A case of real hypocrisy: Iran’s President Welcome in EU. Belarus’s Not.

What if, as a sign of courtesy to the Austrian presidency in the EU, Ahmadinejad visits one Viennese prison cell — that of David Irving, another Holocaust-denier with much less pretentious claims about it? He would probably get away with it too. Could anybody imagine Austrians jailing the president of the nuclear-rich Iran? He is not David Irving with his books of dubious quality. He does not wear pinstriped suits. All he does is call for Israel to be whipped off the map. Or at least be moved to Europe. Not a single reason to bar him from the EU? I wish the EU was as hospitable to all Muslim guests, not just Ahmadinejad.

We don’t get to pick and choose our enemies; sometimes they pick us as such. But to pick and choose based on naked self interest — punishing those who can do nothing for you while rewarding those who can, yet pretend that you are punishing the wicked and rewarding the virtuous is not just hypocritical but wicked itself.

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