate for this kind of partnership. At the same time, rules of competition need to be established with regard to the other arms export

Israel should be wary of relaxing standards and procedures

endeavors that will be contested between the US and Israel. Finally,

for approving arms exports. A more competitive global arms market is no excuse for the reversal
of human rights, corruption, and security restrictions on arms sales.

Israel has too much to lose if they say no- their defense industry rests on FMF
funding
Foundation for Middle East Peace Staff, 5-23-2019,( The Foundation for Middle East Peace is
an American nonprofit organization that promotes a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. The organization was established in 1979 by Merle Thorpe, Jr. Lara Friedman is the
current President of the Foundation "It’s Time to End America’s Blank Check Military Aid to
Israel," Foundation for Middle East Peace, https://fmep.org/resource/11095/)//ellalaur

Palestinian and Arab behavior matters. And it matters who leads Israel. But Israelis are
more likely to elect rejectionists to lead them — and rejectionists are more likely to
remain rejectionists once in office — when they know their rejectionism will not harm
Israel’s most important alliance.
Netanyahu’s decade-long political dominance in Israel, and his decade-long defiance in
Washington, would simply not have been possible under the old rules. Which is why
progressives need to bring back those old rules — or at least a modified version of them — if
they truly want Israel to change course.

To condition American aid on Israeli behavior would not single Israel out. In theory,
the Foreign Assistance Act, as amended in the late 1990s, prohibits the United States
from providing aid or training to any foreign military units that have committed “gross
violations of internationally recognized human rights.”
Congress also places additional human rights conditions on American aid to numerous specific
governments, including Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, Columbia, El Salvador, Egypt,
Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Before Trump ended American assistance to
the Palestinian Authority, its aid was among the most heavily conditioned of all.

What distinguishes American aid to Israel is precisely its exemption from the rules and
limitations that govern assistance to other nations. While the United States  phased out
economic assistance to the Jewish state a decade ago, Israel receives far more military
aid than any country where the United States is not currently at war . Outside of active
American combat zones like Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, the United States gives most of its
military aid through something called Foreign Military Financing: a line of credit through which
governments can buy American weapons. In Trump’s 2019 budget request, 61 percent of
that foreign military financing goes to Israel. Israel also receives its financing in a more
advantageous way than other countries. Every other foreign government receives a set
amount of money per year, which it can spend on American weapons. Seth Binder of
the Project on Middle East Democracy compares it to a debit card: You can only spend
what America has already given you. Israel, by contrast, enjoys something called “cash-
flow financing.” Binder compares it to a credit card: Israel can buy American weapons
merely by committing to spend money America will give it in the future . Under the
Memorandum of Understanding Obama announced in 2016, Israel is due to receive $3.8 billion
per year until 2028. And because of cash-flow financing Israel can spend some of that future
money now. That helps it buy expensive items — as it did in 2017 when it purchased  17
F-35 fighters at close to $100 million per plane — which would be hard to afford using
America’s aid for only one particular year.
The United States also gives Israel its aid right away. While most other nations can
access American aid only when they agree upon an arms purchase, Israel is given a lump
sum at the beginning of every fiscal year. Since Israel doesn’t spend all that money right
away, it puts the rest in the bank, where it accrues interest, which makes the amount it
actually receives in American aid even higher than the official $3.8 billion figure.
Finally, Israel is the only nation that can spend part of its aid buying weapons from its
own manufacturers, not those in the United States. In that way, Israel has used
American assistance to fund its defense industry, which now ranks as the 8th largestarms
exporter in the world. The ten-year deal Obama signed in 2016 phases out this “offshore
procurement” in 2028. Israel, however, is still allowed to spend at least 20 percent of its aid on
Israeli weaponry through 2024, and smaller percentages after that: A total of more than $5.6
billion.

But even observers who acknowledge that it’s not inherently anti-Israel to condition
American aid, and that such conditionality has proven effective at changing Israeli
behavior in the past, might still resist doing so for one simple and understandable
reason: Security. Israel faces genuine threats, both from hostile governments like Iran
and violent groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. American aid helps protect
Israel from them.
Americans should care about keeping Israelis safe. That means continuing to give Israel the
roughly $500 million per year the US currently provides for missile defense and guaranteeing
Israel’s military edge over its regional foes. But there are ways to condition aid that don’t
weaken Israeli security. They actually enhance it.

What follows does not exhaust the possibilities. In the years to come, Democrats should
consider a range of proposals that balance their commitment to Israeli security with
their commitment to Palestinian rights. But it’s worth detailing two types of
conditionality in particular. The first involves specific Israeli practices that the United
States should refuse to fund because they serve no legitimate security goal and produce
immense suffering.
the unparalleled support for Israel in other regions of foreign policy gives the
U.S. leverage to stop extrajudicial killings
Alex Kane, 5-12-2017(Alex Kane is a New York-based freelance journalist who writes on U.S.
foreign policy in the Middle East. "Inside Sources Say the State Dept Refuses To Trace Whether
Israel Is Using U.S. Military Aid Illegally,"In These
Times, http://inthesetimes.com/features/israel-palestine-killings-us-aid-military-
weapons.html)//ellalaur

Israel’s army has long deployed U.S. weapons to kill Palestinian civilians.
An In These Times survey of detailed reports published by the United Nations, Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, Human Rights
Watch and Amnesty International reveals that, since 2009, at least 272 Palestinians appear to have been killed by U.S.-made
weapons used by Israeli forces.

Fourteen of these killings occurred during law enforcement situations (outside of an active war zone), such as during
demonstrations. Some of these incidents have been captured on video. In one video from 2016, for example, an Israeli soldier,
armed with a U.S.-made M4 assault rifle, executed an injured Palestinian who was lying still on a Hebron street after he stabbed a
soldier.

The full death toll of Palestinians killed by U.S. weapons is likely far higher, since many reports are not able to identify the weapon
used.

It’s not supposed to be this way. U.S.

arms exports to Israel (and other countries) are governed by
laws placing restrictions on sales to nations that abuse human rights. Campaigns to cut
U.S. military aid to Israel have latched onto a particular measure, known as the Leahy
Law. The law prohibits U.S. assistance or training from flowing to foreign military units
that have committed a gross violation of human rights, unless the foreign government
has held that unit accountable.
But interviews with human rights advocates, congressional aides and former and current U.S. officials reveal that enforcement of the
Leahy Law in Israel is lax, with no tracking of which army units receive U.S. weapons.

Human rights advocates say they have brought the State Department evidence of
specific crimes committed by soldiers who clearly used U.S. weapons, only to have that
evidence brushed off. A current U.S. official, who asked for anonymity because they are
not authorized to speak to the press and could be fired as a result, told In These Times that they are
not aware of any time when an Israeli unit was cut off from U.S. assistance under the Leahy Law.

This lack of enforcement allows Israel to get away with extrajudicial executions of Palestinians, human rights advocates say.

Maria LaHood, deputy legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, says the
United States’ “unparalleled support for Israel” gives it leverage to end these
extrajudicial killings if it chooses. “Our government does not lack the legal tools to put
an end to Israel’s human rights violations,” she says. “It lacks the political will.”
Israel will make territorial concessions- past sanctions prove
Nathan Thrall 2017(Nathan Thrall is an American writer, journalist, and analyst on the Middle
East.[1] He is currently a Jerusalem-based Senior Analyst with the Middle East & North Africa
Program of the International Crisis Group covering Gaza, Israel, Jordan, and the West Bank.[2]
[3] His writing has appeared in English in The New York Times, The New Republic, GQ, Slate, The
Guardian, and The New York Review of Books, and in Arabic in Al-Hayat, Asharq al-Awsat,
and Al-Quds al-Arabi.[3] A contributing editor at Tablet magazine[3] and a former member of
the editorial staff of The New York Review of Books,[3] he has appeared on the BBC, NPR,
and CNN.[3] “The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine.”
New York: Metropolitan Books, 2017)//ellalaur

“Between Begin’s 1977 proposal and the signing of the Camp David Accords, Carter faced
numerous setbacks. To overcome them, he put tremendous strain on Israel. In February 1978,
he colluded with Sadat on a nine-step plan to force an agreement on Begin. The following
month, he told Begin sternly that the main “obstacle to peace, to a peace treaty with Egypt, is
Israel’s determination to keep political control over the West Bank and Gaza, not just now, but
to perpetuate it even after five years.” Dayan wrote, “Though Carter spoke in a dull monotone,
there was fury in his cold blue eyes, and his glance was dagger sharp.” Begin admitted to his
aides that the meeting was one of the most difficult moments of his life. Two days later, Carter
told a group of Senate leaders, “We cannot support Israel’s policy which is incompatible with the
search for peace.” He then pushed through an arms “ale to the Saudis over vehement objections
from Israel and its supporters in Congress. When Vice President Mondale visited Israel in July
1978, Ariel Sharon accused the administration of “sowing the seeds for war by over-pressuring
Israel and over-promising the Arabs.”43 At Camp David itself, Carter squeezed the parties by
putting forward his own proposals, warning Sadat of the end of their personal friendship and the
relationship between their two countries, and threatening Begin with American censure and the
termination of US aid.44 Israel’s former deputy national security adviser Charles Freilich wrote
in his book on the country’s decision-making:

On the tenth day [of the thirteen-day Camp David summit] Carter threatened to state publicly
that whereas he had reached full understanding with Sadat, Begin’s refusal to dismantle the
Sinai settlements and recognize the applicability of Resolution 242 to the West Bank had
prevented agreement. American pressure came to a head on the twelfth and penultimate day,
as Carter threatened direct sanctions: “I will not be able to turn to Congress and say,
‘Continue providing Israel ”with assistance,’ when I am not sure that you really want
peace.” It was at that meeting that Begin finally conceded on the settlements and Palestinian
clauses. He would later tell the Knesset: “there was the possibility of saying no to President
Carter and the Camp David summit would have blown up that very day.… I knew that Israel
would not be able to withstand it … not in the U.S., not in Europe, not before the Jews of the
United States.… Israel could not have stood … facing the entire world.”45

But most of the concessions in the Camp David Accords had been made by mid-
December 1977, only six months after Begin took office the previous June. They were
unprecedented for any Israeli government, and particularly striking for one so hawkish
and wholly committed to Greater Israel. Begin consented to a full withdrawal from Sinai
although his foreign minister had often said that he preferred keeping the territory to having
peace. Begin was the first Israeli prime minister to agree even to the presence of Palestinians in
official negotiations over the future of the West Bank and Gaza, and he was harshly attacked for
it by the centrist Labor Party.

“Begin had gone from ruling out any possibility of ever negotiating with the PLO to accepting its
members in negotiations. From insisting that Palestine was Jordan, he came around to
proposing the establishment of Palestinian self-governance in Gaza and the West Bank.46

To many Palestinians, Begin’s concessions were mere crumbs. But they were enormous
compromises in the minds not just of the Likud but of the Israeli center and left. When
implemented under Oslo, they changed the conflict irrevocably and brought about, for
the first time since 1967, seemingly irreversible steps toward Palestinian self-
determination.
In fairly short order, Jimmy Carter succeeded in forcing one of the most right-wing,
annexationist figures in Israel’s history to do precisely what he had most sought to
avoid: plant the seed of a Palestinian state.
II. Israeli Withdrawals

Zionism will not evacuate a single yard of land without a political-military struggle that compels
it to do so.”—GEORGE HABASH

In the decades since the Camp David Accords, every American president has tried to finish what
Jimmy Carter started. Each has failed, and these failures have led to a widespread conclusion,
not just in the United States but throughout the world, that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may
be insoluble. The parties are intransigent, the issues are intractable, the interests of political
leaders are too narrow, and on each side the power of constituencies opposed to partition is too
great. Palestinian leaders are paralyzed by their lack of legitimacy. Israeli governments are
constrained by fractious coalition politics. American presidents are shackled by the power of
Israel’s domestic supporters. Arab states are divided and distracted by more urgent concerns.
The role of religion, dueling claims to sovereignty over sacred spaces, large refugee populations,
demands for restitution too great to be satisfied, the smallness of the territory, Israel’s
vulnerability to surprise attack, the trauma of the Holocaust, the freshness of wounds from
terrible violence, the absence of trust, and the irreconcilability of conflicting historical narratives
—all, it would seem, render the conflict too difficult to resolve.”

“Yet Carter’s experience suggests a different view. Faced with the threat of real losses—whether
human, economic, or political—Israelis and Palestinians have made dramatic concessions to
avert them. Through persistent coercion, both have taken steps toward accepting an
international consensus around Palestine’s partition into two states along the pre-1967 lines.
Carter’s achievement is but one of many examples demonstrating each party’s responsiveness
to force, that is, to all forms of pressure—including violence—that threaten significant costs.

In Israel’s case, each of its territorial withdrawals was carried out under duress. Following the
1956 Suez Crisis, when Israel colluded with France and the United Kingdom to invade Egypt,
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion refused to withdraw from Sinai and Gaza. At the end of the
war, he wrote that the Red Sea island of Tiran, off the coast of Sinai, would now be “part of the
third kingdom of Israel,” and in his victory speech he hinted at annexing Egyptian territory.
International intimidation of Israel brought about a swift and complete reversal. The Soviet
premier sent a letter threatening rocket attacks and the deployment of volunteer forces to assist
the Egyptian army. President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s administration issued an ultimatum:
if Israel didn’t unconditionally withdraw, it would lose all aid from the United States and
from American Jews, and the US would not oppose Israel’s expulsion from the UN.48
Within a day and a half of his victory speech, Ben-Gurion announced Israel’s withdrawal.
Israel’s next retreats came on the heels of the devastating October 1973 war, which
alerted the country to the necessity of peace with Egypt and the effectiveness of
Egyptian and Syrian forces. The war had shaken Israel, at one point causing a teary-eyed
Moshe Dayan to predict the “destruction of the third temple.”49 In the wake of the conflict,
Israel signed three agreements to undertake limited withdrawals, one in Syria and two
in Sinai. Each was made under acute pressure by the United States, which had been
subjected to a painful Arab oil embargo in response to its support for Israel.
In its first Sinai withdrawal agreement, negotiated during a war of attrition with Egypt, Israel
made greater concessions than those it had refused to make previously, which was among the
reasons the Egyptians called the 1973 war a victory. Stalled talks on the second Sinai withdrawal
were successfully concluded thanks only to a US threat in the form of a “reassessment” of
relations with Israel—the prime minister called it “ one of the worst periods in American-
Israeli relations”—during which the United States suspended consideration of economic
assistance and refused to provide any new arms deals. The agreement to withdraw from
parts of Syria in 1974 was, like the first Sinai disengagement, completed under the strain
of an ongoing war of attrition, with Syrian forces striking Israeli territory and IDF
positions.”

Ensuing one sided negotiation solves for both- attracts participation of the
opposed antagonist
Barry H. Steiner 2018( Steiner :A.B., University of Southern California (International Relations),
1963; Ph.D., Columbia University (Political Science), 1970.His research and teaching specialty
areas include: War and Peace Studies, and International Conflict Management. He became an
Associate Professor of Political Science in 1974; Professor of Political Science in 1985; and
Emeritus Professor in 2012. He has been teaching courses in International Relations and
American Government in the Department of Political Science, CSULB, since 1968. “Going for
Broke” on Palestine”, International Negotiation 23 (2018) 69–96 )//ellalaur

Intended to spur two-sided negotiations toward a diplomatic objective, GFB responds to

mediation problems and strengthens the mediator’s leverage in two ways. It reflects: (1)
the search for leverage to spur negotiating movement; and (2) the fundamental conflict
between the primary antagonists’ interests, which hampers the search for a mutually
acceptable negotiating formula. We discuss these in turn.
Mediation leverage is usually understood in relation to antagonists who ex- perience mutual
pain and heavy costs in an MHS condition, and thereby are attracted to unilateral action to
relieve themselves of those pressures (Zartman 2000). The mediator seeks to forestall such
action. “[T]he mediator may even need to reinforce a stalemate,” write Touval and Zartman
(1985: 11), “using its own resources to add negative arguments and inducements to keep the
parties from trying to resolve the situation unilaterally.” But Israel and the Palestinian Authority
are not subject to MHS13 (Maundi 2006: 162).

In the absence of MHS, an independent-minded American mediator can use GFB to push
negotiation movement. We have already noted how the me- diator can use her country’s
relationship between the antagonists, and dip- lomatic crises, to promote conflict with and
between the antagonists to gain such movement. A third source of mediation leverage for
movement is dimin- ished asymmetry of Israeli-Palestinian capabilities. Currently,
Israel’s superior capability in relation to the Palestinian Authority makes it difficult for
the US to oppose Israeli officials who reject negotiations and promote a so-called “one
state” solution of a Palestinian entity under Israeli authority. American rec- ognition of
Palestine adds to Palestine’s negotiating leverage, making the an- tagonists more equal
in strength. A fourth source of leverage comes from the possibility of negotiating with a
more receptive antagonist separately. If one opponent decides not to participate,
ensuing one-sided negotiations can still enhance the security positions of both
antagonists. And initiating, or threaten- ing to initiate, separate negotiations may attract
the participation of an antag- onist that is opposed to negotiations, but decides to
participate in a settlement rather than remain outside it.
American mediation techniques must also be adapted to conflicting Israeli- Palestinian interests.
The biggest shortcoming in American mediation on Palestine is not the search for shared
perceptions or definition of their conflict; neither seems attainable (Raiffa 1982: 215–
216). Without shared perceptions, there can also be no transition toward an agreed
upon goal (Zartman 1988). The practical negotiating problem is that the antagonists
understand Israeli- Palestinian relations very differently and cannot reconcile those
understand- ings. The Israeli government and settlers envision a Palestine deferential
and subordinate to Israeli authority, while Palestinian leaders aim for self-determi-
nation, with a Palestinian state functioning as an equal to Israel. Under these
circumstances, moving the antagonists beyond their current deadlock makes it desirable to build
elements of an agreement inductively, irrespective of how those elements are interrelated
(Zartman & Berman 1982: 89ff).

