Israel, US and the blockade on Cuba

Yisrael Medad
Green-Lined/JPost
04 July '10

Let's open with a quick quiz question:

Which country, threatened with a missile attack on its southern border, instituted a blockade of the dangerous territory, restricting the transporting of food stuffs to the area and limiting travel as part of its political, not security, policy and continues to maintain that blockade due to the ideological nature of the regime of that territory?

If you guessed Israel and its blockade of Hamastanian Gaza, you're wrong.

If you guessed Turkey, which has blockaded Armenia since 1993, you're wrong because Armenia is not south of Turkey.

However, if you guessed the United States, which has legislated into law several times, blockades against Cuba, then you are correct.

Amazing, eh?

Think about it: US President Barack Obama has disdainfully referred to the Gaza situation as "unsustainable", and wants to pour in millions of dollars into the region with no regime change. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called Gazans' plight "unacceptable", but does not even consider the situation in her own backyard [and this was before that oil spill].

This past April, a congressional panel decided to take a first step toward ending its decades-old ban on travel to Cuba and removing hurdles to food sales to the Caribbean island. However, conservative lawmakers and Cuban-Americans opposed the move until a democratic government comes to power in Havana.

TheUnited States embargo against Cuba is a commercial, economic and financial embargo. It has been in place since October 1960, and was legislated as the Cuban Democracy Act and codified into law in 1992 for the purpose of maintaining sanctions on Cuba so long as the Cuban government continues to refuse to move toward "democratization and greater respect for human rights." In 1996, Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act, which further restricted United States citizens from doing business in or with Cuba. In 1999, US President Bill Clinton expanded the trade embargo even further by ending the practice of foreign subsidiaries of US companies trading with Cuba.

That is a fairly tough foreign policy approach. Tougher than Israel vis-à-vis Gaza, if you ask me. To think, it didn't start with terror attacks, rocket launchings, Hamas "eradication-of-Israel" ideology or even Russian missiles.

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