Year-End Special Edition Part 1: Israel's Highest Military Budget Ever, Settlement Scandals and Israel's Geography

December 27, 2006

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Highest Defense Budget in Israel's History (Ha'aretz) Reports on Israel's newly releasted defense budget, with Rela Mazali's explanation

Moving on to the Next Scandal... (Ha'aretz) Israelis' (non) response to Peace Now's report - and the state's non-denial - that 40% of West Bank settlements are built on privately-owned Palestinian land

Sorry, Wrong Continent (Uri Avnery) Israelis' conception of their geography as one key to their approach to politics and peace

More Important Articles Links to other important news articles for today

[JPN Commentary: While Israeli state and society continue the spiral of militarization, a trend of distinctly critical writing on the budgetary aspects of this ongoing process is visible in some of the writing of leading economic journalists. To some extent, this has been the case for a few years now. But the apparent spread of this trend today is directly linked to the fact that the current Prime Minister and Defense Minister, both exceptions in Israeli politics in their rise through a civilian, rather than a military, career, were elected on a civil-society, social ticket. Indeed, well publicized, planned cutbacks in Israel's defense budget accompanied their first months in office. However, following their rushed, rash decision to go to war on Lebanon, pushed for forcefully by the military, the defense budget is now to be hiked up dramatically—to an all time high of 52.4 billion Shekels (see the second article below by Uzi Benziman). Interestingly, no analogous discussion seems to be taking place in the U.S. though its recently raised aid to Israel is one of the sources of this budget increase (see, in Hebrew, Moti Bassok, Ha'aretz). For the most part, American tax payers seem unaware that Israelis are hotly criticizing the budget into which their tax dollars are being funneled in the form of military aid. Equally interesting, perhaps, is that, at least in Haaretz, which is widely viewed as a relatively progressive paper, most of the articles reflecting the debate in question haven't made it (yet, as of December 24) into the English version. Some of these include articles by Guy Rollnik, three separate analyses by Guy Leshem, and a joint article by Hadar Horesh and Leshem. In the first piece below, Nehemia Strasler, describes the annual ritual of fear-mongering orchestrated by the army and amplified by the media, enabling repeated decisions to raise Israel's defense budget. He cites the disproportionate benefits this awards to a particular class of people—ex-career soldiers, who reach full pension rights at age 45 and usually go on to a second career bolstered by their full army pensions. Only intimated by Uzi Benziman (below) some of the results of the unchecked burden of salaries, benefits and pensions to career soldiers in Israel are spelled out by Hadar Horesh and Guy Leshem (in a Hebrew article from The Marker). The budget for 2007 will provide less or no state investment in decreasing the widening gaps between rich and poor, less money for improving poor levels of education, for roads and other infrastructure. Moti Bassok (in Hebrew, see above) describes how annual decisions are made regarding the defense budget and who precisely makes these decisions. This reflects another strand of the debate that has been ongoing for several years now, concerning the extreme lack of transparency of Israel's defense budget, and the fact that it is not actually decided upon by democratically elected representatives. In the case of the current budget, says Bassok, a prime ministerial decision on meaningful cuts was made last spring – just prior to the military-pushed decision to go to war. Now, however, the war against Lebanon, whose problematic results, according to Strasler, are being ascribed by the military to budget cuts alone, has completely reversed that decision. Meanwhile, Uzi Benziman describes both last summer's declaration of war and the current defense budget raise as wasteful decisions taken by incapacitated politicians. This compound discussion dwells on some of the central vested interests driving Israeli militarization, briefly reflects the close linkage of this process to U.S. militarization, and outlines the social stratification and discriminative allocation of resources that it keeps firmly in place. RM]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ArticleContent.jhtml?itemNo=804051 December 21, 2006 Years ago a senior political figure told me about the Israel Defense Forces method of obtaining budget increases. A delegation of 20 senior officers enters a Cabinet meeting, equipped with state-of-the-art laptops. They present frightening intelligence assessments and a display with red arrows aimed straight at the heart of the country: from Iraq, from Iran, from Syria, from Lebanon and from the Palestinian Authority. The ministers seize up with fear and tremble, the prime minister sighs and gives in. After all, life is more important than quality of life. The major performance before the Cabinet has an earlier stage: preparing public opinion. Several journalists participate in this, publishing planted news items that make huge headlines. This year there were news items about Iran having finished rearming Hezbollah, about the anticipated war this summer (Why summer? Maybe the cool of autumn is preferable?), and the high point, of course, the Iranian atom bomb, which within three years will be aimed directly at the heart of Tel Aviv. This year the General Staff developed an additional, and much more effective, method. Chief of Staff Dan Halutz told Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that although he can manage with a smaller budget, it means a decline in the array of IDF forces, undermining the training program and a decline in strength. But if the prime minister is willing to take the risk, let him decide and approve. Not the chief of staff. To put it more clearly: When the next Winograd Committee is established, the chief of staff will have an alibi. The prime minister won't. And in the face of this Judgment Day weapon, Olmert surrendered. The IDF has even succeeded in disseminating the myth that the problem in the last war was solely a budgetary one. That is a lie that is picking up speed, and the facts and statistics are not succeeding in refuting it. During the second half of the 1990?s, the defense budget was about NIS 40 billion. It increased during the intifada years until it reached a record NIS 52 billion in 2003. With the waning of the intifada, the budget began to decrease, and this year stood about NIS 49 billion, much larger than it was a decade ago. This week it was decided that even that is insufficient, and the defense budget will once again reach a record: NIS 52 billion in 2007. In that case, how is it even possible to talk about cutbacks without blushing? But Olmert is not built to withstand the army's pressure on him. The highest-ranking civilian, who is entangled in an investigative committee, did not want to open another front against the IDF. And Finance Minister Avraham Hirchson, who should have guarded the coffers closely, failed at his job. All this happened even though the Cabinet is already transferring NIS 8.2 billion to the IDF (over three years) to renew the stores and equipment eroded by the war, while in the background is the Brodet Committee, which is examining the defense budget and is supposed to publish its conclusions in April. But Olmert did not agree to wait even until April, and Hirchson gave in. As usual. If we were talking about proper administration, Olmert should have conditioned the budget increases on comprehensive efficiency programs in the IDF. For example, there is the retirement age of non-combatant soldiers, which at present is 45, and this costs the IDF NIS 4 billion annually. Why shouldn't an economist working in the Kirya defense complex in Tel Aviv work until the age of 60? Why should he work for only 24 years, but be entitled to 37 years of pension? It should be almost the other way around: 39 years of work and 22 years of pension. And why does the Defense Ministry employ many workers who are largely superfluous because of duplication with the army, in areas such as acquisitions and construction? What about the delegations abroad? Why do we need a huge delegation (200 people) in New York? Don't they have Internet and fax machines? And why do we need military attaches in France and Thailand, who don't do a thing? And what about the inflated headquarters, the large number of extraneous senior officers and the exaggerated number of standing army personnel who serve on the home front? It means only that Dan Meridor was right. He was appointed by former defense minister Shaul Mofaz two and a half years ago to examine the national security concept. His recommendation, which he presented to Olmert: not to increase the defense budget for the next 10 years. But who will listen to Meridor when the IDF manages to scare the prime minister so easily?