Getting concessions on Israel requires capitalizing on leaders’ weakness- value

of alliance
Barry H. Steiner 2018( Steiner :A.B., University of Southern California (International Relations),
1963; Ph.D., Columbia University (Political Science), 1970.His research and teaching specialty
areas include: War and Peace Studies, and International Conflict Management. He became an
Associate Professor of Political Science in 1974; Professor of Political Science in 1985; and
Emeritus Professor in 2012. He has been teaching courses in International Relations and
American Government in the Department of Political Science, CSULB, since 1968. “Going for
Broke” on Palestine”, International Negotiation 23 (2018) 69–96 )//ellalaur

Israeli leaders in each case parried demands by the US for compromise, and their
opposition required interminable American counter-effort. Shamir was asked to make
mostly symbolic accommodation. Begin was asked to concede authoritative governmental
functions to the Palestinians, going beyond the de- mand for autonomy. Netanyahu was
pressured to give up territory controlled by Israel to the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu’s
concessions were neutralized when his government fell, while Begin, whose government was
weakened by his concessions on the Sinai, made no concessions on Palestinian governance.

A second case commonality was the special American relationship with Israel, which,
along with American attention to the Israeli objections, impaired American ability to
push new and innovative mediation steps. The cases sug- gest that protecting this
relationship had higher American priority than peace- making over Palestine. It provided
a safety net that absorbed frictions between the two countries which emerged over
peacemaking. Yet while it encouraged a strain on peacemaking agreement, it also
appeared to license strong disagree- ment, and the assumption by Israeli officials,
whose security interests in the negotiations were stronger than that of the Americans,
that, in Miller’s words (2008: 274), “they could push America around and get away with
it.”18
What can be said about the difference between Madrid, when the US con- fronted the Israelis,
and Wye and Camp David I, when it did not? In the for- mer, the tougher American approach
seemed to coincide with a decline in Israeli resistance to pressure. American demands to Israel
to recognize PLO- sympathetic Palestinians then caused a split in the Israeli national unity gov-
ernment, the Labor contingent being willing to break up the Cabinet for the sake of moving
ahead on peacemaking. And Shamir, divided earlier from his own party by his resistance to
holding a conference, became more accommo- dating when he faced the prospect of isolation
within Israel over his opposi- tion to negotiations.

The American non-confrontational approach to Camp David I and Wye eased the Israeli
negotiation problem by suggesting the US wanted to avoid a negotiation breakdown. Non-
confrontational American officials would not intend – as Baker had done earlier with Shamir – to
weaken Begin and Netanyahu at home and/or capitalize on splits within the Israeli Cabinet. A
confrontational American approach advocated within the American govern- ment in those cases
would have necessitated capitalizing upon Begin and Netanyahu’s domestic weaknesses
(Friedman 1994).

For confrontation-minded American officials, our cases distinguish three ways to

capitalize upon Israeli leader weaknesses. One approach, reflected in the background to
the Madrid Conference, would accentuate differences on the peacemaking front within
Israel by encouraging establishment of a na- tional unity government in which a peace
faction would have considerable prominence. The second confrontational approach,
contemplated by some of Carter’s advisors, would condition the American-Israeli
alliance upon Israel cooperation on Palestine. It would be based on the American
assumption that Israel values the alliance more than it opposes comprehensive peace. A
third approach, postponing confrontation, is suggested by Carter’s Camp David I
decision not to pressure Begin to make concessions to the Palestinians. Confronting
Israel directly was then merely an option that the US ultimately decided not to pursue.

Pressure works-- U.S. relations are too important to Israel

Stephen M. Walt, 1-26-2009, professor of international relations at Harvard University. "Can
the United States put pressure on Israel?: A user's guide," Foreign Policy,
https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/04/10/can-the-united-states-put-pressure-on-israel-a-users-
guide//ER

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. 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 the Washington Post, 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 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.

I don’t think Obama needs to employ all of these steps –and certainly not all at once — but t he United States clearly has plenty
of options if pressure turns out to be necessary. And most of these measures could be implemented by the Executive
Branch alone, thereby outflanking die-hard defenders of the special relationship in Congress. Indeed, even hinting that it was thinking about some of
these measures would probably get Netanyahu to start reconsidering his position.

Most importantly, Obama and his aides will need to reach out to Israel’s supporters in the United States, and make it clear to them that pressing Israel
to end the occupation is essential for Israel’s long-term survival. He will have to work with the more far-sighted elements in the pro-Israel community
— including groups like J Street, the Israel Policy Forum, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, and others — and make it perfectly clear that his administration is not
selling Israel down the river. And yes, we are also going to have to keep pressing Hamas to moderate its positions and push the Palestinian authority to
create more effective governing institutions.

The key point to grasp is that using U.S. leverage on both sides–and not just one–is not
an “anti-Israel” policy, if that is what it will take to make the two-state solution a reality .
It is in fact the best thing we could do for ourselves and for Israel itself. In effect, the United States would be giving Israel a

choice: it can end its self-defeating occupation of Palestinian lands, actively work for a
two-state solution, and thereby remain a cherished American ally. Or it can continue to
expand the occupation and face a progressive loss of American support as well as the
costly and corrupting burden of ruling millions of Palestinians by force.
Indeed, that is why many—though of course not all–Israelis would probably welcome a more active and evenhanded U.S. role. It was former Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert who said “if the two-state solution collapses, Israel will face a South-Africa style struggle for political rights.” And once that
happens, he warned, “the state of Israel is finished.” The editor of Ha’aretz, David Landau, conveyed much the same sentiment last September when he
told former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the United States should “rape” Israel in order to force a solution. Landau’s phrase was shocking
and offensive, but it underscored the sense of urgency felt within some segments of the Israeli body politic.

Indeed, I suspect it would not take much U.S. pressure to produce the necessary shift
in Israel’s attitudes. As the recent bipartisan statement notes, “most Israelis understand
and appreciate that, at the end of the day, what really matters most for Israel’s security
is a relationship of trust, confidence, and friendship with the U.S.” If the United States
believes that a two-state solution is the best option, then it will have to convey that this
“trust, confidence, and friendship” can be retained if Israel changes course, but cannot
be taken for granted.

U.S. has leverage—Defense offsets

Shana Marshall, 9-14-2009, Associate Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies and
Assistant Research Professor. "Beyond Muscle: Using Financial Leverage for Middle East Peace,"
Foreign Policy In Focus,
https://fpif.org/beyond_muscle_using_financial_leverage_for_middle_east_peace//ER

As negotiations on Israeli settlements commence in this environment of uncertainty, the

Obama administration will need all the bargaining chips it can marshal. The key is to find a form of leverage that is

costly enough to impact Israeli behavior without threatening their security and is also
relatively cheap for the administration to apply. Defense “offsets” — incentives granted
by private companies to facilitate the purchase of military goods — satisfy all these
conditions, and may be especially effective in the struggle for Middle East peace.
Like most industrialized nations, U.S. defense manufacturers routinely grant offsets to purchasing governments, usually in the form of agreements to
co-produce specific weapons or invest in commercial enterprises. It has long been U.S. practice not to allow offsets on products and services purchased

The billions of dollars in additional

with U.S. military assistance funds — except when it comes to Egypt and Israel.

defense assistance that Israel has secured through this legislative loophole may prove to
be a significant source of leverage in the Middle East peace process.

Leverage works—allows Netanyahu to reverse policy

Yousef Munayyer, 4-19-2009, is a policy analyst with the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee in Washington, "Leverage U.S. military aid to halt Israeli settlements,"
https://www.inquirer.com/philly/opinion/currents/20090419_Leverage_U_S__military_aid_to_
halt_Israeli_settlements.html//ER

These facts run contrary to stated U.S. policy toward the peace process, but the new
government of Israel and the residents of Ariel and other settlements who voted for
Likud do not seem to care.
Every American administration since Jimmy Carter's has taken a position against
settlements in the West Bank. They are not only illegal under international law, but they
also jeopardize Israel's long-term security, stability, and prospects for peace with its
neighbors.
Settlements and the security structures that surround them debilitate the livelihoods of Palestinians, cut them off from each other, and make a viable
Palestinian state unachievable. From 1994 to 2004, after the start of the Oslo peace process, which was based on the principle of two states, the settler
population grew a striking 89 percent.

On a recent trip to the region, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized settlement construction and the demolition of Palestinian homes in
Jerusalem. Yet expansion plans continue to be developed by the Israeli Civil Administration.

Clearly, words have yet to alter the course of Israeli policies, and if the past is prologue,
a Netanyahu-led government will not be helpful in ending construction. In fact, the last
time Netanyahu was prime minister, settlement construction increased to its highest
levels in 20 years.
When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we are running out of time to save a two-state solution. Waiting for "pro-peace" governments to be

With the right wing on the rise in Israel and a

elected on both sides is like waiting for the planets to align.

fragmented Palestinian polity, the ideal configuration seems light-years away. Israel is
on a crash course with an irreversible entanglement in Palestinian territory.
It's time for a new approach that will make it clear to the Israeli government that there must be a permanent freeze on settlement construction and
expansion.

In 2007, the United States and Israel signed a memorandum of understanding guaranteeing Israel $30 billion in military assistance over the next
decade. This assistance, however, has never been conditioned or leveraged to ensure compliance with U.S. policy on settlements.

By conditioning assistance on compliance with a complete and permanent freeze on settlement construction, the United States can send a clear
message to Israel.

This message could also help Netanyahu. Since the domestic constituency that put him
into power is sympathetic to settlement expansion, limitations on U.S. assistance can
give Netanyahu the ability to argue that his hands are tied and that a settlement
freeze is necessary.
If we are shipping our tax dollars overseas in these tough economic times, the least we should do is make sure they are being used to further U.S.
objectives. If the United States truly is a friend to Israel, it should show some tough love, and conditioning aid is the right way to start.

Israel says yes --- it’s highly dependent on US arms sales

CRS 17 – Congressional Research Service, Analyst in Middle Eastern Affairs [name redacted]
10/11, “Arms Sales in the Middle East: Trends and Analytical Perspectives for U.S. Policy.”
https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20171011_R44984_9c5999ba29006bc29d0363590f5e21
d9c3183668.pdf

Israeli military imports—particularly in the realm of fighter aircraft and missile/missile

defense technology—remain almost exclusively American. U.S. arms exports, funded at least
in part by large amounts of U.S. aid, help maintain Israel's military advantage over its
neighbors (see "Israel's Qualitative Military Edge" below), a reflection of the depth and breadth of U.S.-
Israel ties. Moreover, Israel is a consortium partner in the development of the F-35 aircraft
and recently became the first country outside the United States to receive F-35s.36 The
probability of continued Israeli reliance on U.S. weapons and defense tech nology was
demonstrated in the memorandum of understanding (MOU) the two countries concluded
in September 2016. Under the terms of that MOU, which is the third between the two countries,
the executive branch committed to request that Congress provide $38 billion in military
aid over 10 years, from FY2019 to FY2028. (For more information on the MOU and its terms, see CRS Report RL33222, U.S.
Foreign Aid to Israel, by [author name scrubbed]). Most of Israel's other major purchases made in recent years have been from
Western European suppliers, including a 2012 deal with Italy for 30 M-346 jets, worth around $1 billion (the final planes were
delivered in July 2016).37
 --Leverage Key – Israel
Leverage works—but only if we use it
Damon Linker, 4-8-2019, a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a consulting
editor at the University of Pennsylvania Press, a former contributing editor at The New Republic,
and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test. "America's time of reckoning over Israel
has arrived," No Publication, https://theweek.com/articles/833873/americas-time-reckoning-
over-israel-arrived//ER

Despite what many Americans think, Israel is not, strictly speaking, our ally. (Alliances are defined by mutuality among
nations, and no one would expect Israel to come to our defense if we were attacked by a third party.) Israel is our client, and we

are its patron to the tune of more than $3 billion a year in aid. In return for that support, Israel gives us
access to intelligence gleaned from its many agents and assets in the Greater Middle East. That support also gives us

considerable leverage over Israeli actions, but only if we use it. More than any previous
president, Trump has opted not to use it — to give Netanyahu a green light to do pretty
much anything he wants. And Netanyahu is taking full advantage of the opportunity. Fully aware that his American counterpart may
well have less than two years left in office, the Israeli prime minister appears to understand the need to move quickly.

U.S. FMF provides leverage—Israeli leaders hands are tied

Will Blesch,, 5-14-2019, writer for Israeli national news, "Should Israel do without US financial
aid?," Israel National News,
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/23867//ER

According to a 2018 U.S. Congressional Report on U.S. foreign aid to Israel, “Israel is the
largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II . To date, the United States
has provided Israel $134.7billion (current, or noninflation-adjusted, dollars) in bilateral assistance and missile defense funding. Almost all U.S.

bilateral aid to Israel is in the form of military assistance, although in the past Israel also
received significant economic assistance.” (2) The most recent bout of funding includes
the following: · $3.1 billion in Foreign Military Financing, of which $815.3 million is for
off-shore procurement; · $705.8 million for joint U.S.-Israeli missile defense
projects,including $92 million for Iron Dome, $221.5 million for David's Sling, $310
million for Arrow 3, and $82.3 million for Arrow 2; · $47.5 million for the U.S.-Israeli
anti-tunnel cooperation program; · $7.5 million in Migration and Refugee Assistance; ·
$4 million for the establishment of a U.S.-Israel Center of Excellence in energy and water
technologies; · $2 million for the Israel-U.S. Binational Research & Development
Foundation (BIRD) Energy program; and · The reauthorization of War Reserves Stock
Allies-Israel (WRSA-I) program through fiscal year 2019. “For FY2019, the Trump Administration is requesting
$3.3 billion in Foreign Military Financing for Israel and $500 million in missile defense aid to mark the first year of the new MOU. The Administration

This clearly shows

also is seeking $5.5 million in Migration and Refugee Assistance (MRA) funding for humanitarian migrants to Israel.” (2)

a frightening dependence on America in order to maintain a “qualitative military edge .”

It also provides the United States with leverage. What was it Shakespeare said? “Neither a borrower nor a lender
 As long as Israel is deeply indebted to the Americans, the
be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend”

U.S.A. has undue influence on internal matters of security. As long as America (or other
nations) dole out funds and Israel accepts them, our leaders’ hands are tied. We cannot

make decisions that are solely good for our own nation.

