Israel is a land of contradictions, and not just because of its curious demographic mix. Israel speaks from both sides of its mouth. It feigns humanitarian concern while practising brutality and expects everyone to believe it. You hear Israelis boast endlessly about the moral foundations of their state and yet there has never been a time in the life of the Jewish state free from flagrant acts of injustice, and often outright atrocities. Take the death sentence. Israel finds the death sentence too cruel for murderers and hardened criminals. But while Israelis refrain from killing murderers they have no qualms about raining bombs on innocent Palestinian civilians or mowing down women, children and old people whose only crime is that they are Palestinians. Israel made a point of tracking down former Nazis associated with the Holocaust. Adolf Eichmann was abducted in Argentina by Mossad agents in May 1960. Taken to Israel for trial he pleaded innocent, claiming to have helped hundreds escape Nazi concentration camps. He was hanged in 1962. The Israelis then proceeded to cremate his body and scattered his ashes in international waters to ensure that he had no memorial or resting place. Eichmann was the last man to be executed in Israel. Current Israeli law reserve the death penalty for crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, or treason in war time. But killing Palestinian civilians seems to present no problems for Israel's refined sensibilities. Israel has killed Egyptian prisoners of war in cold blood. Israeli soldiers are known to have pulled civilians from their homes and shot them. And Israel often bombards buildings, killing everyone inside, as it has done repeatedly during the current offensive on Gaza. Shimon Peres once said that Israel is capable of protecting its children. Seeing what is going on in Gaza now, one wonders what he really meant. Is it possible that deep down the Israelis think it's fine to kill children so long as their governments cannot protect them? Israel believes it can hoodwink the world into seeing things solely from its point of view. Unfortunately it has succeeded in doing so many times in the past, and still does. Israel is the only country in the world where a former war criminal can win the Nobel Peace Prize. Israel is getting away with murder and the world seems to have adopted its twisted logic. Currently, both the US and the EU maintain that the ineffectual rockets of Hamas are motivated by aggression while Israel's war machine acts in self-defence. How schizophrenic can people get?
