When Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before Congress back in the beginning of March, it was widely recognized as a snub against President Obama, an embrace of the Republican party, a gesture to Israeli hardliners of strengthened military ties, and, perhaps most significantly, an attempt to shackle Republican leadership to perpetual and limitless military support for Israel. The Republican party as a whole has long supported military aid to Israel, for reasons ranging from sober realpolitik to millennialist paranoid fantasy, but Israel’s militant factions, including Netanyahu’s Likud party, will surely benefit if it becomes one of the knee-jerk acid test issues to which no Republican dare appear any less than fanatically devoted, like tax cuts or deregulation or states’ rights or “Christian†values. Once an issue becomes both article of faith and primary acid test for the right wing in this country, look out!
And when Netanyahu pulled his little stunt, I was offended, both for the impact it was liable to have on US politics and for the blatancy with which a foreign official was allowed—nay, smirkingly encouraged—to interfere with the US political process. I still feel that way.
But there’s another side to that coin. Two curious factoids made last month’s Harper’s Index. First, that 90% of the funds for Netanyahu’s own primary election back home came from the US. Ninety percent! The thought of buying elections is offensive enough; Israelis should be incensed that their elections are being bought by foreign money. Second, that 30% of those same funds came from just three American families. Again, it’s bad enough that a handful of super-rich donors like the Kochs buy American elections; for three American plutocrats to buy an Israeli election is horrifying. Republicans are working hard to manufacture outrage over Chinese corporations donating to a charity linked to Hillary Clinton; imagine the outrage if she received 90% of her election funds from China! (For a Republican to receive 90% of his money from China, of course, would be different. The rules are always different for Republicans.)
Money as business capital went international long ago, and it seems that political funding is increasingly going international, as well. I suppose it’s only to be expected, a corollary to the accelerating transformation of election money into simply part of the cost of doing business. Want to make obscene profits at the expense of the general public? Buy a few senators for pennies on the dollar. While you’re at it, buy a few foreign countries’ governments. Just as they’re buying ours.
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