Leverage key to solve Israeli abuses

Beinart 19 (https://fmep.org/resource/11095/)
America’s policy of giving
Last month, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez declared that American aid to Israel is “something that can be discussed” in Washington. Her comments made news precisely because

Israel billions in aid without expecting any policy changes in return hasn’t actually been
discussed — or at least questioned — in either party in more than a quarter-century. That needs
to change. To understand why, ask yourself this question: Why did Israelis last month re-elect a prime minister who opposes a Palestinian state and — by championing settlement growth and vowing to annex parts of the West Bank — is working to
make one impossible? There are several common answers. One is historical: Over the last two decades the second intifada and rocket fire from the Gaza Strip have created an enduring right-wing majority among Israeli Jews. A second answer is demographic:
Netanyahu’s center-left rivals lean heavily on the votes of secular Ashkenazi Jews, whose share of the Israeli population is shrinking. Netanyahu relies more on Orthodox Jews, whose share is rising. There’s truth to both these explanations. But there’s a third, which
American politicians and pundits rarely acknowledge: Israelis re-elected Netanyahu because he showed them he could undermine the two-state solution with international impunity. Indeed, he made that accomplishment a central theme of his campaign. Again and
again in recent years, Netanyahu has mocked political rivals who warned that his policies toward the Palestinians were making Israel a global pariah. In a speech to supporters in 2017 he quoted former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who predicted in 2011 that, “Israel’s
delegitimization is on the horizon.” To which Netanyahu responded, “Nonsense… Israel is enjoying an unparalleled diplomatic spring.” In a campaign ad this year, Netanyahu juxtaposed an ominous 2013 quote from former foreign minister Tzipi Livni — “The prime
minister of Israel is leading the State of Israel to severe isolation” — with images of him alongside Donald Trump and other world leaders. In another ad, he showed himself in the Oval Office telling a dejected-looking Barack Obama that Israel will never return to the
1967 lines. Netanyahu’s message, as Hagai El-Ad of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has noted, was that Israel can have it all: It can deny Palestinians basic rights and enjoy international favor at the same time. Even presidents like Obama, who disapprove of
Israel’s actions, don’t penalize Israel for them. They fold. Netanyahu was right. It’s not just Trump who has enabled his assault on the two-state solution. Obama did too. For eight years as president, Obama warned that Israeli policies in the West Bank were
endangering Palestinian rights, American interests and Israel’s future as a democratic and Jewish state. And yet, during those eight years, Obama never used American aid to Israel as a lever to change the policies he decried. Obama watched Netanyahu rebuff him
again and again. He watched as Netanyahu in 2011 travelled to the White House to publicly repudiate his vision of a Palestinian state near the 1967 lines. He watched as Netanyahu in 2014 “flatly refused” to give Secretary of State John Kerry “the slightest hint about
the scale of the territorial concessions” he was willing to make to the Palestinians. He watched as Netanyahu used settlement growth to “sabotage,” in the words of one American official, Kerry’s efforts at brokering a two-state deal. Then, after all that — and after
Netanyahu’s fervent lobbying against the Iran nuclear agreement — Obama in 2016 rewarded him with the largest military aid package in Israeli history. “America is a thing you can move very easily,” Netanyahu once boasted to settlers. Obama and Trump have both

The American government’s capitulation — under both Democrats and Republicans — is

illustrated the point.

the unspoken elephant in the room when Americans discuss Israel’s embrace of permanent
occupation. It is impossible to understand the looming death of the two-state solution without understanding that, for more than a twenty-five years, no American president has made Israel pay a price for undermining it. During that time, the
notion that an American president might refuse to subsidize policies that brutalize Palestinians, harm America’s image, and threaten Israeli democracy, has become almost inconceivable. It’s time for a new generation of American progressives — especially

One reason conditioning aid has become inconceivable is that any American
progressive Jews — to make it conceivable again.

president who proposed it would be labeled anti-Israel, if not anti-Semitic. But by that standard,
these epithets should be affixed to most of the presidents of the mid to late twentieth century.
During the cold war, as Nathan Thrall details in his indispensable book, The Only Language They Understand, presidents we now routinely think of as pro-Israel routinely used American aid to influence Israeli policy. When Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion,

In 1975, when Israel

after attacking Egypt alongside Britain and France in 1956, mused about annexing Egyptian territory, Dwight Eisenhower threatened to end all US aid unless Israeli troops withdrew immediately.

refused Henry Kissinger’s demand for a partial withdrawal from the Sinai desert, which it had
conquered in 1967, Gerald Ford vowed a “ reassessment” of “our relations with Israel,” and
refused any new military or economic assistance until the withdrawal was done. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1977,
Jimmy Carter told Menachem Begin that Israel’s use of American armored personnel carriers violated the Arms Export Control Act, which prevented American weaponry from being used for offensive operations. Unless Israel left Lebanon immediately, Carter
warned, future arms sales “will have to be terminated.” In 1982, when the Reagan administration determined that Israel’s use of cluster bombs in Lebanon may have violated America’s Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement with the Jewish state, Reagan banned

This history
new sales of the bombs to Israel for six years. In 1991, George H.W. Bush initially refused to give Israel the $10 billion in loan guarantees it requested to resettle Soviet immigrants until it froze settlement growth in the West Bank.

not only undercuts the claim that conditioning American aid reflects hostility to Israel, it also
undercuts the claim that conditioning aid doesn’t work. In recent years, former diplomats like
Dennis Ross, and establishment American Jewish leaders like Malcolm Hoenlein, have insisted
that only American reassurance, not American pressure, produces Israeli concessions. But during the cold war,

Ford’s threat to halt new arms

American pressure produced Israeli concessions again and again. When Eisenhower threatened American aid in 1956, Israeli troops began leaving Egypt within 36 hours.

sales forced a partial Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai in 1975 and Carter’s threat forced Israel’s
withdrawal from Lebanon in 1977. The following year, Carter again threatened aid during the Camp David talks that led to Israel leaving the Sinai completely. And although Bush failed to restrain settlement
growth, his initial refusal to provide loan guarantees, according to the Oxford historian Avi Shlaim, “forced” Israel to participate in the 1991 Madrid Conference, where for the first time it publicly negotiated with a delegation of Palestinians. Of course, American
pressure was rarely the sole reason for Israel’s actions. Had Egyptian President Anwar Sadat not offered peace, it’s unlikely Israel would have fully left the Sinai. Had Palestinians not launched the first intifada, which raised the price of Israel’s occupation, and had the
PLO not recognized Israel’s existence, it’s unlikely Israel would have signed the 1993 Oslo Accords. Had Saudi Arabia not unveiled the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002, Ariel Sharon may not have withdrawn Israeli settlers from Gaza in a bid to undercut the Saudi effort

three years later. Palestinian and Arab behavior matters. And it matters who leads Israel . But Israelis are more likely to elect rejectionists to
lead them — and rejectionists are more likely to remain rejectionists once in office — when they know their rejectionism will not harm Israel’s most important alliance. Netanyahu’s decade-long political dominance in Israel, and his decade-long defiance in

To condition
Washington, would simply not have been possible under the old rules. Which is why progressives need to bring back those old rules — or at least a modified version of them — if they truly want Israel to change course.

American aid on Israeli behavior would not single Israel out. In theory, the Foreign Assistance
Act, as amended in the late 1990s, prohibits the United States from providing aid or training to
any foreign military units that have committed “gross violations of internationally recognized
human rights.” Congress also places additional human rights conditions on American aid to numerous specific governments, including Afghanistan, Burma, Cambodia, Columbia, El Salvador, Egypt, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Pakistan and
Sri Lanka. Before Trump ended American assistance to the Palestinian Authority, its aid was among the most heavily conditioned of all. What distinguishes American aid to Israel is precisely its exemption from the rules and limitations that govern assistance to other
nations. While the United States phased outeconomic assistance to the Jewish state a decade ago, Israel receives far more military aid than any country where the United States is not currently at war. Outside of active American combat zones like Afghanistan, Iraq
and Syria, the United States gives most of its military aid through something called Foreign Military Financing: a line of credit through which governments can buy American weapons. In Trump’s 2019 budget request, 61 percent of that foreign military financing goes
to Israel. Israel also receives its financing in a more advantageous way than other countries. Every other foreign government receives a set amount of money per year, which it can spend on American weapons. Seth Binder of the Project on Middle East Democracy
compares it to a debit card: You can only spend what America has already given you. Israel, by contrast, enjoys something called “cash-flow financing.” Binder compares it to a credit card: Israel can buy American weapons merely by committing to spend money
America will give it in the future. Under the Memorandum of Understanding Obama announced in 2016, Israel is due to receive $3.8 billion per year until 2028. And because of cash-flow financing Israel can spend some of that future money now. That helps it buy
expensive items — as it did in 2017 when it purchased 17 F-35 fighters at close to $100 million per plane — which would be hard to afford using America’s aid for only one particular year. The United States also gives Israel its aid right away. While most other nations
can access American aid only when they agree upon an arms purchase, Israel is given a lump sum at the beginning of every fiscal year. Since Israel doesn’t spend all that money right away, it puts the rest in the bank, where it accrues interest, which makes the

Finally, Israel is the only nation that can spend part of its aid
amount it actually receives in American aid even higher than the official $3.8 billion figure.

buying weapons from its own manufacturers, not those in the United States. In that way, Israel
has used American assistance to fund its defense industry, which now ranks as the 8th
largestarms exporter in the world . The ten-year deal Obama signed in 2016 phases out this “offshore procurement” in 2028. Israel, however, is still allowed to spend at least 20 percent of its aid on Israeli
weaponry through 2024, and smaller percentages after that: A total of more than $5.6 billion. But even observers who acknowledge that it’s not inherently anti-Israel to condition American aid, and that such conditionality has proven effective at changing Israeli
behavior in the past, might still resist doing so for one simple and understandable reason: Security. Israel faces genuine threats, both from hostile governments like Iran and violent groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. American aid helps protect Israel

Americans should care about keeping Israelis safe. That means continuing to give Israel the
from them.

roughly $500 million per year the US currently provides for missile defense and guaranteeing
Israel’s military edge over its regional foes . But there are ways to condition aid that don’t weaken Israeli security. They actually enhance it.

unconditional support of Israel is the reason we lack credibility in democracy-

only being conditional solves
Christopher A. Morton 2018(Morton: Naval Postgraduate School Monterey, CA 93943-5000,
“HOW DOES UNITED STATES SECURITY ASSISTANCE AFFECT HOST NATION
DEMOCRATIZATION?” https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1060022.pdf)//ellalaur

Carothers and Marina Ottaway expressed the following themes regarding democracy promotion
in the Middle East. First, the gradualist, top-down approach to democratization rarely works.158
Second, democratization requires opposition groups with large constituencies to form political
parties that can truly compete with the incumbent for power, and those are typically Islamist
groups, not democratic political parties. 159 Democracy’s ideological challengers (e.g., Islamism
and nationalism) do not have enough mass appeal to replace it as the world’s dominant political
system.160 However, democracy’s primacy is not assured, and it still faces entrenched
political challenges in many countries, which complicate the already complex process of
democratization.161 Third, external actors have minimal influence compared to
domestic political power brokers.162 Fourth, the United States lacks pro-democracy
credibility because of its unconditional support for Israel, its neglect of Palestinians’
rights, and its consistent support for friendly autocrats in recent decades.163 They
concluded that “outside actors will
in most instances not be the primary determinants of change[, but] they can make positive
contributions.”164 Carothers argued that external aid is somewhat influential, but not as
much as donors would like to think. He mentioned that the 1991 U.S. Congress
requirement for IMET to emphasize to new democracies “civilian control of the armed
forces, human rights, and other democracy-related topics.”165 He argued that IMET
(including E-IMET) is an ineffective tool for changing civil-military relations, because
militaries and government bureaucracies are deeply entrenched and resistant to
institutional change, even if they favor democratization, which they often do not.166 It
is not a matter of training, but one of incentives. Joshua Kurlantzick concurred that the U.S.
IMET program “is not effectively promoting democracy and respect for civilian command of the
armed forces.”167 He recommended more rigorous human rights screening as a pre-requisite
for funding foreign officer involvement in U.S. training programs. He asserted that “failing to
use U.S. training to emphasize respect for democratic institutions sends a message that
assistance does not distinguish between abusive and law-abiding militaries.”168 The
second mechanism is that the presence or absence of host nation characteristics,
historical experiences, or societal pre-conditions influence democratization more than
U.S. SA. Seymour M. Lipset explained how past British rule is highly correlated with
democracy.169 It is a historical, institutional influence that is particularly relevant to the
Pakistan case study, and it supports the idea that prior experience with democracy and civil
society support democratic consolidation. Stephen M. Walt argued that U.S. democracy
promotion is best accomplished by diplomacy and by setting a credible democratic
example domestically, not by “foreign-imposed regime change.”170 His logic is that
there are many societal pre-requisites for democracy to thrive, and democratization by
military intervention “almost always triggers violent resistance.”171 He added that non-
military foreign policy tools can be effective when applied to countries who have
budding democratic movements and the economic, legal, and social precursors to
democracy.
Israeli BMD PIC
1nc
 1nc shell
The United States federal government should eliminate Direct Commercial
Sales and Foreign Military Sales from the United States to the State of Israel
sans missile defense and related systems.

Iranian nuclear acquisition is inevitable – tanker incident emboldens iran to

strike israel
Egozi and Clark 7/19/19 (ARIE EGOZI and COLIN CLARK, “For Israelis, War With Iran
Looms; Iran Denies Drone Downed”, Breaking Defense,
https://breakingdefense.com/2019/07/for-israelis-war-with-iran-looms-iran-denies-drone-
downed/ - BIB)

TEL AVIV: A new crisis erupted in the Persian Gulf Friday when Iran’s Revolutionary Guards
announced they had seized a British oil tanker, and appeared to seer it toward a Guard facility on the Iranian
island of Qeshm. The seizure sends a new jolt of tension through the region, a day after the US Navy said it
had brought down an Iranian drone that had flown too close to the USS Boxer in the Strait of Hormuz.

In nearby Israel, with elections looming and Iran ramping up pressure for talks to resume on
lifting sanctions, the new incidents appear to some to be proof that war may be creeping
near.
“Some countries will only wake up to the Iranian threat when nuclear missiles fall on
European soil” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said July 16.
This harsh comment reflects the growing concern in Israel that Washington might ease sanctions imposed on
Iran, and some European nations will continue to adhere to the nuclear deal as a result of declarations by senior
Iranian political figures. “They are the masters of sweet deceiving talk,” an Israeli expert on Iran said.
“The Iranians are now shortening the time to the point where they will have enough
enriched Uranium for a nuclear bomb. They lie when they declare that they are not
working to achieve nuclear capability” Brig. Gen. (Reserve) Yossi Kuperwasser told Breaking Defense. Kuperwasser
was head of the research division in the Israel Defense Force (IDF) Military Intelligence division and director general of the Israel
Ministry of Strategic Affairs.

In an exclusive interview, the intelligence expert said the Iranians had no intention to stop their race to a
nuclear weapon. The JCPOA agreement talked about keeping them one year away from the point where they have enough
enriched uranium for a bomb: “I assess that now they are eight months from this point and the time is
being shortened.”
The intelligence expert said that Teheran
has a clear strategic plan to build a military nuclear
capability: “They continue with this strategy but use all the tricks in the book to disguise
it.”
In a clear sign of just how frustrated the Israeli government is with continuing talks about lifting Iranian sanctions, Netanyahu urged
the EU to act immediately against Iran. In a video posted on his social media accounts he invoked the memory of Britain’s failed
attempt to appease Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II.

“The response by the European Union to the Iranian violations [of the nuclear deal] reminds me of the European appeasement of
the 1930s,” Netanyahu said in the Hebrew-language clip. “Also then, there was someone who buried his head in the sand and didn’t
see the approaching danger.

“It seems that there

are those in Europe who won’t wake up until Iranian nuclear missiles fall
on European soil. And then, of course, it will be too late. In any case, we will continue to do everything
necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons,” added the prime minister.

Earlier this month, Iran

announced that it had exceeded a 300 kilogram stockpile limit for 3.67
percent enriched uranium and had started enriching to 4.5 percent fissile purity.
Nuclear experts are concerned that Iran’s enrichment moves could shorten the year-
long period it would need to produce the 90% enriched uranium required for a nuclear
weapon.
Iran’s actions are not “considered to be significant non-compliance,” EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said at a press
conference, as European foreign ministers held crisis talks about saving the JCPOA nuclear deal.

In his visit this week to the U.S., Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif highlighted what he called the world’s rejection of
America’s unilateral policies, saying it’s time for Washington to “return to the international community”.

Zarif said on Monday his country does not want a war with the US but added that President Trump must lift harsh economic
sanctions on Tehran to clear the way for negotiations.

The skepticism in Israel in about the latest Iranian declarations remains deep.
Retired Maj. Gen. Amos Gilad told Breaking Defense that “because
of the US sanctions they may slow the
race towards the bomb, and instead make some show of force, but the Iranians will
continue the race and will have a nuclear bomb.”
Gilad served as Director of Policy and Political-Military Affairs at the Ministry of Defense. During his 30 years of service at the IDF,
Gilead had been, among other positions, head of the Military Intelligence Research Division.

Israel has declared time after time that it won’t accept Iran armed with a nuclear bomb.

Iranian provocation causes nuclear lashout

Ostovar 6/28/19 (Afshon Ostovar Assistant Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval
Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, “ The U.S. and Iran Are Marching Toward
War”, Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/iran/2019-06-28/us-and-iran-
are-marching-toward-war - BIB)
With each passing day, the United States and Iran draw each other deeper into conflict. So far, they have stopped short of war. But
the likelihood of an armed conflict increases with every additional provocation , whether
it is an attack on a civilian tanker ship or another round of sanctions . Both countries, with their all-
or-nothing strategies, are to blame. President Donald Trump’s administration has pursued a “maximum pressure” campaign against
Iran built on suffocating economic sanctions and a de facto oil and gas embargo. Iran
has pursued a maximum
resistance strategy, escalating into attacks on shipping lanes, downing a U.S. drone over
 and rejecting out of hand all opportunities for de-escalatory talks with
the Persian Gulf,
Washington. With both states unwilling to back down, the march toward war continues.

A DEEPER SOURCE OF CONFLICT

That relations could have deteriorated to this degree is remarkable. Only four years ago, Washington and Tehran signed a historic
multilateral agreement that curtailed Iran’s nuclear enrichment program in exchange for U.S. sanctions relief. The deal didn’t end
the mistrust between the two countries, nor did it solve long-standing disagreements about Iran’s foreign policy in the Middle East,
but it created a much-needed mechanism for diplomatic engagement, which the deal’s proponents saw as necessary to avoid a war.

Trump was an outspoken critic of the deal on the campaign trail, and upon taking office, he began to ratchet up pressure on Tehran.
For all its faults, the Trump administration at least seemed to grasp a crucial fact: although Iran’s nuclear program had
become a focal point of U.S.-Iranian tensions, it was never the real source of acrimony between the two
countries. The roots of those tensions lay deeper—in Iran’s support for militant groups at war
with Israel, such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and in its ties to enemies of the United States’
Gulf allies, such as the Houthis in Yemen. No less consequential was Iran’s support for Iraqi militias that killed hundreds of U.S.
military personnel at the height of the Iraq war and that continue to threaten U.S. troops there.

