Time for Israel to Help Trump and America

 

We just read an article by Will Blesch titled, “Should Israel do without US financial aid?” which led us to review some of the things we have stated on this subject. The subtitle taking a line from the article start with, “If Israel could manage without US financial aid,” which is a question we have addressed previously always reaching an answer which was a resounding affirmation. For reference, here are just some of our writings from over the years on this subject which include, “Israeli Decision Refusing US Iron Dome Aid a Great Start” from August 8, 2013, “Time Come for Divorce of Israel and United States?” from May 22, 2014, “I Worry for Israel and Her Future” from June 14, 2017, and “America Can be a Fickle Friend” from September 21, 2018. Should people read these articles they will notice that our position has steadily been for Israel to wean herself from the reliance on American largess, otherwise known as aid. We understand that the aid which the United States provides the Israeli militarily comes with some heavy ropes attached, not just a few strings here and there. First, anything the United States underwrites becomes technology which the United States will benefit in its adoption if it is deemed desirable. Second, almost all military aid monies are required to be spent on procuring American arms made in the United States even should there be Israeli modifications plus the United States retains the right to implement these modifications on their own versions. So, we have no illusions about American aid as it is largely to provide an additional customer for the United States arms manufacturers, predominantly the aircraft manufacturers. It was over aircraft that the entire United States aid began as Israel was about to go into production of the Lavi fighter jet (photo below), a direct challenger to the F-16 built by the United States. The United States decided it was wise to cut down on the number of new fighters going into production and offered Israel such a deal which they could not refuse as it included F-16’s in numbers commensurate to the expected Israeli production of the Lavi plus additional wings of F-15’s to augment the Israeli Air Force. The United States also promised to provide Israel with air superiority into the future forever. Well, we have recently passed forever as Saudi Arabia and Egypt have received or will be receiving F-35’s and currently Turkey will not be receiving them though it had been planned to provide them to Turkey. Still, the numbers between Egypt and Saudi Arabia provide them parity if not superiority over Israel, pilots not included. From this little deal everything mushroomed.

 

Lavi the Lost Dream

 

Returning to the original question; Should Israel do without US financial aid? Before answering too quickly and just jumping straight to, “Yes,” perhaps we should answer a more necessary question which should precede this one, Could Israel do without US financial aid? This question will require covering some of the ground from our previous articles and their graphs and other graphics as well. The first item which must be determined is how much aid is the United States aid set at, is it rising or static and if changing, by how much and which way. Well, the truth is revealed in the graph below which also signals some other vital information. The graph below indicates that United States aid to Israel, excepting some resupply years after military engagements, has settled at approximately three billion dollars per year. The graph also makes another reality obvious; the United States has not been the closest ally upon whom Israel has depended for their weaponry since her inception in 1948. Truth be told, after President Harry S. Truman recognized Israel, he then obliged his State Department and the Defense Department and placed an arms embargo on the entirety of the Middle East during the initial war between the six Arab nations, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, and Israel which was an Arab initiated war intending to erase the Jewish State. President Eisenhower continued the arms embargo on Israel and acted to force Israel to return the Sinai Peninsula after Egypt initiated hostilities by closing the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping as well as the Suez Canal to European shipping. The Israeli action in 1956 was in concert with the British and French who instead of holding up their end of the military engagement to free the shipping lanes, continued to talk to the Egyptians, they claim into a deal without any assist from Israel, despite Israel gaining hold of the eastern banks of the Suez Canal basically forcing Egypt to capitulate. Aid to Israel was first started as a trickle after the Six Day War victory of 1967, which showed the United States that Israel could become a favorable ally in the Middle East due to which President Lyndon Baines Johnson began to provide aid. The acceleration of aid came under President Richard Nixon initially in response to the Yom Kippur War of 1973, after which came the F-16’s along with F-15’s to prevent the manufacture of the Lavi which presented the jump in aid amounts. Since the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, the aid package to Israel has stood steady at around three billion dollars each year.

