This paper provides an overview of the policy implementation of “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”. (http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm) Some of the events and trends that contribute to success or failure of the plan predate ACB by many years. And although many ACB authors ascended to new heights of political power in the U.S., the success or failure of the policies cannot be solely ascribed to them. However, ACB policies are, for the most part, extremely damaging to U.S. interests. The ACB framework is useful for explaining the motives driving the complete failure of U.S. interests in the Middle East and the triumph of politics and lobbies over statecraft.

I Securing the Realm: Background

“A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” (ACB) contains six pages of policy recommendations for Benjamin Netanyahu. In 1996 Israel's newly elected Prime Minister relied upon opinion makers, thinkers and researchers to craft the paper. This Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies' "Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000" included Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser.

The paper's call for a “break” from failed policies of the past such as “land for peace” and a new concentration on the realities of “balance of power” in the region are striking for their realpolitik approaches and high dependence on actions and resources of the U.S. government.


Exhibit #2
ACB Policy Initiatives
(Source: IRMEP 2003)

Although ACB readers can identify nearly 34 distinct and actionable goals eloquently stated within the document, they may be summarized in five overarching policy goals:

1.    Increase U.S. Congressional Support
2.    "Peace for Peace" Palestinian Strategy
3.    Contain, Destabilize, and Roll Back Regional Challengers
4.    Economic Reform
5.    Rejuvenation of Zionism

In this paper, we evaluate the level of implementation of these five summary goals, and their effect on the interests of the United States. However, no set of policies ever come to fruition without an active and vocal distribution and implementation network. ACB's legions of American shock troops are many. At its core, key operatives working within the Bush Administration (called the Neocons), policy research “think tanks”, specialty press, and opinion columns have achieved amazing success at seasoning and baking ACB policy agenda items into a tenuous mold as “vital interests” of the United States itself. (See Exhibit 3)

The need for “crime scene” levels of evidence linking ACB followers' complicity in the actions of the U.S. Government at Israel's behest is unnecessary. Many U.S. actions are simply so inexplicable that consideration of their chief benefactor, Israel, is the only reasonable explanation. And as Americans dismiss Arab government charges that Israel is attacking them by proxy across the region, the evidence shows that the Arabs are correct. “A Clean Break” is, at heart, an Israeli proclamation of “Dirty War”.

Exhibit #3
The Neocon Policy Distribution and Implementation Network
(Source: IRMEP 2003)

Core members of the group have been able to raise the primacy of Israeli issues to a level that Americans would find absurd if the group were promoting the interests of any other state, (such as Italy or Mexico). Their level of vitriol, hubris and war-mongering by power of the pen and influence over American policy has been stunning. Many have personally engaged in activities that derailed official U.S. foreign policy initiatives in the interest of improving Israel's power. Others have systematically chipped away at the U.S. constitution by supplanting Israeli interests for legitimate U.S. interests in the Defense Department and Executive branch of the U.S. government.

The gaping divide that separates this group's lobbying on behalf of Israel and the true interests of the United States also defines this group with the very label they so frequently hurl at others: traitors to the United States of America.


II ACB Implementation Assessment

The level of implementation of ACB policy objectives is not uniform. Nor are the resources, Israeli and American, which have been rallied and deployed in their support. In this section, we consider the level of implementation success of each ACB policy summary.

a. Increase Support in the U.S. Congress

It is political suicide for a member of the U.S. Congress to strongly oppose policy positions of Zionist lobbies operating in the United States. Former president George W. W. Bush put it best when he declared that opposing the Zionist lobby in favor of a Palestinian State was the right thing to do, but came “at a hell of price. “

The defining demonstration of this power predates ACB. The lobby converted its most powerful aid opponent by rallying massive campaign contributions to defeat North Carolina senator Jesse Helms. Pro-Israel political action committees poured an awe inspiring $222,342 into the campaign of Helms' opponent, North Carolina Governor James Hunt. Hunt's campaign secretary proclaimed that "Senator Helms has the worst anti-Israel record in the United States Senate and supporters of Israel throughout the country know it."

After the scare of almost losing reelection, Helms announced that he would exempt from cuts the more than one-third of total U.S. foreign aid going to Israel since such aid was "in the strategic interest of the U.S." He also became an ardent and comical supporter of moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and worked diligently to increase the appropriations for Israel from the Defense Department, the State Department and half a dozen other different federal agency budgets.

