Does it bother anyone that in these arguments the baseline assumption I always have to deal with is that anything any enemy of Israel says is true, while anything any friend of Israel says is a lie? Regardless of evidence or lack thereof?

My personal take on it is that Israel is currently the ONLY representative of modern Western civilization in the Mideast, and the ONLY nation in the Mideast with anything even approaching a democratic system of government and some tolerance of minority inhabitants. That this makes it immediately loathed by the Left is not surprising, but I believe it is worth protecting for the same reasons.

That Israel has some unpleasant episodes to live down in its history is not denied by any reasonable person. Hell, so does the United States. That these episodes pale in comparison with routine violations of almost every standard of human rights and tolerance by its Arab neighbors is also undeniable by any reasonable person, and many of these abuses are occurring even as I type these words.

Certainly, it would make America's political life in the world much easier if we dumped Israel and allowed whatever local Arab thugocracy to crush it and swallow its citizens, but I think we would lose something very important if we did.

Naturally, none of this post is going to register--"it's all lies"--but what the heck, I needed the finger exercise.

Stew on this for a while. Don't agree with everything here, but basically, they're right.