 

United States Israel Aid (Military)

 

Great, that is the aid side of the equation. The other side of the equation is Israeli GDP from which we can ascertain what percentage of GDP the aid represents. Israeli GDP is shown from 1960 through 2016 in the graph below which is in billions of US Dollars. Taking samples, we will start with 1980, in which Israeli GDP was around twenty-seven billion dollars. This would make the United States aid equivalent to approximately eleven percent of GDP. In 1985, Israeli GDP had climbed to forty-one billion dollars making the United States aid to approximately seven and one half percent of GDP. In 1990, Israeli GDP reached sixty billion dollars making the aid approximately five percent of GDP. In 1995, Israeli GDP equaled ninety-three billion dollars reducing the aid to three and one quarter percent of GDP. In 2000, GDP broke one hundred reaching one-hundred-thirty-one billion dollars bringing aid to two and one quarter of GDP. In 2005, GDP reached one-hundred-sixty-two billion dollars making the aid at under two percent of GDP. In 2010 GDP attained two-hundred-twenty-one billion dollars placing aid at just over one and one and one third of GDP. In 2015 Israeli GDP climbed to two-hundred-eighty-five billion dollars again reducing aid to barely over one percent of GDP. In 2017 the GDP was three-hundred-sixteen and a half billion dollars making the aid at just under one percent of GDP. What this long set of calculations depicts clearly is that Israel and the United States need to renegotiate any agreements which under current economic conditions, Israel could have the United States retain the three-billion dollars of aid and free Israel to choose whatever aircraft which she deems to be the best applicable for her needs. For the ensuing few years, it is obvious that Israel will remain with the F-35 JSF as the mainstay of her Air Force as she has already received the first squadrons. Beyond these fifth-generation fighters, Israel may desire to rely on her own industries to produce her sixth-generation fighters and perhaps the United States will purchase their fighters from Israel.

 

Israeli GDP Billions $

 

When Israel was younger and dependent upon a mostly agrarian economy, the American aid was irreplaceable and one could make the case that it was actually necessary. The Israel of the 1970’s is now long passed history and she has become a high-tech nation with the GDP to match. Israel may not be in the top twenty nations economically, but when one considers her size and population, her economic picture clearly is vastly improved in the last half of a century. On an even brighter note, the Israeli economy continues to climb though quite a bit slower as one would expect. A nation can only keep up such sweeping improvements while their economy moves from dependent on agriculture and some industrial components into an industrial economy and now an information-based economy. Israel also has an impressive medical research industry, a leading agricultural industry which has provided the world with drip irrigation and crops which are suited to a desert climate and some which use partially desalinated water or treated waste waters. These advances can help numerous nations increase their crop outputs. Israel has also provided advanced medical systems and assisted with crop and irrigation for many remote African communities as well as providing electricity and communication equipment which has connected these remote places with the world and provided Internet access. Israel also has one of the best emergency response teams replete with an entire field hospital which is capable of providing almost any nature of medical aid a nation in distress might require as well as more normal medical assistance such as a maternity ward and others (see video below). Israel has become a nation with a rather diverse economy, especially when considering the small size of Israel, her being approximately the size of New Jersey. (For some maps depicting the size of Israel compared to the United States, India, Australia and Great Britain, go here) Israel recently sent a spacecraft to the Moon, though a rocket failure had it land going far too fast, making her the fourth nation to actually succeed in hitting the moon. The little craft Beresheet made a valiant effort and was a private venture by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and SpaceIL. The two companies have stated their intent to attempt another Moon lander and perhaps the Israeli government might provide some funding.

