Opinion Editorials, November 2013

Redress, Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, November 25, 2013

The tail wags the dog: Israel publicly upbraids the US on Iran  

Israel has gotten so used to the United States being totally subservient to it that it seems incapable of tolerating the slightest deviation from its diktats by Washington.

For a country that swallows up some eight million dollars a day of American taxpayers’ money, one might expect some self-restraint, at least in symbolic gratitude for the largesse it receives from its increasingly economically desperate benefactors. But no.

In fact, the arrogance and hubris of the Israelis has reached the point where they feel totally at ease to publicly upbraid their American protectors for being disobedient.

“Jerusalem is ‘unpleasantly surprised’ that, as of Thursday afternoon [21 November], the Obama administration had not unequivocally condemned vicious anti-Israel statements made Wednesday morning by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,” a senior Israeli official told the Times of Israel.

The official, Hilik Bar, who is deputy speaker of the Israeli parliament, was commenting on some truths uttered by Khamenei the previous day, when he said that Israel was doomed to fail and characterized it as the “sinister, unclean rabid dog of the region”.

In a statement that beggars belief, Bar demanded that US Secretary of State John Kerry and European leaders “issue condemnations in the strongest possible terms” – and “sooner rather than later”.

“I was disappointed to hear no strong condemnation nor any official censure whatsoever by the United States, the European countries, nor the EU itself.” he whinged.

However, it would seem that the Obama administration had had enough. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), a top White House official warned on 20 November that Israel’s demand that Iran totally dismantle its nuclear capacity in exchange for sanctions relief would likely lead to war.

Given a choice between “total capitulation” and advancing toward a nuclear weapon, Iran would choose the weapon, the unnamed official said, adding that the Israeli position would “close the door on diplomacy” and “essentially lead to war”.

It’s taken it a long time, but at last the Obama administration is showing some backbone in its relations with the rabid dog of the Middle East. How long it can sustain this modicum of courage in the face of Zionist-lobby bullying and blackmail, and whether Obama would allow the Zionist pimp in Paris to scupper a historic chance for reconciliation with Iran, is anybody’s guess.

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