Who gives the mantle of dictating human rights to the United States or any Western colonial powers? The U.S. is simply using the human rights issue as another attempt to interfere in the affairs of other countries. Have you ever taken a look at the human rights record of the United States? If not maybe you should.

Our double standards and hypocrisy is the reason why we as a nation we do not have any credibility to discuss human rights abuses until we put our own house in order.

Full Text of Human Rights Record of the United States in 2009

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-03/12/c_13208219_11.htm

“But thinking a bit laterally, that could be the ace up the US sleeve. They know the Israelis behave in a certain way; give them cause to do a bit more of it, but this time leave it unsanitised. I’ve said it before, but I think the only way to cut the legs out from under the Lobby is a rapid public awareness programme.”

I share your sentiments completely, Alan – or at least the part of me that looks forward with hope shares them. As is probably true for you too, there’s another part of me that looks back, decades back, and that part of me isn’t quite so optimistic that it will be different this time. I hope so, but I’m not going to bet any portion of my retirement funds on it.

I’ve said it before, but I think the only way to cut the legs out from under the Lobby is a rapid public awareness programme.

Also, while Israeli belligerence or the threat thereof in the region has leveraged certain policies out of the US in the past, I don’t think threatening Palestinians with either violence or landgrabs has ever been on the US Richter scale (much to my disgust).

So when it comes to dealing with Israel over Iran, I just think Obama holds all the cards – he’s just got to play them.

“Give them the rope, and see if they hang themselves. If they do, it prepares Obama’s ground for him. Mind you, I never thought Israel would be as stupid as this. Maybe they think they can use I/P as leverage to get Obama to attack Iran. They really live in a weird self-deluded bubble if they do.”

Who’s deluded — they or we? It’s worked for several decades. Biden may have shown up 90 minutes late, and in a grumpy mood, but he finished his meal, didn’t he?

Thanks, but I assure you I don’t get all of my news from the NY Times. I read it principally to see what it leaves out, as you pointed out it had here. (In this case, I had NOT yet read other accounts of Biden’s dinner with Netanyahu.)

It’s often worse. Consider this passage (from a draft article on the 2009 Iran election I’ve been working on — footnotes omitted here):

“The year [2009] closed with a multi-day protest held during the Muslim holiday of Ashura, culminating with a large opposition rally on December 27, which was followed by a larger pro-government demonstration three days later. As had occurred before the election, Western press coverage focused narrowly on the opposition rally. According to a guest op-ed published a week later in the New York Times [penned by our own Flynt and Hillary, published 1/5/10], opposition sources had estimated the December 27 protest crowd in the “tens of thousands” and other sources had estimated “2,000 to 4,000.” A third source, said to be an opponent of Ahmadinejad, had estimated the crowd at the December 30 pro-government rally at 1,000,000 people. The last of these estimates may have surprised readers, since most Western news accounts had reported a much smaller pro-government crowd. The most extreme example had appeared in a long article by Michael Slackman published by the New York Times on January 1, 2010. In an otherwise detailed account of the preceding five days’ events, Mr. Slackman estimated the December 27 protest crowd at “tens of thousands,” but did not even mention that a pro-government rally had occurred.”

This is why, perhaps, Biden’s trip to Israel is now significant, where it wasn’t before. Israel announcing those 1600 houses was startling for the brazen audacity of it, and the outright disrespect it showed to Biden, Obama and the US. Biden’s deliberate 90 minute delay, accompanied by a statement that basically said Israel was saying one thing to his face while physically doing the exact opposite, turned all the sycophantic, sick-making overtures he had been making to Israel the previous day into about as hard a line as the US have managed on Israel for years.

Give them the rope, and see if they hang themselves. If they do, it prepares Obama’s ground for him. Mind you, I never thought Israel would be as stupid as this. Maybe they think they can use I/P as leverage to get Obama to attack Iran. They really live in a weird self-deluded bubble if they do.

I’ll be darned — the New York Times article on Biden’s visit neglected to mention that — guess they must have run out of space.