 

 

Israel today is a modern nation and as such should not be dependent, even on the United States, or other countries to provide her defense of her people and her land. Further, Israel is entering a time of undefined dangers and threats some of which are not of her doing. One example is Iran who had threatened and promised that should the United States take any actions against Iran they will decimate Israel. Theirs is not an empty threat as they have organizational control of Hezballah in Lebanon and Syria, Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza, and their own forces consisting of mostly IRGC and al-Quds Force, the first being their terrorist outreach branch of the military equal if not superior to the Iranian national armed forces, and the other a group of fanatical fighters sworn to the capture of Jerusalem (al-Quds) and the destruction of the Zionist entity (Israel). Make no mistake, these Iranian threats are real and should not be cast aside in the belief that Iran would be incapable of fulfilling their threats. According to the GFP Index of Countries, Iran is ranked as the fourteenth in military strength while Israel is ranked sixteenth in military strength with the United States ranked an obvious first in military strength and China considered third with Russia taking second. Interestingly, should Israel attack Iran, Iran has promised to strike Israel and said nothing about striking the United States under either scenario. The reality obviously is that should anybody attack Iran, they will strike Israel and for the most part ignore their actual attacker. We can assure you that this is not comforting for Israelis, but we hold to the Alfred E. Newman philosophy which went beyond just, “What, me worry?” He was often alluded to have added, “Ninety-five-percent of what we worry about never happens and the other five percent happens whether we worry or not, so why worry.” Perhaps this explains why despite all the things threatening Israel, she is still the eleventh happiest nation on the planet. In the end, Israel could and should present the United States with the deal that they cannot refuse, namely, keep your money and let’s be friends and just go along to get along. It would provide a new industry and many well-paying jobs which just might make up for the loss of revenues simply through taxes and increased GDP. Such a deal could make both nations more happy and have less friction as neither will be living off the other nation’s revenues.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The United States Will Distance From Israel

 

There are a number of falsehoods believed about the relations between Israel and the United States. The first belief is that Israel and the United States have been close allies from the beginning of Israel. That is not a valid belief and is easily contradicted. The United States had an arms embargo against Israel until the mid 1960’s and only started providing military and other aid from the early 1970’s. We discussed this in more detail in our article “I Worry for Israel and Her Future” which also shows that Israel could do without further United States aid providing she prepares for this immediately. This is a reality which we believe that Israel is staring right into and very few within Israel realize what is staring them in the face. Most Israelis took little from the time when relations were frosty under President Obama and believe that things are all just wonderful with President Trump. Well, they are correct about President Trump but so very wrong about President Obama whose parting shot at Israel was very damaging when he refused to veto United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 which claimed that Israel has no rights to the lands beyond the Green Line despite this being in violation of United Nations Charter Article 80 which forces the United Nations to complete and enforce the Mandate Systems from the League of Nations. What many, if not most, Israelis have yet to realize, Israel has become a partisan issue with the Republicans, and older Democrats, favoring Israel and the newer generation of Democrats largely despising Israel. This was obvious by the reactions to President Trump moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Jerusalem as the historic, enduring and perpetual capital city. Yes, he did couch it as not being any indication about final borders, but that was a minor point compared to the recognition and moving the embassy.

 

Further proof will be demanded to prove that the up and coming Democrats will no longer desire to support Israel. Well, allow us to provide the darling of the new Democrats, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (video below), a newly elected Representative from New York in the Congress. OK, she is a bit ignorant and was completely unprepared for any interview on any subject, but her other comments have not fared any better. Ms. Cortez will likely follow whatever the leading people of the Democrats tell her when it comes to voting on most issues which makes the leadership all the more important. We will get to the future leadership a little bit later after another example.

 

 

Another Representative newly elected from Michigan Rashida Tlaib celebrated her election draped in a Palestinian flag (see beginning of video below). That might have been something unplanned, but there is more. She has announced plans to wear a “traditional Palestinian gown” for her inauguration. We checked with Google and found some images which claimed to be traditional gowns for the region which are pictured below. We live amongst Jews and Arabs in Israel and except for the women wearing the burka or obvious hijab, the Arabs dress is indistinguishable from that of the Jews, or likely any American. But, it will be of minor interest to see exactly what she will interpret as being a “traditional Palestinian gown” when she is sworn in. The problem is they usually swear the incoming freshmen Representatives as a group and if they desire to have individual pictures, they take them separately and assign it as the picture of their swearing in ceremony. Ms. Tlaib has stated she believes that Israel is an “Apartheid regime” and stated that she opposes United States military aid to Israel and that any aid to Israel should be used as a leverage to force Israeli policy to favor relenting to Arab demands. These views are different than what she had told Jewish groups she had appeared before. Suffice it to say, we have serious doubts that she will be in any way, shape or form a friend to Israel.

