But if we're going to privilege Israel above its neighbors, on the grounds that it is a democracy or more "civilized" or whatever, Israel needs to be held to a higher standard than Syria or Egypt or Saudi Arabia.
I don't think Israel should be given "special treatment", and I wouldn't consider myself "pro-Israel", at least in the American sense of the term. But holding them to a higher standard is problematic. Are the leaders of Qatar and Saudi Arabia like animals that just don't know any better? Human rights abuse is human rights abuse whether it's done by Jerusalem or Riyadh or Tehran or Washington. Suggesting that one government should be held to a higher standard for upholding human rights than another is absurd and a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the fact that Israel, for all its problems, has a better human rights situation than any other country in the region.
