- by Graham Holton
- The Guardian
- Issue #2121
Photo: Nissa Tzun – flickr.com (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Israel is in the news every day, and seems to be a Middle East nuclear superpower. In reality it is a failed Zionist state. It survives because every US administration has supported Israel financially, politically and militarily. With this support, Israel defies international law, UN resolutions, and the hatred of its neighbours. It maintains power through state-sanctioned violence, international aid and investments, not only from the USA, UK, France and Germany, but also Australia. Without these lifelines Israel could not survive.
This is not an original observation. In 2001 Sam Bahour wrote in the Institute for Policy Studies’ Foreign Policy in Focus: “the State of Israel, as a state-building model, is a failing experience – ideologically, religiously, politically, socially and, if the American favourite nation status were removed, possibly economically as well.” In 2010 Amir Kulick and Yoel Guzansky, writing in Research Forum in 2010, concluded that Israel was a “failed state.”
A failed state is firstly a state unable to maintain fundamental security and effective control over its territory. A failed state cannot carry out law enforcement, security, or territorial control. Israel has been in constant territorial and border conflicts since the 1960s. As for law enforcement, corruption and criminality are widespread, as numerous court cases against Netanyahu and the Likud Party have shown. Failed states are noted for internal refugees and involuntary population movements, a feature of Israel since the 1948 Nakba. Another indication is an economy which can not stand on its own two feet. Israel’s economy is kept afloat with massive US and European investments.
Failed states also tell unconvincing lies to support their origin stories. Prior to the creation of Israel the British Mandate of Palestine was inhabited, not an “empty land” as the Israeli government claims. Israel relies on historically dubious claims based on the Tanakh (also known as Miqra, or Old Testament) to justify its existence.
More relevantly, Israel and Palestine were established by the United Nations in 1948. Israel was established via ethnic cleansing, with Zionist militias eradicating more than 400 Palestinian towns and villages. Through violence and massacres Israel forced 700,000 Palestinian from their land, known as the Nakba (catastrophe). Ben-Zion Dinur, the Minister of Education and Culture, said in 1954: “In our country there is room only for the Jews. We shall say to the Arabs: Get out! If they don’t agree, if they resist, we shall drive them out by force.” Those who did not flee became low-class citizens in an apartheid state.
After the 1967 war, Israel annexed East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights. Over 400,000 Israeli colonisers have since built Jewish-only settlements on land confiscated from Palestinians. Seven years later there was the Yom Kippur war, followed by war in 1982, and the Second Lebanon War in 2006. By 2009 Israel faced 65 UN resolutions condemning its aggression against Palestinians living in the occupied territories.
Like South Africa before 1993, Israel is an apartheid state. More than twenty laws privilege Jewish citizens over Muslims and Christians.
Failed states are often propped up by larger states, in the interests of imperialism. Israel has been the largest recipient of US foreign aid since 1948, having received US$310 billion.
In 2022, the US gave US$3.3 billion in foreign assistance to Israel, with the majority going to the Israeli military. The US Senate in February 2024 provided a US$14.1 billion package which included US$4 billion for the Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile defence systems, US$1.2 billion for the Iron Beam laser-based defence system, US$3.5 billion in foreign military financing, and US$801.4 million for ammunition.
The US also props up Israel’s military. Israel is the biggest recipient of US military aid in US history, having received US$251.2 billion since 1959, and remains highly dependent on US arms. Although US military aid to Israel is classified, we know it has received US$17.9 billion since the beginning of the Hamas-Israel war. The US spent a further US$4.9 billion on regional military operations, deploying more than 50,000 forces and multiple aircraft carriers, destroyers, cruisers and the most sophisticated missiles in the Middle East.
The US is not the only country supporting Israel. Since 2008, the UK has licenced arms sales to Israel worth over £574 million. UK industry contributes to F-35 combat aircraft, which are used in the attacks on Gaza. Australia also makes parts for the F-35s.
Like apartheid South Africa, Israel is vulnerable to pressure on the governments that support it. In the face of Israel’s genocidal campaign against Palestinians, Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain, and Belgium have stopped shipping weapons to Israel. Denmark may suspend the export of F-35 fighter jet parts to the US, because the jets are sold on to Israel. The US is different. In an important presidential election year, the White House will not punish Prime Minister Netanyahu, as this could increase support for the Republicans. US President Joe Biden paused one weapons shipment, but apart from that, it’s been business as usual.
Australia is also an important supporter of Israel. Between 2016 and 2023 the Australian government approved 322 export permits for military and dual-use equipment to Israel. In April 2024 the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) released figures showing that Australia exported over $1.5 million in “arms and ammunition.” Since the Albanese government came to power, it has supplied Israel with more than $3.3 million in guns, bullets, missiles, tanks, swords, and other weapons. The Chief Economist of DFAT acknowledged that Australia has exported $10 million worth of “arms and ammunition” to Israel over the past five years. David Shoebridge, Greens Senator and Defence Spokesperson, said: “Make no mistake the Albanese Labor government by permitting these exports to Israel is complicit in the genocide that is occurring.”
In March 2024 protesters picketed the Heat Treatment Australia factory, Melbourne, with a placard reading: “Stop arming Israel.” HTA plays a vital role in the production of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. According to Lockheed Martin: “Every F-35 built contains some Australian parts and components,” with more than 70 Australian companies with exports worth $4.13 billion. Protesters picketed Rosebank Engineering, Melbourne, the only producer in the world of the F-35’s “uplock actuator system,” a crucial component of the bomb bay doors.
The Australian government must stop arms and munitions being supplied to Israel and stop the ongoing genocide. This country should not be propping up a failed apartheid state.