 

Traditional Palestinian Gown

 

 

 

For a glimpse of where the left and the Democrat Party right along with it is heading, one need look no further than the leadership of the Women’s’ March against Trump. The new leadership of Bob Bland, Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez and Tamika Mallory was vehemently opposed by the originator of the Women’s March, Teresa Shook. We talked of this and other signals of the direction the left is headed in our article “Methodology of Leftist NGO’s and Their Enablers” which obviously looked mostly at hard left NGO’s. We were given another straight-forward view of the direction of the Democrat Party with the campaign of Bernie Sanders for President in his unsuccessful run against Hillary Clinton. Bernie Sanders, born to Jewish parents but having since renounced any religious attachment, which means he follows the church of Secular Humanism and, in his case, pure socialism, also was proud to announce that he believed that the United States needed to reassess the relationship with Israel making conditional on Israel surrendering to the Arabs.

 

The concept of United States being permanently allied with Israel has already shown some serious cracks. The initial reason that the United States decided to provide Israel with military aid has to do with the interests of the United States to remain the preeminent provider of fighter aircraft to the free world, something we discussed in greater detail in our article “America Can be a Fickle Friend,” where they made a commitment which apparently no longer exists. The United States has provided potential enemies of Israel with the exact same aircraft as Israel but, when combined, in far greater total numbers. The United States currently under President Trump must be seen as an aberration from any smooth timeline and when his Presidency reaches its end, then the United States will snap back to its slow and inevitable slide leftward with what has been revealed as the Deep State returning to expropriating more and more power and control over the society and the rules under which it operates. We have covered the problems posed by the extensive “Deep State” probably too much but here are two such articles, “Trump Should Let the People Decide” and “The Man Who Can Do No Wrong,” for your perusing.

 

What Israelis need to research is their own history where they will see that the United States has not, as often claimed, always been Israel’s best friend. They need to look and realize at one point even France provided her with weapons, under some amount of duress. The one standing friend for Israel is one which most people would never guess, Czechoslovakia, which was close until Soviet Union clamped down forbidding her to continue to be friendly with Israel but once the Velvet Revolution threw off Soviet rule and the nation split, the Czech Republic returned to their close relations with Israel. Israel needs to develop relations away from Western Europe which is moving away from Israel and descending back into anti-Semitism. Israel should move closer to those Eastern European nations which are showing signs of being nationalist and resistant to the influx of immigrants from Asia (Middle East) and northern Africa. Israel should also continue to turn towards Asia and South America and find friends where they can be found. Israel should not turn away from any nation presenting an open hand though if it is one of the Arab nations, Israel should expect any relations to be cold and fickle. On the other hand, Israel should remain on friendly relations with those nations who have not opposed her within the United Nations but that should not be the only barometer. The other reality is between nations there is no such thing as permanent friends, merely temporary coinciding interests. One must realize this as reality and if they require proof, look to the triparty wars where England, France and Spain allied for years with different pairs allying against the other with many historians claiming England simply allied with the weaker nations to weaken the other and thus kept switching sides making them a fickle friend who was seeking merely her best interests. The United States will move ever so glacially away from Israel until reaching a critical point, after which the United States will return to her largely lack of any relations one way or the other with Israel and no longer protect her in the Security Council. When this point is reached, unless one of the other permanent members of the Security Council, probably Russia or China, is willing to take up that role, Israel should also consider leaving the United Nations as they have proven not to be a friend. Things are changing and Israel need become self-sufficient militarily and do so as close to immediately as possible as relations are fluid in the current world and everything is in flux with little if anything being predictable with any confidence. The newly elected Democrats should be sending Israeli leadership a wake-up call, a loud wake-up call.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