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/804658.html December 24, 2006 On May 30, 1948, David Ben-Gurion wrote in his diary that 6,000 tank shells, at a cost of $60,000, had to be purchased and that their delivery would probably cost around $300,000. On November 24, 1948, the prime minister wrote in his diary: Shaul is bringing products: light weapons and ammunition - $9,815; guns and shells - $428,000; armored vehicles - $2 million; explosives - $1 million; navy - $6,580,000. On December 26, 1948, he wrote: "Battalion 13 losses: 13 killed, 10 missing, 35 wounded, lost a lot of weapons." The first prime minister, therefore, paid attention not only to the bloody price that the War of Independence was exacting but also to its expenses. His diaries are filled with figures, showing that he conducted the war while supervising its expenses. Fifty-eight years later, the incumbent prime minister, Ehud Olmert, is acting in a completely different way. Last week he forced the treasury to add NIS 1.9 billion to the defense budget, thus bringing it next year to NIS 52.4 billion - the largest in history. This was after NIS 8.2 billion had already been added to the defense budget since the end of the second Lebanon war. The man who so recklessly made the decision to go to war is continuing to make unsound decisions now that it has ended, as well. One can understand Olmert: like the military leadership, he too is affected by the residue of the war against Hezbollah. Like them, he is haunted by guilt over its results. Like them, he wishes to prepare in the best way possible for the next military test. Like them, he wants to be remembered as one who took every precaution. Like them, he is captive to the concept that the faults of the last war derive, to a considerable extent, from a shortage of resources resulting from erroneous cuts in the defense budget. While understanding the prime minister's motives, it does not follow that he is right. The needs of the defense system should be weighed soberly against other national needs and should derive from balanced evaluations. It is doubtful whether the decisions on the defense budget's size fulfill this requirement. The second Lebanon war was conducted very wastefully. The fire power that Israel poured on Hezbollah was four times larger than Hezbollah's fire (Hezbollah was also wasteful, from its own point of view). The abundant use of weapons derived from the battlefield concept of the General Staff, headed by Dan Halutz - that exercising massive fire power would achieve victory. Some of the ammunition, especially air-to-surface missiles, are very expensive, but the other means used by the armored and infantry corps are not cheap either. It is possible, of course, to say financial considerations are marginal to the general effort, which strives to defeat Hezbollah, and certainly of secondary importance to the desire to save lives. However, those questioning the way the war was conducted, including its economic price, are also concerned for every soldier's safety. To demonstrate how relevant this criticism is, it is worth paying attention to the calculation made by Danny Reshef, a retired intelligence officer, in Maariv three days ago. Israel spent NIS 12.5 million to kill one Hezbollah fighter in the last war. While this figure is not accurate, it certainly gives a ballpark. The last war was extremely wasteful. Since those responsible for it still have their hand on the budget and still determine the IDF's needs, it is not superfluous to call for a more responsible and transparent procedure in setting the defense budget. At the moment, those in charge of this mission are suffering from shell shock.

