Seventeen points on Israel and Palestine

Something I bet everyone will find unsatisfactory

The bad guys won (Saul Loeb / AFP)

1. Israel and Palestine are small nations and not strategically significant these days, so it’s notable that conflicts there attract not just more, but orders of magnitude more coverage than conflicts in, say, Chad, that objectively impact more people. And if human rights observers ding the government of Chad for something, you won’t see a swarm of people who feel Chad has been unfairly maligned swooping in to “Stand With Chad.”

2. The basic story is that people talk a lot about Israel/Palestine because a lot of other people are talking about it. Making a public statement about Israel says something about you. Indeed, it’s so widely discussed that a huge range of different nuances is legible. Bernie Sanders’ comments are very critical of Israel, but he also affirms that “Israel has the absolute right to live in peace and security,” thus separating himself from the most critical voices.

3. If we’re honest with ourselves, we are probably all underweight on Chad …