America Can be a Fickle Friend

 

Sometimes we believe that the leadership of Israel is oblivious to signs and signals they should be receiving from the rest of the world. In particular, Israel has this predisposition to see the United States as the perfection of nationhood and a fast friend forever. This is a belief that reaches to almost every corner and the vast majority of individuals throughout the land. At times we have attempted to warn or at least shake these beliefs warning that the United States is not sworn to protect Israel and there is no overriding reason that they have other than electoral politics. Electoral politics in the United States have changed and changed drastically. There were early warnings of what a single election could do when President Jimmy Carter attempted to force Israel into granting the Palestinian Arabs complete sovereignty over all the lands still remaining after Israel returned the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt as part of that peace deal. Fortunately, both Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat refused this demand from President Carter and threatened to complete the deal without him in the picture. President Carter not being in the picture was unacceptable politically, thus he settled for what the two leaders had agreed. Then there has been the record since President Carter left the White House of his constant degrading remarks and efforts against Israel which have led some to think he might have a streak of anti-Semitism. We would offer to settle that posit as positive, Carter definitely has a wide streak of anti-Semitism covering much of what he does concerning Israel.

 

But the warnings were only to get worse. President Clinton had Yasser Arafat visit the White House more than any foreign leader in his eight years as President and pressured Israel mercilessly to give ever more concessions and fortunately, Arafat refused to break from his demand that Israel be destroyed. Fortunately, President Clinton was not willing to go quite that far. Then we had George W. Bush, touted as the greatest friend Israel ever had in the Oval Office, who along with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who pressed Israel into the Gaza give-away and the destruction of the lives of nearly ten thousand Israelis, some of whom are still attempting to recover. Moving right along we come to President Obama who presented Iran with the means, the path, the right and the funding to build not just a nuclear device, but to build an entire thermonuclear arsenal and the ballistic missiles and ICBMs on which to place those warheads. President Obama even gave Israel a parting present with a shot aimed at the Israeli heart with UNSC Res. 2334. This resolution would have all but denied any Israeli or Jewish claim to the Temple Mount, the Old City of Jerusalem, Jericho, Hevron, Shechem and the heartlands of Judea and Samaria, the regions where most of the history of the Jewish People unfolded. Yet the Israelis, both within the government and amongst the people continue to believe that the United States is a friend who will never act to harm Israel. We just hope that they are correct and such never comes about, but to bet your future on this is nothing short of foolhardy.

 

Allow us to delve into another act which we believe has done near irreparable harm to Israel and could become life-threatening if not countered immediately. Once upon a time, not all that long ago, Israel had developed a war-plane which she had almost begun production. Along came the United States who noted, ‘Hey, our friend, Israel, we have an aircraft very much like yours. How about we sell you ours and you scrap yours?’ Israel pointed out that theirs had a longer range, was slightly better at the kind of activities Israel required. The United States did not give up as they really did not desire this Israeli plane competing for sales in the arms markets, so they offered, ‘Tell you what, we will throw in an equal number of our other aircraft and then you will have even more planes and abilities. We will even guarantee you, Presidential promise, aircraft into eternity giving you air superiority.’ Well, who could turn down twice the planes and an eternal guarantee?’ The problem is when you tell Israel and the Jews it is an eternal guarantee, we think in terns of thousands of years and the United States not quite two-hundred-fifty years old, how do they know of eternity. So Israel received her F-16s and F-15s and now the F35s but was refused the F22s despite the fact that the United States has provided Saudi Arabia and other Arab neighbors F35s which kind of ruins that promise of guaranteed air superiority which the F22s would have provided. Granted, the versions of these aircraft all carry the version letter ‘I’ as the Israeli versions all have modifications which are secret (really) which allows the claim that they provide air superiority. The war-plane Israel had designed and scrapped was called the Lavi and was a beautiful aircraft to look at as well as having uncontested abilities (see picture below).