Hoping to induce a change in the Islamic Republic’s behavior, Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 and embarked on a sanctions-
based “maximum pressure” campaign. His administration
presented Tehran with a list of 12 demands,
most of which concerned Iran’s regional activities, with the remainder relating to the country’s nuclear and
ballistic missile programs. Taken together, Trump’s conditions essentially asked Iran to
abandon its grand strategy and surrender its most valuable military deterrents . In exchange,
the United States promised not only to lift sanctions on Iran but also to help restore its economy and normalize diplomatic relations.

The Islamic Republic, unsurprisingly, rejected the demands outright. Tehran then looked to Europe, Russia, and China, hoping that
some or all of these actors would pressure the Trump administration to walk back its demands or else provide a means of bypassing
the U.S. sanctions regime. Yet Iran had apparently neither amassed enough clout nor earned sufficient goodwill to secure foreign
backing against the United States. The regime was effectively alone.
THE LOGIC OF ESCALATION
With U.S. sanctions beginning to take their toll, Iran needed to find a way out of this
bind. It had three options: It could give in to U.S. demands or at least appease Washington by seeking dialogue. It could tough it
out and hope that Trump would lose his 2020 reelection bid. Or it could push back and raise the stakes by
showing it was prepared to escalate.
Judging by its recent behavior, the Islamic Republic seems to have chosen the third option. Iran is widely believed to have been
responsible for an attack against commercial ships in the Gulf of Oman on May 12. U.S.
officials had repeatedly
warned that Iran might be planning such a strike, and many observers anticipated that
the incident would trigger a U.S. military response. Instead of escalating, however, the United States
responded with calls for dialogue without preconditions.

Assuming that Iran was indeed behind the attack, the operation was a clear victory for Tehran. By mounting a costly but nonlethal
attack on civilian shipping lanes, it had shifted U.S. policy from escalation to dialogue. Trump followed through by asking Japanese
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to deliver a letter to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, expressing his desire for talks. But when Abe
met with Khamenei in Tehran on June 13, both the letter and the offer for dialogue were summarily dismissed. That same day, two
more oil tankers, including a Japanese-flagged vessel, were attacked in the Gulf of Oman. The United States again pegged Iran as the
probable culprit, and this time the U.S. Navy provided surveillance video showing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
personnel onboard a patrol craft removing a suspected limpet mine from the hull of one of the tankers before speeding off toward
the Iranian port at Bandar-e-Jask.

Iran had engineered an opportunity for dialogue and promptly squandered it. Even if the U.S.
overture was insincere, as Iran’s leaders probably assumed, Iran never cared to test it. Appearing open to de-escalatory dialogue
would have won Iran leverage with the United States and sympathy from the international community. Instead, Khamenei
flippantly rejected the off-ramp he’d been offered, embarrassing the prime minister of a neutral foreign power and risking
open war with the United States by attacking civilian targets in the Gulf of Oman.
Such behavior is counterproductive and dangerous, but not altogether unexpected, given the tight boundaries
Khamenei has imposed for how to engage with the United States: Iran’s leader has demanded a complete reversal of the Trump
administration’s policy but refuses to engage in talks while sanctions are still in place. Unwilling
to suffer through
sanctions or seek compromise, Iran has only one remaining option: to escalate and
challenge the Trump administration’s resolve.
In keeping with this logic, Iran
proceeded on June 20 to shoot down a U.S. Navy surveillance
drone over international waters. (Iran claims the drone was over Iranian territorial waters.) The choice of an
unmanned target likely signaled Tehran’s desire to escalate within limits, but its action still forced an American response. Trump
reportedly ordered a series of U.S. strikes against Iranian missile and radar positions but halted the operation at the last minute.
Instead, the United States claimed to have carried out limited cyberattacks targeting command-and-control nodes for Iran’s missile
systems. The Trump administration also announced additional sanctions on a massive financial
conglomeration controlled by Khamenei and on a host of IRGC navy commanders—and warned of possible future sanctions
against Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Trump’s response shows that Washington has become just as boxed in as Tehran. The president’s policies have led
the United States to the brink of an elective war with Iran, and his administration’s behavior—
especially the threat of sanctions against Iran’s top diplomat —has undercut the sincerity
of his repeated calls for talks. Sanctions seem to be the only tool the administration is comfortable with, but at this
point new sanctions are almost ceremonial, since the most economically damaging ones have long ago been enacted. Even so, they
make negotiations more difficult: following the latest round of sanctions, Iranian officials declared any window for diplomacy closed
for good—an admittedly rich declaration given Iran’s previous refusal to engage in talks.

Neither side seems to want a war, but both are steadily moving in that direction.
Over the last week, the rhetoric on both sides has sunk to the level of schoolyard taunts. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani snapped
that “The White House has become stricken with mental disability.” Trump, perhaps responding to some news reports that rendered
Rouhani’s Persian more crudely as “retarded,” shot back with what seemed like a new U.S. redline, tweeting, “ Any
attack by
Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some
areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration.”
What remains are two states unwilling to compromise, unable to talk, and too proud to back down.
Neither side seems to want a war, but both are steadily moving in that direction, boxed in by their own maximalist policies and
intransigence. But peace will not come through attacking ships or shooting slow planes out of the sky. A lasting solution to
the crisis requires compromise and an end to Iran’s destabilizing foreign policy in the
region. These days, it seems less and less likely that Iran will follow this path—but it’s the one the Iranian people deserve.

Israeli missile defense effectively deters Iranian aggression – continued

investment key
Ferrero 6/17/19 (Christopher J. Ferrero Department of Politics, Coastal Carolina University,
Conway, South Carolina, “Israel’s strategic interest in nuclear disarmament”, Comparative
Strategy, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01495933.2019.1606658 - BIB)
Israeli superiority in missile defense
The most likely war that Israel will face is one involving missiles and rockets. Hezbollah
possesses an estimated 100,000 missiles and rockets, and Hamas an estimated 10,000.51 Iran can strike Israel with
ballistic missiles and continues to advance its missile programs . Missile defense is thus
critical to dissuade enemies and to reassure Israel. Fortunately, Israel possesses what may
be the most effective layered missile defense capability in the world . The Iron Dome is a one-of-a-
kind system designed to shoot down short-range rockets, including the most rudimentary systems launched by
Hamas from Gaza. Iron Dome deployed in 2011. It achieved an 85 percent success rate in Operation Pillar of Defense in
2012 and a 90 percent success rate in Operation Protective Edge in 2014.52 Its command system can detect
where a rocket will land, allowing Israel to judiciously employ its interceptors against only those
rockets that threaten a valuable target. Meanwhile, the Arrow 3 missile defense system can protect
against long-range ballistic missiles, such as those that Iran might launch against the Jewish
State. The Arrow 3 has an extended range and can engage missiles close to their point of launch , meaning
that Israel could conceivably destroy an Iranian ballistic missile while it was still over
Iran.53 Finally, David’s Sling offers a middle layer of defense against short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. Iron Dome
has proven itself in combat, and David’s Sling and Arrow have tested successfully,
though they have not yet been used in combat.
Continued investment in reliable and superior missile defense systems would reassure
Israel and dissuade enemies. It would reduce the risk of an adversary cheating on a
nuclear arms control agreement, as well as the likelihood that Israel would find itself in a Samson-like situation. Meanwhile,
Israel can threaten Iran with its Jericho ballistic missiles, against which Tehran has no comparable missile
defense capability. Israel can also deter threat actors in Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinian Territories with conventional
force. Despite the conventional wisdom that the 2006 Lebanon War was a political victory for Hezbollah, the group’s leader, Hassan
Nasrallah, remarked that he would “absolutely
not” have provoked Israel into that war had he known the
damage that it would inflict on his constituents.54
2nc
 solvency – xt
missile defense solves the iran threat
Terrill 09 (W. Andrew Terrill, “Deterrence in the Israeli-Iranian Strategic Standoff”, ARMY WAR
COLL CARLISLE BARRACKS PA, 2009, https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a524670.pdf - BIB)

Israeli Defenses
Another factor that complicates Iranian strategic planning is Israel’s expanding missile
defense program, composed of the Israeli Arrow system and the US-produced Patriot
PAC-2 system. The only Iranian weapon systems that may be able to penetrate Israeli defenses are longrange ballistic missiles,
currently undergoing development and testing. Iranian aircraft and seaborne systems will almost certainly be unable to penetrate
Israeli fighter aircraft and other defenses.27 Missile defense is one of the most important guarantees
of Israel’s future security, although it is laden with technological as well as command and control challenges.
Currently, the Israelis seek to expand their existing missile defenses into an elaborate,
layered system of protection, capable of defending against any potential foe or array of
threats. This level of protection involves a number of different interceptor systems designed to
destroy incoming ballistic missiles at various ranges and altitudes . The idea is for the longest range,
high-altitude defensive missiles (Arrow 3, as yet undeployed) to destroy all or most of the incoming systems far from Israel.
“Leakers” from this first line of defense would then be intercepted by shorter-range interceptors, including the Arrow 2 and the
Patriot PAC-2 and PAC-3.28 The backbone of this defensive umbrella is the Arrow interceptor missile system, which has been under
development since the mid-1980s. The development of this particular defensive system has received an especially high priority as a
result of the Iraqi missile strikes against Israel in 1991. Thirty-nine Iraqi extended-range Scud (al Hussein) missiles were fired at Israel,
some of which penetrated Israel’s Patriot defenses and hit targets with their conventional warheads.29 At that time, the Arrow was
not yet operational. Lessons
from that conflict served to dramatically intensify Israeli interest in
missile defense. While there is probably no such thing as leakproof missile defense, the
protection of a small nation with a limited number of targets is much more achievable
than protecting a large span of territory such as the United States. One of the major concerns for
the Israelis who are developing missile defenses is the potential for Iran to develop
more sophisticated missiles having penetration aids capable of spoofing defensive systems. Israel’s
technological edge and its ongoing collaboration with the United States regarding
missile defense are major factors in the effort to defeat Iranian technology. Although Israel’s
missile defense system appears robust, even its strongest advocates point to the fact that it has never been tested under combat
conditions. This fact is responsible for an element of uncertainty about the system’s ability to protect Israel from an actual missile
attack. The legacy of the missile strikes from Operation Desert Storm remains a disturbing precedent.

missile inaccuracies and blast radius means Palestinian settlements get the
short of the stick in a war with israel.
Terrill 09 (W. Andrew Terrill, “Deterrence in the Israeli-Iranian Strategic Standoff”, ARMY WAR
COLL CARLISLE BARRACKS PA, 2009, https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a524670.pdf - BIB)

The issue of Palestinian collateral damage is one of the most important political and ideological issues facing Iranian
strategists, although it is seldom mentioned in discussions of Iranian strategic options. It is not
possible to attack Israel with nuclear weapons without also subjecting large numbers
of nearby Palestinians to radioactive fallout. The lethal range of such fallout is difficult to
determine since it depends upon a variety of factors including wind direction, type of explosion (ground or air), and explosive yield.
Nevertheless, high lethality rates can be expected as far away as 20 miles under normal
conditions.16 Additionally, a number of Israel’s one million Arab citizens and resident
aliens live near Jewish population centers. There is a distinct possibility that
Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza would also be subjected to fallout. Unfortunately
for the Palestinians, Iranian targeting accuracy for its long-range missiles is highly suspect. The
capabilities of these systems is quite doubtful due to ongoing problems associated with
Iran’s missile testing program.17 If Iranian missile accuracy is off even slightly, the
Palestinians, Jordanians, Lebanese, or Syrians may pay a higher price for an Iranian nuclear strike
than the Israelis. This problem is further compounded because, unlike Israel, none of the Arab countries
has a modern civil defense system to shelter populations, and certainly no ballistic
missile defense program. While it is conceivable that Iran might accept the deaths of a
large number of Muslims, such a decision would not be taken lightly by Iranian leadership and is not consistent with
their nonstop statements of concern for the Palestinians.

continued investment in missile defense is the lynchpin for Iranian deterrence

now but doesn’t preclude withdrawal if Iran can be managed
Terrill 09 (W. Andrew Terrill, “Deterrence in the Israeli-Iranian Strategic Standoff”, ARMY WAR
COLL CARLISLE BARRACKS PA, 2009, https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a524670.pdf - BIB)
The questions that arise are how dangerous will an Iran armed with nuclear weapons be, and what will be the primary targets for
Iranian nuclear weapons should Tehran obtain such a capability? In particular, the
incendiary rhetoric of Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suggests that it is reasonable to wonder if there is a high risk that Iran will
attack Israel with nuclear weapons during some future period of high Israeli-Iranian tension
(such as might emerge out of a new Lebanon war similar to that of 2006). A related question is what can Israel do about such a
situation? This article forecasts a serious chance of failure in the current American and global efforts to prevent Iran from developing
nuclear weapons regardless of whether such attempts are pursued through the use of economicand political
sanctions or air strikes. It is doubtful that either option can guarantee the end of the
Iranian nuclear program for reasons to be discussed later. The more radical option of air strikes has a significant
potential to undermine other western goals in the Middle East, including stabilizing Iraq, while failing to do much more than delay
the Iranian weapons program for a few years at best. An alternative possibility is that Israel
as a potential Iranian
strategic adversary will be able to establish a system of deterrence and missile defense
based on a combination of technology it already possesses or is developing . Such a
system would seriously limit (perhaps even overcome) the chances of a successful Iranian strike
against Israel, while raising the cost of even an unsuccessful attack to apocalyptic levels
for the Tehran regime. Ideally, Israeli-sponsored deterrence will not have to be
maintained indefinitely if the United States and Europe can generate a diplomatic
strategy for managing Iranian power, especially if a more moderate leadership eventually emerges in Iran. In this
regard, some (but not all) Israeli leaders have not ruled out the possibility that the United States can achieve important diplomatic
gains that will benefit Israel in negotiations with Iran.6
 solvency – a2 – no link
missle defense is key to iran deterrence – continued investment is key –
support is zero-sum
Rubin 08 (Uzi Rubin Israeli Defense engineer and analyst, Memorandum No. 94, Tel Aviv:
Institute for National Security Studies, July 2008, “How Iran Can Attain its Nuclear Capability –
and Then Use It”, https://www.inss.org.il/person/asculaiephraim/ - BIB)
The ultimate concern that motivates most critics of Israel’s missile defense is the fear that its costs will come at the expense of
retaliatory weapons. In reality, deployment of the Arrow did not, as far as is known, block or slow down any other Israeli R&D or
acquisitions program. From various statements of Israeli officials as well as from hints in the public domain, it can be reasonably
assumed that Israel has not given up any offensive option against Iran. The zero sum game feared by the critics
concerning investment in offensive versus defensive weapons is illusory . In Israel’s
particular situation, missile defense is not slated to replace offensive options – on the
contrary, it is deployed to protect them. The task of Israel’s missile shield is not to ensure against the
penetration of a single nuclear missile – this cannot be achieved with confidence in any case – but to enhance the survivability
of the retaliatory assets, thus posing an existential dilemma to any aggressor . In the absence of
any communication channels with the leadership of a nuclear Iran, an Israeli missile shield will serve as
the most visible survivability measure, and each successful test will send another powerful reminder of Iran’s
dilemma. At the same time, defense must not be seen as a comprehensive solution for achieving deterrence. The first and foremost
condition for a credible deterrence is devastating retaliation assets. Missile defense’s mission is to secure the survivability of those
assets. It would be better for Israel and the entire world that Iran remain non nuclear. Iran’s
nuclearization will pose a
powerful challenge that requires significant national resources to establish a credible and stable deterrence
posture. The missile defense shield that Israel has been prescient enough to deploy ahead of time is a key
element in this deterrence, and the continued investment in its enhancement should be
seen as necessary and unavoidable, part of the cost of safeguarding Israel’s continued existence and prosperity
against any odds, including a nuclear Iran.

arms sales k2 missile defense

Johnson 11 (BRIDGET JOHNSON, “The World from The Hill: Appropriators sound support for
Israel missile defense”, The Hill, 01/09/11, https://thehill.com/news-by-subject/foreign-
policy/136899-the-world-from-the-hill-appropriators-sound-support-for-israel-missile-defense -
BIB)

