Seven months after the start of the offensive on Gaza in response to the Hamas attack, we all witnessed with shock the brutal force of the Israeli war machine. A machine that has been built over time for a nation born as a besieged outpost that would gradually expand, but would suffer attacks of all kinds. A colonial project that from the beginning has been forged “with the sword” by occupying territories claimed by brandishing the Sacred Book.
According to the report published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, global military spending reached a record $2.4 trillion in 2023. The United States and China, the two countries that spent the most, account for 37% and 12% of global spending, respectively, with increases of 2.3% and 6%. Russia, India, and Saudi Arabia follow. The total of NATO countries totaled $1.341 trillion, equal to 55% of global military spending, while Russia spends about a tenth, although it has increased spending by 24% compared to 2022. Israel’s military spending, the second largest in the region after Saudi Arabia, grew by 24%, reaching $27.5 billion. The increase was mainly due to the offensive in Gaza in response to the Hamas attack in October 2023. To understand the differences between countries, it is also useful to look at per capita spending: with nearly $3,000, Israel has the world record, ahead of the US ($2,700), Saudi Arabia ($2,052), and Ukraine ($1,762). Over the last 10 years, Israel has spent $208 billion on armaments. In relation to GDP, Israel’s spending is lower than Ukraine’s, Saudi Arabia’s, and Russia’s, but it is still 5.3%. The Israeli military industry occupies 20% of the country’s industrial workforce, and the Israeli army can count on a base of 642,500 personnel, with a ratio to the population of 76.3, one of the highest in the world (second only to the two Koreas and Taiwan). Furthermore, although Israel has never admitted it, it has also equipped itself with nuclear weapons, so much so that Minister Amihai Eliyahu has recently advocated the use of atomic weapons against the Palestinian population.
From 1946 to the present day, since the United States began providing aid to allied countries, Israel has by far been the country that has received the most: about $300 billion (in real terms), almost double that of Egypt (the second in the ranking), Afghanistan, South Vietnam, and Iraq. More than two-thirds of that aid has been military: an enormous amount. Over the last forty years, the flow has been more or less constant and on average equal to $3.3 billion per year. The stated purpose of American assistance has always been to provide Israel with the ability to defend and deter militarily.
However, Israel is a wealthy economic power and its military industry is highly developed, and it is also one of the main arms exporters, equal to $12.9 billion, and many have wondered about the reason for the generosity of the US. In the much-discussed 2004 essay The Israel Lobby (Asterios, 2007), John Mearsheimer and Stephan Walt argue that the unconditional support for Israel, rather than being based on foreign policy calculations or moral obligations, is due to US domestic politics and, in particular, to a power lobby that conditions it. If so far the relationship between the US and Israel has never been questioned, now there are two new elements: American voters, especially the young, are shocked by Israel’s brutality, and America’s geopolitical position is crumbling.
The war machine is committing a massacre in the Gaza Strip and Israel is in the dock of the International Court of Justice accused of genocide: the more time passes, the more obscure the purpose of this slaughter remains. Indeed, it seems that the military elimination of Hamas is not possible and the recent history in Afghanistan and Iraq shows that force alone is not enough to defeat terrorism. There is no other solution than that dictated by the international community, which can establish the terms of a ceasefire and subsequently of peace. The recent UN General Assembly resolution to recognize Palestine as a full member, a first and due step, was approved by the majority of countries: 143 in favor, 25 abstentions, and 9 against, including the increasingly isolated United States. The Meloni government chose to abstain, without any apparent public justification, distancing our country from both the Arab world and the “Global South”. Has anyone asked why?
Francesco Sylos Labini 