A survey of recently introduced legislation indicates that Congress is repaying the debt to Israel by internalizing Israel's conflicts and putting U.S. resources at Israel's disposal. (See Exhibit 4)


Exhibit #4
Recent Pro-Israel Legislation Introduced in the U.S. Congress
(Source: Library of Congress and IRMEP 2003)

Other than the repetitious and almost desperate rhetoric about the unity of vision and purpose between the U.S. and Israel, and fawning approval of all things Israeli, another common strand runs through this legislation. None of it would be introduced by Congress members preoccupied exclusively with promoting U.S. interests. Most of the legislation is costly to the United States in constraining American civil liberties and foreign policy initiatives in the Middle East while legitimizing even the most despicable Israeli actions much of the rest of the world community and U.N. consider to be crimes. The gestures create enmity with nations and states with which the U.S. should have steadily improving relationships. As an ACB policy goal, IRMEP applies a score of “5 out of 5” to demonstrated Israeli influence over the U.S. Congress.

b. “Peace for Peace” Approach to the Palestinian Question

Israel has adopted all of the appearances of promoting a “peace for peace” strategy with the Palestinians. Under this policy, Palestinians have no land claims on territory within the borders of Israel or territory occupied by Israel. Palestinians and future enemies under this policy must be content only with avoiding their own destruction by Israel.

One aggressive approach promoted by Richard Perle, former chairman of the U.S. Defense Policy Board labels Jordan as Palestine, implying relocation or “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinian peoples. “Land for Peace” as a strategy is widely discredited by pro-Israel agents as being unworkable and lacking in security for Israel. Current efforts to derail remnants of “Land for Peace” include:

1.    Israeli Security Time Limits On March 31, 2003, Israeli foreign Minister Silvan Shalom indicated that Israel will only give the Palestinian prime minister designate two months to crack down on terrorism. By placing the prime minister in charge of Israeli security against forces entirely outside his circle of influence, Israel creates ideal conditions for rejecting land for peace movements while accelerating settlement activity.

2.    Legitimizing Israeli Delays through Amendments to the Roadmap The roadmap for peace proposed by the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and United States was originally designed to be non-negotiable for both Israel and Palestine. Intense lobbying pressure has produced cracks that open the possibility for endless Israeli negotiations and delays of the roadmap as Israel proposes 12 major changes to this seven page document. On March 14, 2003, President Bush gave Israel license to pursue the amendment strategy in a Rose Garden announcement. “The United States has developed this plan over the last several months in close cooperation with Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations. Once this road map is delivered, we will expect and welcome contributions from Israel and the Palestinians to this document that will advance true peace.”

3.    Discrediting Roadmap Architects Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and network members have worked diligently to discredit roadmap architects, particularly European nations. While Israel was unsuccessful in blocking some conferences and Palestinian contributions to the roadmap, the current political climate in the U.S. after traditional allies and the U.N. failed to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq has boosted Israel's chances of creating schisms in the quartet.

Because Israel has not yet been able to completely derail the roadmap, IRMEP assigns a score of only “3 out of 5” for promotion of the “peace for peace” strategy.

c. Contain, Destabilize and Roll Back Regional Challengers

The U.S. invasion of Iraq is such a singular success for Israel that pro-Israel leaders and pundits in the United States have had to restrain their glee that a long and arduous effort to topple Iraq's government and neutralize the state has finally borne fruit.

Although Iraq is only one challenger to Israel, an accelerated Israeli effort to discredit, disrupt, and undermine other Arab governments, many in the midst of democratic reform, is moving forward rapidly.

Exhibit #5
"Clean Break" Containment and Destabilization Policy Implementation
(IRMEP 2003)

IRMEP assigns an overall score of “4” to Israeli efforts to destabilize and roll back regional rivals. While large successes have been scored in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, it is not yet clear that Israel will be able to motivate the U.S. into armed conflict with Syria and Iran. Also, it is increasingly apparent that Arab nations are "on to" the architects of Middle Eastern conflict, and strategizing to both expose and resist ACB proxy activities.

d. Economic Reform

Israel's efforts at economic reform have not yielded positive results. Although ACB calls for increased economic independence from the U.S. which would allow freer reign for Israeli policies the U.S. directly opposes, efforts at reform have been too little, too late. Israel has mismanaged its economy and continues to export the negative consequences to the United States.

