US Double-Standard Hits Home

Why is it that Israel must not build new apartments for Jewish residents of its capital city, while Palestinians not only are allowed to but praised for building an entire new city in the disputed West Bank?

President Obama, in November, said Israel's construction of 900 new apartments in a Jewish section of East Jerusalem -- annexed by Israel as part of its capital city after the 1967 war -- could invite Palestinian violence. He said the new housing risked "embittering Palestinians in a way that could end up being very dangerous."

Meantime, Palestinians are being praised for building 6,300 housing units in an entirely new city dubbed Rawabi, five miles north of Ramallah, on the West Bank, whose final status is still subject to negotiations. The city eventually will have schools, a hotel, a shopping center, health clinics, and up to 40,000 residents. Palestinian and Israeli officials, and foreign investors, among them Jews, maintain the city is critical to nurturing a Palestinian middle-class, which probably will be important to weening Palestinians away from violence and toward co-existence.

But why cannot Israel build on land it acquired in a defense war? Why the double-standard allowing only Palestinians to build, in areas not yet legally theirs? The European Union, Americans, United Nations, and others who have challenged the legality and propriety of Israeli construction ought to be held to account for their biased opposition.

Norway's Folly

If Israel's so-called separation barrier between it and the West Bank has, by most accounts, put an end to Palestinian suicide attacks inside Israel, what sense does it make to boycott a company that makes that barrier possible?

Absolutely none.

Yet, that's exactly what Norway's state pension fund has done. It reportedly divested itself on Friday of $5.4 million dollars in stock in Elbit Systems which supplies surveillance detection equipment for the barrier.

Norway says Elbit "directly contributes to violations of international humanitarian law," and it secretly sold Elbit stock, probably to limit bad press and pressure not to divest. It says the barrier "unacceptably restricts" Palestinian movement.

In a handful of locations, the barrier indeed impedes Palestinian movement, but certainly the benefits of the barrier -- saving Israeli lives -- necessitates any such inconvenience.

What is really behind Norway's decision? Do the Norwegians simply misunderstand the facts surrounding the barrier? Or, does something more sinister lie behind their decision? It is notable that Norway provided no advance warning of its decision, thereby depriving Israel or its defenders an opportunity to explain why divestment is wrong.