In September 1939, World War II began when Great Britain and France came to the assistance of Poland after the German Army invaded, fulfilling a “guarantee” made in March of that year. What was a regional war, and one that might have been resolved through diplomacy, became global.

One would think that after such commitments were assessed by historians as the immediate causes of two world wars, no one would ever consider going down that road again. But that would be reckoning without Republican Senator Lindsey Graham who has been calling for a “defense treaty” with Israel since last April. In his most recent foray, Graham announced late in July that he is seeking bipartisan support for providing “blank check” assurances to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is hoping to be able to push a complete defense treaty through the Senate by next year.

In making his several announcements on the subject, Graham has been acting as a front man for both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and also for The Jewish Institute for the National Security of America (JINSA), which wrote the basic document that is being used to promote the treaty and then enlisted Graham to obtain congressional support.

Speaking to the press on a JINSA conference call, Graham said the proposed agreement would be a treaty that would protect Israel in case of an attack that constituted an “existential threat”. Citing Iran as an example, Graham said the pact would be an attempt to deter hostile neighbors like the Iranians who might use weapons of mass destruction against Israel. JINSA President Michael Makovsky elaborated on this, saying, “A mutual defense pact has a value in not only deterring but might also mitigate a retaliatory strike by an adversary of Israel, so it might mitigate an Iranian response (to an attack on its nuclear facilities).”

JINSA director of foreign policy Jonathan Ruhe added that “An Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program would not activate this pact, but a major Iranian retaliation might. – An Israeli unilateral attack is not what the treaty covers, but rather massive Iranian retaliation is what we are addressing.”

Israel has long been reluctant to enter into any actual treaty arrangement with the United States because it might limit its options and restrain its aggressive pattern of military incursions. In that regard, the Graham-JINSA proposal is particularly dangerous as it effectively permits Israel to be interventionist with a guarantee that Washington will not seek to limit Netanyahu’s “options.” And, even though the treaty is reciprocal, there is no chance that Israel will ever be called upon to do anything to defend the United States, so it is as one-sided as most arrangements with the Jewish state tend to be.

As the agreement between the two countries would be a treaty ratified by the Senate, it would be much more difficult to scrap by subsequent administrations than was the Iran nuclear deal, which was an executive action by President Obama. And clearly the statements by Graham, Makovsky and Ruhe reveal this treaty would serve as a green light for an Israeli attack on Iran, should they opt to do so, while also serving as a red light to Tehran vis-à-vis an ironclad US commitment to “defend” Israel that would serve to discourage any serious Iranian retaliation. Given that dynamic, the treaty would be little more than a one-way security guarantee from Washington to Jerusalem.

Furthermore, in outlining what circumstances would trigger US intervention on Israel’s behalf, the JINSA/Graham document cites, inter alia, “the threat or use of weapons of mass destruction.” It also allows Netanyahu to call for assistance after defining as threatening any incident or development “that gives rise to an urgent request from the Government of Israel.” It appears then that Netanyahu could demand that the US attack Iran should he only perceive a threat, however vague that threat might in reality be.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been claiming Iran is “three to five years” and “possibly weeks” away from a nuclear weapons capability since 1992 and pushing Washington to attack Iran so he obviously would welcome such a treaty for strategic reasons as well as to shore up his upcoming re-election bid. President Trump, with whom Graham has discussed how the agreement would work, has a similar interest in appearing strong for Israel to help his own campaign in 2020.

It is worth noting that in 2010 Netanyahu ordered the Israel Defense Force (IDF) to prepare to strike Iran but ‘Israel’s security chiefs refused: Gabi Ashkenazi, the head of the IDF, and Meir Dagan, the head of the Mossad at the time, believed that Netanyahu and the Defense Minister Ehud Barak were trying to “steal a war” and the order was not carried out. The attacks were also rejected by two ministers, Moshe Yaalon and Yuval Steinitz, which left Netanyahu without the necessary majority to proceed.

Ashkenazi claimed in a 2012 interview about the episode that he was convinced that an attack would be have been a major strategic mistake. Meir Dagan said in 2012, after leaving his role as Mossad chief, that a strike would be “a stupid thing” as the entire region would undoubtedly be destabilized, requiring repeated Israeli and American interventions.

And there are other issues arising from a “defense treaty.” Defense means just that and treaties are generally designed to protect a country within its own borders. Israel has no defined borders as it is both expansionistic and illegally occupying Palestinian land, so the United States would in effect be obligated to defend space that Israel defines as its own. That could mean almost anything. Israel is currently bombing Syria almost daily even though it is not at war with Damascus. If Syria were to strike back and Graham’s treaty were in place, Washington would technically be obligated to come to Israel’s assistance. A similar situation prevails with Lebanon and there are also reports that Israel is bombing alleged Iranian supply lines in Iraq, where the US has 5,000 troops stationed.

The real problem is that the Trump administration is obsessed with regime change in Iran, but it has so far been unable to provoke Iran into starting a conflict. Graham’s proposed treaty just might be part of a White House plan to end-run Congress and public opinion by enabling Israel to start the desired war, whereupon the US would quickly follow in to “defend Israel,” obliged by treaty to do so. What could possibly go wrong? The correct answer is “everything.”

In addition to Netanyahu and Adelson, there are other hidden hands behind the US recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

In 2009, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) rolled up a group of Syrian-Jewish rabbis in the New Jersey and New York region who held fundraisers for the Binyamin Netanyahu coalition partner, the ultra-Orthodox Shas party. The link between the US rabbis and the corruption-plagued Netanyahu highlighted the secret financing of the expansion of Jewish construction in east Jerusalem. The United Nations does not recognize East Jerusalem as part of Israel and Palestine considers it as the “de jure” capital of the State of Palestine.