In August, House appropriators pushed funding

for Israeli missile defense to $422.7 million, its highest
level ever. Funding for Israel missile defense over the past two years adds up to nearly $1 billion.
Aid to support the short-range David's Sling anti-missile system, for example, more than doubled from $37 million in FY 2008 to $80
million in FY 2010. With
the mounting Iranian threat and Israel's role as America's strongest ally in the Middle East,
lawmakers say, Congress will need to continue to strongly fund these programs. "I continue to
view the Jewish state as America's most important military and intelligence and economic ally and friend in that most dangerous and
important part of the world," said Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.), who sits on the Appropriations subcommittees on Defense,
Homeland Security and State and Foreign Operations. "Therefore, considering that those who still threaten
Israel continue to ramp up their efforts in obtaining more lethal and accurate weaponry, it
serves America's vital national interests in protecting Israel to continue to provide her with a substantial
qualitative and quantitative military and intelligence edge," Rothman told The Hill. Facing the vow of the new
Republican House majority to slash spending across the board, appropriators say those cuts need to be made wisely and put national
security interests first. Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), named chairwoman Friday of the House Appropriations subcommittee on State
and Foreign Operations, said that her panel's funding has jumped 33 percent over the past two years, and lawmakers on the
subcommittee will look to those recent funding additions first when it comes to cuts. That could include presidential initiatives on
global health and climate change. "As we look at cuts we have to always look at national security and the security of our partners,
which is our security, too," Granger told The Hill. "More seriously than at any time, we have to prioritize what is the most important
thing at this time," she said. Granger said that Defense Secretary Robert Gates's cuts
to the Pentagon budget unveiled
Thursday, which don't touch the anti-missile programs, "reaffirmed the need for missile defense ." "Given the
rightful focus by this Congress on watching every penny of taxpayer dollars we're going to want to make certain that every penny
spent by our subcommittee is spent wisely, and that includes how best to continue to meet America's vital national security interests
in Israel's national security interests," Rothman said. Both lawmakers cite strong bipartisan support for continuing to fund the missile
defense programs. Although specific requests in the new year and new Congress aren't yet known, funding
may increase
even more as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle use the tools at their disposal,
including oversight and spending, to address the Iranian threat. "The U.S. Congress is
clearly continuing to be strongly in support of our most important ally in the region — Israel — and
thus is concerned about any step by any nation or other entity that might threaten her," Rothman said.
When it comes to those threats, the appropriators aren't just concerned about Iran, as evidenced by the Iron Dome
funding to shield Israel from attacks by Hamas or Hezbollah. Granger notes that Hezbollah is now estimated to
have about 45,000 missiles, four times as many since the 2006 war when the group, considered a terrorist organization by the U.S.,
fired Katyusha rockets from Lebanon into Israel. Hezbollah, a political party that has been gaining traction in Lebanon, has been
beefing up its arsenal despite the U.N. Security Council resolution ending the conflict that called for Hezbollah to disarm. On Dec. 22,
Rothman fired off a letter to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who visits Washington this month, asking the European ally to back
off its plans to sell 100 anti-tank missile systems to the Lebanese Armed Forces. "As you know, Lebanon is in a precarious situation
whereby Hezbollah is in a powerful position to usurp the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF)," Rothman wrote. "If this were to occur,
Israel would be in grave danger of having your anti-tank missiles used against her." Rothman said he wasn't able to get additional
signatures on the letter because members were trying to wrap up business before the holiday break, but he said "100 percent" of
the Defense subcommittee members agree with him. "The concerns expressed in my letter are shared by at least 90 percent or more
of the U.S. Congress," he said. Sarkozy hasn't yet responded. Granger said there should be "some very serious, serious discussions"
about the French arms sales and other concerns about allies potentially undermining Israeli defense efforts. Washington
needs to continue to "keep the lead" on missile defense while keeping the GOP commitment to cut
funding back to 2008 levels, she said. Granger's subcommittee still has some work from last year to take up, she said, but will quickly
get to oversight hearings to figure out which programs are working, which are not, and how spending can be done most efficiently.
"There's just an urgent need in that area to continue the very strategic partnership we
have with Israel," she said. Rothman said that appropriators will need to respond to the "developing and ever-changing
threats that confront Israel." "Since there has been a consistent and robust support for both joint
U.S.-Israel military endeavors, research and development endeavors as well as support for Israeli programs such as the
Iron Dome in the past, I fully expect there to be no break whatsoever in our strong support for
the Jewish state and her military and intelligence needs," he said.

FMS sales are key to missile defense programs

Twing 96 (Shawn L. Twing, “A Comprehensive Guide to U.S. Aid to Israel”, Washington Report
on Middle East Affairs, April 1996, pgs. 7, 49-52, April 1996, https://www.wrmea.org/1996-
april/the-cost-of-israel-to-u.s.-taxpayers-a-comprehensive-guide-to-u.s.-aid-to-israel.html - BIB)
Israel's Arrow anti-tactical ballistic missile is another program of little or no benefit to the United States. It doesn't
show up in U.S. foreign aid totals, but it is funded by American taxpayers. Since its inception in 1988, the Arrow program has
cost the United States over $653 million, and U.S. officials have promised Israel at least
another $711.3 million through FY2001. (For a complete breakdown of U.S. aid to Israel's Arrow program, see the
October/November 1995 Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, p. 12.) The money comes from the budgets of the U.S. Air Force
and the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization and, with the exception of $97.9 million of Israel's "share" paid
with U.S.
FMS aid money, all of the Arrow's costs to the United States are in addition to Israel's portion of the U.S.
foreign aid budget.
 NB – turns case
missile defense solves war and iran nukes turn the case – makes the Palestinian
condition worse
Rubin 08 (Uzi Rubin Israeli Defense engineer and analyst, Memorandum No. 94, Tel Aviv:
Institute for National Security Studies, July 2008, “How Iran Can Attain its Nuclear Capability –
and Then Use It”, https://www.inss.org.il/person/asculaiephraim/ - BIB)

The Contribution of Israeli Missile Defense to Deterrence Credibility

Military victories are predicated on the actual use of force. In contrast, the essence of deterrence is the non-use of force to achieve
what we might call “cognitive decision.” Israel’s
missile defenses must be demonstrably capable of
intercepting and destroying incoming missiles, and Israel’s retaliatory forces must be
capable of overcoming hostile air defenses and delivering devastating blows on the aggressors’ territory, but
their very use – even if they score stellar results – will be synonymous with the failure of deterrence. The primary measure of
effectiveness for Israel’s strategic assets, whether offensive or defensive, is how threatening they are perceived by the other side;
how they fare in actual conflict is secondary. Retaliatory systems that would be considered vulnerable to a surprise attack are not
likely to achieve the cognitive decision that is a prerequisite for stable deterrence. In the Cold War both superpowers achieved
cognitive decision by deploying multiple families of retaliatory systems and by using their huge land masses for dispersion, with
multiple basing modes on the ground, under the sea, and in the air and heavy sheltering in silos (and also, at least in the case of the
Soviet Union, by extreme land mobility). This secured the survivability of their strategic retaliation weapons beyond any reasonable
doubt. War games conducted on both sides demonstrated that a second strike from the other side was bound to come, no matter
how devastating the first strike. Once this cognitive decision was reached, investments in further survivability measures yielded
diminishing returns. This made missile defense superfluous at the time, paving the way towards the ABM treaty. In contrast,
Israel’s tiny land area cannot offer the wide spaces needed for dispersion, and its relatively modest economy cannot afford a
superpower-style multiplicity of retaliatory measures. Israel’s population, economic assets, and military bases are all
concentrated in an area not much larger than Rhode Island . This, and the perception
that Israel’s investments in defense are declining over time, could act as powerful
temptations for an aggressive action by Iran. A rational aggressor, fanatic as it might be, will strive to
wipe out Israel’s retaliatory means before it proceeds to launch a nuclear strike on
Israeli cities. This, of course, would be a grave error on the side of Iran, an error that would incur terrible consequences for
Iran (as well as Israel). The prime objective of Israel’s deterrence is, then, to dissuade Iran from making such an error in the first
place. To illustrate the point, consider Israel’s main strategic strike asset – the Israel Air Force fleet of long range attack aircraft.
Open literature on the IAF force structure and disposition13 reports that it deploys in twelve air bases, six of which host the more
modern types of aircraft (names and locations of those air bases are provided in the literature). Theoretically, then, a first strike by
no more than six nuclear Shahab 3 missiles – one for each prime air base – would be enough to knock out Israel’s airborne second
strike option, paving the way to an entirely immune follow-up strike against Israel’s centers of population. It
is reasonable
to assume that the Iran would plan on launching some extra Shahab missiles to
compensate for malfunctions and inaccuracies, but in any event, it is obvious that the concentration of
Israel’s strategic assets in a small number of locations requires just a handful of Shahab missiles to take them out, not much more
than the salvo of Iraqi missiles that hit Israel during the Gulf War in 1991. Enter Israel’s missile defense system ,
which changes the situation completely. As pointed out by Pedatzur, rational Iranian planners would have to factor in an
efficient defense system with an upper performance limit equal to what Israel has
demonstrated in repeated tests – any lesser assumption would be tantamount to
gambling with Iran’s continued existence. In concrete terms, this means that the Iranians will have to
factor in a kill rate for the Arrow of at least 80 percent in each individual engagement.
According to open literature,14 Israel has now deployed three Arrow batteries. Each battery includes eight launchers each holding
six interceptors, for a total of 144 Arrow interceptors deployed and ready to fire. In addition, Israel deploys several Patriot
PAC 2 batteries, to be upgraded to PAC 3 capabilities, providing the second tier for its missile
shield.15 A simple statistical analysis indicates that if every single Iranian Shahab aimed at an IAF base
is engaged by one single Arrow missile, three out the six targeted bases will survive with
absolute certainty and that there is a 90 percent chance that four bases will remain
untouched (figure 1, curve 1). With the launching of only six interceptors, the bulk of the Arrow and Patriot
missile will remain ready to face a follow-up strike . From the point of view of the
aggressor, this is tantamount to failure, since enough air bases will survive to launch a
massive retaliation. Iran could increase its chances of taking out the IAF on the ground by launching several Shahab
missiles at each air base. Curves 2, 3, 4, and 5 in figure 1 show the chances of survival of the IAF prime bases against salvos of 12, 18,
24, and 30 Shahab missiles, respectively, when each is engaged by a single Arrow or Patriot interceptor. In the case of a
massive salvo of 30 nuclear Shahabs, each engaged by one Israeli interceptor, there is a 90 percent chance that
five out of the six prime IAF bases will be hit, seriously eroding Israel’s capability to launch a retaliatory strike. However, professional
Iranian planners will have to take into account a multi-tier defense system that can engage
each incoming Shahab twice, three times, and even more.16 Again, simple calculations show that when
engaging each of the thirty incoming threats by two interceptors, Israel’s missile shield could destroy the vast
majority of the incoming Shahab missiles and ensure the survival of at least three
bases and possibly four, as seen in curve 6 of figure 1. This simple war game could be extended even further with
increasingly heavier salvos, countered by increasing number of engagements, with the same disappointing results
from Iran’s perspective. Diluting the salvos with conventional Shahabs to exhaust Israel’s interceptor stockpiles will
decrease the prospects of destroying the IAF, since the impact from a conventional warhead is not likely to impede its air operations
seriously. A
preliminary strike at the missile defense assets (provided the Iranians know
their location) will again yield disappointing results since the system will defend itself
with the same efficiency – and between the strike on its missile defense and the subsequent strike on its air bases, the
IAF could slip through a devastating strike package. It should be noted that launching a massive 30 nuclear Shahabs salvo is a major
undertaking even for a much more advanced nuclear power such as France or the UK. The lethal effect of thirty
nuclear bombs going off almost simultaneously – near the ground or in the upper atmosphere – will be
devastating not only to Israel’s population but to the Palestinian , Lebanese, Jordanian, and
Egyptian populations. Under certain meteorological conditions, the lethal effects could spread to Iraq and even to Iran itself.
This simple war game can be repeated by any Iranian science student with a $25 calculator and access to the internet. Without the
need for Israeli leaders to make detailed or threatening declarations, it brings home the truth: that Israel’s
missile shield,
by its very existence, overturns the strategic equation in two ways . First, it transforms the IAF
with its small number of prime bases from an easy prey (in Iran’s perception) to an almost impregnable
objective. Second, it raises the ante for Iran, forcing its planners to specify ever-increasing
salvos of nuclear Shahabs, the collateral effect from which could seriously risk Iran’s own security and safety. Since all
the information needed to make such somber evaluations is readily available to Iran from its own sources, its stands to
reason that the calculus of gains versus losses will be sobering enough to dissuade Iran ,
even in the midst of an ongoing crisis, from making a potentially disastrous mistake. The cognitive decision, the crucial condition for
effective deterrence, is thus achieved. The
stabilizing effect of Israel’s missile shield goes beyond the dry
arithmetic of gains versus risks. The Arrow system was co-developed with the US and is reportedly
designed to interoperate with US missile defense systems. The IAF holds frequent and well-advertised
missile defense exercises with the US Army and US Navy. Any Iranian planner must factor in the presence of unknown numbers of
US ground and naval missile defense assets at the time of the planned strike. Such assets could take part in the defensive action and
catapult the effectiveness of Israel’s missile shield even beyond its published performance. Furthermore, an Iranian
offensive action that would result in US casualties might draw US retaliation in kind,
even in the unlikely case that Israel’s retaliatory assets are overwhelmed.
 NB – miscalc – scenario
miscalc and war inevitable – senior Iranian officals
Kiley 7/19/19 (Sam Kiley Senior International Correspondent, “On the ship that downed a
military drone, one small mistake could cause a war with Iran”, CNN,
https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/19/middleeast/iran-hormuz-fifth-fleet-intl/index.html - BIB)

The consequences of a single mistake

Amid the fissile atmosphere in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, a single mistake could unleash catastrophe.
Earlier this week, Javad Zarif, theIranian foreign minister, warned of the high stakes in play . "All
through history Iran has provided security in these waters," he told CNN's Fareed Zakaria. " The United States is
intervening in order to make these waters insecure for Iran. You cannot make these
waters insecure for one country and secure for others. "
"Do you believe that as
a result of this -- whoever is to blame -- you could have an escalation which would
result in a military incident?" Zakaria asked him.
"In
such a small body of water if you have so many foreign vessels, I mean accidents will
happen..." the Iranian foreign minister replied, emphasizing that Iran did not want war and called on all parties to "work" to
avoid war.

He drew attention to the US killing of 290 civilian passengers on board Iran Air flight 655, shot down by the USS Vincennes during the
"tanker wars" of the 1980s.

Tehran has repeatedly called for a return to negotiations with the US, but only if the US lifts economic sanctions first. This week
there were signs that the Trump administration was preparing to make good on its offer to talk directly with Iran, without
preconditions, reportedly tapping Senator Rand Paul as the man to make the overtures.

On board the Boxer, CNN asked Brigadier General Trollinger, the commander of the Task Force controlling the USS Boxer, if an
apparently minor misstep by a junior sailor or Marine could have dangerous
consequences -- like a war?
"That's absolutely accurate," the general replied. "All the training we do, all the education we do is the express purpose of getting
after that, to make sure that we eliminate or reduce rather... mitigate to the best of our ability ... any risk of miscalculation."

The alternative is almost unthinkable. But in complex negotiations, the trick is to convince the
other that the unthinkable is an option.
 NB – a2 – no iran nukes
iran nuclear acquisition inevitable
Asculai 08 (Ephraim Asculai worked at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, Memorandum
No. 94, Tel Aviv: Institute for National Security Studies, July 2008, “How Iran Can Attain its
Nuclear Capability – and Then Use It”, https://www.inss.org.il/person/asculaiephraim/ - BIB)

Iran has been proceeding steadily on its quest for a nuclear weapons capability, and as little
seems to motivate it towards abandoning its ambitions, it will likely get there, possibly at the turn of
the present decade. Although the international community has been taking coercive action ,
mainly by economic – fiscal, monetary, and trade – sanctions, it has not been successful in persuading Iran
to abandon its program or at least suspend it. True, there have been reports that the sanctions have a
perceptible effect on the Iranian population, but as yet these have not translated into
government action or, as some hope, a change in government. Tehran has been aided, albeit inadvertently, by
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has avoided serious condemnation of Iran, and by Russia and
China, which were reluctant first to impose sanctions and thereafter to strengthen them. The realistic if pessimistic view must be,
then, that Iran will probably succeed in its quest for nuclear weapons in the foreseeable
future. Thus, the time is right to take another look at Iran’s nuclear program and to assess
the possible trend of future developments.
 NB – a2 – iran rational/won’t strike
iran isn’t rational and would strike israel
Asculai 08 (Ephraim Asculai worked at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, Memorandum
No. 94, Tel Aviv: Institute for National Security Studies, July 2008, “How Iran Can Attain its
Nuclear Capability – and Then Use It”, https://www.inss.org.il/person/asculaiephraim/ - BIB)

In answering the question of “what

can Iran do with it,” one cannot avoid the possibility that Iran would use its
nuclear capabilities against others. It is certainly a technical possibility. Is it also a viable proposition? In order
to deter, it is sufficient that nuclear weapons be viewed by all, including the owner of
these weapons, as a weapon of last resort. The case of Iran cannot be viewed in the
same way. Many experts claim that “the government of Iran is rational. ” That may well be true in
a very general way. The history of recent years demonstrates, 30 I Ephraim Asculai however, that the Iranian government’s rationale
is not always similar to that employed by others, for example Western governments. The basic aims of the state, the
basic values of Iran, and the methods used to achieve these aims differ markedly from
those of today’s Western states. The theological state, the support of terrorism, the abuse of human
rights, the unwillingness to even negotiate a solution to the nuclear issue, the fierce statements against Israel, and
many other facts demonstrate this. On the other hand, the Iranian negotiating tactics and their use – if not manipulation –
of the international community’s institutes and approaches are admirable, in that they try to present a “sensible” point of view that
succeeds in winning precious time for Iran. Thus, the government is behaving in a rational way, according to its own beliefs and
political aims. Does the Iranian government view its nuclear weapons in the same way that most of the world does? The common
wisdom is that nuclear weapons are weapons of deterrence, and are not intended for use in anger. What are the Iranian internal
constraints; what are its checks and balances on the deployment and use of nuclear weapons? Would Iran also view nuclear
weapons mainly as a deterrent and not as a weapon in a usable arsenal? Iran must also take into consideration the retaliatory
capabilities of those the weapons would target, their allies, and those who would find themselves in an untenable situation should
Iran demonstrate its political capability to attack others with nuclear weapons. What is the price Iran would be willing to pay for such
an action? These questions are not answerable at the present time. Therefore, it
must be assumed here that
there is a possibility the Iran would put its nuclear weapons to direct use.
 Definitions
Missile defense systems are substantial
Sharp 2/26/2018 (Jeremy M. Sharp, Congressional Research Service Specialist in Middle Eastern
Affairs, “U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel,” Congressional Research Service)
Iron Dome was declared operational in early 2011. Its first major test came in November 2012 during a weeklong Israel-Hamas conflict (termed “Operation Pillar of
Cloud/Defense” by Israel). Israeli officials claim that Iron Dome intercepted 85% of the more than 400 rockets fired by Gaza-based militants. Between 2012 and 2014, Israel

upgraded Iron Dome’s various tracking and firing mechanisms and expanded the number of batteries deployed from five to nine. During Israel’s 2014
conflict with Hamas and other Palestinian militants, media reports (generally based on Israeli claims) seem to indicate that
Iron Dome had a successful interception rate close to 90%. According to statistics reported by the Israeli Defense
Forces (IDF), Gaza-based terrorist groups fired 35 projectiles into Israel in 2017, of which the vast majority landed in open territory and an estimated 10 struck in residential

areas or were intercepted by Iron Dome.39 To date, the United States has provided $1.397 billion to Israel for Iron
Dome batteries, interceptors, coproduction costs, and general maintenance . Because Iron Dome was
developed by Israel alone, Israel initially retained proprietary technology rights to it. The United States and Israel have had a

decades-long partnership in the development and coproduction of other missile defense

systems (such as the Arrow). As the United States began financially supporting Israel’s
development of Iron Dome in FY2011, U.S. interest in ultimately becoming a partner in its
coproduction grew. Congress then called for Iron Dome technology sharing and coproduction with the United States.40 In March 2014, the United
States and Israeli governments signed a coproduction agreement to enable components of the Iron Dome
system to be manufactured in the United States, while also providing the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) with full access to what had been proprietary Iron Dome
technology.41 U.S.-based Raytheon is Rafael’s U.S. partner in the coproduction of Iron Dome.

