US stance has Israel all over it

It would like to see a government replace the Mubarak regime that embraces the trappings of democracy while remaining in the US-Israeli orbit.

One of the most shaming facts for Egyptians was the dictatorship's complicity in Israel's imprisonment of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, subjected to collective punishment for the crime of choosing the wrong candidates in a free election.

Denying Palestinians the basics for a decent life was described chillingly by Israeli prime ministerial adviser Dov Weisglass as an idea "to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger."

Mubarak ordered Egypt's armed forces to collaborate with this war crime by sinking an underground steel wall on the border with Gaza to prevent Palestinians bringing in much-needed goods through tunnels.

Egypt and other Arab League states have constantly justified their bent knees towards Washington as a means to ensure that the Palestinian case is heard.

The value of such obsequiousness was displayed on February 18 when the US played its customary veto card to scotch a UN security council resolution declaring Israeli West Bank settlements illegal and urging an immediate halt to all settlement building.

Every other security council member, including the closest US allies, backed it.

The resolution sponsors had agonised over the resolution's wording for weeks, determined that there should be not a single dot or comma of variance from the Obama administration's public pronouncements.

They wasted their time.

Despite dotting every i and crossing every t of US policy, the resolution was condemned as anti-Israel and duly blocked.

Even before the vote was taken, US Secretary of State James Steinberg had made clear to the House foreign affairs committee that no criticism of Israel would be allowed.

He said that the UN security council was not "the right place to engage on these issues," even though that is precisely where all decisions relating to Israel's occupation have been taken, ever since resolution 242 in 1967.

Steinberg was self-congratulatory about the administration's ability to frustrate criticism of Israel even as he was silent on its inability to persuade Tel Aviv to respond positively to requests to delay settlement expansion, despite offering $3.5 billion in additional aid.

Whatever Steinberg's personal position, it is clear that Obama's shameful veto order derives from political weakness.

He was unable to put pressure on Israel to comply with a building freeze because he could not deliver.

Congress and any representative pushing for pressure would have been targeted by American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists.

Candidates perceived as anti-Israel in subsequent elections would have been attacked in the media and TV advertisements while their opponents received lavish campaign funds.

The US pro-Israel lobby is seen as all-powerful and immovable just as the Mubarak dictatorship was.

And just as fear of Mubarak's repressive apparatus kept Egypt's masses under the thumb for decades, so moral cowardice on Capitol Hill provides for the Israeli tail wagging the White House dog until US voters demand a change.

Until then, the US will find its international authority diminishing in the eyes of newly independent peoples.

No-one respects a power in thrall to overweening lobby groups.