1.    Israeli Economic Mismanagement Hitting 103% of GDP in 2002, Israel maintains one of the highest government debt ratios in the world; a higher debt ratio to GDP than most OECD countries, surpassing Canada. The Bank of Israel predicts the ratio will balloon to at least 106% in 2003. Interest payments on the government debt, under international standards, amount to 8.1% of GDP, while the OECD average is 2.2%. This is unfavorable compared with 3.1% in Germany, 2.8% in France, 2% in the US, and 1.2% in Japan. The Bank of Israel believes that this continued and uncontrolled increase in interest payments on the government debt will reduce the government's ability to maintain infrastructure investments and social needs or freely set budget priorities. These interest payments on the government debt increased to NIS 39.5 billion in 2002, a fifth of the state budget. Economic mismanagement has caused the harshest recession in the country's 55-year history and two years of negative growth. Israel's gross domestic product dropped 1.1 percent in 2002 with unemployment at an average of 10.3 percent. The government ran up a $579 million budget deficit in February, the highest 30-day overdraft on record.

2.    Eliminate Social Zionism The kibbutz movement in Israel is symbolic of social Zionism, and it is in crisis. Only limited kibbutzim in Israel, between 35 and 50, are doing well, or in some cases prospering. Though 2 percent of Israel's 6.2 million people live on kibbutzim; they generate 40 percent of the nation's agricultural produce and 10 percent of its industrial output. As Israel's youth flee the kibbutzim, the average age of members have spiraled. Communal financial capabilities for covering retirement and healthcare benefits are on life support as Israelis came to realize the fundamental flaw in social Zionism. As one immigrant stated, "Our basic premise was wrong," "The basic idea was that if we bring up our children in a non-competitive society, they would naturally want to live that way. . . . That was a big mistake."

3.    Over Development/Reliance on High Tech During the tech boom, Israel over-developed its high tech sector. Investments were made in spite of a general lack of a supporting community of universities and high tech educational facilities and domestic technology demand. Israel counted on being able to leverage preferential access to the U.S. market for military and software products without taking into consideration the high competition with U.S. and other global firms. The dramatic collapse of the Israeli high tech sector also revealed the disproportionate effect over- reliance on a volatile sector can have on a small country as opposed to larger economies in Europe and the United States that have more successfully weathered the storm.

IRMEP's assessment of economic reform in Israel is that it is much too little, much too late, leading to an ACB score of “1 out of 5”. Perhaps this can be attributed to ACB's architects. While most are highly capable in securing foreign aid and political support for Israel, none were notable economists. The architects and their network, of course, lay much of the blame for Israel's economic malaise as the effect of Palestinian resistance to occupation.


e. Rejuvenation of Zionism

Zionism, defined as the international movement for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel, is enjoying resurgence, though from unexpected quarters:

1.    American Christian Zionist Movement Support for Israel by organized Christian groups in the U.S. has undergone explosive growth. Israel has been promoted and accepted as a cause that represents concrete steps toward the fulfillment of scriptural prophecy. One group, the two million member Christian Coalition, is able to quickly deploy voting guides to over 70 million U.S. households for such causes as the legislative effort to solidify Israel's 1967 borders and occupied territories purely in the name of “protection of religious site access”. The return of the Jews to their ancient homeland is seen by Evangelicals as a precondition for the mystical Second Coming of Christ. Therefore, when the Jewish state was created in 1948, evangelicals saw it as a sign. Israel's conquest of Jerusalem and the West Bank in 1967 deepened their excitement, and multiplied their organized support for Israel.

2.    Weakened International Opposition to Zionism Twenty-six years ago, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a contentious resolution equating Zionism with racism. Then, as now, Israel mustered the support of the United States (and few other states) to stand by Israel's rejection of the resolution. Although conferences addressing the tie between Zionism and racism are again questioning Israel and the high Palestinian casualties produced by endless conflict, the U.S. has been instrumental in stifling debate through its conspicuous absence at most human rights conferences.

3.    More Effective Deployment of the “Anti-Semitism” Smear Attack Critics of Israel in the major broadcast or print media are few in number. In 1919, Morris Jastrow, Jr. wrote the book “Zionism and the Future of Palestine” published by the Macmillan Company. Jastrow correctly predicted that the intertwining of religion and nationality “political Zionism” would have negative consequences. He posited that whereas non-Jews have only one country and one purported loyalty “Americans are American”, the “French are French”, etc., Jews are seen as having split loyalties. He believed that they are both citizens of the country in which they live and also supporters of the Jewish state. He worried that Jews living outside of Israel (occupied Palestine) would be seen as being less than totally loyal to the country where they reside. Right or wrong, Jastrow predicted that this political difference adds to the real anti-Semitism that then existed. However, Jastrow failed to predict how effectively smear campaigns would be deployed by Zionist entities such as the Anti Defamation League when small numbers of agents of Israel were actually caught engaging in “activities incompatible with their status as American citizens.” The suggestion by Pat Buchanan and other deeply conservative thinkers that “war party” members with undeniably compromising ties to Israel were the primary architects of the U.S. invasion of Iraq have been met with a stifling wall of charges of anti-Semitism and media rebukes. However, though most potential critics of Israel in the mainstream media continue to be effectively muzzled, the charges and evidence are beginning to circulate beyond small groups of intellectuals and patriots.

