Now can we stop pretending that Israel is the "good guys?"

From Reuters:

Nine dead as Israel storms aid ship

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli marines stormed a Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza on Monday and at least nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed, triggering a diplomatic crisis and an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council.

European nations, as well as the United Nations and Turkey, voiced shock and outrage at the bloody end to the international campaigners' bid to break Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Let's see, the UN, Turkey, Europe, who's missing from that list? Oh, I know. Us!

Well, surely President Obama must at least have had harsh words for Israel, right?

'Obama wants facts on tragic aid raid'

Mon, 31 May 2010 17:56:12 GMT

US President Barack Obama has called on the Israeli premier to launch an investigation to find "all the facts" surrounding the attack on the Freedom Flotilla.

Yeah, he wants Netanyahu to go ahead and investigate this himself. Israel gets to do the investigation into Israel's actions. Which is sort of like asking Ken Lay to investigate whether there was any wrongdoing at Enron.

I don't get it. Why do we always have to take Israel's side no matter what they do? They can keep expanding further and further into Palestine, and we pledge our support to our good friend Israel. They can bulldoze Palestinian homes and we just send them more foreign aid. An Israeli bulldozer killed American citizen Rachel Corrie, and Israel faced exactly zero consequences.

It doesn't make sense. Israel can only survive with the monetary and military aid of the United States. We should own them. We should be able to tell them to withdraw from the occupied territories, tear down the separation wall, etc. etc. and they should ask "how else may we serve you, oh master?" But no. We prop them up, we defend them in the UN, we arm them and we still have to kiss their asses. What the hell? What has Israel ever done for us? Or for anyone for that matter? We don't need them, they need us.

I should take a second to be clear, I am not criticizing the Jewish people. I assume that your average Israeli is a perfectly nice person. My neighbor is an Israeli immigrant and he's a perfectly nice person. In fact, his criticisms of the Israeli government's policies are harsher than anything you'll read here. Judging the average Israeli person by the actions of their government is as unfair as judging the average US citizen for the actions of the Bush administration.

That being said, fuck Israel! I don't understand why the defense of Israel is the US's problem. They've done nothing to deserve our help, and our support of their thug government is one of the major reasons terrorists see us as a target. (Although the Bush Doctrine gave them much more powerful reason to hate us.) Nothing good has come from our unwavering support of this country, it certainly isn't in our National interest to be their protector, so what gives? Why is support for Israel the sine qua non of American foreign policy? Hell, you can't even suggest, as Jimmy Carter did, that Israel might bear some of the blame for the violence in the region without being attacked as if you had slandered Uncle Sam and Jesus. It makes no sense.