Nicholas Kristof’s editorial in today’s New York Times tackles, with intelligence and nuance, the issue of American double standards regarding Israel.  

Kristof asks: “This week’s hearings at the International Court of Justice on Israel’s ’security fence‘ raise again one of the most sensitive questions for America: are we engaging in double standards in the Middle East?”

I agree with Kristof’s reply to his own question: The answer is a resounding yes.  

As Kristof notes, there is more to the issue than a facile acknowledgement that America has one set of standards for its friends and one for its foes — such an observation is more a statement of fact than an astute critique of U.S. foreign policy. Israel, a country that violates U.N. resolutions, can rely on American support and bucket loads of money. Iraq, another country that defied U.N. resolutions, was invaded by American forces.  

Kristof rightly insists, however, that we must examine the type and nature of the violations that these countries commit. Kristof argues that America is clearly guilty of double standards regarding Israel, just as the nations that criticize America as a bullying pro-Zionist machine have their own sets of double standards. Ultimately, mutual hypocrisy proves and accomplishes nothing, and Kristof believes that America must more forcefully condemn the wall that Israel is currently constructing on Palestinian land.    

I want to add additional emphasis to Kristof’s article and posit that it is imperative that the U.S. speak out now against the Israeli wall in order to restore some of its credibility in the international community and Islamic world. America is currently an occupying force in Iraq, and America must not underestimate the incredible resentment this occupation has inspired. Nations in the Middle East have a long and bitter memory of unjust and illegitimate rulers, and this list includes not only the likes of Saddam Hussein but also the colonialist occupying forces. America may be seen as the unwelcome successor to the previous French and British forces that occupied the region. Just as the Israeli wall is further problematizing the politics of the region, the American silence on the issue further delegitimizes the United States in the eyes of the world.  

Mimi Hanaoka