Israel losing strategic value to US imperialism: Activist

The successful conclusion of nuclear talks between Iran and the P5+1 countries has threatened Israel's strategic value to the United States, an American political activist in Chicago says.

“Israel opposes this peace deal with Iran, because it does represent an existential threat to them,” said Joe Iosbaker, a leader of the United National Antiwar Coalition and a member of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression.

“Israel begins to see what the rest of the world sees: The writing is on the wall, they are losing their strategic value to US imperialism,” he added.

Iran and the P5+1 – the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany – reached a conclusion on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in Vienna on Tuesday.

According to the text of the JCPOA, Iran will be recognized by the United Nations as a nuclear power and will continue its uranium enrichment program.

Iosbaker made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV, when asked to comment on Washington’s decision to offer more military aid to Israel in order to comfort the regime in Te Aviv, which is angry over the Iranian nuclear agreement.

Israel requested between $4.2 billion and $4.5 billion a year for the next 10 years, the New York Times reported on Thursday. The new agreement would last for a decade after going into effect in 2018.

Under the current agreement between Israel and the US, which went into effect in 2009, Tel Aviv receives $3 billion a year, most of which is used to buy American military hardware, such as jets and components for missile defense.

“It’s laughable, but it’s not funny, because with the weapons from the US, Israel is going to continue its genocidal occupation of Palestine,” said the activist.

“For example, right now Israel is purchasing $1.9 billion in new bomb kits from the US, mainly these are guidance systems foe smart bombs and they are mostly made by Boeing, headquartered in Chicago,” he added.

“These are to replace the thousands of bombs they dropped last summer, which killed over 2000 people, mainly civilians and over 500 children,” the analyst said. And now “Netanyahu wants $4.5 billion a year.”

“Let’s understand why the US has a peace deal with Iran. Let’s be clear, it’s not because the US wants world peace. The US wants to avoid a big war in the Middle East. They have a new strategy, it’s called the pivot to Asia,” he said.

Despite the fact that Israel is losing it strategic value to the US, “but, it’s not time yet for the US to cut off Israel and so the Palestinian people will have to continue the struggle and an end to the Israeli occupation is really only going come if there is a unified Palestinian resistance and effective campaign to boycott, divest and sanction Israel,” Iosbaker stated, referring to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS Movement), which is a global campaign attempting to increase economic and political pressure on Israel to end its occupation and colonization of the Palestinian lands.

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