Missile defense is substantial – it’s a key part of U.S. arms sales packages
Spetalnick 9/14/2016 (Matt Spetalnick, Reuters Washington Correspondent, “U.S., Israel sign
$38 billion military aid package,” Reuters, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-israel-
statement/u-s-israel-sign-38-billion-military-aid-package-idUSKCN11K2CI)

The United States will give Israel $38 billion in military assistance over the
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -

next decade, the largest such aid package in U.S. history, under a landmark agreement signed on Wednesday. The
deal, whose details were reported by Reuters earlier, will allow Washington’s chief Middle East ally to upgrade
most of its fighter aircraft, improve its ground forces’ mobility and strengthen its missile
defense systems, a senior U.S. official said. While the package constitutes the most U.S. military aid ever given to any country, it entails concessions by Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to officials on both sides. RELATED COVERAGE Obama says $38 billion Israel aid package to help ensure security Those include
Israel’s promise not to seek additional funds from Congress beyond what will be guaranteed annually in the new package, and to phase out a special arrangement that has
allowed Israel to spend part of its U.S. aid on its own defense industry instead of on American-made weapons, the officials said. Nearly 10 months of drawn-out aid negotiations
underscored continuing friction between President Barack Obama and Netanyahu over last year’s U.S.-led nuclear deal with Israel’s arch-foe Iran, an accord the Israeli leader
opposed. The United States and Israel have also been at odds over the Palestinians. But the right-wing Netanyahu decided it would be best to forge a new arrangement with
Obama, who leaves office in January, rather than hoping for better terms from the next U.S. administration, according to officials on both sides. ADVERTISEMENT A new pact
now allows him to avoid uncertainties surrounding the next president, whether Democrat Hillary Clinton or Republican Donald Trump, and to give Israel’s defense establishment
the ability to plan ahead. Obama’s aides wanted a new deal before his presidency ends, seeing it as an important part of his legacy. Republican critics accuse him of not being
attentive enough to Israel’s security, which the White House strongly denies, and of taking too hard of a line with the Israeli leader. “DANGEROUS NEIGHBORHOOD” The $38
billion memorandum of understanding covers U.S. fiscal years 2019-2028 and succeeds the current $30 billion MOU signed in 2007, which expires at the end of fiscal 2018.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu and I are confident that the new MOU will make a significant contribution to Israel’s security in what remains a dangerous neighborhood,” Obama
said in a written statement. The agreement was signed at the State Department by U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas Shannon and by Jacob Nagel, acting head of

Netanyahu’s national security council. According to a White House “fact sheet,” the deal includes: -annual payments of $3.3 billion in so-called foreign military
financing U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval office of the White House in Washington November 9, 2015.

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque -$500 million a year for Israeli missile defense funding, the first time this has been formally built
into the aid pact. -A phasing-out of a special arrangement that for decades has allowed Israel to use 26.3 percent of the U.S. aid on its own defense industry instead of on
American-made weapons. -Elimination of a longstanding provision that has allowed Israel to use about 13 percent of the U.S. aid to buy military fuel. -The funding will allow
Israel to update “the lion’s share” of its fighter aircraft, including purchasing additional F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. Israel is scheduled to receive 33 F-35 aircraft, the first two of
which will be delivered in December.
Substantially means completely
Words and Phrases, 2 (Words and Phrases Permanent Edition, “Substantially,” Volume 40B, p. 324-330 October 2002, Thomson
West)Cal. 1956. “Substantially” means in a substantial manner, really, solidly, completely.
Assurances DA
 1nc
TBMD key to deter Iran
Peck 7/12 (Michael Peck is an award-winning writer specializing in defense and national security
issues. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers University, “This Is How Israel Would
Fight a War with Iran,” The National Interest, 7/12/19,
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-israel-would-fight-war-iran-66592)

Israel recently tested its U.S-funded Arrow III missile, designed to destroy incoming ballistic
missiles. Given the problems the U.S. has had with successfully intercepting missile, it's not clear
how well the Arrow system would intercept Iranian ballistic missiles (though the Iron Dome
hasn't done badly against short-range Hamas rockets in the recent fighting). Considering we
could be talking about Iranian WMDs, a leaky missile defense shield isn't exactly reassuring.

But this is only part of the equation. Just as in the Cold War, uncertainty is everything in nuclear
deterrence. While Iran could undoubtedly overwhelm Israeli missile defenses by firing enough
rockets, the Arrow system means Tehran can't be sure how many missiles would get through, or
which targets would or would not be hit. The effect may be more psychological than physical (no
less for providing psychological reassurance to the Israeli public), but it is still significant.

Israel will flip their shit – increases settlements, lash out leads to war
Pearl ’15 (Mike Pearl, interviewer at Vice News, interviewing Rob Pinfold, a PhD Candidate in
War Studies at King's College, London, studying the topic of Israeli withdrawal from territory. He
currently works as a Research and Teaching Assistant at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
“We Asked a Military Expert What Would Happen if the US Stopped Giving Money to Israel,”
Vice News, 3/6/15, https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/dpwnkm/what-would-happen-if-the-
us-stopped-giving-money-to-israel-305)

VICE: Hi, Rob! What would happen if the US stopped sending money to Israel?

Rob Pinfold: I think it would be a mess for Israel basically.

Would it be good for the US?

The US would have a lot less traction over Israel. It would be a downside for the US, and it would
also be a downside for the [Middle East]. For a long time the US has been trying to use its aid
politically to change Israel's behavior.

What behaviors wouldn't the US be able to control?

I think any end to this aid would mean that Israel would be much more likely to take radical
moves that would not necessarily have the support of the international community. I think it
would be dangerous.

What are the likely events in the short term?

I think that the big difference you'd see straightaway is an escalation in settlement building
because the Israeli right would really be able to unleash it.
You see a lot, the Israeli government in particular, they've announced some big settlement-
building initiatives of several thousand homes in East Jerusalem over the green line. And then
the Americans say, "Na-uh, sorry, this is not happening," and then the idea is quieted for
another five years, and then it happens again, ad nauseam.

But without any American influence over Israel, especially with this aid, I think you would see a
drastic exploration in settlement building.

Would they attack Hamas targets in Gaza?

I think they would need to be provoked. Very, very rarely does Israel just willy-nilly launch itself
into a conflict, not just because of influence from the US but also at the end of the day, Israel is a
democracy—so actually instigating conflict has to have that legitimacy, otherwise it becomes a
big issue.

But what if they were provoked?

Israel in the future would be much more unpredictable and any war would be likely to go on for
a lot longer, because there wouldn't be one big power to really exert the pressure and squeeze
both sides into a ceasefire.

And how would the US react if they couldn't influence them with money?

Military action is somewhat unfeasible, in my eyes, against Israel. It just wouldn't happen. You
might have some sort of short-term sanctions against the regime by the US on Israel, and maybe
on other belligerents as well.

And what would the outcome be?

Israel wouldn't lose the conflict, that's for sure. They get a lot of money from the States in terms
of support in terms of the Iron Dome anti-missile program, but at the end of the day they have
enough hardware already in the sheds to be able to thoroughly defeat any belligerents—for
example, non-state-level actors like Hamas or Hezbollah, but also state-level actors like Iran.

I don't think it would be a question of turning the tide of battle it would just be a question of
how long the war would go on, how bloody it would be, and who would get dragged in.

Who would get dragged in?

I think the US, even if they really fell out with and really strongly dislike[d] Israel, would probably
still work toward a cessation of hostility as a superpower. I think that no matter what happens,
we would go back to some sort of paradigm representing what we have at the moment. But the
fighting would probably be longer and bloodier, and the US would have less of an ability to stop
it straight away.

Would Israel make moves on Iran?

I think the Saudis would be ready to turn a blind eye to an Israeli attack [on Iran], which has
been suggested before. So I think again the probability of mass-casualty warfare and violence
would be much higher if the US, tomorrow, said, "Screw you, guys. I'm going home. This is too
much effort."
What kind of warfare would we see?

In terms of Iranian retaliation, Iran has a lot of medium- to long-range missiles. They're not very
accurate, but they stopped firing them at the end of the Iran-Iraq war, so they do have a very
hefty stockpile that they could then fire at Israel. Israel would inevitably retaliate with their
stock. So it'd be quite hard for them to launch a bombing campaign against Iran because they'd
have to go through unfriendly territory on the way.

What might the targets of Israel's military action be?

I think you'd see one Israeli strike, one very pinpointed, strategic attack on Iranian nuclear
assets. Then afterwards Israel would basically try to hold its own, because Iran would unleash its
proxies on the region, which are primarily Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

I think we'd see fighting very close to Israel's doorstep and I think you'd see a lot of devastation
of both Gaza and Lebanon. But on the flip side you'd also see a lot more damage to Israel's
home front than you've seen in a very long time.

Would Iran have any luck?

The missiles that Iran has have overwhelmed the Iron Dome system. The Iron Dome system can
shoot down the missiles that you saw [from] Hamas [during the war this past summer]. The Iron
Dome can deal with that, but it wouldn't be able to do with the stockpiles of rockets that Iran
has.

Would things escalate beyond exchanging missile attacks?

If there is more damage to the Israeli home front, the Israeli domestic scene would be more
willing for the Israeli military to go all out on flattening large parts of Lebanon and Gaza. There
would be much less resistance to a ground invasion, and much less resistance to moving troops
in. Israel historically has very quick campaigns and very decisive victories. So I think the leashes
would be off, so to speak. I think the Israeli army would be going en masse into Lebanon and
into Gaza and wherever else they'd be getting attacked from. But the fighting would be mainly
restricted to the area around Israel, unless they do some sort of massive campaign into Iran.

Does Israel have the fire power to successfully cripple the Iranian nuclear program?

That's a tough one because it's anyone's guess, really. I don't know exactly where and how the
Iranians are hiding all their material.

They probably know.

It would still be very hard for Israel. Their planes would have to refuel in midair, in enemy
territory. Their equipment is very limited. It's not known if they actually have any bunker-
busting missiles, like the Americans have, that can penetrate deep underground. I think we'd
probably have to see Israeli forces in Iran—special forces teams, demolition teams, that kind of
thing.

It would have to involve some sort of covert support from the Saudis to have a very good chance
of success. It would be very, very difficult and it would end in a lot of casualties on both the
Israeli and the Iranian side. If the Israelis want to do it, there is nothing stopping them from
doing it. If they see them as a potential threat, they will go in and they will go in hard.

Would the fighting be limited to just Iran, Lebanon, and Gaza?

I think it would definitely trigger a whole powder keg in the entire region. You look at the Middle
East today, and it's the most unstable it's been in absolutely years. You have the Islamic State
operating out of both Iraq and Syria. They're making headway in Lebanon as well. Egypt has its
own problems with iihadists in the Sinai. It's very unstable... in Libya. [And] any conflict with Iran
would not just be limited to Gaza, it would also spread to the West Bank where there are a lot of
Iranian agents.

But in the long-term, if a terrible war weren't immediately sparked, how would a halt in funding
from the US affect Israel's military budget?

In Israel, the military budget is very much sacrosanct. Any cut to the military budget, and you're
putting the state in existential danger. Personally I think you'd see cuts to many other social,
welfare, or educational programs within Israel before you'd see massive, damaging cuts to the
army. They'd try to keep the military budget as steady as possible. So you'd see a damaging of
Israeli society.

Could Netanyahu stay in power?

I personally don't think so. If any Israeli leader were willing to seriously jeopardize their ties
[with the US], [causing] a complete cut off of all military and financial aid, I personally—and I
could be proven wrong—I don't think the government would be able to withstand the pressure
within Israel that would result from that.
 I/L ext
Otherwise Israel will first-strike Iran
Horschig 6/24 (Doreen Horschig is a doctoral candidate in Security Studies at the School of
Politics, Security and International Affairs at the University of Central Florida (UCF), she holds a
M.A. from New York University and B.A. from Manhattan College, both in International
Relations, “Is Israel Thinking About a Military Strike on Iran? History Tells Us It's Possible,” The
National Interest, 6/24/19, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/israel-thinking-about-military-
strike-iran-history-tells-us-its-possible-63976)

Today, Israel’s government seems strong in its belief that it has the option to strike Iran. Iran’s
Islamic fundamentalist government is openly hostile to Israel . Citing fears that Iran would use nuclear weapons against
Israel, Netanyahu has warned, “Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons would be infinitely more costly than any scenario you can
imagine to stop it.” He told Iran and other adversaries not to “test” Israel. If the nuclear deal ruptures further and Iran does
restarting uranium enrichment, Israel might launch targeted airstrikes against it. Risks of an Israeli strike History suggests other
countries are unlikely to actively deter Israeli military aggression in the guise of nuclear nonproliferation. The Trump administration
has expressed anti-Iranian sentiment and is a staunch backer of Netanyahu’s government. And while European powers will recognize
preemptive Israeli strikes on nuclear facilities as a violation of international law and of the sovereignty of Israel’s neighbors, they also
see Iran’s nuclear program as a grave global security concern. A nuclear Iran could escalate ongoing Middle East conflicts into
nuclear exchanges, and, as some commentators say, spur other regional powers like Saudi Arabia and Egypt to develop nuclear
weapons themselves. Of course, potential Israeli attacks on Iran present their own serious risks . Because
most of Iran’s reactors are in full operations, air strikes may mean cutting off the power supply to Iranian citizens and could release
large amounts of radioactive contaminants into the air. Iran,
a militarily well-equipped country, would surely
retaliate against any Israeli attacks. That, too, would trigger a conflict that would spiral
throughout the Middle East.
 US key
Relies on the US
Shahkaram ’19 (Malik M. Shahkaram, Major, United States Army, BA, University of Oklahoma,
2010, MA, University of Texas at El Paso, 2011, Master of Arts in Security Studies in the Middle
East, “BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE IN THE MIDDLE EAST,” Naval Postgraduate School, March
2019, https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1073667.pdf)

C. TBMD IN ISRAEL

Israel has made a fierce effort in its protection against missile attacks. According to Samaan and
Lasonjaras, Israel launched its first TBM, dubbed the Arrow, in 1988, and it released an
advanced version emerged in 2000 (Arrow II).

The benefits of the Arrow with relation to its high cost has raised concerns among experts as to
whether the project is worth it. To make the Arrow II more efficient, developers have subjected
it to a variety of tests, the most significant of which was in 2004.118 The United States is a
significant financier and technical advisor of the TBMD program in Israel because of U.S.
strategic interests in the region. The TBMD has two batteries, one near Tel Aviv and another one
in the south of Haifa. The placement of these batteries is to boost the efficiency of defense over
a large area. In general terms, Israel continues to advance its TBMD; in tests, the Arrow II has
made 14 intercepts, while the original Arrow system made nine intercepts.