One religion enjoys no protection. Across the dial of Christian Radio in Bible Belt America, listeners can hear the shrill condemnations of Islam, and testimony to the ascendancy and righteousness of Christian and Zionist principles, acting in alliance against Islam.

High profile conferences feature sessions by intellectual ideologues such as Daniel Pipes speaking about militant Islam and 15% of Muslims as potential terrorists while Jerry Falwell proclaims that the prophet Mohammed himself was a terrorist. Countless millions of Americans are reading a series of novels called “Left Behind.” They are topping bestseller lists all over the country and being made into movies. These books glorify and chronicle apocalyptic times. The setting is the twenty-first century, complete with war planes and TV correspondents.

This Christian fervor for the advance of Israel gives pause to many Jewish leaders. While these Christians believe that God gave the land of Israel to the Jewish people and  that every grain of sand between the Dead Sea, the Jordan River, and, and the Mediterranean Sea belongs to the Jews, including the West Bank and Gaza, problems exist. The biblical version of the apocalypse either kills off Jews or has them converted to Christianity, making evangelical support a double edge sword that is a poor guide for real geopolitics played out in the Middle East on the ground. In the words of one clever observer it “cuts us out in the fourth act”.

And what biblical guidance is there for the three million Palestinians who live on the West Bank and Gaza? Some fundamentalists suggest the bulk of them should be cleansed from this God-given real estate and moved to another Arab country. In fact, many evangelicals believe that when Prime Minister Rabin signed the Oslo accords and offered to trade land for peace, it was not only a mistake, it was a sin that he paid for with his own life.

IRMEP assigns a score of “5” to the ACB plan to rejuvenate Zionism. The effectiveness of the machinery in place to promote Zionism is awe inspiring though coming from unexpected, and at times, wholly unwanted, quarters.


III. ACB American Interest Damage Assessment

ACB represents a plan for achieving the best possible outcome for Israel. However, the policies that create a favorable outcome for Israel create an equal and opposite negative effect for the United States. (See Exhibit 6). In this section, we analyze the extent of the damage and assign it a numerical score.

Exhibit #6
U.S. Damage Assessment Scorecard: “Clean Break” Policy Implementation
(IRMEP 2003)

a. Increase U.S. Congressional Support

A verifiable Israeli influence over the U.S. Congress, indirectly emanating from different quarters of the body of interest groups and lobbying organizations, is tremendously damaging for the United States. As ideologues promoting policies based on Israeli, Zionist or even biblical objectives are effectively enforced by U.S. law and military might, portions of the American ideal begin to wither, die and finally decay.

The first to go is the idea that, as a nation, the United States operates best as a secular entity. The Bill of Rights states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” By accepting and exporting U.S. power in support of the aims of two religions, Christianity and Judaism, Congress has violated the U.S. Constitution, and itself.

Smaller acts, such as distributing communications to U.S. soldiers fighting in Muslim lands exhorting that they “pray for President Bush” are further disturbing signs that the United States separation of church and state has been eroded to the point of collapse.

IRMEP scores the increase in U.S. Congressional Support damage assessment score at the very highest level, “5 out of 5”.


b. “Peace for Peace” Palestinian Strategy

The collapse of the Oslo Accords and degradation caused by the Israel Palestinian conflict has left only one party that can effectively enforce solutions to the crisis. The United States.

U.S interests in achieving peace in the region are of high importance. The conflict is seen as the lynchpin of grievances throughout the Arab world. By siding with the interests of Israel, and compromising its role as a neutral broker, the U.S. has compromised its own legitimacy.

The chief U.S. interest in the Middle East is promoting a gradual and non-violent political, social, and economic development of the entire region. Favoring only one country makes conflict in vital oil producing regions more likely, motivates militant fundamentalist terrorist networks to act against the U.S., and strains U.S. relations with the global community.

IRMEP scores U.S. adherence to a “peace for peace” rather than “land for peace” strategy as having a high (score of 4) level of damage to U.S. Middle East Interests.


c. Contain, Destabilize, and Roll Back Regional Challengers

The Israeli motivated plan to “destabilize” and “redraw the map of the Middle East” may be remembered by future generations as the spark that fell into the tinder box of World War III. While the United States is clearly interested in the reform of governments and institutions across the Middle East, a slower and more gradual approach with lower amounts of bloodshed was clearly the preferable path.