A key financier of the east Jerusalem construction is a wealthy American Jewish bingo parlor and gambling tycoon named Irving Moskowitz. A noted neo-conservative, Moskowitz backs such neocon operations as the Hudson Institute, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), American Enterprise Institute, and the Center for Security Policy (CSP). Frank Gaffney, a controversial Islamophobe and former national security adviser to the Trump presidential campaign, heads the CSP.

Moskowitz has been purchasing land from Arabs, mostly in east Jerusalem, to turn the city into an exclusively Jewish city. More troubling for long-term Middle East peace prospects is Moskowitz’s funding of the right-wing Ateret Cohanim movement, which seeks to tear down Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque, Islam’s third holiest shrine, also known as the Dome of the Rock, to rebuild the Jewish temple.

Of more immediate concern, however, was Moskowitz’s purchase of east Jerusalem’s Shepherd Hotel, which overlooks Mount Scopus. The hotel, legally considered the property of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, was seized as “war booty” after the 1967 Israeli-Arab war. The hotel was at the center of the expansion controversy between the Obama administration and Netanyahu’s government over plans to turn the hotel into apartments exclusively for Jews.

In a July 27 op-ed in the Jerusalem Post by Jeff Baraq, a former editor-in-chief of the newspaper, it is stated: “The fact is that while American Jews like Irving Moskowitz can buy land in East Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods, a Palestinian resident of, say, Sheikh Jarrah [where the Shepherd Hotel is located] cannot purchase an apartment in many parts of west Jerusalem, because the Israel Lands Administration, which owns the land, will only enter into a contract with Israeli citizens of persons entitled to citizenship under the Law of Return.” Noting the political instability of the Netanyahu government, Baraq titled his op-ed “Netanyahu Gov’t Unstable, Crisis With US Self-Inflicted.”

With Netanyahu coalition partner Shas front-and-center in the Syrian-Jewish rabbi scandal in New Jersey and New York and the Kushner family tied to criminal scandals in both states, the influence of right-wing supporters of Israel in the Trump administration becomes more obvious. The FBI used a confidential witness to identify a number of the New Jersey and New York Syrian Jewish rabbis who were using synagogues and yeshivas as money laundering fronts reportedly for the illegal sale of knock-off designer handbags and even human organs. The witness, Solomon Dwek, is a major real estate developer and gambling boat owner, was arrested in 2006 for trying to pass a bad check and defraud PNC Bank of $25 million. Dwek is also a key figure in the powerful Syrian Jewish clan in New Jersey and New York, which has been dubbed the SY Empire” and the “Dwek clan.” This clan also has ties to the Kushner Companies, a real estate firm with major holdings in New Jersey and New York.

Jared Kushner and the Trump Organization are under investigation by Department of Justice Special Counsel Robert Mueller for money laundering activities involving both the Trump and Kushner families. This probe reportedly involves the laundering of foreign money through purchases of real estate, including condominiums, in Trump and Kushner buildings in Manhattan and New Jersey. This money laundering was at the center of the takedown of the Syrian Jewish syndicate during Mueller’s term as FBI director. The following excerpt of the federal indictment explains the type of money laundering engaged in by the Shas operatives. In the criminal complaint against Rabbi Eliahu “Eli” Ben Haim of the Ohel Yaacob congregation in Deal, New Jersey, a co-conspirator only identified as “I.M.,” who was based in Israel and was a principal source of cash for Ben Haim, is cited.

“Defendant BEN HAIM told the CW [Confidential Witness] about ‘customers from two, three years ago that are calling me,’ and indicated that “[t]hat’s a signal that the market is tight.’ Defendant BEN HAIM also discussed his source for cash, Coconspirator I.M., and stated that he spoke to Co-conspirator I.M. ‘[e]very day – every other day.’ Referring to Co-conspirator I.M., defendant BEN HAIM then asked the CW ‘[d]id you know that he had me in the last 4 years send out wires every time to a different place in the world to a different name? It’s unbelievable. I never saw anything like it.’ When the CW asked whether defendant BEN HAIM was referring to different locations in only Israel, defendant BEN HAIM replied ‘[n]o, all over the world… All over the world. From Australia to New Zealand to Uganda. I mean [u/i] [unintelligible] every country imaginable. Turkey, you can’t believe it… All different names. It’s never the same name… Switzerland, everywhere, France, everywhere, Spain… China, Japan.’ Defendant BEN HAIM also explained that the market for cash was tight ‘only in the beginning of the year and the end of the year.'”

The statement provides the lengths to which those involved in laundering money in support of illegal Israeli construction on Palestinian territory go to cover their tracks. On July 26, 2009, the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported that Rabbi David Yosef, the son of Shas spiritual leader and former Chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, left the Long Branch, New Jersey home of Ben-Haim for Israel just hours before the FBI raid that saw Ben-Haim taken into custody. In May 2009, Aryeh Deri visited the Syrian-Jewish community in the New York-New Jersey region seeking funds for a new political party. Deri’s successor as the head of Shas, Eliyahu “Eli” Yishai, who left Shas to form the ultra-right Yachad party, served as Interior Minister and a Deputy Prime Minister of Israel. Yishai blocked the Holy See from exercising control over its property in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Ovadia Yosef also condemned President Obama for pressuring Israel to freeze of settlements. Yosef also called for the rebuilding of the Jewish temple on the site of the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. Yosef complained that there “are Arabs there.” It is with this background of Arab hatred that Trump, serving the interests of the Kushner-Moskowitz-Adelson cabal, reversed 70 years of US policy in recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.