In Einstein Israel, where every man, woman and child is a born genius, and where everyone would receive a Nobel Prize were it not for the fact that the rest of the world is so hopelessly anti-Semitic, a terrible affliction seems to have overtaken the collective brain, wiping out that most basic of mental operations, the ability to connect cause and effect.
Dr Gideon Levy, Israel's most respected psychiatrist (and Haaretz columnist), reveals the sheer scale of the problem:
"[There has been] 100 years of dispossession and 50 years of oppression... years in which Israel thought it could do anything and pay no price.
"It thought the defense minister could boast he knew the identity of the Dawabsheh murderers and not arrest them.
"It thought that nearly every week a boy or teenager could be killed and the Palestinians would stay quiet.
"It thought military and political leaders could back the crimes and no one would be prosecuted.
"It thought houses could be demolished and shepherds expelled, and the Palestinians would accept it all humbly.
"It thought settler thugs could damage, burn and act as if Palestinian property was theirs, and the Palestinians would bow their heads.
"It thought that Israeli soldiers could burst into Palestinian homes every night and terrorize, humiliate and arrest people.
"That hundreds could be arrested without trial.
"That the Shin Bet security service could resume torturing suspects with methods handed down by Satan.
"It thought that hunger strikers and freed prisoners could be rearrested often for no reason.
"That Israel could destroy Gaza once every two to three years and Gaza would surrender and the West Bank remain calm.
"That Israeli public opinion would applaud all this, with cheers at best and demands for more Palestinian blood at worst, with a thirst that's hard to understand. And the Palestinians would forgive..." (Even Gandhi would understand the Palestinians' violence, Haaretz, 8/10/15)
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