By accelerating conflict and casting aside both international law and alliances in the name of “regime change”, the U.S. is increasingly perceived as a rogue state and every bit as much a U.N. pariah as Israel.

By picking fights with ethnicities and tribes about which it knows or chooses to know comparatively little, the Bush Administration is only beginning to harvest the consequences of ill-advised and ideologically motivated extremism.

IRMEP's U.S. damage assessment score is a solid “5 out of 5.”

d. Economic Reform

Israel's economic reform is a matter which has little direct affect on U.S. interests. Although Israelis would like to further integrate economies, particularly in the military industrial arena, the U.S. frequently finds that this leads to unintended technology transfers. Israel's attempted sales of radar systems based on U.S. AWACs and the Lavi fighter jet copied from the U.S. F-16 platforms are strategically significant, damaging matters.

The continued dependence of Israel on U.S. aid is a negative factor for the United States. The IRMEP damage score to U.S. interests is material. Ballooning levels of aid to Israel, while insubstantial as a percentage of total U.S. GDP, alienates the global community and Arab states since it is the highest single U.S. disbursement, at extremely favorable terms (equivalent to cash), in the entire U.S. foreign aid budget.

This is not good for Israel and in spite of the boon to U.S. arms manufacturers and defense contractor interests written into aid packages, it is negative for the U.S.

IRMEP's U.S. damage assessment score is 2 out of 5.

e. Rejuvenation of Zionism

Supporting the rejuvenation of Zionism has had a polarizing effect within the United States and damaged the constitutionally protected freedoms of U.S. citizens. As a case study, consider how two ideologically and religiously motivated soldiers departing for different destination countries are now treated by the U.S. government.

 
An ardent and fit Jewish youth with American citizenship can easily travel to Israel and serve in the Israeli Defense Force, or other government branch, for two years, and return to blend back into U.S. society. His or her activities, pledges of allegiance (which nullify U.S. citizenship), and details of military service are of no interest to the U.S. government. He could engage in two years of paramilitary operations against U.S. Arab allies. The soldier could return to the U.S. with an ongoing intelligence liaison to Mossad. None of this will be questioned or investigated in the U.S.

An ardent and fit Palestinian youth with American citizenship departing for the West Bank faces different treatment. If he is of the minority of ardently religious Muslim Palestinians he faces the wrath of both Israel and the U.S. He can be detained and imprisoned in Israel if authorities suspect any sympathy or support for Palestinian causes. Pleas to the U.S. counsel in Tel Aviv will lead neither to support nor presence of U.S. representation if the detainment ever reaches a judicial forum, which it may not.

If the Palestinian youth joins any group considered to be a militant opposition to Israel (though usually not the United States), he will deeply implicate himself immediately for the crime of association with “terrorist” organizations, subject to detainment as an enemy combatant in Guantanamo Bay, or even execution by U.S. intelligence operatives. Militant opposition to Israel has been completely criminalized in the United States. And Israel itself publicly reserves the right to assassinate American citizens, in the United States, suspected of acting against the interests of Israel.

As a party to the promotion of Zionist over other religiously motivated military activities, the U.S. has subtly codified military and other support of religion in a way that strikes at the very foundations of the reasons for which the nation was formed.

By selectively codifying support for Zionism, the U.S. sets itself upon the course of intolerance and wide scale bloodshed. The damage to its reputation as a just, fair, and secular nation has been pre-empted by coalitions of evangelical interest groups and agents of Israel. IRMEP's U.S. damage assessment score is 4 out of 5. Practically speaking, U.S. policies are becoming indistinguishable from an institutionalized modern crusade against Islam and Arab nations.

IV. IRMEP Policy Recommendations

That ACB has realized high levels of implementation is undeniable. However, IRMEP believes that the costs in terms of damage done to U.S. foreign policy objectives and national interests are extremely high.

Exhibit #6
“Clean Break” Policy Implementation vs. U.S. Damage Assessment Score Card
(IRMEP 2003)

Though some damage may even be irreparable, IRMEP calls for U.S. policy makers to immediately reconsider of the costs of further ACB implementation. Following ACB can only generate additional damage to U.S. interests in the future.

****

Also watch the 11/26/2003 IRmep Capitol Hill Forum:
"The 'Clean Break Plan': Implications for US Middle East Policy"
Real Video (90 Minutes)

This video had an audience reach of 23.6 million viewers and was rebroadcast 6 times.   It remained among the top five most watched Internet videos on C-SPAN for 60 days.

Printable Policy Brief PDF