bullies
September 3, 2002 10:20 AM

I suppose it's a mark of my naivete that I'm surprised by Israel is deporting family members of Palestinian bombers.

Yes, I can see Israel is desperate, trying anything that might work.

But still, I'm surprised to see a country whose origin is in apologism for the terrible abuses of human rights (by Nazis) during World War II using this sort of rhetoric. See, these people are a real threat [they might be]. They're not being deported, they've been reassigned residences. If you put another name on it, it's no longer a civil rights violation.

I can't imagine where Israel might have gotten these ideas. It certainly couldn't be from fellow bully nation America. Of course not. We have a stellar history of upholding civil rights. At least, as long as there's a big enough group to complain about it on television. And, unlike the Pope, we never feel the need to apologize for our past embarassments. I'm sure that, if it could escape international media attention, there would be serious talk in the conservative media about deporting people of Iraqi descent (though I like to imagine that this serious talk would be overridden by serious people).

Okay. So I'm cynical on some counts. It still disappoints me when other countries follow our impeccably modeled bad behavior.