1. The Role of the United States in Israel TBMD

The United States plays a significant role in the TBMD of Israel in a couple of ways. First, United
States has been the core co-financer of Israel’s Arrow anti-BMD system to boost Israel’s security
and ensure that it could defend itself against the glaring threats from its neighbors in the Middle
East. The co-financing has also allowed the United States to be directly associated with the
TBMD in Israel; the TBMD is a significant warning to potential enemies of Israel that it has a
strong defense mechanism. In 2007, the U.S. Congress allowed the U.S. Missile Defense Agency
to extend American funding of the Arrow System Improvement Program. Additional funding
enhanced the development of Arrow III. To date, estimates show Israel has spent over $2.8
billion were spent on the development of the TBMD in Israel; the United States funded over 60
percent of the costs.

It is vital to observe that the co-financing by the United States has allowed Israel to develop a
strong missile defense system. The threat of attack from countries with advanced programs
(such as Iran) has necessitated extensive research.120 Second, the United States plays a
significant role in the demonstration and testing of Israel’s TBMD system. The United States was
directly involved in the first demonstration phase in 1988 when the U.S. Department of Defense
Initiative presented Arrow I, which weighed about 2,000 kilograms. First tested in 1995, Arrow II
had a smaller weight of 1,300 kilograms.122 Further tests were run on Arrow II when
successfully completing 14 intercepts. The testing has been vital in leading to the population
trust in the effectiveness of the TBMD for the protection of the country.
Third, the United States has increased the level of research funding it provides to Israel and the
subsequent participation in the development of Israeli missile defense systems. The biggest
focus by the United States has been the mitigation of the long-range weapons development in
the Middle East. Based on the research, focus has been placed on the capabilities for defense
against potential nonconventional missile attacks.

US assures Israel through TBMD

Shahkaram ’19 (Malik M. Shahkaram, Major, United States Army, BA, University of Oklahoma,
2010, MA, University of Texas at El Paso, 2011, Master of Arts in Security Studies in the Middle
East, “BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE IN THE MIDDLE EAST,” Naval Postgraduate School, March
2019, https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/1073667.pdf)

3. The Role of Israeli TBMD

The Israeli Missile Defense Organization has been at the forefront of boosting the development of the TBMD. Israel
has been
actively researching and developing missile programs with the goal of boosting the protection of
the entire country against guerrillas, such as Hezbollah, and other enemies, such as Syria and
Iran. The role of the Israeli BMD is to intercept hostile missiles (e.g., weapons of mass
destruction), which that have the potential of destroying any part of Israel . The capability of the TBMD
reaches 1,500 miles and nine times the speed of sound, and the Arrow III has been outstanding in terms of boosting the rate of
defense against hostile missiles from Israel’s enemies. Additionally, the capacity to detect and track missiles as far as 300 miles and
disable the incoming warhead by exploding in an estimated 40 to 50 yards of the target.125 The ability to detect the different types
of warheads makes it easier for the defense system to destroy all types of hostile missiles entering Israel’s air space.126 This
strategy has gone a long way toward guaranteeing Israel the desired level of safety, and the
support from the United States makes it better.
Israel’s TBMD program has also significantly benefited from NATO since, in both cases, the decision makers have used missile
defense as a convenient political tool.127 For instance, the development of Iron Dome planted the political opinion that Israel
needed a strong system of defense to stand against all forms of enemies entering its space. The TBMD has been a vital political tool
for Israel and has been present in the agenda of most politicians. Because of a strong defense mechanism created by Arrow 3 and
Iron Dome, the government has been able to convince the population it is doing everything it can to protect the population against
any attacks. For instance, the success of the Iron Dome during the Operation Pillar of Defense in 2012, wherein the Israeli Defense
Forces conducted a military operation in Gaza, allowed the government to justify the need for developing stronger defensive
mechanisms that would make every citizen safe in the country.

a. Strengths

One of the strengths of Israeli defense is its collaboration with the United States in a creating
multilayered missile defense system, which when compared to other missiles defense systems
elsewhere, many considered to be the most advanced. 128 The advancement in technology is significant
because it ensures that there is a strong defense system for the country in terms of its security. For
instance, the Arrow III interceptor is a strong and multilayered system that has given Israel a major advantage and allowed boosting
its own defense. The
country has the system to defend itself against the current and future threats in
the region, especially from such states as Iran.
More so, collaborating with the United States is an advantage because of the financial capabilities that it offers in regard to the
improvement of the Arrow system and other projects of creating defense missiles.129 The United States has played a
vital role in boosting Israel’s position by ensuring that it does not have to spend its own capital by providing the
effective funding required for the country to attain its goal of building a strong and secure system. The largest funding has been
allocated for the Arrow ballistic missiles; the
United States has cooperated with Israel in this project to
provide the necessary financial resources to build the most efficient TBMD system.
Israel possesses many intermediate- or short-range warheads. It also has a number of Patriot batteries and other sophisticated
systems to react quickly to any missile threat. In addition, its low-level missile systems may counterattack the enemy’s aircraft or any
unmanned aerial vehicles.130 As
a result, Israel is in a stable position since it can defend itself from any
major or minor missile attack in the region effectively . It is constantly improving its ability to tackle all types of
missile attacks.

The TBMD capacities include the:

1. Arrow 2 and Arrow 3, which have three batteries each and are groundbased;

128 O’Rourke, Sea-Based Ballistic Missile Defense, 57–59.

129 Samaan and Lasconjarias, “The Israeli Experience,” 3.

130 O’Rourke, Sea-Based Ballistic Missile Defense, 59–60.

2. David’s Sling, which is currently in use and can be used on ground, naval,

or aerial platforms;

3. Iron Dome, which has 10 batteries and is used on ground;

4. Patriot-2, which has three batteries, is mobile, and can be used from the

ground; and

5. Green pine radar, which has two batteries and istransportable or can be used

on ground.131

Israel has started the integration of naval ships into the Iron Dome system; the project aims to protect the Israeli ships and other
assets at sea.132 Israel has successfully tested this system in simulated projectiles that mimicked external threats in that region.
Therefore, apart from the protection on land, Israel has benefitted in terms of achieving the protection on the sea.

The inclusion of the multilayered aerial shield into David’s Sling, the Iron Dome, and the Raytheon’s Centurion Super machine gun
means that Israel’s active missile defense program has reached success. As such, Israel is the first country in the Middle East able to
protect itself against threats of any range; this ability definitely provides Israel with a strategic position in the region.133 Diverse
systems ensure that the country does not experience any threat or fear of threats.
Consequently, the government could easily assure all citizens of the high level of protection
against attacks.

b. Weaknesses

One of the weaknesses that Israel faces is that it is a very small country. Therefore, the presence
of any ballistic missiles in the Middle East represents a great threat to the country; hence, it has
to develop ways of protecting itself (e.g., with the anti-defense missile). The small size of the
country tends to be a disadvantage since an attack on it can be launched easily and within a
short time.

Another weakness is that, despite

the fact that Israel owns these kinds of defense systems, it can face
some problems frequency interference connected with the technology and thus the use of
multiple defense systems. This fact may deter the development and use of the lower level missiles defense systems.134 In
addition, this issue may bring disagreement civilian and military sectors concerning the allocation of funds for different goals and
reasons.

c. Opportunities
Allied with Jordan and Egypt, Israel can use that opportunity and locate stage some of its BDM systems in these countries to increase
its own security coverage and thus protect itself from enemies. For example, Israel can use the Jordan Valley to defend against its
enemies easily even with short-range and medium-range defense missiles. Increasing the area of the TBMD operations provides
alternatives in most missile interception tests while also ensuring that a larger area is covered for its ultimate protection.135

The United States funds Israeli research and development of the BDM system, and it is an opportunity for the country to improve
not only its economic advantage in the region but also its. The
United States has continuously focused on
offering the necessary support to Israel against enemy threats by supporting it in the
development of TBMD. Of course, this assistance is based on the U.S. interests in the Middle East.136 Even so, Israel can
take advantage of the increasing research and development means to boost its security against
missile attacks, and thus fully protect its citizens from all types of missile attacks.
The war and conflicts inhibit the economic development of Israel as well as its relationship with Jordan, which, as it is stable, can
assist in peace talks, help soften the conflict between countries in that region, and create a better environment for the growth. Israel
can reach out to other countries and see if they could design an amicable solution to the current security problems and reduce
armaments in the region.

Israel needs low-level defense systems in populated areas since the Iron Dome, a high-level defense system, has been created to
protect only the strategic areas. The lowlevel defense systems give the government of Israel the chance to demonstrate its
commitment to the protection of all its citizens against missile attacks. Politicians
have been using the missile
defense systems to assure the citizens of their firm intention to safeguard them . Therefore, they
should implement their agendas by creating low-level defense systems to protect populated areas, which have been and will likely
continue to be target for missile attacks, especially from groups such as Hezbollah.
DIB DA
 1nc
Arms sales increasing – sustains the DIB
Thompson 18 (Loren Thompson, Chief Operating Officer of Lexington Institute, Apr 20, 2018,
"Trump Drone Decree Signals Arms Exports Are Now A Key Feature Of U.S. Economic Policy,"
Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2018/04/20/trump-drone-decree-
signals-arms-exports-are-now-a-key-feature-of-u-s-economic-policy/#b2f560f32a56//KDES).

Trump is turning out to be the best thing to happen to the defense industry since
Donald

Ronald Reagan left town. On Thursday of this week, the White House released a
presidential memorandum loosening the restrictions on overseas sales of unmanned
aerial vehicles, colloquially known as "drones." Defense companies have been arguing
for years that regulations concerning the export of drones were too burdensome, and
enabled competitors to capture foreign markets.
Clearly, the White House has heard these complaints.

Butthe implications of the April 19 memorandum are far more momentous, because it commits the federal
government to actively facilitating arms sales to overseas allies and partners. The
government has always been a participant in decisions to export weapons, but now it
looks poised to become a promoter. The memorandum cites several reasons why this is desirable: it creates jobs,
it reduces the trade deficit, it spurs innovation, it maintains our military's warfighting
edge, and it reduces the need for other countries to seek U.S. "boots on the ground."
its baroque process for
The Obama administration would have agreed in principle with many of these objectives. In practice, though,

reviewing proposed arms transfers often impeded the ability of U.S. defense companies
to compete in places like the Persian Gulf, and in the case of unmanned aerial vehicles,
it enabled China to seize a large share of the global market.
as the
Trump's memorandum won't open the floodgates to arms sales -- Congress will still play a critical role in approving major transactions -- but

new policy is implemented weapons sales to other countries are nearly certain to
increase, and that is good news for the defense industry. Some companies such as
Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Textron are positioned to
reap significant sales gains (I have financial ties of one sort or another to most of these companies).
But there is more to this story than the loosening of curbs on arms exports. Military production is getting wrapped into a broader White House
industrial policy aimed at revitalizing the entire U.S. manufacturing base. The administration is about to release the results of a year-long investigation
into the health of the defense industrial base, and it has included in its expansive definition of that sector many basic industries that contribute
production inputs to military items.

the Trump White House sees the defense industry as an

To a far greater degree than any previous administration,

integral part of the overall industrial economy and a tool through which it can bolster
the health of struggling sectors such as steel and aluminum. The traditional view of military contractors in
both Republican and Democratic administrations has been that they are a unique and separate part of the economy -- one requiring special handling --
but President Trump apparently favors a different approach.

In Trump's conception, Washington can get a lot more mileage out of its defense dollars if it consciously includes economic and trade considerations in
its spending practices. The Pentagon is the world's biggest purchaser of advanced technology and accounts for a significant share of all domestic
manufacturing jobs, so to Trump it is just common sense that defense and economic policies should be viewed as different facets of a unified agenda.
The Trump approach may seem novel in an American context, but it is actually the way that most countries -- including Russia and China -- deal with
their defense industries. Few nations have the luxury of segregating their military producers from the rest of the economy, and making purchases
without regard to the potential economic and trade fallout. So the Trump strategy actually aligns Washington with the way most of our allies and
adversaries think about military production and arms exports.

Thursday's memorandum makes it clear that the U.S. will not be selling weapons indiscriminately to all comers. Proposed transactions will still be
reviewed to ascertain that they are compatible with U.S. security objectives. But the amount of time required will be greatly compressed from what it

the volume of arms exports will likely grow significantly. So if you thought things
was, and

couldn't get any better for the U.S. defense industry, guess again. They just did.

Israel sales key to sustaining US defense industry

Badillo 19 Anna Badillo Defense Post, 4-9-2019, "The US-Israel ‘special relationship’ subsidizes
American military industry and Israeli colonialism," https://thedefensepost.com/2019/04/09/us-
israel-arms-sales-opinion///ALiang
U.S. military loans started arriving in Israel in November 1971, when the Nixon administration signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Israel to

The U.S.
build up its domestic industrial-arms sector through technical and manufacturing assistance. Grants started to replace loans in 1974.

government shortly afterwards started to permit Israel to spend 26% of the annual
military grant on purchases in Israel – a unique arrangement, since by U.S. law recipient
countries must spend all of their foreign military financing in the U.S. According to Ajl, “the
Israeli military industry often relies on U.S. technological inputs, and the U.S. forbids
Israel from manufacturing crucial heavy weaponry, such as fighter jets, in order to
maintain control over Israel.” U.S. military grants to Israel were often quid pro quo, as Israel increasingly took on the work for which
the U.S. could not publicly take responsibility, given popular unease in the States over aid to fascist dictatorships. As the International Jewish Anti-
Zionist Network noted in their report, Israel’s Worldwide Role in Repression, in the 1970s, Israel armed the brutal military regime of the Argentinian
junta that imposed seven years of state terrorism on the population. Israel also provided most of the arms that Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio “Tachito”
Somoza used in the last year of his dictatorship to oppose the revolution, a conflict that killed tens of thousands of Nicaraguans in the 1970s. By the

the Israeli military-industrial complex had produced an industry capable of

2000s,

competing in small-arms and high-end security technology on a worldwide scale. Israel

started to export arms that have been refined through high-technology colonial policing of the Palestinian population, especially in the Gaza Strip and

Israel has risen to one of the top 10 arms exporters in the world. Last
the West Bank. In recent years,

May Haaretz reported, “Israel’s defense-related exports in 2017 totalled $9.2 billion, an all-time

record and whooping 40% increase over 2016 – when defense-related transactions
totaled $6.5 billion.” The Obama administration adjustments to Israel’s military aid package came amidst a shifting geopolitical
environment, both within the U.S. and Israel. There was a shift in original MOU that would slowly phase out the provisions through which Israel could
spend up to 26% of its funding package within Israel, to Israel spending more of this funding on the advanced military capabilities that only the United
States can provide – as much as $1.2 billion per year, according to Ajl. In addition, this MOU locked in $500 million annually for missile defense.The
MOU mandates Israel update its fighter aircraft fleet, which is a direct investment into the U.S. military-industrial complex, given that fighter-jet
factories are exclusively based in the United States. Not only does U.S. foreign policy and Israeli-settler colonialism shape what happens across historic

The firm establishment of Israel’s military

Palestine, it also shapes what happens across the Middle East region.

defense industry also provides an excuse to sell ever-more-sophisticated weapons to

other regional U.S. allies, especially Saudi Arabia. As long as Israel has the latest U.S.
technology, other countries can buy older models, again to the great profit of the U.S.
defense industry. Israel thus is the spark plug for an entire region-wide weapons bazaar,
while also providing such countries the means to destroy and dismantle even poorer
countries like Yemen. This keeps the entire region aflame, oppressed and desperate, and thus unlikely to upset hierarchical regional and
international social structures. Ajl suggests that one of reasons the United States pushed through this MOU before Obama left office is the rising
discontent within the U.S. population over ongoing support for Israeli colonization of historic Palestine and the surrounding region. Frida Berrigan,
author of Made in the U.S.A.: American Military Aid to Israel, writes that a major barrier to any shift in American policy towards Palestine-Israel is
“financial pressures from a U.S military industrial complex accustomed to billions of dollars in sales to Israel and other Middle Eastern nations locked in

The United
a seemingly perpetual arms race with each other by all buying American and using Foreign Military Financing (FMF) to pay the bills.”

