I have frequently—frequently—and loudly—loudly—complained about the compulsion of America’s foreign policy “Blob” to find a replacement for everyone’s favorite multi-trillion-dollar arms race, the late great Cold War, centering, of course, on China, but eagerly tossing in Iran, Russia, and even Venezuela, for good measure. The problem is, not everyone seems to be as afraid of China as we are, and as all right-thinking people ought to be. The most shocking apostate of all seems to be, of all people, Israel!
Yeah, that’s right, Israel, our best bud! Not only does Israel not hate China, they practically luv China. So says David Feith, in a recent article in the Washington Post. Dave, a former Trump administration dude, is now an “adjunct senior fellow” at the Center for a New American Security, which can I think be best described as a bipartisan advocacy group focused on the career path enhancement of mid-management Blobbers. David, though he clearly hates to be the bearer of bad tidings, has plenty of them. Hard as you may find this to believe, many Israelis just aren’t getting with the program—that is to say, our program. They act like what we think isn’t even important! Chuckles former Israeli spy chief Yossi Cohen, “I do not understand what the Americans want from China. If anyone understands it, he should explain it to me. . . . China is not opposed to us and is not our enemy.” Ouch, n'est-ce pas?
It gets worse. Here’s what Bibi Netanyahu—our Bibi!—told Chinese President Xi Jinping on one of his two visits to Beijing: “We are your perfect junior partner. I believe this is a marriage made in heaven.”
Junior partner? Made in heaven? What the fuck?
But Dave has more, lots more:
Chinese investors, state-owned enterprises and tech firms, such as Huawei and Alibaba, acquired or invested in some 463 Israeli companies between 2002 and December 2020, mostly in tech, according to Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies. Every major Israeli university, like those in the United States and Europe, has partnerships with Chinese schools and laboratories.
Chinese firms built or are operating some $4 billion of Israeli infrastructure, including Tel Aviv’s light rail, the Ashdod port and the Carmel tunnels. Despite strong objections from the Trump administration, China’s state-owned Shanghai International Port Group is set to begin operating a terminal at Israel’s Haifa port this year, which could render it unusable for U.S. Navy vessels.
At Washington’s urging in 2019, Israel created an investment-screening body, but it does not cover high-tech industries.
Israel is similarly loose on export controls, even for “dual-use” commercial technologies of the type targeted by China’s “military-civil fusion” strategy. In 2016, while extolling the strengths of Israel’s cyber industry to a U.S. audience, Netanyahu noted: “I sure as hell am not going to let regulation interfere with that. I actually prevented regulation now on the cyber industry and we’re taking the risk.”
Think it can’t get any worse? Well, it does.
China backs Iran, Israel’s chief enemy. Beijing and Tehran this year signed a 25-year partnership — worth as much as $400 billion in trade and military cooperation, according to some reports. Some of the Chinese companies in Israel’s tech and infrastructure sectors also do business with Tehran.
Why, it’s almost as if Israel doesn’t care about anyone but itself! But that can’t be true!
Afterwords
It’s also almost as if Israel isn’t really afraid of Iran. It’s almost as if it’s just using Iran as a bogyman to hustle the U.S. taxpayer for big bucks. Kind of like the Pentagon. And the Center for a New American Security. Dave should really be careful in writing articles like this. They could be hazardous to his job prospects.
