US President Barack Obama has awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Israeli President Shimon Peres, the man who has overseen the killing of Palestinian women and children by Israeli forces in the occupied territories for decades.
Obama awarded the 88-year-old Israeli president the highest civilian honor in the United States during a dinner ceremony in the White House on Wednesday.
“No individual has done so much over so many years to build our alliance… as the leader we honor tonight — our friend, Shimon Peres,” Obama said during the event, which also hosted former US President Bill Clinton.
Obama also stated that the “bonds” between the United States and Israel are “unbreakable” and “non-negotiable.”
The Israeli president has been honored by Obama a few months ahead of the US presidential election of November 2012.
“You have pledged a lasting friendship for Israel,” Peres told Obama.
The Washington ceremony in honor of a major Israeli figure comes two weeks after Israeli aircraft carried out an attack on southern Gaza Strip, injuring three Palestinians.
Israel conducts airstrikes and ground attacks against the occupied Palestinian territories on an almost regular basis.
The Tel Aviv regime also denies about 1.7 million people in Gaza their basic rights, including the freedom of movement and the right to decent living, work, health and education.
In a Wednesday interview with Press TV, renowned American philosopher and linguist Noam Chomsky lashed out at the US for violating the international law with “total impunity” and argued that Israel along with other US “allies and clients” has inherited that privilege from Washington.
“That’s what power is,” Chomsky noted, “so for example the United States itself cannot be brought before any international tribunal. The one attempt to do so, the International Court of Justice- US simply dismissed it.”
The celebrated academician slammed the US for manipulating the concept of “international community” for the achievement of its hegemonic objectives and argued that in the Western discourse the term “refers to the United States and anyone who happens to be going along with it.”
