I must say, our nation has become rather two faced of late – more blatantly than usual. We apparently stand for freedom and human rights and every other now empty phrase of the American lexicon, yet again contradict ourselves with the President’s recent speech in the UN rejecting Palestinian statehood. More painful to observe is how this Harvey Dentism is slowly sapping away our legitimacy and influence on the world stage.

Obama’s bold declaration of America’s stance against Palestine being granted statehood seems a bit too Bush-esque for my liking. Framing the argument in such a “you’re with us or against us” fashion makes either America look weak if we don’t get our way, or angers the much larger segment of the global population in support of Palestine if we do.

The administration fails to realize we no longer live in a time where everyone will blindly agree with us (or at least pretend to). Growing political and economic power in a growing number of countries provides not only resources for countering our positions, but with that increased strength comes a series of diplomatic and trade relationships capable of granting it legitimacy. France, Turkey, India, Brazil, China, South Africa, and Russia have publicly supported Palestinian statehood, to name a few.

I say it makes America two faced in reference to freedom and human rights due to Palestine’s impoverished living standards compared to Israel and the rest of world. These are directly a result of the current situation, one of blockades and barriers to trade, labor, and capital. GDP per capita is ranked 169th in the world, Israel is 46th. Nearly every statistic relating to quality of life is significantly lower. Unemployment rates our several times greater and access to basic services is denied. Establishing Palestinian statehood would do wonders to formalizing trade relations between the two, while allowing Palestine to trade with other economies, ultimately working to remove these barriers and increase the well-being of Palestinians.

All presidential candidates, Democratic and Republican, need to stop responding exclusively to Israeli prime minister Netanyahu and members of his administration, instead doing some homework about the wants of the Israeli people and the world. In a poll conducted jointly by the Jerusalem based Harry Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace and the Palestinian Center for Policy in Ramallah, nearly 70 percent of Israelis supported Palestinian statehood. Further nearly 44 percent of Israelis believed the protest movement favoring Palestinian statehood should form a political party.

MJ Rosenberg published in Aljazeera their may be other motivations for the speech. He suggests Obama is seeking to earn votes from America’s large Jewish population, many of whom live in congressional districts sought by Republicans. I cannot rule this out, yet I find it rather hard to believe. I don’t know which is worse: failing to compromise under global pressure and understanding the sentiment of the peoples involved, or playing foreign policy games for votes with one of the Middle East’s most delicate issues.