Increasingly and regrettably the United States and Israel share an irony that would be a cruel joke were it not so tragic. In the eyes of much of the world each has lost the moral high ground.
The worldwide images of Lebanese bodies – including the children at Qana – have amounted to a moral indictment of Israeli tactics.
You can certainly argue the Israeli response to Hezbollah has been disproportionate. But the Israelis are not targeting civilians. Hezbollah uses human shields and targets civilians. Those are flat-out war crimes.
Thanks to Abu Ghraib, charges of G.I. rapes and murders and collaterally-killed innocents, the U.S. has created a jihadi pep rally in Iraq and a flailing hegemon image.
No, we don’t behead and videotape. And, no, we don’t traffic in car-bombings and mass executions. No matter. Nobody loves an occupier – however noble its rationale might have been for occupying in the first place.
We can argue the skewed reality of misperception and an agenda-driven, cherry-picking international media. And it should be more than manifest that Jews and Americans aren’t the enemies of free people.
But still. The victim of the Holocaust and the victim of 9/11 seen by much of the world as mired in a moral sinkhole?
Who would have imagined?