 

Lavi the Lost Dream

 

We have previously stated much of this in our previous article How Bad do Americans Want to be First in Space?, but we have no problem repeating ourselves. Oh, you’ve noticed. Well, at least that’s settled. The first thing is that Israel must no longer outsource any part of her defense industry. No more reliance on Germany for submarines, United States for aircraft, and whomever for Littoral ships. Should any one of the nations providing Israel with necessary and vital military equipment decide to no longer provide their military equipment, then there could be a dangerous and difficult to repair hole in the IDF and their war fighting capability. We will concentrate for our example on aircraft. What would Israel be able to do if in ten to twelve years, when the next generation of fighter aircraft with whatever the latest marvel designed into it becomes available, when Israel turns to the United States to purchase these marvels and the answer is not to sell them to Israel because Israel is so difficult to deal with. These aircraft are not exactly designed in a few weekends on the side, they take a few years to imagine and another couple to design and still longer to build. Basically, what it comes down to is that if Israel desires to be prepared for such an unpleasant surprise, she needs to begin working on this immediately. This is something which is of vital national defense priority level issue which likely has not even reached the debate stage. There is another reason that Israel should plan on designing her future aircraft, and it has little to do with whether or not the United States will continue providing her with aircraft, it has to do with national pride and independence from foreign influence, which can only come with defense and financial independence and not having to rely on any other nation.

 

Israel also is a sizeable recipient of United States foreign aid monies. This causes some discontent amongst American citizens who claim that Israel can afford to care for herself and the United States can use the three billion dollars or there abouts better at home. Surprisingly, this argument is not made concerning Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, South Korea and the rest. Below we have a pair of graphs, the top being Israeli GDP which will come into play, and the bottom is United States aid to Israel by year. Looking at the aid to Israel graph there is one unmistakable but unavoidable as well as remarkably obvious thing, real aid to Israel did not come into play until around the early 1970s. What is interesting about that is this was about the same time as Israel was granted a deal providing Israel would remove herself from making fighter aircraft. This has permitted the United States to have one less competent aircraft manufacturing nation which is technologically advanced and could have built aircraft which might, and probably would, have sold for less and been decent rivals to any American aircraft. This means that one would have to take into consideration how much influence the United States would have lost and sales they might have missed if Israel had built the Lavi and gone on developing even more advanced stealth aircraft and beyond. The other obvious item is that the aid has leveled out for the last thirty years plus at approximately three-billion dollars. Back in the early 1970s, Israel needed the aid money, as what the United States provided was almost equal to the Israeli GDP. Today, well, not so much as Israeli GDP means that the United States aid to Israel is but around 3.5% of her GDP. Should Israel decide to present the United States with the following deal, one can only wonder how it would play in the media. The deal is that the United States can keep its money except for providing parts as agreed for the aircraft Israel has purchased or received (simply terminological difference), then Israel would be freed to start to manufacture their own fighter aircraft and other military aircraft as they desire or see fit. Let us try and imagine the response in the media as that might be amusing.

 

 

United States Aid to Israel;
Note the lack of aid until Israel agreed to not produce a better F-16 style fighter jet in 1971

 

