Wednesday, August 30, 2023
Vivek Ramaswamy is a chameleon. He said he’d cut aid to
Israel, then retracted the statement when it proved unpopular. This waffling on
an issue near and dear to the hearts of 58%
of American Jews leaves at least some of them scratching their heads and
wondering: Is Vivek Ramaswamy good or bad for the Jews?
For some it’s enough to know that right out the gate,
Ramaswamy is talking Jews and money, a subject that never bodes well for the
Jews. The presidential hopeful staked out his position moreover, in a discussion
with Russell Brand on Rumble. Brand has been known to feature anti-Israel Jews and
celebrities in his videos. He once gave a platform to Hungarian Holocaust Survivor
Dr. Gabor Maté, who used the opportunity to rain
vitriolic untruths about Israel upon his listeners for a full 18 minutes, describing
the most vicious—and fictitious—Israeli war crimes. In one whopper among the many,
Maté asserts that the Israeli expression “mowing
the lawn” refers to mowing down the innocent people of Gaza.
In actuality, the expression “mowing
the lawn” refers to the need for the regular elimination of terror cells and
rocket launchers in order to protect the innocent people of Israel. Israeli
civilians have been the target of hundreds of thousands of rocket attacks emanating
from Gaza. The IDF specifically chooses to manage the situation in Gaza, rather
than carpet-bomb the place, in order to avoid civilian casualties, there.
In his introduction, Brand gave the Israel-hating Maté, whom he calls a “modern-day shaman” an impassioned and
sympathetic introduction:
“[Maté] had
this to say about the situation in Israel now. It’s one of the most beautiful,
profound, and effective things I’ve ever seen anybody say about this conflict,
and I fail to see how anybody could . . . I think anyone who sees it will be
deeply moved by Gabor Maté’s wisdom and
truth.”
A US presidential candidate has said that Israel should not be receiving more aid than its neighbours and promised to cut back US funding to the Jewish state.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a long-shot Republican candidate for the president, said during an interview with Russell Brand on the right-wing social network Rumble that any additional funding Israel receives currently would be redundant. He said: “Come 2028, that additional aid won’t be necessary in order to still have the kind of stability that we’d actually have in the Middle East by having Israel more integrated in with its partners,”
While Ramaswamy admitted that the close relationship between the US and Israel had benefited both countries, he added: "There’s no North Star commitment to any one country, other than the United States of America.”
Twelve days later, Ramaswamy reversed himself. From the Free
Beacon:
Facing backlash for his proposal to halt U.S. funding to the Jewish state by 2028, Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign now says he does not support cutting military funding to Israel unless the country "tells the U.S. that it no longer needs the aid."
The fact-check section on Ramaswamy’s website was updated Monday to say that he "won’t cut aid to Israel until Israel tells the U.S. that it no longer needs the aid."
"That’s what Vivek actually said, so don’t believe the opponents’ lies that he wants to cut aid to Israel—which makes zero sense as a foreign policy priority any time in the foreseeable future," said Ramaswamy’s campaign.
The statement is a reversal from the candidate’s promise earlier this month that "come 2028, that additional aid won’t be necessary." It is also the clearest sign yet that he supports continuing the funding, which accounts for roughly $3 billion annually and which Israel primarily spends on the U.S. defense industry.
The shift comes as Ramaswamy has come under fire from pro-Israel leaders and his Republican primary opponent Nikki Haley, who said during last week's debate that Ramaswamy was "completely wrong to call for ending America's special bond with Israel."
Ramaswamy hit back at Haley, a fellow Indian-American, in the campaign statement, writing "Keep lying, Nimarata Randhawa." Haley’s maiden name was Randhawa prior to her marriage to Michael Haley in 1996. Her first name is "Nimarata," although she goes by her middle name "Nikki."
His campaign said he would "also partner with Israel to ensure that Iran never acquires nuclear capabilities." He described Israel’s current affiliation with the United States as a "client relationship" and said his policies would turn it into a "true friendship."
Ramaswamy’s conflicting answers on aid to Israel have irked both supporters and opponents of the Jewish state.
Aside from Ramaswamy’s flip-flop on Israel, there are other
troubling factors for Jews to consider in assessing the potential threat of a
Vivek Ramaswamy in the White House. Ramaswamy boasts that he was a “key member”
of Jewish leadership society Shabtai, during his time at Yale Law School. Originally
called “Eliezer” and then “Chai Society,” Shabtai is both secret
and exclusive (emphasis added):
Meet Eliezer, the secret Yale society that's hiding in plain sight. The "secret" lies in the private networking and intimate bonding among a cohesive, self-selecting, truly diverse membership. A list of who belongs to Eliezer exists, but the contents are strictly off the record. Everything is word of mouth and by invitation only, not to exclude but to include the most interesting Yalies from over the walls of Yale's various courtyards: college, graduate schools and faculty.
