Israel gets an unfair rap from a lot of sources in the world - Iran, Hamas, the KKK, nutjobs who think they rule the world through Hollywood and banking, etc - so it's hard to criticize the country without A)lumping yourself in with the crazies and B)feeling like you're adding more to an already unnecessarily large pile. The fact that Israel's knee-jerk reaction to
every criticism it receives is to cry anti-semitism also does its part to discourage... but I digress...
There are times, however, when I must ignore the urge to restrain myself and let it all hang loose in the open. This is one of those times: I'm sick and fucking tired of defending these assholes.
I understand that Israel is the constant target of terrorist attacks. I understand that Israel is the Muslim world's perpetual whipping boy. I understand that there are a lot of countries and people who wouldn't be bothered at all if Israel didn't exist. I completely understand that all of these things, and more, make the Israelis an edgy and nervous people. And that's cool - I can't blame them for being suspicious and taking every precaution when they live in a rough neighborhood and have such a big target on their backs.
But then they go and do flat out dumb shit like this:
Israel Defense Forces confirmed that Israeli planes had flown over the Syrian president's country home and Israeli television reported al-Assad was at home at the time.
Let's ignore for a second that the Israeli response to a single kidnapped soldier was to blow up the only power plant in Gaza and invade the territory with enough troops and tanks to take a small country. That in itself crossed the line of necessity.
But to take it a step further today and commit such a blatant and irresponsible act of provokation as flying fighter jets over the home neighbouring country's President - who wasn't even involved in the recent violence - is a step too far.
I'll stand up for Israel to a point. When I think they're being at least arguably fair and reasonable, I'm willing to defend them. I've got no ill will towards the country. But when they do stuff like this, frankly, they're just begging for an ass-kicking - and I'm not the kind of person who's going to allow them those kinds of excesses without consequence.
For years, decades even, they've retaliated against the Palestinians in excess of what they probably should have. Palestinians detonate a car bomb and Israelis bomb a house. Palestinians bomb a market and Israelis blow up an apartment building. Palestinians take out a building, and Israelis raize a town.... I always felt they went a little overboard, but I never really complained because I sympathized with them. In some ways, I felt they had a right to retaliate with more aggression.
But no longer. Maybe they think that because we have their back they can get away with anything. Maybe they believe that their nuclear arsenal makes them invincible. Maybe they're just assholes. I don't know what it is that makes the Israelis do some of the things they do in response to terrorist attacks.
But I do know that the totally unnecessary actions they took today crossed a whole new line. This wasn't an over-zealous response to an attack - this was a totally unrelated act of unprovoked aggression. This is the kind of action that starts wars. And if the Syrians decide they want to make something of it, then I for one think they have every right to do so.
If Syria retaliates, I don't want the US fighting alongside the Israelis. the bottom line is they deserve whatever's coming to them for what they did - and our support for them does not extend to defending boneheaded, irresponsible antics like this.