States is the primary source of Israel’s far superior arsenal. Israel’s dependence on the
U.S. for aid and arms means that the Israeli military relies on spare parts and technical
assistance from the U.S. to maintain optimum performance in battle. During the Bush
administration, from 2001 to 2005, Israel had actually received more in U.S. military aid
than it has in U.S. arms deliveries. Over this time period, Israel received $10.5 billion in
FMF – the Pentagon’s biggest military aid program – and $6.3 billion in U.S. arms
deliveries. According to Berrigan, the most prominent of those deals was a $4.5 billion
sale of 102 Lockheed Martin F-16s to Israel. Unlike other countries, Israel receives its Economic
Support Funds in one lump sum early in the fiscal year rather than in four quarterly
installments. While other countries primarily deal with the Department of Defense
when arranging to purchase military hardware from U.S. companies, Israel deals directly
with U.S. companies for the vast majority of its military purchases in the United States .
Other countries have a $100,000 minimum purchase amount per contract, but Israel is allowed to purchase military items for far less, according to
Berrigan. Today, Israel has been the beneficiary of approximately $125 billion in U.S. aid. An unimaginable sum, more than any other country since
World War II. U.S. aid is projected to further increase to $165 billion by the end of the new 10-year package, in 2029, according to Charles D. Freilich, a
former Israeli deputy national security adviser. U.S. aid constitutes some 3% of Israel’s total state budget and about 1% of its GDP, a highly significant
sum. Moreover, U.S. aid constitutes some 20% of the total defense budget, 40% of the budget of the Israel Defense Forces, and almost the entire

Israel’s dependence on the U.S. is not limited to financial aid

procurement budget, according to Freilich.

and weapons sales. According to Freilich, the U.S. provides technologies for the
development of unique weapons systems that Israel needs, such as the Iron Dome and
the Arrow rocket and missile defense systems. It mans the radar deployed in Israel, which is linked to the global
American satellite system. Fredilich writes, “There is simply no alternative to American weapons, and our dependence on the United States is almost

.” The United States is Israel’s

complete; the bitter truth is that without the United States, the IDF would be an empty shell

largest trading partner, at least partially due to their bilateral free trade agreement, the
first the United States signed with any country. The U.S.-Israel special relationship is rooted in preferential arms trade
agreements as a way to subsidize the U.S. military industry and reinforce support for Israeli colonialism. This special relationship is locked into an arms
trade cycle where both the Israeli and American elite class benefits, at the expense of the indigenous population. The U.S. recognition of Israeli
sovereignty over occupied territories provides a boost for Israeli colonialism. We must ask ourselves, “If Trump has consented to Israeli illegal seizure of
the Golan Heights and Jerusalem, why not also the West Bank?” Prime Minister Netanyahu has vowed to annex Israeli settlements in the West Bank if
he is re-elected, which will likely be considered as the final blow to the so called possibility of a two-state solution. The Trump administration is
expected to announce his “ultimate deal” following the Israeli elections and after a new government is formed. It is only a matter of time till the Trump
administration decides to follow suit and recognize Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, which will drive the final nail into the coffin of the
Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations and solidify Israeli apartheid.

The DIB is key to economic innovations – spin-off tech

Zur, 19 Zur, Christian. executive director for procurement policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and serves as council
executive to the chamber’s Procurement and Space Industry Council. Defense News. “Amid budget talks, remember that America’s
defense-industrial base is indispensable.” June 27, 19. https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2019/06/27/amid-
budget-talks-remember-that-americas-defense-industrial-base-is-indispensable/

As Congress takes up the annual defense budget, it is worth acknowledging the comfort and quality of life to which we are accustomed owes its legacy

in no small part to the collaborative force of the greatest public-private partnership in American history: the
defense-industrial base.
Those who would downplay this partnership may not fully grasp the extent to which the U.S. has benefited immeasurably beyond its immediate

national security needs. From safe and reliable commercial aviation, to cancer research and treatment, to the internet itself, the innovation
that has supported our military over the decades have simultaneously enhanced the lives of all
Americans.
The advantages accrued by the nation’s investment in technology have not always been readily apparent, and the relationship has not always been
easy or straightforward. The U.S. military often has to create an industrial capability where once there was none.

commercial technology sector is directly intertwined into our robust and

Fortunately, the DNA of the

diverse defense-industrial base. Influencing current innovation ranging from satellite telecommunication to hybrid vehicles, Silicon
Valley itself and countless university labs owe their founding to defense investment grants and contracts.

defense-industrial base supports one of the largest

Beyond the qualitative measures of these standout technologies, the

high-skill and high-wage workforces in the nation. Indeed, the U.S. defense and aerospace
industry employs 2.4 million workers with an average salary 44 percent above the national average.

Despite antiquated procurement practices imposed by Congress and successive administrations, today’s industrial base is flexible and resilient and able
to meet every U.S. military requirement without fail. By every measure, that is success.

But as the late Sen. John McCain cautioned at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 2015, global research and development is more than twice that of the
United States, and Chinese R&D levels are projected to surpass the United States by 2022.

As recently noted in the context of U.S. space dominance being under challenge by foreign competitors, we must unharness American ingenuity and
allow industry to develop and deploy innovation at increasing speed and efficiency.

No different than other industrial sectors, defense companies reorganized and internally reformed over the past few decades. Today, America’s top
defense suppliers zealously manage their own compliance and contract performance, rather than relying on government procurement officers to
oversee product development milestones and service delivery.

As legislative and executive branch policymakers resolve budget differences over the coming months, it is worth recognizing the broad and diffused

From the convenience of weather data and digital

impact of such deliberations over the years.

photography to omnipresent mobile communications, the innovation of our defense-

industrial base has delivered for all Americans.

Econ decline causes global wars

Liu 18 Qian Liu, China-based economist. “From economic crisis to World War III.” Project
Syndicate. 11/8/2018. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/economic-crisis-
military-conflict-or-structural-reform-by-qian-liu-2018-11

The next economic crisis is closer than you think. But what you should really worry about is what comes after: in
the current social,
political, and technological landscape, a prolonged economic crisis, combined with rising
income inequality, could well escalate into a major global military conflict.

The 2008-09 global financial crisis almost bankrupted governments and caused systemic collapse .
Policymakers managed to pull the global economy back from the brink, using massive monetary
stimulus, including quantitative easing and near-zero (or even negative) interest rates.
But monetary stimulus is like an adrenaline shot to jump-start an arrested heart; it can revive the patient, but it does nothing to cure the disease.
Treating a sick economy requires structural reforms, which can cover everything from financial and labour markets to tax systems, fertility patterns, and
education policies.

Policymakers have utterly failed to pursue such reforms, despite promising to do so. Instead, they have remained preoccupied with politics. From Italy
to Germany, forming and sustaining governments now seems to take more time than actual governing. Greece, for example, has relied on money from
international creditors to keep its head (barely) above water, rather than genuinely reforming its pension system or improving its business
environment.

The lack of structural reform has meant that the unprecedented excess liquidity that central banks injected into their economies was not allocated to
its most efficient uses. Instead, it raised global asset prices to levels even higher than those prevailing before 2008.
In the United States, housing prices are now 8% higher than they were at the peak of the property bubble in 2006, according to the property website
Zillow. The price-to-earnings (CAPE) ratio, which measures whether stock-market prices are within a reasonable range, is now higher than it was both in
2008 and at the start of the Great Depression in 1929.

As monetary tightening reveals the vulnerabilities in the real economy, the collapse of asset-price bubbles will trigger another economic crisis – one
that could be even more severe than the last, because we have built up a tolerance to our strongest macroeconomic medications. A decade of regular
adrenaline shots, in the form of ultra-low interest rates and unconventional monetary policies, has severely depleted their power to stabilise and
stimulate the economy.

If history is any guide, the

consequences of this mistake could extend far beyond the economy .
According to Harvard’s Benjamin Friedman, prolonged periods of economic distress have been
characterised also by public antipathy toward minority groups or foreign countries – attitudes
that can help to fuel unrest, terrorism, or even war.

For example, during the Great Depression , US President Herbert Hoover signed the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act,
intended to protect American workers and farmers from foreign competition. In the subsequent five years, global trade shrank by two-thirds.
Within a decade, World War II had begun.
To be sure, WWII, like World War I, was caused by a multitude of factors; there is no standard path to war. But there is reason to believe that high
levels of inequality can play a significant role in stoking conflict.

According to research by the economist Thomas Piketty, a spike in income inequality is often followed by
a great crisis. Income inequality then declines for a while, before rising again, until a new peak – and a new disaster. Though causality has yet to
be proven, given the limited number of data points, this correlation should not be taken lightly, especially with wealth and income inequality at
historically high levels.

This is all the more worrying in view of the numerous other factors stoking social unrest and diplomatic tension, including technological disruption, a
record-breaking migration crisis, anxiety over globalisation, political polarisation, and rising nationalism. All are symptoms of failed policies that could
turn out to be trigger points for a future crisis.

Voters have good reason to be frustrated, but the emotionally

appealing populists to whom they are increasingly giving their support
are offering ill-advised solutions that will
only make matters worse. For example, despite the world’s
unprecedented interconnectedness, multilateralism is increasingly being eschewed, as countries –
most notably, Donald J. Trump’s US – pursue unilateral, isolationist policies . Meanwhile, proxy wars are

raging in Syria and Yemen.

Against this background, we

must take seriously the possibility that the next economic crisis could lead
to a large-scale military confrontation. By the logic of the political scientist Samuel Huntington, considering such a scenario could
help us avoid it because it would force us to take action. In this case, the key will be for policymakers to pursue the structural reforms that they have
long promised while replacing finger-pointing and antagonism with a sensible and respectful global dialogue. The alternative may well be global
conflagration.
2nc
 link – R&D
israel is a yummy chunk of the DIB
Eisenstadt and Pollock 12 (Michael Eisenstadt director of the Military and Security Studies
Program at The Washington Institute and David Pollock fellow at The Washington Institute,
focusing on Mideast political dynamics and U.S. policy in the region, “How the United States
Benefits from Its Alliance with Israel”, A Washington Institute Strategic Report, September 2012,
https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/pubs/StrategicReport07.pdf - BIB)

Defense-Industrial Cooperation In recent decades, Israel has emerged as a major defense

industrial player. In 2010, Israel exported more than $7 billion in arms, making it one of the four
largest arms exporters in the world. The close ties that have emerged between the defense-industrial
establishments of Israel and the United States during this time have yielded important benefits for both.68 Israel and the United
States have long cooperated in the modification and development of U.S. weapons systems,
with Israel providing feedback to U.S. manufacturers regarding the performance of their weapons in combat, resulting in numerous
modifications to these systems that have benefited both militaries.69 Likewise, the success
of U.S. arms in Israeli
service, such as the F-4 Phantom, F-16 Falcon, and F-15 Eagle fighters, has contributed to their
worldwide commercial success.70 Israel benefits greatly from U.S. military assistance, although, as
previously noted, some 75 percent of the assistance is spent in the United States. However, Israel’s
defense industries have unique attributes that benefit U.S. defense contractors that
partner with them. These include the close cooperation between military operators and those involved in
weapons R&D, which ensures that new weapons are tailored to the needs of the former, and the speed with which
Israel fields new systems. For instance, the Iron Dome rocket-defense system (which is being marketed jointly
by Raytheon and Rafael) was fielded in less than four years. Moreover, in the past decade, Israel has emerged as a major supplier of
defense articles to the U.S. military, with sales growing from $300 million to $1.5 billion annually
(about 20 percent of Israel’s total arms exports).71 In many cases, Israeli firms have partnered with American
companies to enhance the prospects of sales to the U.S. military and to third countries, enabling
U.S. firms to benefit from Israeli R&D and combat experience while preserving or creating
U.S. jobs. The numerous Israeli-origin defense articles used by the U.S. military include battlefield ISR systems, UAVs, airborne
targeting pods, precision munitions, helmetmounted sights, armored bulldozer kits, armor used on more than 15,000 fighting
vehicles (MRAPs, Bradley IFVs, M1 tanks, and AAV-7 and Stryker AFVs), and naval point-defense systems.

Israeli defensive capabilities enhance US defense industry – specifically tech

cooperation
Ettinger 18 (Yoram Ettinger former minister for congressional Affairs at Israel’s Embassy in
Washington, “Aid To Israel Isn’t Foreign Aid; It’s An Investment”, September 20, 2018, Breaking
Defense, https://breakingdefense.com/2018/09/aid-to-israel-isnt-foreign-aid-its-an-investment/
- BIB)

The transformation of US-Israel relations from a one-way-street to a mutually-beneficial

two-way-street, has occurred despite the tactical, short-term US-Israel disagreements
over the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Palestinian issue. The significant compatibility between the strategic, long-
term regional and global challenges and threats facing both nations has transcended
such disagreements.
In 2018, Israel’s Air Force features the US-developed and manufactured F-35 stealth
fighter, serving as a battle-tested laboratory for the US Air Force and the plane’s manufacturer
(Lockheed Martin), as it has been for the manufacturers of the F-15, F-16, missiles and missile launchers, tanks,
armed personnel carriers and hundreds of additional US military systems. Israel has
shared with the US lessons learned by Israeli pilots, who fly under a do-or-die state of mind. This has
helped stretch the performance of the US-made aircraft beyond conventional standards .
Such lessons have enhanced the capabilities of the US Air Force and the quality of the next
generation of the F-35, saving the manufacturer many years of research and
development, enhancing US competitiveness in the global market, increasing US
exports and expanding US employment. In other words, the annual transfer of $3.8 billion to
Israel (which funds the acquisition of US military systems) is not “foreign aid” to – but a highly profitable
investment in – Israel.
 link – production lines
this card sucks so bad pt 2
Freeman 17 (Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. DACOR, Washington, D.C., “The United States,
the Middle East, and China”, Middle East Policy Council,
https://www.mepc.org/speeches/united-states-middle-east-and-china - BIB)
The Middle East accounts for around 5 percent of global GDP. It is growing by about 5 percent annually and accounts for about 5
percent of U.S. exports. Arab cash purchases and generous taxpayer funding of arms transfers to Israel
play a vital role in
keeping production lines open and sustaining the U.S. defense industrial base. Including
military goods and services, the United States has a substantial but declining share of
the region’s imports — about one-fourth of them. By way of comparison, China’s share is nearly two-fifths
and India’s one-fifth, almost all non military in nature. The Middle East is a significant market for American
engineering, educational, and consulting services. Otherwise, as long as Arab oil producers’ currencies
remain linked to the dollar, the region’s markets cannot be said to be of more than marginal importance to the U.S. export economy.
T – FMS and DCS =/= FMF
 1nc – FMF
interpretation and violation – FMS and DCS is distinct from Israeli FMF
NDIA no date (The National Defense Industrial Association is an association for the United
States government and the defense industry, http://www.ndia.org/policy/international/fms-vs-
dcs, “Foreign Military Sales vs Direct Commercial Sales” – BIB)

FMS Process
FMS – an acquisition program administered through the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA),
with final approval by the State Department – supports security cooperation between the U.S. and its allies. While the U.S.
government contracts out to the defense industry on a competitive or sole-source basis,
it may also sell directly from its own stockpiles. When buying directly from the government’s stockpiles,
foreign customers will have more leverage in the unit price of a defense system – as these same systems are also acquired by the
U.S. military and defense agencies.

For qualified FMS customers, the U.S. Congress provides funding through foreign
military financing (FMF). Authorized by the State Department, and administered through DSCA, FMF
funding is a non-repayable loan legally granted to strategic countries – most notably Israel, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Iraq.
While FMS cases must have departmental approval, they are exempt from the export licensing process.

Foreign customers view the FMS process as more transparent, reliable, and secure. The U.S. government takes on more of the
contractual risk than the customer in the short run, and supports the sustainment of the defense system in the long run. A
September 2016 White House approval of the sale of fighter jets to the Middle East illustrates the impact that FMS has on the U.S.
economy, while concurrently serving U.S. national security interests.

DCS Process
DCS is regarded as a more flexible process, as the
purchaser consults directly with industry about
specific products and services it needs. Foreign customers leverage more negotiating power regarding the type of
contract (fixed price or firm fixed price), how the contract is written, final delivery requirements, and methods of payment. However,
they must carry more risk and administrative burdens. DCS has the added benefit of giving customers options to purchase more non-
standard systems that are mission specific, and designed to tackle readiness challenges. In these cases, the Pentagon does not
support these types of mission requirements in their stockpiles, or in their annual budget.

Qualifying for an export license through DCS is based on how a product or service is categorized. The State
Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) executes authority in issuing export licenses
to all defense related products and services on the U.S. Munitions List (USML), pursuant to the International Traffic in Arms
Regulations (ITAR). The Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) grants export licenses to more commercial
and “dual-use” defense products and services on the Commerce Control List (CCL), pursuant to the Export Administration
Regulations (EAR).

Like the FMS program, DCS advances interoperability between the U.S military and its allies. Furthermore, foreign
countries
use FMF funding to purchase U.S. defense products and systems through both the
FMS program and, on occasion, the DCS process.
Prefer it:
Limits & Ground: aff expands the topic to include all types of military aid – that
lets affs skirt the topic and get away with anything as long as arms are
incorporated somewhere
Extra-T – the aff relies on processes outside the resolutions – means we have to
concede parts of the solvency advocate to contest the 1ac
2nc
 violation – ext
violation – FMF is distinct from FMS
Maloberti 12 (Matias Maloberti provides consulting and brokering services to help U.S.
defense companies do business overseas, Oct 31, 2012, LMDefense,
http://lmdefense.com/military-exports-what-is-fmf/ - BIB)

FMF vs. FMS

Clients often ask me about the
difference between Foreign Military Financing and Foreign
Military Sales. In reality, FMF and FMS aren’t directly comparable. FMF provides funding for
defense purchases, while FMS is the program for managing the sale and transfer of
military items. Sales funded by FMF are almost always processed through the FMS program. (Only a few countries have
exceptions to use FMF funds for Direct Commercial Sales .) The FMS program, on the other hand, may be used
for FMF-financed sales, or for sales paid for by the foreign customer.

U.S. aerospace and defense exports (1) sustain a domestic workforce in the manufacturing sector, (2) support national security
programs through the foreign military sales (FMS) and direct commercial sales (DCS) processes ,
and (3) narrow the U.S. trade deficit gap. In 2016 alone, aerospace and defense exports reduced the overall deficit by $80-90 billion
dollars.