Founded in the fall of 1996 by Rabbi Shmully Hecht, Ben Karp, Cory Booker and Michael Alexander as an intellectual salon and Jewish leadership society, the group that started out as a social club for would-be and current leaders of the Yale community has blossomed into an organization recognized the world over, yet with a decidedly secular twist. "There was no question that Eliezer was a Jewish association," says New York Times critic at large Edward Rothstein, a member of the society, "but also no question that along with its elements of religious observance and allusion, the aura was nonsectarian intellectual."
It's not just a "secular twist" when so many members of this Jewish society, including Ramaswamy, are not Jewish. But even among the Jewish participants, Shabtai’s “truly diverse membership” is just that. There is respected rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, and truth-seeking,
antisemitism-fighting Bari Weiss. But then there are the other Shabtai
participants, who, like Maté, feel
compelled to lie and spew hate about Israel, for example William Schabas, Norman
Finkelstein, Jeremy Ben-Ami, Richard Blumenthal, and Peter Beinart. The roster
of antisemitic participants in this “Jewish leadership society” is long and distressing,
and because of Shabtai’s veil of secrecy, we have no way to gauge the extent of
interactions between members.
Then again, Ramaswamy’s Shabtai membership may just help us to
clarify and further refine our original question: Would it be good or bad or
the Jews to have a U.S. president who hangs out with the likes of Peter Beinart
and William Schabas—or even one who nods his head at the things they say? What
impact might these Shabtai participants have had on Ramaswamy in determining
his stance on U.S. aid to Israel?
On the other hand, many staunch supporters of Israel have
reservations about continuing to take America’s money. For one thing, if Israel
were to stop accepting U.S. aid, no one could rightfully say that Jews control
America’s the purse strings. Of course, haters like Gabor Maté would say it
anyway, and continue to lie through their teeth about Israel.
Also, U.S. aid represents only a small fraction of Israel’s defense budget. Many say Israel can do without that money. “Israel clearly could survive without U.S. assistance, which constitutes just 3 percent of its state budget today and less than 1 percent of its GDP, a fraction of its value when it began," says Charles Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser writing for the left-wing fifth-column-rag Haaretz.
Michael Oren, formerly Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., cites other figures to show that American aid is less important to Israel today than it once was “Back in 1985, American aid represented nearly one-half of Israel’s defense budget. Today, it accounts for only 19%.”
Another issue to consider in being for or against American military aid for Israel, is that while antisemites demonize
Israel for “sponging” off of America, the truth is that America is the main beneficiary
of U.S. aid to Israel. More from Oren (emphasis added):
Though now taken for granted, American defense aid for Israel began belatedly and grew in fits and starts. Throughout its first two decades, while assisting Israel economically, the United States refused to sell Israel any arms, much less aid it militarily. A breakthrough occurred during the Kennedy administration, which sold Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Israel, followed by President Lyndon Johnson, who allowed it to purchase Patton tanks and Skyhawk aircraft. Even then, Israel fought the 1967 Six-Day War with French weaponry—AMX tanks and Dassault Mystère fighters, plus some American army surplus—but in the process proved its worth as a potent Cold War ally. The result was an inchoate U.S.-Israel strategic alliance that burgeoned during Israel’s War of Attrition (1967-1970) with Soviet-backed Egypt and then in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. In Operation Nickel Grass, the United States replenished Israel’s battlefield losses with some 55,000 tons of military equipment.
The material was paid for, not donated. Outright military aid to Israel would only be offered in 1979, after the Camp David Accords with Egypt, when President Carter earmarked roughly $3 billion for Israel. The grant, though, was spread out over several years and used to reimburse Israel for the airbases it evacuated in Sinai. Not until the mid-1980s, in the Reagan years, did Israel receive an average of $1.8 billion per year, increased by the Clinton administration to $2.4 billion. In large measure, the money offset the phasing-out of American economic grants to Israel as well as the massive sale of American arms to Arab countries. Still, the amount grew to just over $3 billion in 2008 with the start of President George W. Bush’s 10-year memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. In addition to the MOU annuity, Israel also sought “plus ups”—congressional grants for missile defense and other one-time expenditures, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. In time, this would make Israel the largest single recipient of American military aid since World War II, a total of more than $150 billion.
But that number is also misleading. The aid comes in the form of foreign military funding (FMF) designed to facilitate the foreign military sales (FMS) of American military equipment. This means that nearly three-quarters of the aid is spent in the United States, as a subsidy for the domestic arms industry, creating tens of thousands of jobs. Thanks to that money, the Israel Defense Forces have become the world’s most American-equipped army, with the largest fleets of F-16 and F-35 jets outside of the United States. For companies such as General Dynamics and Lockheed-Martin, there can be no better advertisement for their fighters than their use by Israel’s famed air force. And while Israel’s critics in the United States often claim that it receives the greatest amount of American aid, in fact Germany, Japan, and South Korea get many times more. Their allotments, though, are not characterized as aid but as items in the U.S. defense budget.
