On U.S. interests in the Middle East

Isn't it time that American public opinion faces the fact that the U.S. shares no more values with Israel than it shares with most Arab countries?

Israel cannot be considered a democracy: Its political, judicial and economic systems hinge on sidelining, marginalizing, and denying the rights of 20 percent of the country's population -- the Arab Israelis.

Israel cannot be a law-abiding country: It has defied dozens of UN resolutions, it upholds the principle of land acquisition through the use of force, it practices and defends military occupation and political assassination.

Israel is a theocracy, a state built on the belief that religion and nationality should coincide.

It was never affinity that prompted and cemented the alliance between Israel and the U.S. -- it was a matter of interests.

Now, the U.S. is back in the middle. And its vision for future Middle East no longer matches with that of Israel. Not that American policy changed: It was Israeli policies that became too extreme and rejectionist. Washington sees two independent sovereign states, but Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon doesn't. Washington envisages that the capital of each state is going to be in Jerusalem. But Sharon doesn't.

No one has ever undermined Washington's foreign policy as much as this hawkish, arrogant, army general."

-- The Jordan Times, Amman, Jordan