Haaretz reported on Monday that Israel’s current government, led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett (Yamina) and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid), has pledged to keep Washington informed of any major Israeli deals with the People’s Republic of China.
According to the report, the Bennett-Lapid government also said that such deals would be reconsidered if Washington expresses opposition.
The Bennett-Lapid government already subordinated Israel’s Iran policy to US control back in June.
Both the administrations of US President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump have raised concerns about growing ties between Israel and China as the US empire has begun to take an increasingly belligerent posture towards Beijing.
The Haaretz report also mentioned that US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan raised the matter of Sino-Israeli relations in at least two recent meetings with Foreign Minister Lapid.
But to properly assess what course of action Israel should take, our leaders must carefully analyze the different relationships offered by these rival powers.
Through its Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing has been threatening US global dominance by building a more horizontal and mutually beneficial model for assisting the Global South and linking nations together.
Unlike the neo-imperialist American model of “aid” most often accompanied by policy dictates that erode national sovereignty and exploitative agreements that favor US corporations and indebt recipient governments to Washington, China’s BRI offers more favorable loans and allows nations to maintain ownership of their own resources (unlike American and European companies).
In fact, many of the BRI infrastructure projects on the African continent focus on training local workers to ultimately take direct control of those initiatives.
While the United States and Western European governments have long been engaged in predatory forms of extraction that abuse and pillage the Global South, China’s BRI is offering a liberatory alternative to the current global order that allows nations to get out from under US imperial control.
And although many voices in the West have attempted to portray the BRI as China engaging in the same rapacious neo-imperialism as Washington and its allies, Beijing is far too strategic in its foreign policy to replicate the imperialism that has fostered widespread anti-American and anti-Western sentiment throughout the world.
If China wants to build relationships and increase its own influence in countries with a history of exploitation by the West, it has to offer something qualitatively better that actually helps those nations become stronger more self-sufficient.
It’s therefore imperative that Israel’s leadership resist Washington’s desperate efforts to prevent us from strengthening our relationship with Beijing. While the goal shouldn’t be trading one superpower patron for another, the model of relationship being offered by China comes with far more favorable conditions that could free Israel from US control and allow us to not only become more independent but also to more strongly align ourselves with the oppressed of the world rather than the global oppressors.
Despite US demands, Israel has until now continued to maintain warm diplomatic relations with China. In November, Israeli President Yitzḥak Herzog made an unprecedented phone call to Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss Iran’s nuclear program. And a month earlier, Israel refrained from signing onto a largely symbolic anti-China joint statement at the United Nations.
Monday’s Haaretz report cited unnamed sources as saying Israel was taking a “business as usual” approach with the people’s republic, as it remains caught between two powerful global actors – a waning empire and its most potent up and coming rival.
As a desperate US administration struggles to maintain its dominant role on the world stage, it will likely increases its belligerent aggression towards China. Jerusalem will likely have to make a choice at some point. It’s unfortunate that the key moment could come at a time when Israel is being led by what is arguably the most irresponsible and inexperienced government in the state’s history.