[JPN Commentary: In the following piece, reiterating the Peace Now report a month ago that 40% of the land of Israeli settlements in the West Bank is privately owned by Palestinians, Uzi Benziman writes, "The issue at stake is that individuals have been stripped of their basic rights. גHowever, a society that is not shocked by the killing of innocent Palestinians will also not be moved even slightly by the sight of land stolen from any individual Palestinian." RM]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/803269.html December 20, 2006 A month ago, Haaretz ran a sensational story on its front page: Reporter Nadav Shragai gave a detailed description of the findings of a Peace Now report, which said that close to 40 percent of the land under the control of West Bank settlements is privately owned by Palestinians. The report was based on an official state database that Peace Now leaked. Haaretz was the only Israeli media outlet that adequately covered the report. The Maariv daily gave a synopsis of the report on page six; Israel Radio announced it in its midday broadcast; and it stayed on various electronic news sites for about a day. The remaining media outlets, including Yedioth Ahronoth, the television stations and Army Radio, completely ignored it. The media was not alone in underplaying the findings of the report and avoiding its implications (except for Haaretz, which ran follow-up analyses by Shragai, Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff). The key subjects of the report also adopted a tactic of minimizing it: No official government response was issued, the Civil Administration put out a statement saying, among other things, that "an initial review of the report shows that it suffers from serious inaccuracies," and the Yesha Council of settlements claimed that there was nothing new in the report and that Peace Now would use any means to fight Jewish settlement. In contrast to the low-profile response to the report offered by the state and the Israeli media, it received a great deal of attention abroad: The New York Times published it as its lead story, and other large newspapers followed suit; and the report's authors, Dror Etkes and Hagit Ofran, were interviewed by dozens of radio and television stations throughout the world. Etkes and Ofran estimate that their findings were covered by hundreds of media outlets. Etkes was also interviewed by Israel Radio - along with Benny Kashriel, mayor of the Ma'aleh Adumim settlement - but only as a result of a report by the station's Washington correspondent, Yaron Dekel, about the buzz that the findings had produced in the United States. What is more interesting than the extent of the coverage that the report received in Israel is the impression it left on Israeli public opinion: A day after the modest announcement of its findings, the report disappeared entirely from public discourse, except for one more announcement by the Yesha Council challenging its reliability. The parties on the left did not address it, the Knesset did not deliberate it, the press did not deal with it, the government ignored it, and the justice, defense and prime ministers were not asked to explain the findings that it exposed. What the Peace Now researchers found is that state organs stole private lands from Palestinians living in the West Bank. The report found that state bodies broke the law, ignored Supreme Court decisions and behaved dishonestly, and certainly unethically. Peace Now claimed that 130 settlements were established, fully or partially, on private lands. Note: These are properties that the state recognized as private land, not private properties that were declared to be state land. This involved the systematic and blatant violation by state agencies of the property rights of thousands of Palestinians. This is the same repugnant, underhanded and apparently criminal modus operandi that attorney Talia Sasson detailed in the report she wrote on the establishment of the illegal outposts. Israel's conscience is entirely black. Scandal follows scandal, and today's injustice wipes away yesterday's injustice in our consciousness. Israeli society's heart is so hard when it comes to Palestinians in the territories that it remains unmoved even when confronted with a scene of continuous injustice that strips individuals of their property. The malice, deception and aggression embodied in the way the state took over lands belonging to private individuals, even if they are Palestinians, ought to stir up every honest person, even if he is a settler. This method has nothing to do with the ideological dispute over the establishment of the settlements: The issue at stake is that individuals have been stripped of their basic rights. The settlements could have been set up solely on state land. However, a society that is not shocked by the killing of innocent Palestinians will also not be moved even slightly by the sight of land stolen from any individual Palestinian.

