Maddening Chutzpah

Netanyahu's speech before the congress of the United States of America, May 20, 2011:
one of the remarkable paragraphs - in a show chock-full of remarkable paragraphs and fine print - was the following:

Courageous Arab protesters, are now struggling to secure these very same rights for their peoples, for their societies. We’re proud that over one million Arab citizens of Israel have been enjoying these rights for decades. Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, only Israel’s Arab citizens enjoy real democratic rights. I want you to stop for a second and think about that. Of those 300 million Arabs, less than one-half of one-percent are truly free, and they’re all citizens of Israel!

Apart from the reluctance of the Israeli Gouvernement towards the Egypt uprising,

apart from the real situation of the Israeli-Arab population in the apartheid state,

isn't it somehow very confusing that Netanyahu tells the congress that all the Arabs living in states which the democracy-spreading US usually call their „friends and allies“ are not enjoying „real democratic rights“, like Saudia Arabia, Kuweit, Algeria, Jordan, smaller gulf states or formerly Tunesia and Egypt? That amounts to the paraphrase: "Look folks, under our hegemony the Arabs are truly free since decades, under your hegemony they are not. Think about it for a minute! 

And those congress people applaude like crazy …

All in all, a spooky show at Capitol Hill. Uri Avnery, founder of the Gush Shalom movement, commented about the disgusting (Avnery) event:

"Es war schlimmer als im syrischen Parlament während einer Rede von Bashar Assad, wo jeder, der nicht applaudierte, sich im Gefängnis wiederfindet. Oder in Stalins Oberstem Sowjet: wenn man nicht genügend Respekt zeigte, konnte das den Tod bedeuten." (taken from zmag)

("It was worse than in Syrian parliament during a speech of Bashar Assad: everyone not applauding found himself thrown into jail. The same with Stalin's Supreme Soviet: you could be killed if you didn't show enough respect.") [translation by base2014]

Another Israeli, Gideon Levy for Haaretz: Netanyahu's speech to Congress shows America will buy anything

„the only truth spoken in the Capitol was that of a former Israeli shouting "equal rights for Palestinians"“ 

Listen to the other side: here are the comments by Mustafa Barghouti, secretary general of the Palestinian National Initiative in an interview on http://www.democracynow.org/