We imagine the initial reaction to be shock, disbelief and many claiming that Israel was making a huge mistake. This would be true in both national news media. The Israel Prime Minister would be recommended for psychiatric evaluation by Haaretz and others might actually agree. The American President would be pilloried by the pro-Israel lobby and given acclaim by the alt-right and far left (unless a republican and then omit far left). Congress would immediately pass dozens of legislations which would spend the three-billion dollars ten times over. Eventually, the truth of the full effect of this move would become apparent. What would the United States gain, three-billion dollars a year, a mere 10% of the annual budget and likely a mere 5% by the time this occurs. What would the United States lose, the technological alterations which Israel makes for her aircraft some of which the United States adopts in their next series, a direct line to all Israeli anti-missile software and hardware such as the Iron Dome System which has already been utilized to update and improve the Patriot Systems, a real war zone test facility as Israel was the test base for United States aircraft in an actual combat situation and numerous other items on the periphery. What would Israel lose, three-billion dollars per year, a mere 3.5% of GDP and having her aircraft designed by the United States. What would Israel gain is a whole series of what would result in wonderful things. Israel would now need to design her own aircraft, build her own aircraft and maintain her own aircraft. This would mean some very nice high-end engineering jobs and the opening of a complete new line of engineering in which jobs would be available in Israel. There would go along software design jobs and soon thereafter manufacturing jobs, and these would be well paying manufacturing jobs. This would add to the GDP lessening the impact of the lost funding from the United States, as taxes would be collected all along these new job paths. More jobs in high paying fields and well paying manufacturing jobs leads to more retail jobs, restaurant and virtually every area gains when there are more workers receiving higher paychecks. Israel would also have entry into the lucrative fighter aircraft market, the exact market which led to Israel being dependent on the United States for her aircraft. In the end, the Israeli Prime Minister would be lauded as having been a man of vision and might even ride such approval to a whole decade as Prime Minister. These are the risky kinds of bold steps which make or break people’s political careers and can make their legacy. Imagine what kind of aircraft Israel might produce with stealth so good we cannot show you a picture because it is invisible. Well, we can dream and joke, but really, what would Israel design.

 

Going along that path, we have an idea of what Israel would design as a sixth-generation fighter aircraft. The aircraft would be one third smaller than current fighter aircraft and have five times the missile carrying potential all in hidden pop-out and fire compartments. Believe it or not, it would have guns with tens of thousands of rounds which would fire at the target designated by the pilot automatically computing best-shot probabilities. The plane would easily be capable of thirty-G and maybe forty-G turns with no ill effect on the pilot, because the pilot is not in the aircraft. These stealthy aircraft would be remotely flown leaving more room for fuel and armaments and requiring less protection as there is no pilot so no armored cockpit. The plane would be controlled by a wideband light source with each plane responding only to its own frequency and coded sync pulse. Should longer-range missions be necessary, there could be a limited number of piloted versions or a special aircraft could carry numerous control pilots and fly miles behind keeping a squad of the fighters for its protection while the rest carry out missions. They could be given missions which could be flown completely without human input once the aircraft took off just as Tomahawk cruise missiles are fired except this aircraft returns after the mission. Using friend-or-foe identification, these aircraft could fly intercept missions to prevent incoming aircraft from invading Israeli airspace flying completely autonomously. Any aircraft Israel designs will have other ramifications such as development of materials and systems which could make cars safer including self-driving vehicles. This type of manufacturing might even lead to an Israeli car manufacturer who could make one limited edition high-end sports car as well as some mass produced family and midrange priced vehicles. Perhaps Israel will make the breakout for an electrically powered vehicle which charges more rapidly with sufficient range to cover all of Israel on a single charge or they could also provide charging stations spaced strategically around Israel and sell the charging systems to nations interested in the vehicle. Starting with producing an all-Israeli fighter aircraft could lead to an all-Israeli Littoral class warships and an all-Israeli submarine.

 

