Opinion Editorials, July 24, 2009

Brazen US Hypocrisy in the Middle East:

Biden Bows to Netanyahu

By Paul J Balles

Redress, July 24, 2009

Paul J. Balles comments on US Vice-President Joe Biden’s twisted logic, which concedes to Israel the sovereign “right” to grab, steal and murder but denies to Iran the just right to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

US Vice President Joe Biden told ABC television the US could not "dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do".

On ABC's current affairs programme “This Week”, host George Stephanopoulos asked Mr Biden whether the Israeli position was the right approach.

The vice-president replied: "Israel can determine for itself – it's a sovereign nation – what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else." Perhaps to please Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, Biden added that this was the case, "whether we agree or not" with the Israeli view.

Making thoughtless statements like these utterly defies both logic and sensibility. Using the same logic, he could have said the same thing about Iran.

Why doesn't he say "Iran can determine for itself – it's a sovereign nation – what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Israel and anyone else?" With the same logic and lack of sensibility, Biden might have said, "Iran can develop nuclear weapons whether we agree or not with their view."

With this kind of senseless thinking, it’s a wonder that Biden ever managed to hold the leading Democratic position on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, except that he is a self-declared Zionist with a 36-year Senate record of pro-Israel leadership.

While in his non-interference state of mind, Biden recently questioned the legitimacy of Mahmud Ahmadinejad's victory in Iran's presidential elections. He commented that officials "just don't know enough" about how they were conducted.

What if they were conducted like elections in other countries that have clearly been rigged but have gone unnoticed by Biden? This is a perfect demonstration of America’s foreign policy hypocrisy.

There's also the insensibility of maintaining double standards about international issues. "The president will not allow Iran to go nuclear," says Biden.

About North Korea's tests of long-range missiles, Biden says: "If the country is proliferating nuclear weapons or missiles, then it is a serious danger and a threat to the world..."

With North Korea, which withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty, it's a question of how quickly the missiles and nuclear weapons are being developed. Iran, on the other hand, remains a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which seeks to control the spread of nuclear weapons. Iran has made it clear that they want only to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Meanwhile, as Israel and America focus on the potential of Iran to become a nuclear power, Israel carries on with its never-ending land grab on the West Bank and its terrorist slaughter and mayhem in Gaza.

Commenting on the growing settlements in the West Bank, Sandy Tolan writes: "So dense had the Israeli West Bank presence become by 2009, so fragmented is Palestinian life – both physically and politically – that it now requires death-defying mental gymnastics to imagine how a two-state solution could ever be implemented."

The “logical” comments by Joe Biden should bring scathing criticism of the way Israel spends American taxpayers’ money to support its continuing ruthless inhumanity to indigenous Palestinians.

Haaretz reports: "Israeli officials told US envoy George Mitchell in recent weeks that Jerusalem is willing to temporarily freeze settlement construction, but that the move would be conditioned on substantive steps from the Arab side, as well as guarantees from the United States." What an abomination!

Break into my house with guns. Lock me in a small room; and when a neighbour complains, agree to set me free if I agree to let you keep much of the stolen loot.

This is the twisted logic of Joe Biden's Israel-American politics, using Iran as a distraction.

Paul J. Balles is a retired American university professor and freelance writer who has lived in the Middle East for many years. For more information, see http://www.pballes.com.