American hypocrisy over Tibet and Gaza boggles the mind
- The world would be a better place if US politicians exercised the same conscientiousness over Palestine as they have over the Chinese autonomous region
28 Apr, 2024
While American politicians have been busy sending weapons to Israel to slaughter Palestinians, they still find time to fret about freedom for Tibet. Just now, the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations unanimously approved the Promoting a Resolution to the Tibet-China Dispute Act, also called the Resolve Tibet bill. The House of Representatives has already cleared it. Given the committee’s recommendations, the Senate will surely pass it in no time.
What is the bill about? It calls for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to respect the rights to freedom and self-determination of Tibetans, and to enter into negotiations with the Dalai Lama for a peaceful resolution of the dispute.
It also says Tibet not only refers to the Tibet autonomous region but also parts of Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces where ethnic Tibetans live. It demands the CCP stop spreading disinformation about Tibet and its history. It says the CCP must resolve the Tibet issue under international law.
Reasonable foreigners and experts may disagree over the status of the Tibet autonomous region, but Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan and Yunnan? Maybe the CCP should just voluntarily break up the country? The world would be a better place if the US Congress would instead pass a Resolve Palestine bill.
Of course not. The same US politicians have just successfully pressured the State Department not to sanction Israeli military units found to have committed “gross human rights violations”. The charges were actually determined by the State Department itself, though war crimes would have been a more accurate description. There was the particularly nasty extremist-fundamentalist Netzah Yehuda battalion.
But after Israel expressed outrage, Congressional members duly went to work. According to the Axios news site, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has sent a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson reassuring him that three Israeli military units found to have committed “gross human rights violations” will not be prevented from obtaining US weapons.
That must be heart-warming to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli leader, who has denounced US university students across America for daring to oppose their own government’s support for his genocidal war on Gaza. His latest speech is nothing but chutzpah. No mainstream US media groups, however pro-Israel, have reported the serious but absurd charges he has levelled against student protesters, some of whom are actually Jewish themselves.
In a completely fact-free rant, he said: “What’s happening on America’s college campuses is horrific.”
Is that as opposed to his murderous siege of Gaza?
“Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities,” he continued. “They call for the annihilation of Israel. They attack Jewish students, they attack Jewish faculty.”
But Mr Netanyahu, some of those protesting faculty members are also Jewish.
“This is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s,” he said. “The response of several university presidents was shameful. Fortunately, state, local and federal officials have responded differently. More has to be done ... not only because they attack Israel and want to kill Jews … they say not only death to Israel, but death to America.”
Exactly who said that?
Meanwhile, in an annual report, Amnesty International has highlighted Israel’s assault on Gaza with evidence of war crimes continuing to mount, as well as US responsibility for them.
However, the official US chorus duly followed Netanyahu’s lead. Florida Republican Representative Carlos Gimenez has even blamed China for fomenting the student protests.
Craven and cowed university officials called police to use brutal tactics to clear their own students, only to trigger more protests.
The US ruling elites are going after the nation’s best and most idealistic for a foreign country committing genocide. Between the US students and politicians, I think we all know who is on the right side of history.