12th Grader Exposes US Hypocrisy

A high school student put the State Department to shame this week by exposing an obvious hypocrisy in U.S. foreign policy. According to Australia's Herald Sun, twelfth grade student Mariyam Alavi, who attends the International Indian School in Jeddah, asked if Americans "so vehemently oppose Iran's nuclear program, then why isn't the US asking Israel to give up their nuclear weapons?''

According to the Sun, Clinton avoided the question, but did say that "we want not only a world free of nuclear weapons, we want a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, including everyone.'' Of course, so why not Israel?

The answer to that has everything to do with American politics. According Rex B. Wingerter, writing for the Journal of Palestinian Studies, in 1948 State Department officials were not in favor of creating a Zionist state. President Truman told State Department representatives, "I am sorry gentlemen, but I have to answer to hundreds of thousands who are anxious for the success of Zionism. I do not have hundreds of thousands of Arabs among my constituents."

And so modern U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East was born.

While running for the Democratic party ticket in 2008, Hillary Clinton spoke to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israeli lobby, in search of votes. According to Brian Cloughley of Counter Punch, Clinton said, "...we stand with Israel because of our shared values and our shared belief in the dignity of men and women and the right to live without fear or oppression."

Similarly in 2008, Barack Obama made promises to AIPAC too. According to Democracy Now, Obama told the lobby: "Let me be clear. Israel's security is sacrosanct. It is non-negotiable. The Palestinians need a state—the Palestinians need a state that is contiguous and cohesive and that allows them to prosper, but any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel's identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized, defensible borders. And Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."

Thus it should be no surprise why Middle East peace is stalled and Israel's nukes goes unnoticed. The Washington Times reported in 2009 that President Obama had "reaffirmed a 4-decade-old secret understanding that has allowed Israel to keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections."

If the U.S. doesn't want Iran to have nuclear weapons they should insist Israel to dump their nukes. Hell, the U.S. should dump theirs. Double standards are unfair and tend to anger the international community. It also makes the U.S. government hypocritical and illegitimate as a broker for Middle East peace.