Another former ambassador, Yoram
Ettinger, says that U.S. aid to Israel is an investment:
The U.S. does not give foreign aid to Israel, the U.S. makes an annual investment in Israel, one that provides the American taxpayer a return on investment of several hundred percent . . .
. . . While Israel is a grateful recipient of several hundred U.S. military systems, it also serves as a battle-tested, cost-effective laboratory for the U.S. defense and aerospace industries, which employ—directly and indirectly—3.5 million Americans. Moreover, the Israel Defense Forces serve as a laboratory for the U.S. military itself, which enhances U.S. performance on the battlefield.
By serving as such a laboratory, Israel enhances the economy, national security and homeland security of the United States.
For example, the Israeli Air Force flies the U.S. company Lockheed-Martin’s F-16 and F-35 combat aircraft. This provides both Lockheed-Martin and the U.S. Air Force with invaluable information on operations, maintenance and repairs. This information is then used to manufacture a multitude of upgrades for next-generation aircraft.
The F-16 itself has been improved by several hundred Israeli-driven upgrades, including to the cockpit, fire control, wings and fuel tanks. This has spared Lockheed-Martin 10-20 years of research and development—which would have cost billions of dollars. It also enhances the company’s global competitiveness, increases its multi-billion-dollar exports and expands its employment base. Similar advantages are enjoyed by Boeing, the manufacturer of the F-15, which is also flown and upgraded by the Israeli Air Force.
Indeed, Israel is the Triple-A store for Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, G.D., Northrop Grumman, L3Harris Technologies, G.E., Oshkosh, Honeywell and many other U.S. defense and aerospace companies. This enhances the image of these companies abroad and multiplies their export markets, because other countries assume that if Israel—with its unique national security challenges—uses these companies’ products, they must be of high quality.
And of course there’s the matter of allies keeping tabs on
each other and also the sharing intelligence. Says Ettinger, “[The] benefits
[of U.S. aid to Israel] extend to the realm of intelligence. According to a
former head of U.S. Air Force Intelligence, Gen. George Keegan, the U.S. would
have to establish five CIAs in order to procure the intelligence provided by
Israel. The annual budget of the CIA is around $15 billion.”
Even those Israelis who feel that Israel would be better off not taking any more U.S. aid, admit that there is a difference between want and need. They may not want the aid, and may resent what people say about Israel taking that aid. But that aid is a reflection of U.S. Israel relations, a tangible representation of a firm alliance between these two countries.
American
politicians who want to cut aid, are generally not well-disposed to maintaining
a collegial relationship with Israel. They prefer to withhold aid to keep Israel in line, or use it as a cudgel with which they can bludgeon Israel and make it behave. As Michael Oren writes, “Asked during the
2020 presidential race whether they would use American aid as leverage to pry
diplomatic concessions from Israel, Democratic candidates Elizabeth Warren,
Bernie Sanders, Beto O’Rouke, and Pete Buttigieg all replied ‘yes.’ Asked by
Israeli journalist Zvika Klein why young American Jews protest against Israel
rather than Iran or Syria, Peter Beinart explained, ‘As Americans, we don’t
provide $3 billion in military aid to Iran or Syria … without us, Israel
couldn’t do everything it does.’”
Ramaswamy calls Israel a “client state” unable to
stand on its own feet without the beneficence of the American people. That doesn’t
sound as though he has an informed or realistic opinion about U.S. aid to Israel. Rather,
it sounds as though he looks down his nose at Israel. He's patronizing.
In his desire to cut off the money pipeline to Israel, Vivek
Ramaswamy is no different and certainly no better than the above-referenced Dems, radicals, and self-hating Jew-hating Jews. The difference is that Ramaswamy
has now hedged his bets and couched his comments by putting the onus on
Israel to end the aid, as per the per the quote from his website, “He ‘won’t
cut aid to Israel until Israel tells the U.S. that it no longer needs the aid.’"
Does this mean that as president, Ramaswamy would strong-arm
Israel to forfeit the aid until the Jewish State cries “Uncle?” In light of the benefits
America accrues from the aid it “gives” to Israel, the idea is repugnant. Israel
is not America’s whipping boy.
Ramaswamy gives the impression of being a wet-behind-the-ears smart-aleck upstart. He has been rude to Nikki Haley, and refers to U.S. ally Israel as a “client state.” Vivek has little--read no--chance of becoming the Republican nominee. Vivek Ramaswamy can however, still do damage to perceptions of Israel, and more generally, to the Jewish people.
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