IS ISRAEL THE WORLD’S MOST HYPOCRITICAL NATION? YOU DECIDE….

Which country is the most hypocritical on earth?

I am often torn when considering the answer to this question. Is it the United States, which blusters on and on about ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’ and ‘liberty’ abroad while continuing to defend and even justify Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, waterboarding, rendition, the Patriot Act and warrantless phone tapping? Or which condemns elections in Palestine and Iran while simultaneously cosying up to dictators in Egypt and Saudi Arabia?

Or is it Saudi Arabia, which spends millions and millions of petro-dollars funding the spread of radical Islam across the world – building mosques and madressas and distributing books and pamphlets, from Bangladesh to Birmingham – yet forbids its residents from publicly practising any other religion apart from Islam and which remains the only country in the Arabian peninsula without a single church, synagogue or temple?

Is China the world’s most hypocritical country, with a totalitarian and dictatorial political system controlled by self-proclaimed communists on the one hand, but with those same communist rulers depending on a free-market, capitalist economic system to generate wealth and prosperity on the other?

Or it is my own home country, Britain, where the Archbishop of Canterbury was roundly condemned by all sections and segments of society, only a few weeks ago, for daring to even suggest that Britain’s Muslims be allowed to use religious courts to settle (some of) their legal disputes, despite the fact that Britain’s Jews have been allowed to do exactly the same for several decades now?

I happen to believe that the world’s most hypocritical nation is Israel. Why? Because for several years, the Israelis have been accusing Iran of being an ‘existential’ threat to the Jewish state, of developing a secret nuclear weapons programme and of disrupting the so-called ‘peace process’ by funding terrorist groups. The hawks in Tel Aviv have long harboured ambitions of launching a bombing campaign against Tehran and Israel’s neoconservative supporters in Washington D.C. are at the forefront of the anti-Iranian propaganda campaign inside the United States. Yet, only a week ago, the Swiss newspaper Sonntag revealed that Israel, supposedly observing a complete and utter boycott of all things Persian, has been buying Iranian oil for decades.

According to the Swiss report,

"Israel imports Iranian oil on a large scale even though contacts with Iran and purchasing of its products are officially boycotted by Israel. Israel gets around the boycott by having the oil delivered via Europe. A reliable Israeli energy newsletter, EnergiaNews…

"EnergiaNews got the information about the Iran trade from sources with ties to the management of Israeli Oil Refineries Ltd ... According to EnergiaNews the Iranian oil is liked in Israel because its quality is better than other crude oils.”

Can any country act any more hypocritically than this? You claim to hate a particular nation in your neighbourhood, you accuse it of being a state sponsor of terrorism and an existential threat to your own nation and people, you compare its president to Adolf Hitler and urge your allies in the West to sanction and even perhaps bomb it and – yet – all the while you continue to (secretly) buy oil from that country (!!) Is there any better definition of hypocrisy? I think not.

So, dear readers, that’s my view. What’s yours? Which do you think is the world’s most hypocritical nation, and why?