The Price of Friendship

Disappointed because the US would not make war on another of Israel’s enemies, Israel is working on two fronts to destroy peace talks with Iran.

Image by Carlos Latuff, friend of Salem-News.com in Rio de Janeiro

(JAMESTOWN, RI) - The price of friendship is world resentment. This week two birds of feather were denied their voting rights in UNESCO, a cultural and scientific arm of the UN, for not paying their dues for the past 3 years because they did not like a vote taken by the a world body 3 years ago. Palestine was granted UNESCO membership when over 107 nations supported Palestine’s membership into UNESCO, but once again the US and Israel stood in opposition to world opinion by voting against, and because we lost, in what can only be described as a world landslide election, the US and Israel sulked and refused to pay their dues, culminating this week losing their voting rights in that organization.

Mainstream media, as is the usual case, glossed over this event so most Americans are unaware that friendship comes at a big price.

In other Middle East measures, our “best friend” in the Middle East, continued to try to sabotage any peace treaty with Iran, and Netanyahu scorned and condemned any deal before any deal was even negotiated.

Disappointed because the US would not make war on another of Israel’s enemies, Israel is working on two fronts to destroy peace talks with Iran. As the only nation on earth to oppose a treaty with Iran, Israel is working on the world stage trying to destroy any negotiations, and it is working through its lobbying group in the US Congress, AIPAC, to convince congress to sabotage peace talks with Iran.

Since the Congress has no spine, and will do anything Israel requests, while peace negotiations are proceeding, Congress is working on tougher sanctions for Iran.

This of course is not good for the US public, or the world, but Congress must bow to the will of Israel and represent them better than it does the US public. Congress claims it represents the US public, but it serves Israel.

Another item glossed over by the US mainstream media was the conclusion by a Swiss forensic team that Yasser Arafat was poisoned with polonium, a byproduct of nuclear reactor and 250 million times more lethal than cyanide. The elephant in the room is of course Israel, who previously tried to kill Arafat, and who has a long history of assassinating leaders, sometimes getting caught red handed, and who has the only nuclear program in the Middle East.

If you are looking for those who poisoned Arafat, there is a logical place to begin, but the US will do it’s very best to protect and cover for our “best friend” in the Middle East, while suffering the anger and resentment from people and nations around the world. The price of friendship is appalling, but as long as media hides the costs to the US pubic, we will continue to irritate the world.

Meanwhile mainstream media focuses on the “big” issues of the day such as bullying in the national football league, while diverting our attention from the important items in the news. We have no idea or what is happening in the world, but we are all experts on such trivial things as bullying in pro football, and the art of “Twerking”. Thankfully we have a few outlets such as Salem-News.com where journalism lives.

Salem-News.com Writer Joe Clifford, lives in historic Jamestown, Rhode Island, and has contributed a number of articles relating to foreign policy to newspapers in the Rhode Island area for years.

He graduated from Providence College where he earned an undergraduate and graduate degree. After a lengthy career as a high school teacher he turned to the study of US foreign policy, and then to writing, as a means of expressing an alternative perspective. His reading and research on foreign policy is broad and extensive, especially as the policy relates to the Middle East. His interest in foreign policy was inspired by the American misadventure in Vietnam. You can write to Joe at this address: jc21131@gmail.com