Our Bully Child

We helped raise a bully child in the Middle East.

Israel has the right and duty to protect its citizens against terrorism and aggression from its neighbors; but the level of their retaliation is way out of proportion to attacks by the Palestinians. Hamas has killed 14 Israelis in the last two weeks. Israel has killed 900 Palestinians.

Like a child who beats up his smaller playmates when things don’t go his way, we’ve allowed Israel to get away with being the neighborhood bully in the Middle East for half a century. We’ve condoned their hyper-aggressive military tactics, supplied them with sophisticated weapons of mass destruction and given them aid.

It’s like sending a spoiled child who was hit with a stick back out into the yard with a bazooka.

In addition to adopting our weapons, Israel has adopted our arrogant, xenophobic attitude in dealing with its enemies. They don’t put the same value on the lives of Palestinian children as they do on Israeli children.

To the Israelis, Palestinian civilians are nothing more than expendable pawns. They’re employing civilian carnage to coerce Hamas into submission. Using the excuse that Hamas militants deliberately hide among civilian populations, Israel has taken license to bomb civilian targets, blockade food and medical supplies to wounded civilians and destroy civilian infrastructure.

They saw how we used the ends to justify illegal military means in Iraq. Like a child who learns from his parents’ actions, Israel is simply copying us.

Is this where we tell them do as I say, not as I do?