A week after actress Scarlett Johansson(last seen as Natasha Romanova aka the Black Widow in "Avengers Assemble") publicly severed her ties to Oxfam after being criticized for her work with Israeli soft drink firm Soda Stream, several US legislators are drawing up proposals to penalize academic institutions that favour a boycott of Israel- academic, cultural or otherwise.

Predictably enough, Melanie Phillips(Jewish Chronicle, February 7, 2014) asks why "poor Israel" is being picked on with boycotts whilst say Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia seemingly get a free pass?- my reply is simple: NEITHER Syria, Iran or Saudi Arabia claims to be a Western style democracy as does Israel.

More to the point, the US's stance on boycotts, trade embargoes and sanctions is demonstratably self serving if not frankly hypocritical: America has instigated boycotts against the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, against Iran, Iraq and North Korea( when then US Secretary Of State Madeleine Albright was asked whether the sanctions against Iraq were worth it even though it had reportedly led to the deaths of a million Iraqi children, she reportedly replied during a TV interview- "We think the cost is worth it".) and STILL maintains the embargo against Cuba, long after the end of the Cold War.

True, neither of the above are Western style democracies as Israel claims to be, but inveighing against the boycott of one country whilst pressing over countries( arguably infringing their sovereign rights to trade with which country they see fit- given that the US during the Bush Administration claimed that the International Criminal Court "infringed on American sovereignty"-although how this happened was NEVER made clear) does NOT strike me as a very logical position to take- a case of Uncle Sam speaking with forked tongue as the old Westerns put it.

Anybody else think as I do?

Terry