The most obvious is usually the easiest to defend, refute or criticize because there is less to uncover and less manipulations to wade through before getting to the stark truth. This has always been the case with the United States’ relationship with the Palestinians in particular, and the Arabs and Muslims in general vis-à-vis Israel.

There is nothing more solid than hard facts. This year, the US House of Representatives approved US$ 2.46 billion in assistance to Israel alone for 2007, which is the largest sum received by any country. US$ 2.34 billion of this package has been earmarked for military aid in addition to the US$ 120 million in standard economic aid. This is incomparable to what the Palestinians receive. According to the website www.ifamericansknew.org Israel received US$ 15,139,178 a day from the US in 1997 while Palestinian NGO’s received US$ 232,290 a day.

There is nothing opaque about the US’ bias towards Israel here. It is common knowledge that Israel is the largest recipient of US financial assistance even though its gross domestic product per capita (US$ 17,500 in 1997) makes it one of the wealthier countries in the world. Palestinians, though far more in need of financial aid from international donors, receive mere scraps from the United States in comparison to Israel.

Unfortunately, however, the bias runs much deeper than the copious greenbacks offered to America’s puppy. Let us probe the issue of America’s own citizens – people born on US soil or legally naturalized citizens and who carry the navy blue passport with the bald eagle embossed on its cover. Hundreds of thousands of American (and other foreign) citizens of Palestinian origin have made their homes in Palestine, many of them decades ago. They have raised their children here, built businesses, taught in schools and universities and have come to consider Palestine their permanent home. For years, these Palestinians, many of who applied and were denied permanent residency in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip by Israeli authorities, have been forced to leave and re-enter the Palestinian territories, via Israel, on a three-month visitor’s visa.

While cumbersome and costly, this was the only way these US-citizens could remain with their families. However, following the outbreak of the Aqsa Intifada and escalating to alarming numbers last year, hundreds of these US passport holders have been turned back at Israel’s borders, told to return from whence they came and promptly informed that they were now “persona non grata” in Israel.

At first, the belief was that these were isolated, albeit preposterous, incidents. However, when the number of Palestinians with foreign passports denied entry sharply rose, so did the panic among this sector of society. Complaints were lodged repeatedly with the US Consulate, which at best, asked that the incidents be “documented.” One American, who was kept in a holding cell at Ben Gurion Airport for seven hours being told she would be put back on the next plane to the States, was told by a dry voice at Tel Aviv’s American Embassy that Israel has full sovereignty over its borders and that basically, they were not willing to intervene in Israel’s “security.”

After months of incessant badgering and complaints, a grassroots organization called the Campaign for the Right of Entry/Re-Entry to the oPt finally received an official response saying that the US State Department had lodged a formal complaint with the Israeli embassy in Washington regarding restriction of access to Americans wanting to enter the Palestinian territories.

It still remains to be seen how this will impact the approximately 120,000 people affected by Israel’s policy of denying Palestinians entry.

The real question is what would the United States have done if the policy was directed against American Jews systematically denied entry, let’s say, to an Arab country? Would the President himself not be up in arms? Would there not be accusations of “anti-Semitism” flying like sparks? If this were the case, would not the United States have threatened this “other” country with sanctions if they did not reverse their policy?

This is all hypothetical of course, because in this day and age, such discrimination against Israelis or Jews for that matter would not be tolerated. Take the much more innocuous incident involving Hollywood mega-star Mel Gibson a few months ago. In a drunken tirade, Gibson sounded off to a Los Angeles police office who pulled him over for his inebriated state, and uttered the unutterable. Gibson was said to have told the officer that, “Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.”

The rest is history. Not nearly as berated for the fact that he was drinking and driving at 02:00 in the morning, Gibson was grilled to the bone for his “anti-Semitic” attack. The sobered-up actor immediately apologized to the Jewish community for offending them and offered to speak at synagogues to explain his “true” feelings. Gibson made headlines for days and prompted several email exchanges on message boards. One emailer named “Jim” sent this message to a BBC message board on the subject: “The whole affair is another glaring blatant example of an enormous double standard. If Robert Redford had said to a policeman, while being arrested for drunk driving, ‘the Muslims are responsible for all the wars in this world’ absolutely no notice of his words would have been taken by the media.”

This is painfully true. A month later, the world was lent evidence to this ugly double-standard. When Pope Benedict XVI quoted a fourteenth century Roman emperor who called Islam “evil” in order to corroborate his statements on jihad, not much more than a whimper was heard throughout the non-Muslim world. While riots broke out throughout Arab and Islamic countries over the Pope’s statements, the Vatican coolly stated that it was “not the intentions of the Holy Father to offend the sensibilities of Muslim faithful.” Hardly an apology, which by the way, was never officially uttered by the pontiff.

So, it seems fair to say that the intoxicated slurs of a Hollywood celebrity are far more worthy of media attention and profuse apologies than the calculated remarks of the spiritual leader of more than one billion Catholics.

The Palestinians and Muslims alike have become poignantly aware that when it comes to the United States and the western world in general, they are fighting an upstream battle in combating stereotypes and double-standards. The common maxim “What goes for the geese goes for the gander” is certainly not true in regards to Palestinians and Israel, and globally, when it comes to Muslims and Jews. If Mel Gibson learned one thing from his DUI arrest, it is not only that he should not drink and drive but that he should keep his mouth shut when it comes to “God’s chosen people.”

Joharah Baker is a Writer for the Media and Information Programme at the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH). She can be contacted at mip@miftah.org