My Take | 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.
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.