In an article in the al-Ahram Weekly, an author described as an ?expert at al-Ahram's Centre for Political and Strategic Studies? describes what he sees as the source of US foreign policy in the Middle East: Racism. The US, according to the al-Ahram expert, recognizes that ?Israel is an occupying country that has no respect for international legitimacy,? but the US ?remains unwilling to lend any support to Palestinian resistance and rejects any open criticisms of Israeli policy that is based on ethnic cleansing, and on the racist assumption of Jewish superiority.?
?It has become evident that the US position towards the Palestinian issue is unprincipled,? writes the author. He then goes on to explain the reasons behind what he sees as the ?unprincipled? US stance. One reason is ?purely pragmatic calculations, at times related to its narrow economic interests in the region and at others to the strength of influence the Jewish lobby has exercised over the US administration.? Yet, while there are ?pragmatic calculations,? the author also cites the US ?dislike? of ?the Arabs and Palestinians.? The US, in the mind of the Egyptian author, views Arab ?culture, people and political systems as much too foreign for its liking.? Such ?dislike?, argues the author, ?does not provide any justification for Washington to disregard the Palestinian people's right to liberation and freedom, even if those people belong to a region for which America retains a strong aversion.?
?Inversely,? the al-Ahram Weekly article states, ?and there is a savage irony in this, it is Tel-Aviv's good luck to be part and parcel of a culture that during times of crisis has reverted to policies of ethnic cleansing, of usurping the land of others, of a virulent racism that discounts the value even of the life of those who might be somehow different. a culture that has produced, in times of crisis, Nazism, Fascism and Zionism.?
?It has become evident that the US position towards the Palestinian issue is unprincipled,? writes the author. He then goes on to explain the reasons behind what he sees as the ?unprincipled? US stance. One reason is ?purely pragmatic calculations, at times related to its narrow economic interests in the region and at others to the strength of influence the Jewish lobby has exercised over the US administration.? Yet, while there are ?pragmatic calculations,? the author also cites the US ?dislike? of ?the Arabs and Palestinians.? The US, in the mind of the Egyptian author, views Arab ?culture, people and political systems as much too foreign for its liking.? Such ?dislike?, argues the author, ?does not provide any justification for Washington to disregard the Palestinian people's right to liberation and freedom, even if those people belong to a region for which America retains a strong aversion.?
?Inversely,? the al-Ahram Weekly article states, ?and there is a savage irony in this, it is Tel-Aviv's good luck to be part and parcel of a culture that during times of crisis has reverted to policies of ethnic cleansing, of usurping the land of others, of a virulent racism that discounts the value even of the life of those who might be somehow different. a culture that has produced, in times of crisis, Nazism, Fascism and Zionism.?