Cleveland and San Francisco Independent Media Center
In 2007 Colombia awarded Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI) a contract worth more than $150 million to upgrade its aging fleet of Kfir fighter jets. The first upgraded batch began arriving in June. But why is Colombia buying the package now? The influence of Israel’s lobby in the US Congress and the troubled fighter plane’s history are key to understanding the deal…
By paying off IAI and laying the groundwork for future Israeli weapons purchases, the Colombian government clearly hopes to win the support of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to help pass the FTA. It is currently stalled over Colombian human rights questions. AIPAC has lobbied for bilateral free trade between the US, Oman, and Qatar as ways to break the Arab boycott of Israel. The 1985 US-Israel FTA, which has cost $71 billion and 100,000 American jobs a year, was the first bilateral agreement ever signed by the US. According to former deputy director of research Martin Indyk, only AIPAC had the muscle to push such an unpopular and costly deal through Congress…More