Why stop there? Israel could build herself a spaceport (see map with our projected site below) and join the space race. Rockets are something Israel has already developed, but she does not have a heavy lift launch craft for developing a manned space program. A spaceport, some would claim, makes too much of a high-profile target for terrorist attacks. Oh, and the Dimona reactor and the twin nuclear power stations in Haifa as well as every flight in and out of Ben Gurion International Airport are exactly what? Let’s face it, all of Israel is a high value target with the most precious being her people. Israel has announced that their nonprofit SpaceIL and the government-owned corporation Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) aim to launch a robotic lunar landing mission atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida this December. How much more pride would there be if instead of atop a foreign company’s rocket from a launch site in the United States it read from atop an Israel designed and manufactured rocket from the spaceport south of Beersheva. There would be Israelis gathering at a safe distance to watch such a launch and those unable to get there would be glued to the television sets. This would be something over which almost every Israeli would get excited. Additionally, if there was the foresight to make the spaceport with multiple launch facilities and an adjacent special runway which could land any plane carrying parts from other countries, Israel could enter into the space launch business. The different gantries could each be tailored in such a way as to fit any requirements. There could be an additional area which would be flat and very solid where those self-landing reusable booster first stages could touch down safely away from anything of value, just in case. One can never be too safe. Israel might even place a second international airport fairly close to the spaceport such that in the future there could be travel to Israel for space tourism.

 

Israel Space Port Launch Facility

 

Back from dreaming and to the more immediate. Israel needs to plan for a future where the United States either cannot or chooses not to provide any form of aid and denies Israel purchase of her aircraft. As stated above, this is something which requires planning well ahead of the event. The problem we see is the growing number of extreme left politicians and some mainstream liberal politicians who have an adversarial relationship concerning Israel. The numbers of anti-Israel, and in too many cases also anti-Semites, politicians come from both parties with the Democrat side having Keith Ellison, Bernie Sanders, Steve Cohen, Gerald Connolly, John Yarmuth, Tammy Baldwin, Earl Blumenauer, Suzanne Bonamici, Michael Capuano, Andre Carson, William Lacy Clay, Emanuel Cleaver, John Conyers, Danny Davis, Peter DeFazio, Rosa DeLauro, John Dingell, Donna Edwards, Anna Eshoo, Luis Gutierrez, Martin Heinrich, Jesse Jackson Jr, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Barbara Lee, John Lewis, Betty McCollum, Jim McDermott, James Moran, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Charles Rangel, Laura Richardson, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Pete Stark, Nydia Velazquez, Chris Van Hollen, Henry Waxman as well as these on the Republican side including Steve West, Arthur Jones, John Fitzgerald, Corey Stewart, Bill Fawell. Oh, wait, we left out the newest darling of the Democrat Party from New York who believes Israel is a problem but we have doubts that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, could even find Israel on a globe even now after a month of heavy duty coaching.

 

The reality is there is still more than enough anti-Semitism, anti-Israeli and anti-Zionists living on the right, mostly the far right or alt-right almost all of which, while many may support President Trump, the President does not share their hatreds but on the left, specifically the far left and the new-leftist socialist supporters there is an even larger and growing group who fit into this classification. Those on the left are more of a problem than those on the right as the right and alt-right anti-Semites, who oppose all things Jewish including Israel, are an isolated group who represent a small and very slowly growing group who are nowhere near becoming a political movement. The new-leftists, leftist socialists, and far leftists are far more of a problem because they are the future of the Democrat Party and, as much as it pains us to say this, they are the future of the United States. The education system is spitting out these programmed youth with ideas right out of Bernie Sanders early campaign points. Free everything for everyone, including but not limited to medical care, education, food, housing, guaranteed employment and a fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage. The rich or the government will pay for all these free things because the rich and especially the government have a never-ending supply of money and the rich got their money by cheating the poor out of their rightful money. These are the youth vote which, should they become excited about a candidate, when garnered can put somebody into the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate. These are the voters who more often tend to not remember or not care enough to vote. That was then and now many of these youth are being politicized by the education system and made to feel disenfranchised as well as energized to elect those who support the same things their teacher taught them about how socialism is the best system and free things is how it should be. These are the voters who in a dozen years will rule the roost and will be choosing who runs the United States. This means that Israel had better awaken to a future without United States aid and weaponry and having to depend upon her own people and resources. That is the challenge for Israel, the challenge for the United States is to survive and do that which is best for them, and if that places Israel out in the cold, so to speak, then Israel will adapt.

 

Beyond the Cusp