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How to Increase U.S.-Israel Defense Cooperation

(Foreign Policy) Josh Rogin - Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) is proposing a path forward for increased U.S.-Israel defense cooperation including an increased role for the Israeli Navy in global anti-piracy operations in the Indian Ocean in cooperation with India. He wants to vastly expand cooperation on cyber security, beyond the suspected cooperation on the Stuxnet worm that has delayed Iran's uranium enrichment program. He is also calling on the Joint Chiefs to review the possibility of adapting Israel's "Iron Dome" short-range missile defense system for use by the U.S. and NATO. "We are stretched quite thin in the Indian Ocean and to have Israeli support will be critical in managing and reducing the pirate threat," he said Tuesday in an interview. Kirk maintains that the U.S. should reaffirm President George W. Bush's 2004 letter on borders, which somewhat contradicts Obama's May 17 statement that borders should be based on 1967 lines with agreed swaps. Obama's new language for the first time made it official U.S. policy what had long been the Palestinian goal of using the 1967 lines as a basis for new borders. He states that U.S. funding should not go to a Palestinian government that includes Hamas, nor should the U.S. give aid to the PA if it seeks a unilateral declaration of statehood at the UN in September or fails to curb anti-Israel incitement in Palestinian schools. He also wants UNRWA to start transferring its management of Palestinian health and education services over to the Palestinian government, and for the State Department to designate the Turkish aid organization IHH, which organized the flotilla of ships that tried to breach Israel's Gaza blockade in May 2010, as a terrorist organization.
2011-06-15 00:00:00
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