[JPN Commentary: Avneri discusses the Israeli syndrome of seeing itself as part of Europe, instead of recognizing that Israel is a part of the Middle East. This world view has a huge detrimental effect on the dominant culture - one of disdain towards most things "Asian" or Middle Eastern - and makes integration into the region impossible, since the people surrounding Israel (and comprising much of it from within) are a cause for ever-present fear and loathing. - RG]

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1166960371 December 23, 2006 A FEW weeks ago, the 15th Asian games, the "Asiad", was held in Qatar. The Israeli media treated the event with a mixture of derision and pity. Some kind of picturesque Asian circus. Our television showed an exotic horseman with a keffiyeh at the opening ceremony, riding his noble Arab steed up a steep staircase to light the Olympic flame. And that was that. One question was not asked at all in any of the media: why are we not there? Does Israel not lie in Asia? That was not even considered. We? In Asia? How come? WHEN I followed the event on Aljazeera television, I suddenly remembered a private anniversary that had slipped my memory. Exactly 60 years ago a small number of young people founded a group that called itself in Hebrew "Young Eretz-Israel" and in Arabic "Young Palestine". With money out of our own pockets (at the time we were all quite poor) we published occasional issues of a periodical we called Bamaavak ("In the struggle"). Bamaavak stirred up a lot of stormy waves, because it voiced infuriatingly heretical opinions. Contrary to the dominant Zionist narrative, it asserted that we, the young generation growing up in the country, constituted a new nation, the Hebrew nation. Unlike the somewhat similar group of "Canaanites", that preceded us, we proclaimed that (a) the new nation is a part of the Jewish people, much as Australia is a part of the Anglo-Saxon people, and (b) that we are a sister-nation to the resurgent Arab nation in the country and throughout the region. And, no less important: that since the new Hebrew nation was born in the country, and the country belongs to Asia, we are an Asian nation, a natural ally to all the Asian and African nations that strive for liberation from colonialism. On Wednesday, March 19, 1947, a few months after the first edition of Bamaavak had appeared, the Hebrew daily Haboker reported: "On the occasion of the opening of the Pan-Asian Conference (in New Delhi), the group Young Eretz Israel has sent a cable to Jawaharlal Nehru reading: 'Please receive the congratulations of the Eretz-Israeli youth for your historic initiative. May the aspirations for freedom of the peoples of New Asia, inspired by your heroic example, become united. Long live the united and arising Young Asia, the vanguard of fraternity and progress'." A similar news story appeared on the same day on the front page of the Palestine Post (the predecessor of the Jerusalem Post), with the names of the signatories: Uri Avnery, Amos Elon and Ben-Ami Gur. Bamaavak appeared from time to time, whenever we had enough money, up to the outbreak of the 1948 war. In the Hebrew press, more than a hundred reactions were published, almost all of them negative, many of them vituperative. The famous writer Moshe Shamir, then a left-winger, made a neat play on words, calling us Bamat-Avak ("stage of dust"). When the war broke out, this whole chapter was overshadowed and forgotten. But almost all we said 60 years ago remains relevant today. And the most relevant question is: To what continent does the State of Israel actually belong? I BELIEVE that one of the most profound causes for the historic conflict between us and the Arab world in general, and the Palestinian people in particular, is the fact that the Zionist movement declared, from its very first day, that it did not belong to the region in which we live. Perhaps that is one of the reasons for the fact that even after four generations, this wound has not healed. In his book "The Jewish State", the founding document of the Zionist movement, Theodor Herzl famously wrote: "For Europe we shall be (in Palestine) a part of the wall against Asia…the vanguard of culture against barbarism…" This attitude is typical for the whole history of Zionism and the State of Israel up to the present day. Indeed, a few weeks ago the Israeli ambassador to Australia declared that "Asia belongs to the yellow race, while we are Whites and have no slit eyes. " One can perhaps forgive Herzl, a quintessential European, who lived in an era when imperialism dominated European thought. But today, four generations later, those forming public opinion in Israel, people born in the country, continue along the same path. Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak declared that Israel is "a villa in the middle of the jungle" (the Arab jungle, of course), and this attitude is shared by practically all our politicians. Tsipi Livni likes to talk about the "dangerous neighborhood" in which we are living, and the chief advisor of Ariel Sharon once said that there will be no peace until "the Palestinians turn into Finns." Our soccer and basketball teams play in the European leagues, the Eurovision song contest is a national event in Israel, 95% of our political activity is focused on Europe and North America. But the phenomenon extends far beyond the political arena - this is a "world view" in the literal sense. In our world, Israel is a part of Europe. In the 50s, when I was the editor of the news magazine Haolam Hazeh, I once published a cartoon that I am still proud of: it showed the map of the Eastern Mediterranean, with an arm projecting from Greece and holding scissors that cut Israel off from Asia. It is a pity that I did not add a second drawing, showing Israel being attached to the shore of France or, preferably, Miami. These days it would be hard to find anybody who would assert that Asia - India, China - is barbarian. But it is easy to find people in Israel, and throughout the West, who believe that the Arab world, and indeed the entire Muslim world, is a "jungle". With such an attitude, one cannot make peace. After all, one does not make peace with poisonous snakes and ravenous leopards. In the Bamaavak days, we coined the slogan "Integration in the Semitic Region". But how can one integrate oneself in a region that is seen as a jungle? A WORLD VIEW is not an academic matter. It has a huge impact on actual life. It influences people when it is conscious, and even more so when it is unconscious. It shapes the practical decisions, without the decision-makers being aware of it. Politicians, too, are only human beings (if that), and their actions are directed by their hidden beliefs. In Israel we are used to consider unquestioned "conceptsias" as the mother of all our mistakes and defeats. But is such an assumption any different from the expression of an unconscious world-view? The world-view influences many aspects of the state. It is the core of the education system, which forms the mind of the next generation. We have perhaps the only education system in the world that does not teach the history of its homeland. In our schools, very little is taught about the past of the country. Instead, what is taught is the history of "the Jewish people". This starts with the ancient Israelite kingdoms before the sixth century BC ("the First Temple"), then the Jewish community in the country before the beginning of the Christian era and for some years after ("the Second Temple"). Then it leaves the country and dwells on the Jewish Diaspora for some thousands of years, until the beginning of the Zionist settlement. For almost 2000 years, the annals of the country disappear from the school. I once talked about this in a speech in the Knesset. I said that an Israeli child born in the country, whether Jewish or Arab, should study the history of the country, including all its periods and peoples: Canaanites, Israelites, Hellenists, Romans, Arabs, Crusaders, Mamelukes, Turks, British, Palestinians, Israelis and more. In addition they could be taught the story of the Jews in the diaspora, too. The Minister of Education responded humorously and insisted on calling me, from then on, "the Mameluke". LATELY IT has become fashionable for politicians and commentators in Israel to speak about the danger of annihilation that hovers, or so they claim, over Israel. It is hardly believable: the State of Israel is a regional superpower, its economy is robust and developing, its technological level is one of the most advanced in the world, its army is stronger than all the Arab armies combined, it has a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons. Even if the Iranians were to obtain a bomb of their own, they would be mad to use it, for fear of Israeli retaliation. So where does this fear of annihilation come from in the 59th year of the state? A part of it surely emanates from the memory of the Holocaust, which is deeply imprinted in the national mentality. But another part comes from the feeling of not belonging, of temporariness, of the lack of roots. That has, of course, domestic implications, too. Consciousness also affects practical interests. The assertion that we are a European people automatically reinforces the position of our ruling class, which is still overwhelmingly Ashkenazi-European, over and against the majority of the citizens of Israel, who are of Asian-African Jewish and Palestinian-Arab descent. The profound disdain for their culture, which has accompanied the state from its first day, facilitates discrimination against them in many fields. A CHANGE affecting the consciousness of a community is not a short-term proposition. It cannot be achieved by decree. This is a slow and gradual process. But at some stage we shall have to start it, and first of all in the education system. I started my booklet "War or Peace in the Semitic Region", which was published in October 1947, just a few weeks before the outbreak of the 1948 war, with the words: "When our Zionist fathers decided to set up a 'safe home' in Eretz Israel, they had the choice between two roads: they could appear in West Asia as a European conqueror, who sees himself as a beachhead of the 'white' race and a master of the 'natives'…(or) see themselves as an Asian nation returning to its homeland." When I wrote these words, the rise of Asia was still a dream. World War II had ended just two years before, and the United States looked like an omnipotent superpower. But now a quiet revolution of huge proportions is taking place. The nations of Asia, with China and India in the lead, are becoming economic and political powers. Should we not gradually move toward this camp? That brochure, 60 years ago, ended with the words of a Hebrew song: "We stand and face the rising sun / To the East our homeward path…"

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