Interestingly, while some of us can and do, quite justifiably, criticise authoritarian regimes in the Arab world over their disgusting human rights record, we in the west do tend to keep shtum about vile regimes that just happen to chime with our politics. Thinking of Chile, Portugal, Central America...And how we shit on their enemies (same places... we murdered Allende, didn't we? Venezuela?). We're OK with China, more or less, because they make all our stuff, and all those frankly detestable oil states in the Middle East... Gotta keep those cars running...

But Israel gets a free pass. Nothing to do with that pro-Israel lobby in the US, of course...