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Alex Lo
SCMP Columnist
My Take
by Alex Lo
My Take
by Alex Lo

US hypocrisy is beyond redemption

  • You figure this one out with Washington: It’s OK for Israel to annex Palestinian territories but not for China to raise issues that concern its interests in Hong Kong

When I was a young man in college, I went through a misguided Marxist phase and was a big fan of the late Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

Now, I don’t really care about the Israeli-Arab conflict, because it’s not my fight. I have a fight much closer in my hometown Hong Kong and the rest of China, with the Americans. Also, people always say the Middle Eastern conflict is intractable. I don’t think so. For all intents and purposes, the Israelis have won, not now, but long ago. The latest annexation is just their delayed reward of victory dating back to 1967.

As a political realist, I think the annexation has always been inevitable; no one seriously thought Israel would ever dismantle all those Jewish settlements, or as Israelis like to say, “facts on the ground”. But, of course, if you still believe in international law or the so-called two-state solution, you might be in despair.

Having said all that, I think it’s instructive to compare the very different responses of the US to the Israeli annexation and to alleged Beijing interference, whether real or imaginary, in Hong Kong.

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Someone help me wrap my mind around this. Washington is giving Israel the green light to annex Palestinian territories in the West Bank, in direct violation of international law.

However, it relentlessly criticises China for interfering in Hong Kong, which is indisputably Chinese territory.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said annexation was ultimately “an Israeli decision”. Shouldn’t it also be a Palestinian decision from the point of view of international law?

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Not at all, a US State Department spokesman has subsequently clarified: “We are prepared to recognise Israeli actions to extend Israeli sovereignty and the application of Israeli law to areas of the West Bank that the vision foresees as being part of the State of Israel.”

Hypocrisy? Double standards? I think we are way beyond all that with the US. All these have nothing to do with right or wrong, international law, human rights or self-determination. It’s just naked power politics. Israel is the US’ closest ally; China is a rival, if not an enemy.

China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats have called Pompeo “the common enemy of mankind”. That’s just nonsense. The truth is, Pompeo can’t say anything bad about Israel or anything good about China.

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This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: American hypocrisy is beyond redemption
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