No Peace, I don't completely agree with you there. Sure, there are human rights abuses in other Middle Eastern countries too. But -

1) the discussion in the media is largely restricted to abuses which occur in those countries unfriendly or unaligned with US interests,e.g Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan. We do not hear so much about human rights abuses perpetrated in e.g Egypt, Turkey or Uzbekistan - all currently US allies, and places where the CIA has flown 'terror suspects' to be tortured, since they can't quite get away with it on US soil. The Arab world is not as stupid or 'backward' as were are all led to believe, and they know about these things.

2) Israel is heavily supported and bankrolled by the West, America and Britain in particular. That makes it a kind of ambassador for the West in the whole region. Not much point in Western countries coming in to lecture the Arabs on human rights and democracy if they can see our hypocrisy in turning a blind eye to what goes on in Palestine. You must also bear in mind that Israel, while having the smallest population and being one of the smallest countries in the region, has one of the biggest and best equipped armies. This army is frequently used to harass and shoot Palestinians (shooting ducks in a barrel) to which the West turns a blind eye. Arab countries are not stupid, and they see all this. They see Condi say 'not yet, not yet' about a ceasefire while Lebanon is being slowly flattened. It is this gross hypocrisy which is so counter-productive and incesnses Arabs, making them suspicious (with good cause) of any western intervention in the region. It also is counter productive in that our double standards, making them reluctant to accept direction from us on how to run their societies. Would you accept being lectured on your drinking by a guy who shoots up every evening? A more fair, honest and just approach to the Palestinians would produce great peace dividends, not just in Palestine, but across the whole Arab world. That, by definition, will involve some heavy censure of Israel as it stands, a step no politican has been really braveenough to take so far.

While the Arab world is routinely demonised in the Western media - which delivers all kinds of skewed stories in skewed langauge to the public - it is virtually impossible to get any criticism of Israel past the net. If it weren't for forums like this and a few brave journalists, no criticsim of Israel would probably be heard at all. Far from being counter-productive as you claim, threads like this bring some balance to an otherwise badly skewed topic. It is essential if we are to move towards a just and peaceful solution in the Middle East, currently impossible given the level of bias and misinformation in most of our media. Posts like mine are only 'counter-productive' to current Israeli policy, which if it were healthy, would be open to some constructive criticism.

And I might add, I don't remember you ever criticising Israel's human rights record, surely 'not singling out Israel as the biggest bad guy in the region' doesn't equate with maintaining a total silence on their defects? But, my apologies in advance if I wrong you in saying that, as I haven't read all your posts to mudcat obviously, and I'm willing to stand corrected.